SEI Partner Network Newsletter

In this issue:

• Note from the Editor
• Code of Professional Conduct Project Continues
• First Annual SEI Partner Network Directory and Guide to Services
• Know your Agreement
• SEI Introduction to CMMI Courses in Europe
• CMMI Acquisition Module Released
• SEI Appraiser Program Communications
• SCAMPI Lead Appraisers and CMMI Instructors 2nd Annual Workshop and Upgrade Training
• The 2004 Team Software Process User Group (TUG)
• Mapping PSP / TSP to CMMI
• Getting Software Right with a Certificate in Software
• 2003 SEI Annual Report Published
• European SEPG 2004 being held in London, UK
• Software Engineering Process Group Australia Conference 2004
• Software Engineering Process Group Conference (SEPG 2005)
• Looking Back
• SEI Partner Annual Meeting Presentations

 

Note from the Editor

On behalf of the SEI Partner Network, I would like to extend a welcome to our newest Partners.

A new, ongoing section has been added to the Newsletter titled; "Know Your Agreement." Random sections of the Agreement between a Partner and the SEI will be addressed. It may or may not pertain to your organization's Agreement, so if you are in doubt, please be sure to check your Agreement.

 

Welcome, Stacie Collins Stacie joined our team on May 3, 2004 as the new Contracts Manager of the SEI Partner Network. She will be the point of contact for our current and potential Partners for any questions on the Agreements. Thank You, Tracey Kelly, and Best Wishes Tracey has spent many years as the point of contact between the SEI and the Partners on the Agreements. The success of the SEI Partner Network, formerly the Transition Partner Program, is due to a large extent to Tracey's hard work. We greatly appreciate all of Tracey's significant contributions and wish her much success in her new position as Account Executive in the SEI Partner Network.

Code of Professional Conduct Project Continues

The final version, V1.0, of the Code of Professional Conduct will be on the SEI licensing Web site soon. Email with instructions will be sent to SEI Partners and SEI-authorized individuals when the Code is online.

First Annual SEI Partner Network Directory and Guide to Services

The SEI Partner Network is proud to announce the release of the first annual SEI Partner Network Directory and Guide to Services. This guide is designed to help users of SEI methods, courses, and services find and select legitimate providers of SEI courses and services. The first few chapters describe the Partner Network and high-level descriptions of the SEI services available through the Partner Network. The remaining chapters include a directory of the current SEI Partners for the services described. You can order a copy of the Partner Directory at no cost by submitting your request to partner-info@sei.cmu.edu.

Know your Agreement

A Partner with a Non-U.S. Delivery license Agreement is responsible for the full amount due for SEI services regardless of any withholding taxes required by law. Sections 4.1 and 4.2 (Financial Obligation) for Non-US Delivery license Agreements state:

4.1 No Withholding Unless Required. Agreement Partner shall make all payments due to SEI under this Agreement without deduction for Tax (as defined below) unless such deduction is required by law.

4.2 Gross-up. If withholding of Tax from any payment due to SEI under this Agreement is required by law, Agreement Partner shall pay to SEI such additional amounts as are necessary so that SEI receives the full amount that it would have received absent such withholding ("Additional Amounts"). For the purposes of this Section, "Tax" shall mean any taxes imposed on income due to SEI in conjunction with Agreement Partner's use of SEI Intellectual Property rights under this Agreement, including any interest, penalty, or addition.

Example:
Company XYZ receives an invoice for the fee of $18,500 USD for the Introduction to CMMI instructor observation of one of their employees. According to the Agreement sections stated above, Company XYZ in is expected to send the full amount of $18,500 USD to the SEI. Any taxes that are due the government are the responsibility of Company XYZ and are not to be deducted from the SEI invoice. The SEI will invoice Company XYZ for any balance due if the invoice is not paid in full.

Appendix B Section c) for Observation Fees states:
Observation Fee. The observation fees shall be payable by Agreement Partner within 30 days of invoicing from CMU/SEI for any observations conducted by CMU/SEI.

Note: Any travel fees accrued for any observation are to be paid for up front by the SEI observer. The Partner will be invoiced for the full amount of the observation, including travel fees, after all the final paperwork has been submitted to the SEI by the observer. Any payment of expenses by the Partner prior to the invoicing will be deemed as a violation of the Agreement.

SEI Introduction to CMMI Courses in Europe

SEI-Europe has been successfully operating for over a year and, during this time, has detected an increasing demand for delivering Introduction to CMMI courses in conjunction with more advanced courses offered by the SEI in our European offices. Some companies with an interest in taking the Intro to CMMI course desire to remain anonymous for confidentiality and competitive reasons. In respect and response to the demand, a schedule of the Partners' course offerings in Europe from May 2004 through December 2005 has been provided to SEI Europe for their use when responding to anyone expressing an interest in attending the Introduction to CMMI course in Europe. The Partners licensed to provide this course commercially will be notified quarterly for updates to this list.

ATTENTION: SEI-Authorized Instructors The SEI is currently in the process of reviewing the content of the course evaluation survey form. If you would like to submit any comments and/or suggestions to help in this effort, please send your feedback to partner-info@sei.cmu.edu.

CMMI Acquisition Module Released

On April 13, 2004, the CMMI® Steering Group and the SEI announced the release of the CMMI Acquisition Module on the SEI Web site. Building on relevant best practices extracted from CMMI, the Acquisition Module defines effective and efficient practices for government acquisition organizations. These best practices provide a foundation for acquisition process discipline and rigor that enables product and service development to be repeatedly executed with high levels of ultimate acquisition success. For more information about the CMMI Acquisition Module, see http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/models/models.html#modules.

If you have questions about the Acquisition Module, send email to acq-module@sei.cmu.edu.

SEI Appraiser Program Communications

In March, there were some updates made to the Renewal Requirements and the Minimum Requirements for SCAMPI lead appraisers. Changes in Renewal Requirements for SCAMPI Lead Appraisers 3/03/04 Minimum Requirements for SCAMPISM Observation Appraisal 3/01/04 For additional communications from the SEI Appraiser Program, refer to http://www.sei.cmu.edu/appraisal-program/appraiser-communications/

SCAMPI Lead Appraisers and CMMI Instructors 2nd Annual Workshop and Upgrade Training The second annual workshops for CMMI Instructors and SCAMPI Lead Appraisers will be held at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and will follow this overall schedule: * Monday October 25 - upgrade training for /Intro to CMMI/Instructors for the combined staged/continuous Intro course (conducted at the SEI) * Tuesday October 26 - CMMI Instructor workshop * Wednesday and Thursday, October 27-28 - SCAMPI Lead Appraiser workshop * Friday October 29 - Upgrade training for SCAMPI B&C (conducted at the SEI) Registration materials will be available in June. As in 2003, there will be no fee charged for attending the workshop or upgrade trainings.

The 2004 Team Software Process User Group (TUG)

The 2004 Team Software Process User Group (TUG) will be held September 27-28 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. TUG provides a forum for developers and users of TSP and PSP, as well as partners offering training and coaching. If you are a manager or engineer interested in learning more about PSP and TSP, the TUG is a unique opportunity to discuss TSP best practices and lessons learned with a wide range of users, developers, and partners.

For more information about registering for the TUG conference, see http://www.sei.cmu.edu/tsp/user-group.html.

Mapping PSP / TSP to CMMI PSP and TSP were designed to support CMM/CMMI goals for: * producing quality products * on committed schedules * for the lowest possible costs at the individual(PSP) and project team(TSP) levels.

Getting Software Right with a Certificate in Software Architecture

The SEI has established a software architecture curriculum and three specially designed certificate programs for other organizations to take advantage of the SEI's decades of experience architecting software-intensive systems. The curriculum includes six courses and offers three certificates: Software Architecture Professional, ATAM Evaluator, and ATAM Lead Evaluator. Participants in these programs learn software architecture fundamentals and the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), how to evaluate software architectures, and what it takes to lead such evaluations. More information about these and other credential programs offered by the SEI is available at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/credentials/ .

2003 SEI Annual Report Published

The online version of the Annual Report of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), reporting on fiscal year 2003, is available at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/annual-report/. PDFs of the entire report and of sections of the report are available at that URL.

The 2003 SEI Annual Report describes the accomplishments of the SEI during fiscal year 2003 (October 1, 2002, through September 30, 2003). For each of the SEI's focus areas, the report summarizes key research and support that the SEI provided for developers and acquirers of software-intensive systems. The report also presents information about the SEI, its staff members, and its organization, including staff accomplishments, publications, leadership positions, demographics, dissemination activities, and funding data.

European SEPG 2004 being held in London, UK

The SEI and the ESPI Foundation are sponsoring the European SEPG 2004 at the Novotel London West in London, UK from June 14 through June 17, 2004. Richard Cox and Gibbie Hart will be holding an SEI Partner meeting for the Introduction to SW-CMM and Introduction to CMMI courses, SCAMPI, and PSP/TSP services at the European SEPG in London. Details for this meeting are:

DATE: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 TIME: 5:15 - 6:30 p.m.
PLACE: To Be Determined

For more information on the E-SEPG program and how to register for the conference, see http://www.espi.org/sect03.asp.

Software Engineering Process Group Australia Conference 2004

The Software Quality Institute, Griffith University and the SEI are pleased to present the SEPG Australia Conference 2004 to be held at the Stamford Grand hotel in Glenelg from September 27-29, 2004. The conference theme for this year is "Learning from Experience". The conference will concentrate on gaining lessons learned from improvement experiences and passing these on to other industry practitioners. For more information and registration, visit the Web site at http://www.sepgaustconference.webls.net/.

Software Engineering Process Group Conference (SEPG 2005)

The SEI SEPG 2005 will be held March 7-10, 2005 in Seattle, Washington. We are now accepting abstracts for SEPG 2005. To submit an abstract for a presentation, panel session, half-day tutorial, or full-day tutorial, please see the SEPG Web site. Abstracts will be accepted until 12 midnight, EDT on June 28, 2004. For more information visit the SEPG Web site at
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/ .

LOOKING BACK

Correction to 1Q04 Newsletter In the article, "Special Premium Discount Offer from Addison-Wesley", an incorrect phone number was given for the Carolyn Coscia, the contact for the Partners at Addison-Wesley. The correct contact numbers are: Phone: 973 257-0052 FAX: 973 257-5652

SEI Partner Annual Meeting Presentations

The SEI Partner Annual Meetings held at the Software Engineering Process Group Conference (SEPG 2004) in Orlando, Florida were well attended with 121 Partners present for the SW-CMM, CMMI, and SCAMPI meeting, and 29 Partners present for the TSP and PSP meeting.

The SW-CMM, CMMI, SCAMPI Annual Meeting presentation, and the TSP and PSP Annual Meeting presentation are both available in portable document format (PDF) from links at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/collaborating/partners/. Included in the SEI Partner Network presentations are the introductions of new people and their roles at the SEI; SEI Partner Network vision and goals, accomplishments, future plans; and an update from the technical teams.