For topics on systems development life cycle, the focus continues to be on the consumer/ customer and the business manager.
For this, first we focus on system failures, several causes are analyzed and expectations are set. We also talk about how trends in software systems influence the methodologies for development and delivery. Overall, life cycle structure is still the same. How Service oriented architecture influences software development stages is a topic taken up depending on the audience interest.
Next, we move on to understanding how business needs and applications translate to systems applications and how information systems planning is done. The need for frameworks and methodologies due to the intangible nature of systems development is highlighted here.
As for SDLC, emphasis is on the incremental, iterative development of information systems with feedback cycles.
Open source, outsourcing are introduced as topics for choices to experimenting and building software. A little on enterprise challenges to manage these is also touched upon.
As people, my audience no longer ask "why outsourcing, affect on jobs". They accept this as part of global delivery model for software systems.
We discuss topics like partnership issues, knowledge transfer barriers, decisions for outsourcing.. here.
As for Open source, we discuss the motivations of people to participate in open source activities, the challenges for the enterprise and how established vendors participate in this.
I emphasize Systems thinking and analysis as the tools for informed decision making. It is interesting how feasibility study for the audience who work with small apps and applications is just a thought process and doesn't require much time and study compared to a defense systems project.
Project management principles are introduced highlighting the triple constraints (scope, quality and time). Influence of bias and heuristics on decision making is discussed. How project management itself underwent changes to take the route towards controlling and monitoring.
