For the second year running, and following on from the success of 2007, KUGLER MAAG CIE is to organize the conference on Software Process Improvement (SPI) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This year’s long-awaited event will take place on 4th – 5th November 2008 in Budapest, Hungary. 

Last year over 90 participants from the sectors of Finance, IT, Telecommunications as well as the Automotive industry attended the conference from countries across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) including Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Russia. The participants had been attracted by a programme exclusively consisting of experience reports from both multinational organizations such as Motorola and Siemens VDO as well as small and medium enterprises from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). 

Once again, this conference will cover a whole range of experience reports from all across Europe including Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Turkey and across a wide sector of industries such as Automotive, Banking or Telecommunications from high-ranking companies such as HP, Motorola, Sabre Holdings and Thyssen Krupp Presta. 

Guests will have the opportunity to participate in lively panel sessions which will be organized around two hot topics namely, “Agile Development and CMMI: complementarity or contradiction” as well as “Software process improvement in mixed model environment”. 

Due to the high level of education and quality of software engineers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), many R&D centres from big multinational companies have been established and local companies are increasingly selling their services abroad (Nearshore development, IT outsourcing). However having first-class software engineers is only one of the factors for success in a project. The process capability of an organization strongly influences the final results. CEE “competitors” such as India or China have been undertaking program to improve the quality of their processes for years now. 

This conference serves as a forum for CEE companies to report and share their experiences in improving their software process capabilities. It also serves to raise awareness about the need for professional, mature processes as a key competitive weapon. 

“Software Process Improvement is gaining more and more momentum in CEE in order for companies to sustain their competitiveness against competition from India and China. Global companies wishing to outsource their development or those making software buying decision are increasingly using maturity models such as CMMI® or SPICE in order to assess risks related to their suppliers. Consequently more and more companies are implementing process improvement initiatives and eventually aiming for “certification”. We are therefore expecting a rise in the number of participants this year as the programme is a very relevant and attractive one”, commented Christophe Debou, Chairman of the conference and Director of Central and Eastern Europe at KUGLER MAAG CIE.

For further information and registration, see http://www.cee-spi.com/