MINUTES OF THE

SIGIST STANDARDS WORKING PARTY MEETING

HELD ON 10^th DECEMBER 2002

1. Present               Graham Thomas, Isabel Evans, Julian Harty, Margaret Saner, Richard Neeve, Simon Tansey, Steve Allott, Stuart Reid.

Apologies:            Ann Stuart, Brian Hambling, Geoff Quentin, George Wilkinson, Grenville Johns, Jane Allerton, John Kent, Mark Robinson.

2. Agree Agenda

 02/12.1                    The agenda was agreed.

3. Minutes from the Previous Meeting

02/12.2                    The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed.

4. Actions from the Previous Meetings

01/1.10                    Teams

                            The team based way of working has now been replaced by individual technique authors, working party reviews and review meetings therefore the team list has been removed from the minutes.

Closed.

NB. All outstanding Team Based actions have now been removed from the minutes.

02/2.7                      New Joiners Guide
Isabel Evans suggested the production of a guide for new joiners which could be posted on the Web Site. As Secretary Graham has direct contact with all new members so will look at this.
[30/07/02] The new joiners guide will be modified to fit in with the new approach.
Carried Forward.

GT

02/5.6                      Glossary Update
Stuart requested that the term Test Condition be added to the glossary.
[10/12/02] It was suggested that all glossary additions/amendments be added to the Domain/Technique spreadsheet as an extra worksheet.
Carried Forward.

GT

02/7.4                      Review effectiveness of process for identifying glossary entries
Graham will table an agenda item for a future meeting to review the effectiveness of the process for identifying and reviewing glossary entries.
[10/12/02] This action will be closed because the glossary will now become a living document.
Closed.

02/7.7                      Circulate domain technique matrix to working party
Graham agreed to circulate the domain technique matrix to the members of the working party asking each member to identify the domain technique examples for which they had experience/expertise of. This would include a cover note explaining the new approach.
[16/09/02 – Graham agreed to circulate the domain technique matrix to the working party again because of the e-mail problems that he had experienced (see 5.1.).]
Closed.

02/9.3                      Domain/Technique Matrix
Isabel volunteered to review existing examples with regard to being converted to domain/technique matrix examples.
Carried Forward.

IE

02/9.4                      Website Admin
John agreed to post the Umbrella Document to the Standards Working Party website.
Carried Forward.

JK

02/9.5                      Generating Examples
Graham agreed to e-mail the candidates asking if they would be willing to volunteer to write a domain/technique example and within what timescale.
Closed.

02/9.6                      Marketing Plan
Steve agreed to produce a marketing plan for the Standards Working Party to publicise the new approach that the group was taking.
[10/12/02] Steve agreed to produce the plan by the end of 2002, so that it could be reviewed by the working party in Jan 2003 prior to the first meeting of the year.
Carried Forward.

SA

02/9.7                      Website Updates
John agreed to put together a plan to upgrade the website from its current form to include the domain/technique matrix and enable group working.
Closed.

02/9.8                      E-mail Redirection
Stuart agreed to set-up e-mail redirection for the Standards Working Party.
Closed

5. Progress Report from Secretary

5.1 Techniques – Work In Progress

                                Graham presented the domain/technique matrix (see Appendix A) that he was using to track progress. He has entered all of the responses to the domain/technique questionnaires that were sent out, and this provides a map of the working party’s experience/expertise. He is also using colour on the matrix to indicate the status of an example; white is unknown, yellow is required, orange is work in progress, blue is complete.

Graham had also mapped this information in plan form with start and end dates for all work in progress. As can be seen from the matrix a parallel approach to the production of examples has been adopted.

                                The following actions were recorded:

02/12.3                    Domain/Technique Matrix

5.2 New Members

                                Graham reported that 10 new members had joined the group since September, and 2 previous members had returned to the group.

                                All new and returning members are being issued with a domain/technique matrix upon which to map their experience/expertise levels onto.

5.3 Group Publicity

                                Graham informed the meeting that he had written two articles to publicise the Standards Working Party since the last meeting. The first, for ‘The Tester’ which is the BCS SIGiST magazine, and the second, for an on-line UNICOM newsletter.

                                Both articles asked for volunteers to join the working party, especially in the areas of the matrix that the current group’s experience/expertise does not cover.

6. Website Review

                                John could not be at the meeting but did submit a written report containing a plan of action for the website. This proposed the following three step approach:

·         Define Requirements
Including processes and procedures for its use. Thought needs to be given to the way comments are handled and whether they are reviewed before publication. There is plenty of Forum software available so we may not have to build this ourselves.

·         Build the website

·         Test and review

                                The following action was recorded:

02/12.4                    Website Review - Prototype
Stuart and Isabel agreed to take forward the design of the website for the new way of working. They would work together to build a prototype to be presented at the next meeting.
New Action.

SR/IE

7. Plan phase 2 – domain/technique examples

                                The meeting discussed the next steps for generating further domain/technique examples. The meeting agreed that we should continue with a parallel approach to producing examples, and offer the opportunity to write an example to as many members of the working party as possible. The meeting agreed to limit authors to one example at a time though to ensure that they were not overloaded.

                                The following action was recorded:

02/12.5                    Domain/Technique Example - Authors
Graham agreed to contact further members of the working party inviting them to become domain/technique example authors.
New Action.

GT

8. Agree future meeting schedule

                                The consensus view at this meeting was that although several domain/technique examples are planned to be ready for review in the next two months it would be prudent to arrange further review meetings when examples are ready for review.

                                It was agreed that the next SWP Meeting would review the two domain/technique examples that have been sent out to the working party for review.

9. Any other business

                                Isabel reported that she had been invited to speak to the FORTEST meeting (Jan 6/7 2003) about the work of the BCS SIGiST Standards Working Party.

                                Julian Harty volunteered to generate technique definitions for Performance/Stress and Security from the work that he had already carried out for the working party.

10. Date of Next Meeting

The date for the next SWP meeting is listed below. The next meeting will review the two domain/technique examples currently out for review.

NB. All are welcome to attend, but need to confirm attendance in advance so that security passes can be arranged.

                                All scheduled Team meetings will take place at PA (Consulting), 4^th Floor, 123 Buckingham Palace Road, London.