My sponsored new ISO standard work item has been approved for ISO/IEC 15504 Part 9. This will bring out a higher level standard that covers the requirements for practical process profile type methods.

After the Japan ISO plenary and an electronic editing workshop, the working draft has been issued as a draft technical report (DTR). This is the second last stage in the standardization process. The aim is to have the Technical Report by the end of this year. 

At the last ISO working group it was agreed to approve the working draft as a preliminary draft technical report, meaning that there is a first level consensus in the ISO committee.

A STARS one day workshop was run at the I E E E Professional Activities summit in Leuven, Belgium. This introduced participants to parts of the methodology via a business simulation and a variety of leadership and management activities. Participant quotes:

'I actually booked for another session but came to this session by chance and am pleased I did' Ronny.

'A really interesting view of management and leadership that I can use.' Hans

'Exceeded my expectations'. Ana

My good friends in USA, Netherlands and Poland have published:

Value-Added Partnering and Innovation in a Changing World.  ISBN 978-1-55753-513-9

through Purdue University Press in the United States. I contributed a chapter to the book.

Congratulations to Marina van Geenhuizen, Dariusz Trzmielak, Maciej Urbaniek and David Gibson !

An article on Practical Process Profiles is published in the November-December edition of the IEEE IT professional magazine.

Practical Process Profiles is the first methodology to specify how to create and use the second of the two dimensions (capability) in process assessment and improvement models including ISO/IEC 15504 (SPICE, Automotive SPICE, S4S) and CMMI. They can be tailored to industry and enterprise specific profiles, that reduce risk and improve quality. The book: Process Assessment and Improvement describes how Practical Process Profiles are created and used. The second edition of the process assessment books are available. Order now for delivery.

It also is fully compilant with the ISO 15504 part 9 standard, currently going through the ISO standardisation process.

The STARS Cafés with XING and IEEE in Zürich provided rich conversations and useful outputs for the participants. There have now been 3 XING STARS knowledge cafés. All the outputs are available on the website.

The café at Quatic in Lisbon, Portugal was enjoyed by all engaged participants.

Reach for the STARS article published in the American Society for Quality flagship magazine: Quality Progress - April 2007 in the Best Practice category.

Public STARS course: Leadership and Improvement with International Society for Quality Improvement.. http://www.isqi.org/asqf/deu/seminare/programm2007/80

A course with iSQI in Germany. http://www.isqi.org/asqf/deu/seminare/programm2007/81

Due to demand, a hardcover edition of the book: Reach for the STARS is now available.

Article published in the APEM Journal.   http://apem-journal.org/

Practical Process Profiles combines new methods of relating value creation and risks in order to determine which processes are most important to business performance. The basis for the method has been proven in a project used to set process profiles to optimise safety related software and system development.

Invited onto the editorial boards for the following refereed journals:

• Advanced Production Engineering and Management Journal
• International Journal of Design Engineering

Project management course using STARS to start at UBIS in Geneva.

IEEE Switzerland Executive

Schweizer Normen Verein

ISO JTC1/SC7 working group

Presentation: "Why order half a cup of coffee?"

Keynote on the 'Future of Quality'

Agile Software Project course