CSCI 521 Final Exam Review

Why Establish a Standard Process? It is nearly impossible to have a high quality product without a high quality process. Standard set of activities leads to better estimation Standard roles leads to improved communication and training etc…

Customer's Process Why, if at all, should we spend time analyzing how the customer does their work? What are the first questions you should ask and why?

Goal Statement Manages expectations and helps limit scope Measurable Short Communicated

Standard Documents SOW - Statement of Work Project Management Plan WBS - Work Breakdown Structure – inside the PMP – used for planning, estimation, etc. – probably only 2 or 3 levels deep

Estimation Techniques Analogy Decomposition Methods – lines of code – function points Empirical Methods

Accuracy of Estimate is based on: Accuracy of Estimate is based on: degree to which the planner has properly estimated the size of the product ability to translate a size estimate to a time estimate degree to which the project plan reflects the abilities of the software team stability of product requirements and project environment Software Engineering: Practitioner's Approach by Pressman

Team Selection A successful project requires: 1.quality people  hire for trait, train for skills 2.effective use of individuals – match tasks with personality – give authority to those with responsibility – make responsibilities crystal clear

How to build a schedule: 1.Determine dependencies of activities found in WBS. 2.Use dependencies to build activity network diagram (eg PERT). 3.Perform resource leveling and consider uncertainty. 4.Insert Milestones 5.Map network to a timeline (eg Gantt Chart) using the effort estimates. Use a software tool to help do this work.

Types of Requirements Functional –ex - it must the sales manager when an inventory item is "low" Non-Functional –ex - it must require less than one hour to run Explicit –ex – required features Implied –ex – software quality Forgotten –ex – exists in current process Unimagined

Req Gathering Problems Accommodating changing reqs Being complete, without being constraining Conflicting views Ease of omitting obvious info Identifying the experts and getting authority to talk to people Incomplete understanding of the problem on the part of the user/customer Sticking with “what” and not “how” Determining what is critical Avoiding mission creep

Characteristics of Good Requirements 1.Unambiguous 2.Complete 3.Verifiable, Measurable 4.Modifiable 5.Traceable 6.Prioritized

Risks RE = likelihood x impact RRL = RE = risk exposure RRL = risk reduction leverage RE before – RE after risk reduction cost

Metrics Product Metrics – direct measures - number of bugs, LOC – indirect measures - usability, maintainability Project and Process Metrics – direct measures - costs, LOC per month – indirect measures - quality, reliability

Goals of Configuration Management Identify Change Control Change Stability vs Progress Ensure Change is Properly Implemented

Baselines What is a baseline? Baseline change control process – change request form Config Management Tools Features

SQA Activities Contract Review Formal Technical Reviews Peer Inspections – driven by checklists, coding standards, etc Work Instructions Statistical SQA

Statistical SQA, six sigma, TQM, et.al. Goal is to remove cause of problems Data Gathering – bug reports – customer feedback – random sampling Categorize problems, then trace the critical 20% back to their root cause Control Charts, Scatter Charts

Test Management When to White Box. When to use Black Box. Stop testing when cost of finding and removing errors today is more expensive than releasing the product and fixing errors during maintenance. Laws of Testing: – someone else should test your code – complete test coverage is impossible Test Plan: what to test, when to test, what is acceptable… Keep Records of types of errors found

Maintenance Types of Maintenance – Corrective – Adaptive – Perfective Does software wear out? How do we reduce maintenance costs?

CMM Levels 1.Initial 2.Repeatable o past successes can be repeated 3.Defined o each project uses a tailored version of a standard process 4.Managed o Quantitative Quality Goals 5.Optimizing o major focus on eliminating waste in the process