Software Development Productivity - Why it's Important and Why it's Too Hard (Speaker: Peter Smith)

Date
Location

UBC Point Grey Campus (Rm 205, Student Union Building)


Abstract: All software companies strive to be productive. They want to produce more features in less time, with fewer bugs. Numerous techniques exist for improving productivity, but many of them are considered too hard to adopt and simply get thrown out before being tried. In this lecture, we'll examine why many productivity improvements fail, largely due to the financial bottom line, but also due to the organization's overwhelming focus on their other goals.

About the speaker: Peter is principal of Arapiki Solutions, Inc., a consulting company that provides technical leadership for introducing new tools and methodologies that improve software development productivity.

Peter graduated from UBC in 1998, with a PhD in Computer Science. He was a sessional instructor in the
Computer Science department for several years.
 
Peter specializes in the planning and deployment of software development infrastructures together with best practices for utilizing them. Recently he has released a book titled "Software Build Systems: Principles and Experience", published by Addison Wesley Professional.

This lecture series is designed for people in the Vancouver computer industry to share their experiences. If you can suggest any topics that you'd like to hear about in future lectures, or if you're willing be a presenter in, we'd love to hear from you. Please send your ideas to Michele Ng