Welcome to Otto Vinter's Home Page

I call myself a Software Engineering Mentor because, through my many years of work in software development and software process improvement, I have achieved a comprehensive knowledge and experience on what works in practice and how the software development process can be improved. I am therefore in a position to help and support others with their projects and process improvement.

Process Improvement Areas

My knowledge and experience about improving development processes is found in these areas:

All the material on my web site may be used and copied provided that the source is stated clearly, and providing my copyright as well as that of others is respected.

In case you have supplementary knowledge, experiences - or need more information, feel free to contact me.

Seminars and Presentations

Only English spoken seminars and presentations are listed below. Danish spoken events can be found on my Danish homepage.

-- Currently no public English spoken seminars are planned. --

This is a list of my past seminars and presentations.

Return to top of page.

Experience Profile

I believe that a mentor should have both technical and personal insight in the area of his expertise. A mentor acts as story teller, guide, counsellor, support, and "bad conscience" for those who wish to improve their performance and ability to manage software development.

I try to live up to this label by giving papers at conferences and through company specific help, support, mentoring, and coaching. I have a long experience sparring with project managers in implementing their management and development processes more effectively. These processes can either be specific to the company or defined by an outside standard like CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model Integrated). In the latter case, I am certified for CMMI® version 1.2.

To supplement my software engineering experience, I am Belbin® Team Role accredited and perform assessments on the composition of (project) teams and how they can improve their collaboration. I am also one of the mentors for young engineers in the Association of Danish Engineers (IDA).

I teach master level classes in project management and process improvement (PRO & MPF) at Roskilde University (RUC) as an associate professor. Furthermore, I am an appointed external examiner for the computer science education at Danish universities.

For many years I have been used as an Expert Evaluator by the EU Commission for the framework programmes supporting research and development: IST (Information Society Technologies), specifically in the areas of: Software Systems and Services; FET-Proactive (Future and Emerging Technologies); Technology-enhanced Learning; and the Life Long Learning Programme (LLP).

Through this work I have acquired the knowledge to help companies prepare proposals for EU funding from the IT programmes. I have also been used by the EuroCenter of the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (Forsknings- og Innovationsstyrelsen) to perform free pre-evaluations of project proposals under these programmes in order to improve the probability of getting the proposals funded. Finally, I have personal experiences writing such proposals and execute the projects in practice to successful completion.

I perform specific research, development, and consultancy assignments in software process improvement as well as project- and organisational assessments using the ImprovAbility™ model which I am one of the developers of.

Previously, I was employed as senior consultant in the IT-Processes department of DELTA where I assisted companies with software process improvement, and performed research and development projects related to process improvement. Before DELTA, I achieved most of my experience as manager of Software Technology and Process Improvement projects at Brüel & Kjaer, a major measuring instrument manufacturer, headquartered in Naerum, Denmark with subsidiaries world-wide. I have been active in defining the software engineering standards, procedures, and methods, which to-day are part of the ISO 9001 quality management system of Brüel & Kjaer.

I have performed process improvement activities for more than 24 years and before that managed software development projects for 23 years. I received my Masters Degree in Computer Science from the Danish Technical University in 1968.

The following is a résumé of my experience profile:

Consultancy and coaching as software engineering mentor
Performing process improvement programmes in companies
Introduction of "best practice" in testing, requirements engineering, and software development models
Proposal evaluator for the European Commission IT Programmes
Preparing project proposals for funding by the EU IT Programmes
Seminar and conference speaker
Defect analysis to find "hot spots" in the software development process
Software quality management
Introduction of object-oriented methods in an organisation
Semantic data modelling for database systems
Management of large, real-time programming projects
Management of software development departments

This document contains my complete CV, and this my List of publications.

A sample appreciation of my work for the European Commission:

  Dear ... & Otto,
  I would like to thank you both for the quality of the report that you have produced for this review.
  For me your report reminds me why we need to consult experts externally and the value of such an exercise.
  Thank you very much.
  Regards,
  Brian Holmes
  Head of Unit, Lifelong Learning: Comenius, ICT and Learning

Return to top of home page.

Home Page -
Hjemmeside - vinter@ottovinter.dk