Dr. Dale Walter Karolak is an engineering director at TRW Automotive Electronics, where he is responsible for product development for domestic and international customers. His previous positions include software and systems engineering manager at ITT Aerospace/Communications, and software engineer at GTE Communications Systems R&D Laboratories. He is the creator of the Just-in-Time software developing methodology, holds a patent on the Communications Management System Architecture, and has three patents pending in software architecture and communication. Dr. Karolak has headed virtual software development ventures worldwide, including the US, Europe, and the Middle East. His projects typically involve domestic and international companies and project teams of from 10 to 70 members. At present, he is assessing a joint US-European project to produce an automotive safety-critical product, and is currently conducting a series of joint design reviews. Dr. Karolak received a PhD in software engineering from Union Institute, and MBA from the University of Phoenix, and a BS in computer science from Central Michigan University. He is the author of the IEEE Computer Society's bestseller Software Engineering Risk Management and developer of SERIM, the product that evolved from the book. Dr. Karolak is a frequent speaker at international conferences and has published widely in software management, metrics, reliability, quality, testing, and architecture. He is a member of the IEEE, IEEE Computer Society, ACM, and Society of Automotive Engineers. Dr. Karolak can be contacted at dkarolak@ieee.org