As of January 2000, California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), will sponsor the Southern California Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN). Its first corporate cosponsor under the CSULB sponsorship is Northrop Grumman. The Southern California SPIN was formerly sponsored by the Irvine Research Unit in Software at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Monthly meetings/presentations will now be held on the Cal State Long Beach campus in the Pyramid events facility. The next meeting is scheduled for January 28, 2000 from 9 a.m. to noon. The meeting topic is MBASE, presented by Dr. Barry Boehm, Center for Software Engineering, USC. Cost is $20 for participants (from non-sponsor organizations). CSULB students will be admitted free with current ID, and no reservations are required.
Brief history of SPIN
In 1990, UCI chartered the Irvine Research Unit in Software (IRUS) to help the software industry meet its technical challenges. As part of the support provided by IRUS, the sponsorship of the Southern California SPIN was taken on by IRUS approximately seven and one-half years ago. On July 1, 1999, the University of California approved IRUS’ proposal to become an organized research unit, known as the Institute for Software Research (ISR). Since the primary focus of ISR is on applied software research, not process improvement, the Southern California SPIN will not continue under the ISR banner. In fact, the December 3, 1999 meeting was the final SPIN meeting sponsored through UC Irvine.
The search for a new SPIN sponsor
The challenge of securing a new sponsor was undertaken by the Steering Committee of the SPIN at its meeting on July 30, 1999. The committee formed a search subcommittee comprised of members from Boeing, TRW, Northrop Grumman and Logicon, as well as Jean Tyson, a self-employed consultant.
The subcommittee began working on several activities, which included the following:
– Identifying possible sponsor replacements, including UC Irvine Extension Services, California State University at Fullerton (CSUF), CSULB, Cal Poly Pomona, Azusa Pacific and one private industry organization;
– Developing an invitation to bid on the sponsorship and providing it to each of the organizations pursuing the position;
– Developing a rating system to help analyze the information supplied by the potential sponsors; and
– Conducting interviews and voting on the sponsor candidates.
As a result of this process, two candidates emerged as the interviewing cycle began,Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton.
On Wednesday November 24th the voting for the new sponsor took place and CSULB was named the new sponsor effective January 2000. George O’Mary of Boeing explained, “Both universities had much to offer SPIN; however [there were] a few of the reasons CSULB won out over CSUF. One of CSULB’s major strengths was the offering of a financial plan for the continuance of the SPIN, whereas CSUF failed to offer a solid financial plan to the Steering Committee. While the facilities offered by both universities were five-star, traffic congestion getting to CSUF’s Garden Grove site was perceived as a large potential problem,nearness to the Orange Crush. Long Beach had an important advantage because they had attended the SPIN and participated in the steering committee consistently for several years; CSUF lacks a history of contacts with SPIN and SPIN member companies. CSULB also has an existing software process improvement training program (SSEFT Systems and Software Engineering Forum for Training) that has been well received by local companies.”
Recruitment of corporate cosponsors, like Northrop Grumman, will be ongoing. “For a modest contribution, companies can insure that their employees will continue to benefit from attendance at SPIN meetings/presentations,” said George O’Mary at a recent presentation. “These corporate cosponsors will be featured in all marketing we do for SPIN in print, on television, on the Web, in our catalogs, etc. We will also have individual sponsorships available.”
For further information on SPIN cosponsorship, contact Cynthia Parish at (562) 985-8441, or e-mail spin@uces.csulb.edu. Information is also available on the Web at www.uces.csulb.edu/spin.
