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Bill Walton

Bill Walton

Member for

25 years 6 months

Bill Walton has fifteen years of experience in software development organizations, mostly at large companies like IBM, Compaq Computers, and American Airlines/Sabre. He now works as an independent IT consultant specializing in project management, requirements definition, and software testing. He believes that advances in these areas are necessary to turn software development into a true engineering discipline. He welcomes comments, criticisms, and suggestions via email at [email protected].
 

Company
jstats incorporated
Job Function
Consulting
Industry
Business Services - Consulting - Non-profit
Interests
Software Testing
Country
United States
Bill Walton

Bill Walton has fifteen years of experience in software development organizations, mostly at large companies like IBM, Compaq Computers, and American Airlines/Sabre. He now works as an independent IT consultant specializing in project management, requirements definition, and software testing. He believes that advances in these areas are necessary to turn software development into a true engineering discipline. He welcomes comments, criticisms, and suggestions via email at [email protected].
 

All Articles by Bill Walton

All Stories by Bill Walton

Estimation IT Software Development The Estimation Fallacy in IT Software Development

Despite the fact that iterative approaches to software development are increasingly used, most of the people paying for IT software developmet have an expectation that we should be able to tell them—before coding starts—"what's it going to do, what's it going to cost, and when's it going to be ready?" This article exlains why that's an unattainable expectation and corrects the misleading "product-lifecycle-model" for estimating.
XP: That Dog Don't Hunt

Books, Web sites, conferences, and "experts" in Extreme Programming abound these days. The latest StickyMinds RoundTable is devoted to the subject. Agile methods have their critics as well. Read this week's column by Bill Walton for some of his objections to the latest approaches, and see if you agree.
Testing for Knowledge
Requirement Communication Matrix A Systematic Approach for More Effective Communication of Functional Requirements and Specifications

The communication of functional requirements and specifications is the most difficult, critical, and error-prone task in IT projects. Research has shown that projects that proceed to the construction and coding phase with missing or wrong functional requirements and specifications are almost certain to fail. To avoid missing or misunderstanding the requirements for a solution, and to avoid the development of systems to incorrect specifications, we need a systematic approach to capturing, organizing, and validating the functional requirements and specifications. In this article, Bill Walton offers such an approach.