About Capers Jones

Currently the president and CEO of Capers Jones & Associates LLC, Capers is the founder and former chairman of Software Productivity Research LLC (SPR) and holds the title of Chief Scientist Emeritus. He was awarded a life-time membership by the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG), was named as a distinguished advisor to the Consortium for IT Software Quality (CISQ), and is also a signatory of the software engineering method and theory group (SEMAT).
Capers Jones is a well-known author and international public speaker. His books include Assessment and Control of Software Risks (Prentice Hall 1994); Patterns of Software Systems Failure and Success; (International Thomson 1995), Software Quality (International Thomson 1997); Software Assessments, Benchmarks, and Best Practices (Addison Wesley Longman 2000), Software Cost Estimation, 2nd edition (McGraw Hill 2007) and Applied Software Measurement, 3rd edition; (McGraw Hill 2008). His latest technical book is Software Engineering Best Practices which was published by McGraw Hill in October of 2009.

Capers and his colleagues from SPR have collected historical data from hundreds of corporations and more than 30 government organizations. This historical data is a key resource for judging the effectiveness of software process improvement methods. The data is also a resource for the development of commercial software cost estimating tools such as SPQR/20™, Checkpoint™, KnowledgePlan™, and the new Software Risk Master early estimation tool and risk avoidance tool. This data is also widely cited in software litigation in cases where quality, productivity, and schedules are part of the proceedings. All of the data is recorded using the function point metric as defined by the International Function Point Users’ Group (IFPUG).

About Rex Black

With 25 years of software and systems engineering experience, Rex Black is president and principal consultant of RBCS, Inc., a leader in software, hardware, and systems testing. Rex specializes in working with clients to ensure complete satisfaction and positive ROI. He is the most prolific author practicing in the field of software testing today. His popular book, Managing the Testing Process, has sold over 25,000 copies around the world. Rex has also written three other books on testing - Critical Testing Processes, Foundations of Software Testing, and Pragmatic Software Testing.

In addition, he has written numerous articles and papers and has presented at hundreds of conferences and workshops around the world. Rex is the immediate past president of the International Software Testing Qualifications Board and the immediate past President of the American Software Testing Qualifications Board.