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Contributor Index of

Roundtable on Technical Leadership:
A SHAPE Forum Dialogue

edited by Gerald M. Weinberg,
Marie Benesh
,
and James Bullock

ISBN: 978-0-932633-51-4  
©2002  176 pages   softcover  
$15.95 (plus shipping)

Subject(s): Communication Skills, Programming, Software Project Management, Technical Leadership

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Jim Batterson | James Bullock | Pat Ferdinandi | Fritz | Phil Fuhrer | Jesse Gordon | Don Gray | Brian Gulino | Peter Harris | Joseph Howard | Kevin Huigens | Steve Jackson | James Jarrett | Bob King | Dave Kleist | Henry Knapp | Brian Knopp | Fredric Laurentine | Pat McGee | Nate McNamara | George Olsen | Mark Passolt | Sue Petersen | Dwayne Phillips | Brian Richter | Sharon Marsh Roberts | Brett Schuchert | Stuart Scott | Dave Smith | Steve Smith | Daniel Starr | Wayne Strider | Pete TerMaat | Phil Trice | Bill Trierweiler | Marianne Tromp | Jerry Weinberg | Kay Wise


Jim Batterson

Jim Batterson is an independent consultant living in Richmond, Virginia. He is currently interested in the craft of storytelling, and in particular, positive and uplifting stories from the annals of the cubicle farm that so many of us in the technical world call our home away from home.

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James Bach             www.satisfice.com

James Bach is the founder and principal consultant of Satisfice, Inc., a software testing laboratory in Front Royal, Virginia. He specializes in rapid software testing techniques. James learned his craft on the job at Apple Computer and Borland International, and through the ministrations of many wonderful mentors and colleagues.

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Marie A. Benesh

Marie is principal of Benesh & Associates, an IT management consulting firm. With her wide range of experience in IT management, Marie advises clients on the issues that arise in managing human resources, strategy development and implementation, organization design, team development, and large-scale project definition and management. Marie combines a strong background in technology and enterprise architecture with a natural talent for implementing the governance and people structures that make an organizational architecture effective.

Marie has implemented leading practices in software engineering for organizations, and understands the management of application development organizations. She has a wealth of experience in project assessment and consulting in PeopleSoft, an ERP-based system. She has utilized her skills in Program Management, Infrastructure Implementation and Management, Release Management, IT/User Test Planning, and Implementation within the university and corporate arenas. Her clientele include major universities and Fortune 500 corporations.

She focuses much of her consulting on the development of IT leadership skills through individual coaching and mentoring, performance-based review and development processes, and team design and management. Marie participates actively in groups that are focused on uncovering leading practices in IT management and in providing experiential learning opportunities for leaders.

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James Bullock

In his more than eighteen years of building systems, from lab automation and high-volume embedded controls to enterprise data warehousing and ERP deployments, James Bullock has been everything from a coding "grunt" to a high-priced consultant. Some of his embedded controls are still deployed, and a data warehouse he architected six years ago is still in use, among other apparent successes. More important to James is the contact he maintains with some folks from previous projects -- people who not only built something good, but enjoyed doing it.

Over time, James has become more interested in how we go about building systems than in the systems themselves. Jerry Weinberg's SHAPE forum allows him to explore that.

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Pat Ferdinandi       www.SBDi-consulting.com

Pat is the president of Strategic Business Decisions, a consulting company specializing in requirements engineering, project management, and process improvement. Pat's latest contribution is the introduction of a Requirements Pattern (including Anti-Patterns) that assists in capturing a fuller requirements set for any type of project. The Requirements Pattern is currently being used by Fortune 500 companies and will be discussed in her forthcoming book: A Requirements Pattern: Succeeding in an Internet Economy.

As a diversion from the hectic pace of Wall Street, Pat -- with the help of her two-and-a-half-year-old Solomon Island Eclectus, Scarlet -- developed a Companion Parrot Care Guide as a donation to the Oasis Sanctuary Foundation (www.the-oasis.org). This thirty-six-page booklet eases the transfer involved in temporary vacations and provides instructions for permanent care by fully describing the specific needs of your parrot.

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Fritz

Fritz has facilitated the technical work of system administrators by developing software tools; now he's learning to facilitate the human work of tool developers.

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Phil Fuhrer

Phil Fuhrer is a systems architect at VoiceCue Technologies, which provides voice recognition, response, real-time billing, and provisioning systems for wireless networks. Previously, with thirty years of experience at Bell Laboratories, Phil was responsible for architecture, reliability, performance, network management, and requirements for telephone switching and other systems. His career spans analog and digital networks, and he is looking forward to implementing wireless broadband services. He specializes in reviews, human development, and team effectiveness.

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Jesse M. Gordon

Jesse M. Gordon is a software performance analyst for IBM, in Austin, Texas. He creates systems-level views of how software systems are put together and of how their components interact. These understandings make it possible for him to improve the software's performance.

Jesse joined IBM in 1990 after earning a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan. Between undergraduate and graduate school, he worked for three years as a software systems analyst for BDM International in McLean, Virginia.

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Don Gray

Don Gray works with manufacturers integrating people, processes, and projects. This work involves everything from the people involved to the sensors to the production/process data. Don's been working as an independent consultant since 1984. He likes solving problems and working with people. He's currently working on a better understanding of how people interact in solving complex technical problems. Having taught general computing (both software and hardware) and application-specific classes, Don has a unique perspective on life (who else would write an article entitled "How to Kill a Software Company"?)

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Brian Gulino

Brian Gulino builds databases and database-backed Websites. He works closely with several companies in southern California that do hardware integration, hardware design, and Web-based instruction.

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Peter Harris

Deadlines, software bugs.
All are vanquished with a smile.
Coder treads lightly.

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Joseph Howard

I am 39, and am currently a consultant. I have programmed computers from the age of 12, on PCs, UNIX, and mainframes, and I've led a number of relatively successful large and small projects. I am married with two children. I spent six years in the U.S. Army as a programmer, a barracks sergeant, and a medic. I paint, fix my boat, read history, and play the recorder (a Blockflute). I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from NY Regents, and I am currently working on a master's degree in Computer Science.

Readers may note I don't mind making exploratory statements in a forum to sound out ideas. It's just a forum, a sandbox, to test and brainstorm what might be alternative thoughts with other thinkers. If everyone agrees at the outset, there is nothing to learn.

I do feel that historically successful leaders studied previously successful leaders. Many successful leaders wrote well about leadership.

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Kevin Huigens

Kevin Huigens is a principal consultant for a software management consulting firm. A graduate of the December 1993 PSL workshop, Kevin has nineteen years of experience in all aspects of software management: coding, testing, requirements analysis, project management, and more.

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Steven D Jackson

Steven D. Jackson is principal management engineer at S. D. Jackson & Associates, an international management consulting organization specializing in assisting firms to substantially increase profits through internally driven process improvements. Steve has considerable experience in implementing quality system processes and has worked for more than thirty years in all aspects of engineering and project management.

An international speaker and author, Steve has developed and delivered many training courses on quality and management subjects. As a Certified Quality Auditor and Certified Quality Manager, Steve has taught certification preparation classes for local sections of the American Society for Quality. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering/Business Management and a Master's in Computer Science from Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Steve enjoys backpacking in the mountains and is a competition handgun shooter.

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James Jarrett

James Jarrett is a lead software designer at Rockwell Automation in Cleveland, Ohio. Specializing in interaction design, requirements engineering, and object-oriented development, he leads teams to deliver products that delight their users. Jim thrives on being a catalyst in his organization, helping it move toward best practices and high-performance teams. With varied interests including sociology, science policy, and digital media, he brings a multidisciplinary perspective and a strong intuitive sense to his work and his world.

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Bob King

I work with people on project teams to build and document the shared understanding needed to get projects started on the path to success. Specifically, I work with project managers to write statements of work, with analysts to facilitate requirements gathering and analysis, and with senior technical people to design the solution. I have more than twenty-one years of experience: in the first sixteen, working myself up and out of American Express, and in the last five, as an independent consultant.

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Dave Kleist

Dave Kleist, always interested in the next challenge, has held a variety of positions in the IT field during the last sixteen years, including project manager, account manager, instructor, and developer. He's even conned a few unsuspecting editors into publishing articles that he's written. Currently, Dave is the technical architect in the North American Best Practices Lab for Adaytum, Inc.

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Henry Knapp

Holding a B.A. and an M.S. from UCSD (1969, 1971), Henry Knapp went into software engineering full-time in 1981, after using computers to run complex simulations for a number of years. He has since led the development of computer games, order entry and billing systems, process control systems, signal processing systems, and operating system software in the U.S., Switzerland, and Taiwan. He currently leads a group that develops storage management software for the Solaris operating system.

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Brian Knopp

Brian Knopp has worked in the software industry for the past twelve years. His initial work was in DOS, but since 1994, he has developed Windows applications using Visual Basic against the three major SQL platforms. Recently, he has begun developing Web applications using ASP. He lives in Dallas with his wife and son, where he hopes that the Stars can finish better than they started.

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Fredric Laurentine       www.laurentine.com

Fredric Laurentine works with organizations of all sizes leading groups of people through laughter and ideas to a creative, more human future.

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Pat McGee

Pat McGee has programmed for all of his adult life, in many different languages (including English), and for many different processors, large and small (including homo sapiens). Pat has written programs to do scientific modeling, process improvement, fraud detection, computer graphics, business systems, and embedded control systems, and to break other programs. He has led teams and has been called the "best boss" and the "worst boss" ever, though not on the same day or by the same person, yet.

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Nate McNamara         www.conquerrsi.com

Nate McNamara held a variety of software engineering roles before he suffered a severe repetitive strain injury (RSI) that interrupted his career. Fortunately, Nate is one of a handful of RSI victims who have completely recovered, and he has successfully resumed all of his pursuits. In addition to performing object-oriented and Web software development and training in the San Francisco Bay area, Nate now presents seminars on curing RSI. For more information, visit the Website listed above.

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George Olsen

George Olsen, principal of Interaction by Design, has done award-winning user-experience design, information architecture, and Web development for start-ups, Hollywood studios, such as Disney, and Fortune 500 companies, including Nestle and Transamerica. In 1998, he was runner-up for Builder.com's Web Innovator of the Year award for cofounding The Web Standards Project. He has taught, written, and spoken at numerous conferences about user-experience design issues.

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Mark Passolt

Mark Passolt manages the development of advanced scientific 3D visualization and collaboration software at Schlumberger. The design and visualization of large technical databases is the thread running through most of his work with software over the last twenty years. He has a master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Outside of work, Mark enjoys woodworking and dabbles in metalworking and stained glass.

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Sue Petersen         www.networkboy.com/suep

Sue Petersen is an anthropologist by training, a programmer by avocation, and a manager by necessity. She and her husband have owned and operated a small plumbing repair shop since 1979.

Sue started programming in 1985, when she bought her first PC for the business. Unable to find a simple database for the business, she created one herself. She started writing professionally in 1995, when she sold her first article to Windows Tech Journal. She wrote a regular book review column for Visual Developer Magazine for many years, and currently freelances for other publications as well.

Sue's main professional interests are database design, and software engineering and management. She is currently programming in a Win32/Delphi environment.

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Dwayne Phillips

Dwayne Phillips has been a systems and computer engineer with the U.S. government since 1980. He has written articles for magazines such as The C/C++ Users Journal and The Cutter IT Journal, and is author of The Software Project Manager's Handbook. A native of Sweetwater, Louisiana, he has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana State University. He resides in Reston, Virginia, with his wife, Karen, and three sons.

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Brian Richter

Brian Richter has been a professional software developer on Long Island for nineteen years. He started out writing video games, branched out into character generators and teleprompters, and now writes software for radars and air traffic control systems. Outside of work, he is an accomplished composer, pianist, and musician who performs in and directs musical events and shows on Long Island.

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Sharon Marsh Roberts

Sharon Marsh Roberts works primarily with large corporations on financial systems projects. She originally worked on managing financial analysis and reporting, but she discovered the challenge of designing and implementing systems.

Sharon is currently helping launch a multi-organizational, multidisciplinary team at Pfizer to comply with a new FDA Rule, Financial Disclosure by Investigators. She is focused on the business processes of capturing disclosures from investigators and communicating status to both investigators and drug teams.

Sharon is president of Roberts Financial Systems, Inc. Her firm specializes in systems in financial analysis, operations, and management information. She designed and managed the implementation of a managed healthcare system for one of the nation's largest insurers. Her role is usually designer or facilitator. A recent successful project was the on-time delivery of a human resources system that began late. Her current projects have been impact analyses of Y2K issues and of other problems in the pharmaceutical industry.

As former chairman of the Independent Computer Consultants Association, her goal is to improve project expertise. She seeks to creatively blend the resources of corporations and their contractual partners to meet business needs.

Sharon received an M.B.A. from New York University in 1982 and an Advanced Professional Certificate from the same institution in 1985. Her bachelor's degree, from Bucknell University, is in Education and German. She is a C.P.A. and a member of the AICPA and the NYSSCPA.

Roberts Financial Systems, Inc., in Linden, New Jersey, serves clients across the U.S. and can be reached at (908) 862-4726.

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Brett Schuchert

Brett Schuchert's most recent work has dealt with software architecture and with forming the chaos at the beginning of a project. He is a teacher, mentor, and consultant.

On and off since 1985, Brett has taught courses on subjects ranging from computer literacy to the formal analysis and design of software systems. He has also served as architect, technical lead, and individual contributor on several projects in several domains.

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Stuart Scott

Stuart Scott is a principal consultant with Cambridge Technology Partners, where he helps teams design and carry out business transformation programs. He is based in New York City.

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Dave W. Smith

Dave W. Smith has been taking on ambitious, and sometimes desperate, projects in Silicon Valley start-ups for the past twenty years. In his spare time, Dave tries to catch up on his e-mail.

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Steve Smith

Steve Smith works at the intersection of people, management, and systems, helping organizations to become more productive.

Although most of Steve's career has been technical -- starting in 1975 as a systems programmer -- over the years, his context has widened. Today, Steve tackles the most difficult problem businesses face -- managing technical people so they achieve results rather than merely justify and deploy the latest technology.

Steve is a consultant, author, speaker, and expert facilitator and coach who honors and enhances the wisdom that lies dormant in groups. Steve works as a technical architect for EMC, a manufacturer of intelligent storage systems, software, and services.

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Daniel Starr

Daniel Starr still dresses in ways that put people into chaos (these days, he's often seen in kilts, as befits his Irish ancestry). After some twenty-six years in the corporate world, during which he evolved from software developer to software architect, system architect, system architecture process architect, and generalist-reviewer-opinion-generator, finally reaching the position of Consulting Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, he's moving into writing and independent consulting. In addition to his work in system architecture, process, reviews, and retrospectives, he's writing a vast, sprawling novel about time travel and hair spray.

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Wayne Strider

Cofounder and vice president of Strider & Cline, Inc., an IT management consulting firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, Wayne's IT career spans twenty-seven years. He conducts project reviews, project retrospectives, and organizational assessments for information technology organizations. Wayne and his partner, Eileen Strider, annually cohost their successful Leaders' Forum.

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Peter TerMaat

Pete is the founder and sole employee of the Minneapolis consulting firm Up to Code, Inc., where he hopes someday to win "Employee of the Month." He enjoys the quest for quality software, whether playing the role of developer, tester, manager, writer, trainer, or consultant. After more than fifteen years in the world of software, he still finds it all so exciting he sometimes forgets to eat lunch.

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Phil Trice

Born on Davis Island in Tampa Bay, nurtured among the brackish lagoons, saw palmetto woods of Florida through mystical awakening in New York City and maturing in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Philip has been an originary explorer bridging ways of ancient and modern teachings, arts and engineering, mystical and physical, and natural and technological. From a varied life path -- seeker, martial artist, designer, healer, systems architect, entrepreneur -- from seeking access to the magic of life to a deep journey through his own shadow and light -- Thunder Panther now explores shamanic ways of Lover, Warrior, and Magician, weaving the Métis ways of his path of heart among the forests and waters of Northern Idaho.

Thunder Panther has founded NW Originary Arts to assist businesses and individuals through projects, consulting, workshops, and intensives; to balance the aspects of story, substance, concept, passion, and value; and to bridge the artificial and natural realms, to co-venture with Earth and Spirit in artful business, coevolving natural law and value. He can be reached at ThunderPanther@nworiginaryarts.org.

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Bill Trierweiler

Bill Trierweiler has spent the last thirty years looking for those moments that offer the possibilities for congruent leadership. It has taken him from the peace movement to tenant organizing to union building to community development to software development to systems change. He left Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) to found the Five Freedoms Center for Congruent Leadership. He can be reached at btree@interaccess.com.

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Marianne Tromp

Marianne has been involved in scientific software development since 1982. In 2001, Marianne started a Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) in Madison, Wisconsin. Marianne especially enjoys providing software engineers with tools, guidelines, processes, and coaching, to free them to do the work they most enjoy doing.

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Gerald M. Weinberg        www.geraldmweinberg.com

Jerry Weinberg has worked on transforming software organizations for more than forty years. He is author, coauthor, or editor of scores of articles and books that cover all phases of software development. Innovative as a systems thinker, Jerry's classic works include Are Your Lights On?, The Psychology of Computer Programming, and An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. Jerry's books on phases of the software life cycle include Exploring Requirements, Rethinking Systems Analysis and Design, The Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews, and General Principles of Systems Design. His books on leadership include Amplifying Your Effectiveness, Becoming a Technical Leader, The Secrets of Consulting, More Secrets of Consulting, and the Quality Software Management four-volume series.

To many, Jerry is as well-known for his workshops for software leaders as he is for his books. Workshops include Problem Solving Leadership (PSL), the Congruent Organizational Change-Shop, and Systems Effectiveness Management (SEM). He is also a cofounder of the AYE Conference.

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Kay Wise        TheWiseChoice.com

Kay A. Wise, president of TheWiseChoice.com, has more than thirty years of leadership in business and technology, including years as software engineer, database administrator, entrepreneur, project manager, and program director. Kay now works full-time as a consultant, speaker, writer, and teacher, emphasizing the politics and practical issues of launching and steering change projects in technology-intensive environments.

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Features
Reviews
Table of Contents
Preface
Excerpt: "The Courage to Be Yourself"
Index
Author Interview

Downloads
Dorset House Catalog
This Book's Flyer

By this Author
Roundtable on Project Management: A SHAPE Forum Dialogue

Also Recommended

Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach, by Gerald M. Weinberg

Dr. Peeling's Principles of Management, by Nic Peeling
Quality Software Management, Vol. 3: Congruent Action, by Gerald M. Weinberg
Understanding the Professional Programmer, by Gerald M. Weinberg
What Every Programmer Should Know About Object-Oriented Design, by Meilir Page-Jones

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