Software development should not be different but most developers have not been taught the appropriate discipline and neither their employers nor the customers know what to demand. Document standards can help. This talk will describe a set of documents that contain the information required for disciplined development. A developer who completes these documents properly will have performed the analyses necessary to assure that the product will be of high quality. This talk does not describe a "process". Discipline does not require that documents be completed in any particular order - only that they are all eventually completed properly.

David Lorge Parnas is the Director of the Software Quality Research Laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering's Computing and Software Department. He is also an associate member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prof. Parnas is currently on leave of absence at the Software Quality Research Laboratory at University of Limerick in Ireland.

The various commentaries on good software engineering practice are often about what to do on single projects in serial environments to manage the risks associated with the various issues raised above. In Mincom's commercial environment there exists the added challenge of the need for integration of a range of different but concurrent projects together with the complexity of managing the delivery of this capability globally. The competition for resources together with skills matching ensures a number of management challenges.

This presentation will address some of the techniques used to; enforce standards without stifling innovation, improve software quality without imposing zealous quality overheads, compare and contrast outsourcing options. Some observations on the use of agile methods will be given as well as an impact analysis of resource balancing.

The presenter will attempt to impart some of the lessons learnt from managing one of Australia's largest application development and support environments.

Prior to this Mr. Barbagallo was the founding CEO of the Distributed Systems Technology Centre Pty Ltd (DSTC), one of Australia's most successful co-operative research centres. DSTC was at the forefront of commercialisation of research in Australia when he left in 2002 including the successful spinning out of several software companies.

Prior to joining DSTC, Mr. Barbagallo was the Chief of Staff to the Premier of Queensland, Mr. Wayne Goss. In this capacity he was responsible for IT&T policy in the Queensland Government from 1989-1994. During this period he oversaw the establishment of the Information Policy Board (IPB), which was responsible for Government IT standards and policy, and the establishment of the Information Industries Bureau (IIB), which has responsibility for promoting and advancing the industry in Queensland. Before working in government Mr Barbagallo worked in the IT industry as a Systems Analyst and Project Manager. Mr Barbagallo has an undergraduate degree in Surveying and a Masters of Technology Management. He has also completed several Management courses including Growing Small Companies at Stanford Business School.