LINDA M. LAIRD is Adjunct Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, where she teaches Quantitative Software Engineering. Dr. Laird has more than thirty years of experience building and managing systems for Lucent Technologies, AT&T, and Bell Laboratories. M. CAROL BRENNAN is former vice president and general manager of the Quality and Operations Center at Telcordia Technologies, where she was responsible for design, development, and implementation of the Telcordia quality management system. She has more than twenty-five years of experience in software design, development, testing, performance, maintenance, and customer support as well as quality strategy, policy, and implementation.