Industry Track

The detailed industry track program, including an interactive session on digitalization, will be available soon. Stay tuned!

Industry Keynote

Michiel van Genuchten

‘No Free lunch for software after all’


The impact of software on products, industries and society is significant. Software put the computer industry upside down in the 1990’s. Mobile phones followed in the first decade of this century. Medtech, the car industry and the financial industry are changing rapidly as we speak. The talk will be based on the personal experience of the presenter in various industries and the 40 columns that have been published in ‘Impact’ in IEEE Software. Insiders from companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, NASA, Hitachi, Tomtom and ASML have discussed the impact of software on their products and industries in the columns. Lessons learned include that software keeps growing at a surprisingly steady rate and volume (number of users of the software) is the key to success. A more sobering lesson is that software can easily be turned into a weapon of mass deceit, as has been proven by spammers, phishers, and an automobile company.

The lessons learned will be applied to better understand the requirements engineering and quality we need to create the software of the future. A couple of questions to be discussed: will we ever be able to engineer requirements and build proper roadmaps for future products? Is the quality we can achieve good enough for the applications we build? What foundations are needed for the next generation of software systems and where can science contribute?

Biography


Michiel van Genuchten is COO of VitalHealth Software since 2013. VitalHealth is a leading provider of cloud-based population health management solutions for the delivery of personalized care outside of the hospital, for example, in regional care networks that was acquired by Philips in December, 2017. He has been managing software teams and software businesses for over 25 years. Michiel has previously worked for companies such as Philips Electronics in The Netherlands and Straumann in Switzerland. Since 2010 he and Les Hatton run ‘Impact’; a series of columns in IEEE Software on the Impact of software on different industries and society.

Industrial Talks

Jan Vlietland

‘Continuous Intelligence’


Prioritization of Agile backlogs for software development teams needs to be based on value maximization. Such maximization can only be achieved when the value of each backlog items is clear. Many Product Owners lack such insight. As a result effort is spent on software development that adds limited value.

We propose Continuous Intelligence as a means to increase knowledge and insight into the value of backlog items. Continuous Intelligence methods continuously collect and analyze information from sources such as social media, system logs and user interface interaction. The results are real-time reported for Agile backlog decision makers, such as product owners and project managers.

Biography


dr. Jan Vlietland, NISI - Dutch Institute for the Software Industry.

dr. Vlietland is a part-time researcher and business director at NISI, the leading Dutch software institute in The Netherlands. He is also managing director and founder of Search4Solutions, a software company in The Netherlands.

He received his PhD in large scale Agile ecosystem, after his Master of Science in Implementation & Change Management. His interests include Agile ecosystems, Continuous methods, Quantum Computing and software development methods.

Hans van Loenhoud

‘RE, the Next Generation’

from requirements engineering to requirements engineering


In traditional IT projects, Requirements Engineering was often positioned as a separate initial phase, in which ‘all’ requirements for an IT system were documented in detail and ‘frozen’ as input for the development phase. As often seen, this approach does not work. In recent years, we have realized that requirements develop over the entire course of a project from coarse-grained epics and features to detailed user stories and acceptance criteria by a continuous process of defining, refining and redefining. In the same time, we see a shift of focus from single-issue requirements elicitation for a certain client to holistic solution provision for all stakeholders: while initially a client came up with a demand for an IT solution and the requirements engineer was asked to document the requirements for it, in recent years we see organizations that define a certain scope and ask the requirements engineer to propose solutions that remove a problem or facilitate a goal. Requirements Engineering should ensure that during (and even after) the whole development process, the total set of requirements remains integer and consistent, thus preventing unnecessary refactoring, delays and cost overruns. This requires a constant search for the right balance between upfront elicitation (more certainty) and later-on elaboration (more flexibility), to find the right level of detail at the right moment (just enough, just in time), to decide between documentation and communication. All in all, the emphasis on engineering is growing, whereas the emphasis on (documented) requirements in decreasing. Recent developments in Requirements Engineering can be seen as an evolution. Basis factors like elicitation, specification and documentation are extended with success factors of solution design, elaboration and shared understanding. This is summarized in the ‘RE Manifesto’.

Biography


Hans van Loenhoud (Taraxacum) graduated as a biologist and worked in ecological research at the University of Amsterdam. In 1980 he switched to IT and started his career as a Cobol programmer. For more than 10 years, he was involved in development projects for customers in finance, industry and government. Later on, he specialized in consultancy on data, information and quality management. Around Y2K Hans entered the field of software testing and worked as a test manager in various development projects. During this work, he took interest in requirements engineering, because he is convinced that good requirements are a prerequisite for professional testing. Nowadays, he is committed to build the bridge between the two disciplines, acting as a trainer for ISTQB, TMap, IREB and iSQI courses. Since 2016, he is member of the Executive Committee of the International Requirements Engineering Board.

Michael Kemper

‘Profiles in the fast-paced digital age: People and companies have their own agenda ’


Digitization changes collaboration in organizations from the ground up. There are new opportunities for networking with colleagues and market partners as well as new requirements for participation. Over the last decade negotiating positions, hierarchical structures, power and domain knowledge - are constantly under scrutiny under these conditions with a great impact on cultural change.

In fact, a company or a project network is mainly a living ecosystem, the interaction of different people, which react individually and partly completely irrationally to clearly thought-out transformation processes. Quite often individual worries about his or her own employability combined with the question of what skills he has to offer, which will be relevant in the digital age? In this environment, decision-makers are looking for orientation to design the appropriate implementation strategy. It is necessary within transformation planning to consider the implications, the understanding of the context, the expectations and the cultural background of decision-makers, stakeholders and teams at an early stage. It is key to identify their personality with his congenital and learned behavioural patterns in comfort zones such as under stress.
In this presentation, practice experience and key instruments associated with the complexity and instability of interpersonal relationships and the effectiveness of personality models will be introduced. Application patterns (agile projects, design process, leadership, recruiting, team setup etc.) are presented to identify economic risks of passive, hidden resistance or to discover hidden economic potential at an early stage.

Biography


Michael Kemper (adesso AG) guides management teams and employees as a corporate generalist with extensive experience in leading digital projects to recognize opportunities in digital future markets at an early stage and to successfully initiate digital transformation. His offer is the focus to lead or guide demand clarification and problem solving for people who need to be effective in unstable, interdisciplinary or cross-cultural situations. He has additional priorities in the areas of Requirement Engineering, Change Management, Profiling, Presentation and Coaching. Customers benefit from his international experience in leading cross-cultural groups speaking English, French, Portuguese and German and his awards to Strategic Human Resource Development. Michael is first mover in Corporate Citizenship best practices on German and Brazilian networks. Establish a computer school in structurally weak Brazilian regions and long-term business coaching for new IT companies.

Karolina Zmitrowicz

‘RE and BA – in search of the truth’


Every engineering or science discipline has its own myths and urban legends. Requirements-related areas are not an exception to this rule.

We can assume that every person involved in requirements analysis knows the term “Requirements Engineering”. We know the term “Business Analysis” as well. Or, I should say – in many cases – we think we know these concepts and we believe we can point out the difference between them. In reality, people confuse RE and BA or consider these as synonymous. It seems that the concepts known for many years, are not really understood, even by those who claim themselves to be RE or BA professionals.

Let’s then go back to the sources of the truth and discuss these topics in more detail. Let’s clarify the scope, objectives, activities and main deliverables of RE and BA so that we know what are we discussing about. Let’s then think about the current domain and business environment and try to answer the question – are RE and BA sufficient to satisfy more and more demanding market needs? Is there still a place for RE and BA professionals? Or should we think about the future trends…the digital transformation.

Biography


Karolina (Stowarzyszenie Jakości Systemów Informatycznych) has a strong experience in the fields of requirements engineering, business analysis, project management and quality management. She has international experience in financial sector – she used to work for leading financial organizations in South Africa, Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Italy and Poland.

Between 2011 and 2013 she was an active member of REQB® Board. Today, she continues work on requirements engineering standardization supporting IREB®.

She is one of the main authors of IQBBA® (former IBAQB) certification scheme for business analysts. She is an active member of several organizations acting to increase knowledge and maturity of requirements engineering and QA community.

Karolina currently works as freelance IT consultant and trainer in requirements engineering, business analysis and quality management fields helping the customers to optimize their operations and development processes to achieve better business value.