ER Diagram

One Week

Writing

Design

As a software engineer you will often be required to design information systems based on a client’s requirements. It is your responsibility to ensure that the information system has the ability to store the required data in an efficient manner without any duplication. The ER diagram is an industry standard and provides a visual representation of the database design. The ER diagram is the focal point of communication with the client and should be easy to read, modify and capture all the constraints to be represented in the database.

N/A

Memo

Less than a week

Writing, reading

Researching software development methods and processes

You will likely be involved in some aspect of software development or acquisition in your internships and your career after graduation. This assignment will engage you in thinking about the way that software development projects are organized and managed. In addition, you likely will be asked to look for alternative problem solving approaches, summarize those to your supervisor, and make a recommendation. This is also a part of this assignment.

For small programs such as those you have done in class you can probably conceptualize the entire solution in your mind and write your code without a lot of pre-planning. But for larger computer systems that you will encounter in an internship or in your career, the solution can’t be done by a single person. These systems require teams of people who maybe be separated by distance and time. To solve large problems, in a team environment, requires a structured or organized process. We call that organized process a software development methodology. These roadmaps are called Software Development Methodologies. This seems like a straight-forward process, but many computer-systems have failed due to flaws in the process.

This assignment introduces contrasting software development methodologies so that you are aware that there are choices to be made and for you to think about which process you believe would be most likely help you to successfully complete the class project on time while meeting the needs of our client.

Write a memo to your supervisor in which you compare the waterfall approach with the iterative approach, and recommend an approach to use in our class project.

N/A

Javadocs

One Week

Writing

Class creation, documentation

Organizations write code that must be sufficiently documented in order for other team members (current and future) to use that code. Often, such documentation must be written using a given set of requirements (as defined by an employer or by some broader community).

In this assignment, you will be writing code, along with the documentation for that code. There are two kinds of standards for that documentation:

1. Technical standards: the documentation you write needs to be parsable by a piece of software that turns your comments into a web page. The Javadoc standards are documented on Oracle's web page, "How to Write Doc Comments for the Javadoc Tool"
2. Human standards: the documentation you write needs to be written in a grammatic style that is consistent with how others write similar documentation. The community style for these standards is documented on the same Oracle web page, in the "Style Guide" section.

N/A

black box test plan and results

Class Period

reading, writing

verification and validation

In industry, you may be asked to test a software product before customer delivery. Black box testing is typically done late in the development lifecycle, after a large portion of the functionality of a product is to be delivered. To ensure product quality, you will want to test your product using the product’s requirements as a guide. Additionally, you will want to report the results of your testing to the development team.

You may not always be in the same position as product tester, so you will want to ensure that your test cases can be run by your co-workers on future versions of the product.

N/A

SAMPLE SCENARIO – VERSION 1 (Presents the Elements in the Order on the Quick Guide for Scenarios) Introduction to Software Development Mark Hoffman, Quinnipiac University

PRIORITIZED BUG/ENHANCEMENT REPORT 1. Technical Task Using a Product Review Report and the customer requirements identified in a Customer Requirements Report, your team is to create a plan for completing a project. To create this plan, you are to do the following: ● Develop criteria to facilitate and justify bug and enhancement ranking. ● Create a prioritized list of bugs and enhancements. ● Estimate time and resources needed to fix each bug and implement each enhancement. ● Recommend the order in which bugs and enhancements should be developed to meet customer needs You work for an employer that has acquired another company. The acquired company had begun a project that your employer would like to complete. You are members of development team You are to create a three-to-five-page prioritized bug/enhancement report. Your development team’s project manager Using your report, the manager must develop a plan for completing the project. Therefore, she wants your report to answer the following questions: 1. What are the critical criteria that should be used to organize the development process? 2. How critical is each bug or enhancement to the development process? 3. What are the key features of each bug or enhancement? 4. What resources are required to fix each bug or implement each enhancement? 5. Does your team have the technical and communication abilities needed to complete his project? 6. Should I accept your team’s recommendations?

2. Professional Setting 3. Professional Role 4. Deliverable 5. Real-world Audience 6. How the Audience Will USE the Students’ Communication

SAMPLE SCENARIO – VERSION 2 (Presents the Elements in a Different Order than in the Quick Guide for Scenarios) Introduction to Software Development Mark Hoffman, Quinnipiac University

PRIORITIZED BUG/ENHANCEMENT REPORT Your project manager decided to continue development of a product begun but not completed by an acquired company. She has asked your development team to prepare a bug/enhancement report based on bugs identified in the Product Review Report and customer requirements identified in the Customer Requirements Report. YOUR DELIVERABLE Three-to-five-page prioritized bug/enhancement report. YOUR READER Your project manager. WHAT YOUR READER WILL DO WITH THE COMMUNICATIONS YOU PROVIDE The manager must develop a plan for completing the project. Therefore, she wants your report to answer the following questions: 1. What are the critical criteria that should be used to organize the development process? 2. How critical is each bug or enhancement to the development process? 3. What are the key features of each bug or enhancement? 4. What resources are required to fix each bug or implement each enhancement? 5. Does your team have the technical and communication abilities needed to complete his project? 6. Should I accept your team’s recommendations? You must answer these questions in a manner that helps the manager develop a plan efficiently. You must prepare a communication that persuades the manager that you have the technical knowledge required to plan a complex project. YOUR TASKS You must perform the following technical tasks: ● Develop criteria to facilitate and justify bug and enhancement ranking. ● Create a prioritized list of bugs and enhancements. ● Estimate time and resources needed to fix each bug and implement each enhancement. ● Recommend the order in which bugs and enhancements should be developed to meet customer needs. You must perform the following communication tasks: ● Write a report that helps the project manager make practical decisions efficiently. ● Write a report that builds the manager’s confidence in your team’s technical and communication abilities. ● Write a report that persuades the manger to accept your recommendation

2. Professional setting 3. Professional role for students (members of a development team 4. Deliverable 5. Real-world audience 6. How the reader will use the communication

1. Technical task



This column defines the high level of performance for each criterion

Usefulness to the real-world reader is SAMPLE RUBRIC consistently used Software Engineering for the Mark Hoffman, Quinnipiac University communication criteria
PRIORITIZED BUG/ENHANCEMENT REPORT Outstanding Tells the project manager that the report is a response to her request Includes all criteria from Product Review Report Includes all criteria from Customer Requirements Report 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Weak

This column defines the low levels of performance for each criterion

Criteria Introduction Criteria

Requires project manager to recall the context of the report Omits or misstates some criteria from Product Review Report Omits or misstates some criteria from Customer Requirements Report List omits some enhancements or priorities Reasons sometimes based on something other than criteria Design hinders easy comparison by project manager Recommendation does not match prioritized list Omits parallel action Omits some information project manager wants Includes unnecessary information project manager doesn’t need Uses colloquial style Several statements are unclear

Communication criterion is usefulness to the real-world reader. Technical criterion

Prioritized List

List includes all enhancements and bugs identified in the reports Reasons for all priorities based directly on the criteria Design enables project manager to compare the reasons easily

Technical criterion Communication criterion is usefulness to the real-world reader In addition to circling a level of performance, the instructor can write comments here Even selection of content is stated from the perspective of usefulness to realworld reader

Recommendation

Recommendation is consistent with the prioritized list Recommendation includes parallel work on different issues

Selection of Content

Includes all information project manager wants Includes nothing project manager doesn’t need

Prose Style

Uses a formal style All statements are clear



Bug Report

One Week

Writing, Speaking, Teaming

Bug identification

You work for an employer that has acquired another company. The
acquired company had begun a project that your employer would like to complete.

4-6

SAMPLE SCENARIO 2 Database Keith Frikken, Miami University

WRITTEN AND ORAL PROJECT SPECIFICATION AND PROPOSAL 1. Technical Task Your team is to create a new idea for a database, including a specification for it and a high-level plan for achieving it. The specification should be a document that describes the following: • Your project (for example, what application will you build and what features will be built). • Your application design for meeting project’s minimal requirements. The application design should include “screenshots.” You work for a company in which a single project manager supervises several teams that meet together frequently to discuss new and ongoing projects. You are members of one of the teams. You have the following deliverables: 1. A written specification that includes screenshots. 2. A five-minute presentation that shows screenshots. Your project manager and the other teams. Your manager and co-workers will decide whether it is worth pursuing the project further (i.e., is it worth the organization’s time to have you prepare a detailed proposal for the project). Your co-workers will compare your application design against your specification to determine whether your proposed design meets the minimal requirements of the specification.

2. Professional Setting 3. Professional Role 4. Deliverables

5. Real-world Audience 6. How the Audience Will USE the Students’ Communication



Brief formal presentation, initial project specifications

One Week

Teaming, Writing, Speaking

Databases

You are proposing a new idea to co-workers and your manager who are trying to consider if it is worth moving forward on the project. For this purpose, you need to write up the high level specification for the ‘idea’ in an initial version and prepare a short presentation. Your manager and co-workers need to be able to decide whether it is worth pursuing the project further (i.e., is it worth the organization’s time to have you prepare a detailed proposal for the project). Your co-workers will be trying to determine if the project meets the minimal specification that you are given.

4-6

Test specification

Class Period

Writing

software testing

Testing organization must write a test spec prior to testing a system

N/A