Personal Software Process (PSP) Advanced

This five-day course covers advanced topics of Personal Software Process (PSP), expands on Team Software Process (TSP) concepts and picks up where PSP Fundamentals left off. This course teaches software engineers to optimize their process performance by:

• applying sound design engineering and verification techniques
• using a defined estimating process called PROxy-Based Estimating (PROBE) to estimate size and effort
• tracking and prediction using earned value
• demonstrating various quality techniques for improving the software process, product and programmer productivity
• recognizing quality problems and knowing how to fix them
• use of statistical methods to understand and improve planning and quality performance
• showing how measures can be combined to provide useful data for future project plans, provide information on process effectiveness, and process improvements

Students learn to master the advanced topics of PSP by completing the assigned reading, attending the class lectures and class laboratory/tool sessions, and completing programming assignments and a performance (process, planning and quality) analysis report. The total course completion time includes five days of class time plus additional time to complete the pre-reading and course homework. All assignments must be completed 45 days after the final day of class.

Successful completion of both PSP Fundamentals and PSP Advanced is a prerequisite to both PSP Instructor Training and TSP Coach Training. Together the two PSP courses cover a significant subset of the PSP Body of Knowledge and help to prepare students for the PSP Developer Certification exam, which is also a prerequisite to both the PSP Instructor Training and TSP Coach Training courses.

This is a blended learning course, which is a blend of real-time instruction and work that is performed at a pace that is convenient and comfortable for students (asynchronous learning). Asynchronous learning includes access to course materials, submission of assignments, and feedback from the instructors all provided online by the Blended Learning system.

Who should attend?

• software engineers
• software engineering students
• software engineering instructors
• software quality management instructors
• third-party vendors of software engineering or quality training

Topics

• applying sound design engineering and verification techniques
• using a defined estimating process called PROxy-Based Estimating (PROBE) to estimate size and effort
• tracking and prediction schedule performance
• various quality techniques for improving the software process and product and programmer productivity
• how to address quality issues
• use of statistical methods to understand and improve planning and quality performance
• use of metrics to provide information on process effectiveness, and process improvements
• TSP Role concepts

Objectives

• analyze their current performance
• improve their current performance based on the analysis by making process improvements
• extend the PSP Fundamentals methods with more best practices

Prerequisites

Before registering for this course, participants must have completed PSP Fundamentals and participants must be proficient in at least one programming language. Due to the quick pace of the course, students will not be successful if they attempt to learn a new programming language while attending. It is helpful to be familiar with basic statistics and to be able to read simple formal notations.

Pre-Course Work
Prior to attending the course, students must finish reading the remainder of the book
PSP: A Self-Improvement Process for Software Engineers by Watts S. Humphrey which the student received as part of the PSP Fundamentals course. It is important that the book has been read before coming to the course. It is also important that students do not begin the assignments until they are assigned during the course.

Students must bring with them the following portable computing equipment:

• Laptop computer with 500 megabytes or greater of free hard disk space
• Microsoft Office with Access 2003 & Microsoft Office Service Pack 2, or Microsoft Office with Access 2007
• Programming language development environment (compiler, editor, etc.)
• Zip file capability
• CD-ROM or memory stick
• Wireless network card
• a simple 4-function calculator

Please note: Beta versions of Microsoft Office products are not supported.

Those students who have taken PSP I: Planning and were planning on taking PSP II: Quality should contact Kim Campbell at kcamp@sei.cmu.edu or 412-268-5277 for further information.

Materials

Course materials are made available to the participants by means of access to the SEI Blended Learning platform. Login access will be provided at the beginning of the course.

Schedule

This five-day course meets at the following times:
Day 1, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Days 2-4, 8:15 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Day 5, 8:15 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.