Xelaration - Software Engineering Capabilities Improvement

RUG MRUG Meetings 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005	MRUG Montreal Rational User Group (MRUG) Xelaration Software started a Rational User Group (RUG) in Montreal on September 2005. Group Charter The mission of the Montreal Rational User Group is to provide IBM Rational Software product users with a forum to extend their knowledge and to share their experience on the usage of the IBM Rational Software solutions: the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) and the IBM Rational Software tools. The group meets every quarter (4 times a year) to discuss a given topic. Each time a guest speaker is invited to present on that topic. Group Meeting Place The Group meets in the IBM facility at 1250 Rene-Levesque Boulevard West, 7th Floor, Room 777, Montreal, Quebec, H3B 4W2, (514) 938-6017. Group Presentation Click here to view the Montreal Rational User Group (RUG) presentation (Adobe Reader required). To Register or Know More Click here to register to the Montreal Rational User Group or to know about upcoming events. Click here to know more about IBM, Rational, the Rational Unified Process or RUP.

	Meetings Montreal Rational User Group (MRUG) Meetings Since its inception in 2005, the Montreal RUG has held 4 meetings per year (one every quarter). These meetings are usually held on the last Wednesday of the month during the evening from 6pm to 8pm.

	2010 *NEW* March 30, 2010 - Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery Agile is an evolutionary approach that focuses on working software, continuous team communication, “just the right amount of process” and which meets the changing needs of its stakeholders. Scrum and XP are good starting points, however as development increases in complexity, agile becomes trickier and it is important to identify scaling strategies for agile techniques. Often, a full-lifecycle approach to agile software delivery is often necessary. This presentation provides an overview of the agile scaling model (ASM) and shows a roadmap to effectively adopt and tailor agile strategies to meet the challenges faced by a system delivery team. The objectives of this presentation will be: To provide an introduction to Agile To describe how to go from Scrum to a disciplined Agile delivery To describe how to apply fundamental Agile techniques throughout the lifecycle To discuss scaling strategies for agile techniques Our guest speaker will be Cherifa Mansoura, Technical Lead for IBM Rational Software.

	2009 April 29, 2009 - Agile Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) with Rational Tools In today’s world, teams must collaborate on producing sophisticated business-critical applications in compressed time frames. Application Lifecycle Management is a key enabler for streamlining a team’s ability to produce a release of software. Agile ALM involves the coordination of software development activities (requirements definition and management, development, build, test, and release ) to produce and manage software applications throughout their life cycle. ALM is the vehicle that not only brings team members together, it drives the transparency of their progress and governs how the team works. Our guest speakers, Martin Morgentaler and Jean-Louis Maréchaux, Software Engineering Specialists for IBM Rational Software, demonstrated how Rational Team Concert and other Rational tools provide a collaborative platform for the different disciplines in Agile ALM. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required).

	2008 November 26, 2008 - Requirements Definition with the Rational Requirements Composer (RRC) The definition of needs is the first step towards the development of a system. Today's analysts struggle with a certain number of difficulties in capturing and documenting these needs. To compensate for these difficulties, a tool that can assist analysts in defining these needs is always recommended if it facilitates the formulation of these needs, the collaboration between stakeholders and the validation process. Our guest speaker, Cherifa Liamani, Software Engineering Specialist for IBM Rational Software, presented how the Rational Requirements Composer (RRC) can assist analysts in accomplishing this efficiently. More specifically, she explored in more details the principles behind this critical phase of requirements engineering and she demonstrated these principles in the tool. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). November 12, 2008 - Software Development Process Modeling with MDA, SPEM and RMC The Object Management Group (OMG) is a consortium consisting of a broad range of research institutions, software companies and government organizations. The OMG promotes a concrete architecture for any Model Driven Development (MDD) called the Model Driven Architecture (MDA). The MDA provides us with a conceptual framework and a set of standards to express models and model relationships in a platform independent manner. One of these standards is called SPEM (Software and System Process Engineering Metamodel) which is an object-oriented specification which describes how to model a software process. Our guest speaker, Justin Kelleher, Independant Software Engineering Consultant, storyboarded the components of the MDA framework, as well as gave practical examples of how to use it. He described the main components of the SPEM and how it is used by the Rational Method Composer (RMC) along with describing the impact of SPEM on practitioners. This presentation was particularly useful to those who like to understand more about Model-Driven-Development standards or MDA and how they impact modelling efforts, especially when modelling software processes with RMC. Justin Kelleher has ten years of international experience in the IBM Rational domain space both as an independent consultant and with a large multinational telecommunications company. He recently submitted a doctorate on Requirement Engineering where he utilised MDA's and the SPEM in the evolution of new approaches to modelling different requirement scenarios. October 16, 2008 - Team Collaboration with Rational Team Concert (RTC) and Software Quality with Rational Quality Manager (RQM) Our guest speakers, Martin Morgentaler and Richard Cormier, Software Engineering Specialists for IBM Rational Software, first presented how Rational Team Concert (RTC) facilitates collaboration between the members of the software development team. They showed how RTC is built on top of Jazz, the new IBM Rational technology platform. Second, they presented how Rational Quality Manager (RQM) improves the quality of the delivered software. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). April 23, 2008 - Components of IBM Rational ClearCase: Multisite and ClearCase Remote Client (CCRC) Our guest speakers, Eugenio Picado and Patrick Dugal, Consultants for Xelaration Software, presented two components of the IBM Rational ClearCase solution: Multisite and ClearCase Remote Client (CCRC). They first introduced each component and they then described in what context each component should be used. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). February 27, 2008 - How to Improve Software Quality with the Test Solutions from IBM Rational Software Our guest speaker, Martin Morgentaler, Software Engineering Specialist for IBM Rational Software, presented the IBM Rational Software test solution and how this solution can improve the quality of a software application. He first introduced the different components of the solution: IBM Rational ClearQuest Test Manager, IBM Rational Manual Tester (RMT), IBM Rational Functional Tester (RFT), IBM Rational Performance Tester (RPT), IBM Rational Robot, IBM Rational SOA Tester and IBM Rational Keyword Driven Testing. He then demonstrated how these components integrate to develop high-quality software applications.

	2007 November 28, 2007 - Large-Scale IBM Rational ClearCase Unified Change Management (UCM) Implementation Strategies Our guest speakers, Eugenio Picado, Patrick Dugal and Serge Charbonneau, Consultants for Xelaration Software, shared their experience on large-scale IBM Rational ClearCase Unified Change Management (UCM) implementation strategies from many implementations they were involved in. Among other things, they provided guidance on how to organize the different IBM Rational ClearCase servers (for VOBs, views, licenses and registry), on how to automate the monitoring of these servers, and on how to perform efficient backups of the VOB servers. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). October 10, 2007 - How to Implement a Sound Business Application Modernization Strategy Our guest speaker, Stuart Milligan, Marketing Director for Databorough, presented the issues of business application modernization and discuss potential solutions. He provided the required elements to help organizations and individuals put a well researched and thought out modernization strategy in place. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). April 25, 2007 - How to use IBM Rational Method Composer (RMC) to Document a Software Development Process Our guest speaker, Jean-Louis Marechaux, Software Engineering Specialist for IBM Rational Software, presented how software development processes can be modeled with the IBM Rational Method Composer (RMC). He showed that RMC can be used to extend the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) or to document software development processes from scratch. He provided the audience with an understanding of the capabilities of the tool and a demonstration of these capabilities. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). February 28, 2007 - Latest version of the IBM Rational Software Suite of Tools Our guest speakers, Martin Morgentaler and Jean-Louis Marechaux, Software Engineering Specialists for IBM Rational Software, presented the latest version of the IBM Rational Software suite of tools including the ones built on the Eclipse platform. They provided the audience with an understanding of the purpose of each tool in the suite and how they all integrate together to automate the complete software development lifecycle. They also provided a demonstration of the tools in the suite. Click here to view the meeting first presentation (Adobe Reader required). Click here to view the meeting second presentation (Adobe Reader required). Click here to view the meeting third presentation (Adobe Reader required).

	2006 November 22, 2006 - How to Automate Requirements Traceability with IBM Rational RequisitePro Our guest speaker, Michel Blanchard, Independent Software Engineering Consultant, presented how to extend the basic capabilities of IBM Rational RequisitePro to automate requirements traceability. He provided the audience with an understanding on how to use the IBM Rational RequisitePro extensibility interface to extend the basic capabilities of the tool. He demonstrated such an extension that allows the automatic creation and update of traceability links between requirements. This presentation followed a presentation delivered by Eric Soulard at the Montreal Rational User Group meeting of May 9, 2006 on how to implement a sound traceability strategy. Click here to view the meeting presentation (in French) (Adobe Reader required). October 17, 2006 - How to Manage Project Portfolios with IBM Rational Portfolio Manager (RPM) Our guest speaker, Neil Leblanc, Consultant for IBM, presented how to manage project portfolios with the IBM Rational Portfolio Manager (RPM). He provided the audience with an understanding of Project and Portfolio Management (PPM), he highlighted the benefits of PPM and he described implementation possibilities followed by a demonstration of RPM. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required). May 9, 2006 - How to Implement a Sound Traceability Strategy Our guest speaker, Eric Soulard, Independent Process Engineering Consultant, presented how to implement a sound traceability strategy to manage requirements and other artifacts in the system/software product lifecycle. He demonstrated how traceability can provide a return that goes beyond the investment of its creation and maintenance. He described how traceability serves as a tool for ensuring complete coverage between different levels of abstraction and for analyzing the impact of requested changes. Click here to view the meeting presentation (in French) (Adobe Reader required). February 7, 2006 - IBM Rational Software Solutions for Implementing a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Our guest speaker, Ghyslain Cloutier, Software Engineering Specialist for IBM Rational Software, presented IBM Rational Software solutions for managing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) projects and operations. He described how the IBM Rational Software processes and tools, such as the IBM Rational Method Composer (RMC) and IBM WebSphere, can be applied to analyze, develop and deploy SOA solutions. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required).

	2005 November 8, 2005 - Case Studies on how IBM Rational Software Solutions were implemented at the National Bank of Canada and Loto-Quebec Our first guest speakers, Camille Biner, Patrick Pelletier and Louis Choiniere, Business Analysts for the National Bank of Canada, presented how they implemented a requirements management process based on the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) using IBM Rational RequisitePro, IBM Rational Software Modeler (RSM) and IBM Rational SoDA. Our second guest speaker, Jean-Sebastien Neveu, Consultant for Koserto, presented how he implemented a configuration management process using IBM Rational ClearCase at Loto-Quebec. Click here to view the Loto-Quebec presentation as presented at the meeting (Adobe Reader required). September 13, 2005 - How to Successfully Implement the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) Serge Charbonneau, Principal Consultant for Xelaration Software Corporation, presented the key elements to successfully implement the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) in a software engineering organization. He also presented different ways the RUP can be tailored to meet the specific needs of such an organization. Click here to view the meeting presentation (Adobe Reader required).

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