Westfall Weekly Webinars

QA vs. QC vs. QM vs. QE presented by Robin Goldsmith

March 18, 2026, at 12:01 pm Central

What’s in a name?  Many similar-sounding terms are applied to various aspects of software quality, often inconsistently and incorrectly,  which can impact quality outcomes and effectiveness.  For instance, many who are called “Quality Assurance (QA)” actually do Quality Control (QC), which can mean the organization fails to receive real QA’s benefits.  Similar issues pertain to “Quality Management (QM)” and “Quality Engineering (QE).”  This interactive session explains and differentiates these important terms.

• How terminology issues impact Quality outcomes and effectiveness
• Distinguishing QA, QC, QM, and QE
• Gaining respective benefits of each without undue overhead

Levels & Types of Requirements

Presented by: Linda Westfall

Most software practitioners just talk about "the requirements" as if they were one big set. However, by recognizing that requirements come in different levels and types, practitioners gain a better understanding of the information they need when defining their software requirements.  

Business-level requirements define the business problems to be solved or the business opportunities to be addressed by the software product.  

Stakeholder-level requirements define the value-added needs of the various stakeholders of the software, including:
    - Functionality - what do the stakeholders need to do (or not do) using the software 
    - Business rules - what does the software need to adhere to
    - Quality attributes - what does the software need to be

There may be multiple ways to meet the stakeholder-level requirements. The product-level requirements define the choices of what the software product will be when built, including:
    - Product functional requirements
    - Product attributes requirements
    - External interface requirement
    - Data & information requirements
    - Design constraints

Available free until 05/10/2026
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Requirements Traps AI Probably Won’t Avoid

Presented by:  Robin Goldsmith

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is only as smart (or dumb) as the humans it learns from.  When defining requirements, unfortunately, humans (and thus AI) fall into common traps, which often masquerade as conventional wisdom.  Over-relying on AI to accurately identify requirements, especially without awareness of potential pitfalls, can create serious problems.  Learn about them in this interactive session so you can avoid them, including:
-  How AI “learns”
-  How conventional wisdom can skew AI’s learning
-  Common requirements that you can’t rely on AI to avoid

Available Free Until: 05/03/2026
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Value Driven Objectives: Creating Clarity On Value In A Way That Rework Is Minimized 

Presented by: Al Shalloway
Value-Driven Objectives is not new in the sense that its components have all been validated for decades. These include: 
- using Tom Gilb’s focus on the values, success criteria, and constraints of critical stakeholders to guide us in what value really is 
- using jobs to be done to provide us a lens on how the stakeholders of a system will use it 
- a focus on objectives so that as we learn more, we create very rework 
- design thinking’s perspective of not looking for solutions to problem as much as discovering what our objectives truly are 
- human-centered design to create products that are intuitive 
- an attention to create in small increments to provide feedback on how well the product is emerging 
 
While this may sound overwhelming at first, the perspectives of these proven methods fit together well. This enables the sum of the parts to not only be greater than the whole, but easier to learn. 

This event presents the perspective shift each of these facets facilitates. This provides immediate insights on what to do.  It’s a shift of focus to 
- stakeholders 
- how they work 
- what value needs to be created 
- the real issues at hand 
- the users instead of the system 
- avoiding rework in complex situations. 

Available Free Until: 04/26/2026
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What Auditors Wish Engineers Knew: A Pragmatic Guide to Demonstrating Secure Software 

Presented by: Kabrina Ashley

Security audits often feel like a mysterious black box to engineering teams—full of checklists, findings, and requests that seem disconnected from day to day development. In this session, a longtime auditor of software products and suppliers pulls back the curtain on how security is evaluated in practice. We’ll explore what evidence auditors look for and the common pitfalls that slow teams down or create unnecessary risk. Engineers will learn how to document and deliver software in ways that stand up to scrutiny, reduce friction during assessments, and ultimately strengthen the security posture of their products. Expect practical examples, real world lessons, and clear guidance you can apply immediately.

Available Free Until: 04/19/2026

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Auditing the Software Development Lifecycle Using AI Tools

Presented by: Monica Chis

Auditing the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) with AI tools involves evaluating how AI is being used across each SDLC phase, ensuring that the use is effective, ethical, compliant, and aligned with best practices.

Attendees will:
- Understand how AI tools change SDLC practices
- Understand audit criteria for responsible AI use in development
- Know how to structure an SDLC audit using AI tools
- Use templates to perform effective AI-SDLC audits

Available Free Until: 04/12/2026
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Making Auditing and Assessment Work

Presented by: Tom Gilb

** Video Editing in Progress** 

The collection of methods, which I will present are many decades old, and were pioneered by IBM for internal use. Published in IBM Systems Journal as early as 1980. But they are today largely unknown, and not taught at university, or at private institutions (like Scrum Inc., PMI, ASQ).  

The methods are:
1.    Specification Quality Control  SQC (earlier method variants were called Software Inspection)
2.    Defect Prevention Process, DPP
3.    Entry-Task-Exit (ETX).
4.    Planguage: which gives supporting artifacts such as Processes, Policies, Principles, Rules, Checklists, and specific Entry and Exit Conditions.

These methods have been practiced on a large scale (thousands of engineers, decades of practice), and results data published by IBM, HP, Intel, Boeing, Ericsson and other clients of mine. 

This talk will present, and outline, the methods, and provide you, the participant,  with detailed free books on the subjects.

The key book, you can have now: Competitive Engineering,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237129623_Competitive_Engineering_A_Handbook_for_Systems_Engineering

After the Audit Report

Presented by: Linda Westfall

What should happen after the audit report is published?  During this webinar, you will learn:
- The roles and responsibilities of  the audit participant  after the publication of the audit report
- What audit findings require corrective actions
- The steps in performing corrective action
- Why the lead auditor reviews the corrective action plans
- How to close the audit

Available Free Until: 3/25/26
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Agile Quality (Assurance) Practices

Presented by: Scott Duncan

Scott Duncan will speak on how Agile practices can contribute to quality, especially its assurance. Scott has presented this before, but will offer different perspectives from what he has in the past given the evolution in team behaviors. Included will be some thoughts about four things to consider, even before adopting Agile practices.

Available Free Until: 03/18/26
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