LEAD Laboratory for Enterprise Application Development

The beginning of the Fall semester is less than 3 weeks away, and so Harry Koehnemann and I have begun our ramp-up for this year's Software Enterprise projects. As you are probably familiar with by now, our Software Enterprise is a 4-course (2-year) sequence in which students participate in scalable software projects exercising best practices in software engineering.

I am writing to solicit your interest in sponsoring a project this year. Individual projects go through a 1-year cycle, with the Fall semester focusing on producing requirements and architectural baselines, and the Spring semester focusing on building and delivering the software. Last year was the first year we had external sponsors; in the Fall we had 7 projects, and 4 continued toward delivery in the Spring (there is often a few less Spring projects as some customers are only interested in the specifications, and we get lower Spring enrollments in the sequence).

This year Harry Koehnemann will be joining me in teaching one of the sections of the Enterprise, CST315. I am excited to have Harry on board; he brings a lot of technical expertise and industry experience to the table. This year we will be introducing IBM's Jazz environment as the IDE for the sequence under his leadership (there are no project constraints because of this decision).

Please let me know if you are interested in sponsoring a project. I have attached the 1-page Enterprise flyer some of you have seen, as well as last year's project kickoff document so you can get an idea of the course topics and project setup (we will make some slight mods this year). Participation on your end varies based on the nature of the project; I would suggest a minimum of 10 hours be spent with the team in meetings in during the Fall semester, and some small additional time to respond to email clarifications. I found that most sponsors were highly engaged last year and chose to spend much more time than the 10 hours, which was of great benefit to the students! The best projects are those for which you can articulate a vision (business need), but are not overly fleshed-out (the students focus on elicitation), nor on your critical path.

If sponsoring a project is not a good fit for you, please consider these other ways you and your organization may help the Enterprise:

• Serve as a "project mentor". Thanks to Musab Saleh for this idea. As you can see from the project kickoff document, in addition to being the instructor, I take on several external roles, including technical and professional mentorship. This is both time-consuming and awkward; as their instructor student teams often do not approach me with their problems because they fear grade ramifications. A working professional advising team could better mentor student teams, and gives those not sponsoring projects a rewarding experience by working directly with students.
• Participate in Enterprise class sessions by giving a "real-world" guest lecture or sitting on an industry panel. Many of you employ the best practices we teach in your organizations. Real-world presentations that describe how to put these strategies into use in practicable projects and organizations provides reinforcement that professors, as the "sage on the stage" cannot provide. Industry panels on relevant topics (remember the globalization discussion that started at our 1st DEAC meeting?) expose students to industry issues with current topics.
• Consider sponsoring the Enterprise. Yes, this means money, but this money can be put to good use. Funding can take many forms. Currently I support server computing environments using my research servers; I do not servers dedicated to teaching. We also are rarely provided with lab assistants to support tools and servers (a function of ASU economics) but as you can see we are very tool-reliant. Student meetings (student status presentations, guest lectures, industry panels) seem more lively when the students are fed and given caffeine (go figure!). Students and instructors are not reimbursed for local travel to your site. Some projects require special software licenses. The list goes on and on, but I believe in full transparency so you know how your money can be put to good use.

I am at your disposal if you have questions, my contact information is below. I also hope to discuss the Enterprise some in our next DEAC meeting, August 7, 8:30-10:30 in the ASU Research Park.

Best regards,
Kevin Gary