CROSSWORK

 

Specification

 

Part 1: Project planning based on the case study (see Appendix) - worth 40%

 

You should then individually create a CoCoMo estimation for the project (I4) and conduct a Social, Legal and Ethical review of the project (I5).

 

Deliverables from part 1:

 

I1: Requirements specification (10 marks) I2: Design work (10 marks)

I4: CoCoMo (10 marks)

I5: Social, Legal and Ethical review of the project (10 marks)

 

 

Part 2: Management report for the production of an academic essay – worth 20%

 

NOTE: Your QA plan for the prroduction of your ESSAY in part 3

For this task you are required to perform some management for the production of a quality assurance on your essay part 3. You should document as a detailed section in your coursework how you will ensure both process and product quality, time management using project planning techniques and risk assessment. You should also include review of your plan once the work is complete.

 

Deliverables from part 2:

 

I6: QA plan with commercial risk assessment (10 marks) and time management (10 marks)

Part 3: Academic essay – worth 40%

You are to submit an academic style paper. Brief:

In his seminal paper “No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering¹” Fred

Brooks Jr. questioned whether there could be a “silver bullet” that could lay to rest the monsters of missed schedules, blown budgets and flawed products. He argued that software development is ultimately reliant on good designers and good managers and so advances in technology and methodology such as object-orientated analysis and design or programming languages can never give more than marginal gains. He concluded that “Building software will always be hard. There is inherently no silver bullet.”

 

However, that paper was written nearly thirty years ago and in that time there have been a number of advances which claim to specifically address the problems of large scale systems development.

 

You are to research and prepare a report on one of these techniques from the following list:

·      DevOps

·      The Open Groups Enterprise Architecture Framework (TOGAF)

 

Your report should be an academic style discussion that critically evaluates the technique’s value in light of software engineering’s inherent problems and concludes by discussing how far the technology does, or does not, go toward supporting the view expressed by Brooks in the quotation given above.

 

The report should have solid academic content and you should therefore base your discussion on at least one refereed paper from a leading computing or software engineering journal such as IEEE Software, IEEE Computing or Communications of the ACM.

 

The paper in Part 2 should following typical format of a formal academic paper. You may consider looking at the ‘information for authors’ found in all referred archived journals for examples of formatting and layout. An example of the IEEE style manual and article templates can be found at http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/authors_journals.html

 

The essay should be between 1,500 and 2,000 words arranged in the following order:

 

1          Title

2          Author name, degree program and email address

3          An abstract description of your paper,

4          The main body of your, suitably divided under headings and where necessary, sub-headings (for example, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusions, Evaluation, Future Work)

5          Acknowledgements (if any)

6          References (Harvard standard)

7          Appendices including a glossary of terms and list of acronyms used (if any). The paper in Section 2 should following typical format of a formal academic paper.

 

Deliverables from part 3:

I8: Academic essay

 

 

 

¹         Brooks Jr., F. P., “No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering”,

Computer, Vol. 20(4), (April 1987) pp. 10-19. (A copy of this can be found online)

 

Deliverable summary and checklist

 

The following deliverables are expected as part of this coursework. You can complete this table on your printed sheet to ensure that you have not forgotten to include any of the items.

 

Deliverable	Description	Marks awarded	Tick when completed
I1	Group requirements specification	10
I2	Group design work	10
I4	CoCoMo cost estimations	10
I5	Social, Legal and Ethical review of the project	10
I6	QA plan with commercial risk assessment	10
	Time management	10
I8	Academic essay
	Knowledge and Comprehension	8
	Analysis and Synthesis	8
	Evaluation	8
	Academic writing	8
	Overall	8

 

 

 

Appendix (coursework briefing document)

The Brief

Your company has been hired to improve the management of stores for a small chain of specialised supermarkets, called “MAST-Local”. The brief is to provide an information system for the store manager to monitor sales to optimise stock levels and place orders to the central office. Using sales information from the EPoS (electronic point of sales) checkout tills, the system should be able to provide reports of the daily sales, to be used for optimising stock levels and product ordering.

The first contact your sales team had with the company has identified the following information:

•                At the moment the MAST-Local stores use first generation tills that are not integrated and not linked to a stock control system. Store managers currently use spreadsheets to manage their stock control and pricing. Head office provides a web page for the store managers that lists products, prices and special offers or promotions. To order more products from head office the store manager normally fills in a paper form which they give to the weekly delivery driver who returns it to Head Office. Head office provide a web page for the store managers listing products, prices and special offers or promotions. Accounts and personnel systems are managed separately and there is a lot of manual re-typing of data from system to system.

•                Although the technical director is keen to develop the new system in-house, Mast does not currently have the resources to support this. They tried to implement an integrated EPoS system before. Unfortunately, the contracted firm grossly overshot the budgets and timescale. The project was therefore abandoned. The contractor folded and Mast was left with an unusable prototype system with no documentation.

•                All shops are run in a similar way, although it seems that there is very little communication between departments.

•                The company is very interested in loyalty schemes and the possibility of customer ordering/purchasing online.

Our sales team had identified the following people in MAST-Local who will be key to this project:

Michael Peterson: He is the CEO of MAST-Local. He has very little knowledge of IT systems. He is under great pressure from the board to modernise the company. He is concerned about the cost of the project and about security considerations. He picked the previous consultancy firm because he played golf with their manager. “Pity, he seemed like a decent chap” he said afterwards. Michael is very keen to get the new system working as soon as possible.

John Hacker: He is the director responsible for resources and logistics. He is also responsible for IT and has an IT background. His experience has been with System 3x and AS/400 series computers many years ago. He was involved with the previous, unsuccessful EPoS project. He feels that it did not work because other departments were not receptive to it. “The problem is that people do not want to change the way they do things. The system we built had some teething problems, but it was working just fine!”

George Manning: He is the manager of the store that the new system will be piloted on. He was involved in testing the previous system as well. “It was diabolical!” he says. “It wouldn’t let our operators do their job. For example, when you scanned something wrong, it would not let you change it!”. When the previous system finally ground to a halt, disgruntled customers started throwing food at each other. “You should see the cleaning bill we had to pay!” George says.

A series of separate meetings might be organised in which your team will have the opportunity to ask questions of these key people.

Memo from MAST-Local’s Sales and Marketing Director

 

From: Mariam.Martinez@MAST-Local.biz

Hi!

I understand you are involved with the MAST-Local’s new IT systems. I’m not sure what you need to know but Michael Peterson has asked me to give you a quick overview of the company.

 

Essentially we are a growing chain of local retail convenience stores up to 3,000 sq ft. Currently we have 50 stores but through acquisition our aim is to double in size every eighteen months. Our goal is to support the local store (‘Our Members’) reducing their costs and wastage whilst increasing their sales and profits with our buying power, nationally negotiated deals, marketing and distribution services. We are committed to acting as a socially responsible company and we are keen that our members support and enhance their local community. Each store manager has a lot of freedom to use local suppliers as well as our centrally sourced products.

 

As a company we provide our members with specialist business advice, support, marketing and training. As well as providing store image and fascia, instore signage and workwear, our experts recommend fixtures and fittings, equipment and services and help our members to optimise their space and store layout to create a unique shopper experience.

 

We have two warehouses: an ambient warehouse and one for fresh and frozen foods. From these we can deliver to our member stores within 24 hours of receiving an order. We can offer our members a range of over 4,000 products including 800 chilled, fresh, and frozen lines, drinks, confectionery, snacks, grocery, household and tobacco. We have 250 economy ‘own-brand’ lines.

 

Finally, we provide our members with regular promotions and exclusive offers on the biggest brands and the biggest sellers with promotional support packs, window posters and shelf barkers.

Please feel free to contact me if you require any further details. Kind regards,

Mariam Martinez,

Sales and Marketing Director.

Memo from MAST-Local’s Applications Manager

From: J.Hacker@MAST-Local.biz

Sir,

 

In answer to your questions:

Our office systems are all based on Microsoft Windows. About 40% of our desktop machines still run XP-SP2. We have a rolling programme to upgrade and standardise on Windows 7. There are no plans to move to Windows 8 though I have recently been made aware of a few ‘shadow IT’ systems running W8.

 

The finance and accounts department handle all supplier payments, billing, invoicing, payroll etc. using a bespoke Unix-based accounting package on a dedicated RS6000.

 

The product catalogue is a DB2 database. It includes a description of each product, price, max/min stock levels and the SKU (the unique product code – on the product as part of a bar code). We have added a rudimentary supply chain database to this which includes supplier details, lead times for supply of goods, delivery schedules and current depot stock levels. The marketing people maintain a promotions list on our system, which simply lists products and a promotion code – for example: 1=Buy-on-get-one-free, 2=25% off, 3=half price, 4= three-for-the-price-of-two, and so on.

 

All of our stores have electronic tills (EPoS) but there is no standardisation. Most use stand-alone Sharp or Casio tills with built-in credit card and bar-code readers which can store a basic list of products and prices and can save the daily transactions onto an SD card or USB stick.

 

We provide each shop with a desktop computer with MS-Office installed so the store managers can order products and get price lists.

 

Yours faithfully, John Hacker.

Grading Criteria

 

80-100 Exceptional

70-79 Excellent/very good

60-69 Good

50-59 Satisfactory

40-49 Fail

0-39 Fail

Exceptional

In addition to the criteria of excellent this level must show excellent referencing and the work has the possibility of publication; subject to suitable editing.

 

Excellent / Very good

In addition to the criteria of good work at this level must demonstrate significant substantiated critique, insight and academically sound assertions.

 

The QA plan contains both excellent project management and well specified quality objectives that are exceptional. Section 1 is complete.

 

Good

In addition to the criteria of satisfactory, this level this level demonstrates strong synthesis, analysis and application, knowledge and comprehension but somewhat weak critique.

The work provides some critique and insight but its not well supported by evidence or logic. Provides relevant contextual examples of the techniques to support the discussion, such examples are mostly based on evidence or sound logic. The combination of work demonstrates good synthesis and generates additional information beyond the original sources. Occasional strong academic assertions are made. The student demonstrates and clear analytical approach to answering the question posed.

 

The QA plan contains either good project management and somewhat relevant, well specified quality objectives or vice-versa. Section 1 is complete.

 

Satisfactory

This level demonstrates the occasional presentation of relevant knowledge and comprehension applied and contextualised to the question posed, absent or unsound synthesis, analysis and critique. The student demonstrates sufficient knowledge and comprehension. This includes the use of academic sources of information to present information accurately. The paper fails to make relevant examples and/or the examples are unsound.

 

The QA plan makes an attempt at project management and quality objectives but they are in places quite weak and erroneous. Deliverables are absent but those provided are of sufficient quality to warrant a pass.

 

Fail

This level demonstrates unsound presentation of relevant knowledge and comprehension applied and/or the presentation of material is not contextualised to the question posed, absent or unsound synthesis, analysis and critique. Does not demonstrate accurate reporting of information. The references are unsound. Does not answer the question posed.

 

The QA plan is incomplete. The plan does not provide project management and/or quality objectives. A factual presentation without application to the specific task of writing an academic paper warrants a failure.

YOUR ATTENTION IS ONCE AGAIN DRAWN TO THE UNIVERSITY RULES ON PLAGIARISM

 

Definitions

This is a level seven degree coursework and therefore, as well as a demonstrating that you have learnt some facts or skills, you are being assessed on your ability to research, think and reason and then articulate your findings and conclusions.

 

You will be assessed on the following points:

 

Knowledge & Comprehension:

·      A clear demonstration of background reading and research into the issues discussed.

·      A demonstration of your understanding of the field, i.e. clearly identifying and enumerating the fundamental issues, use of correct terminology and facts including knowledge of the existence and names of methods, classifications, abstractions, generalizations and theories.

·      Discussion summarizing the topic area and ability to extrapolate beyond the given situation.

·      Can explain or summarize information giving a good account of work done by others and reporting ideas intelligibly with accuracy and thoroughness and without introducing gross distortions

 

Analysis, Application & Synthesis

·      Able to apply abstractions in particular and concrete situations, e.g. use of examples to illustrate and support your argument.

·      General organizational structures can be identified

·      Assumptions can be recognized.

·      Can produce sensible, reasoned and substantiated criticism and suggest alternatives

·      Does not indulge in pointless and unsubstantiated criticism

·      Able to combine elements or parts in such a way as to produce a pattern or structure that was not clearly there before

 

Evaluation / critique

·      Demonstration of insight

·      A strong argument supporting or rejecting the technique with a sound conclusion given your stated premises.

·      Can make qualitative and quantitative judgments about the value of methods, processes or artefacts.

 

Consider how these will be met within your academic paper