A Shot in the Arm - Jason Burke on Health and Life Sciences

Does your organization use agile development?  For our health and life sciences solutions, we have historically relied on waterfall development: it is well understood, easily maps to regulatory requirements around traceability, and is conservative enough for commercial software companies to feel confident in the outcomes.  But waterfall places some assumptions and prerequisites on development processes that don't seem to fit anymore, so my team and I are implementing agile.  I mentioned in my education post a couple of weeks ago some team training related to agile methods.  Here's the scoop.

This week was designated Education Week by SAS' CEO Dr. Jim Goodnight.  For those that don't know, Dr. Goodnight is an outspoken supporter of education: he has endowed several college professorships; has made education the focus of SAS' philanthropy; launched the award-winning SAS® Curriculum Pathways® program of educational resources; and together with his wife co-founded an independent college preparatory day school called Cary Academy, a model school for integrating technology into all facets of education.  So where does education rate in your life?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've recently taken on responsibility for health and life sciences research and development here in SAS.  I have had (and continue to have) quite a bit to learn, and one of the people who has really gone above and beyond in helping me get up to speed is Tim Arthur.  As part of an ongoing series of blog posts where I interview different people across SAS about their projects, interests, and activities, I talk to Tim on what its like to try and keep complex SAS R&D projects on the right tracks.