Software Development Process and Management

Question 1

Project management allows a company to…

Answer 1

understand project details (requirements, effort, cost, duration)
plan
measure
control

Question 2

What is The Project Management Institute?

Answer 2

A international organization accrediting project management certificates and promoting project management standards and best practices.

Question 3

What are the goals of project management?

Answer 3

Finish the project on budget, on time, and feature complete. It has to balance between Time, Feature, and Cost

Question 4

How does Project management help us with over budget issues?

Answer 4

Estimating the budget before a project starts

Monitor the progress and find how much a project has cost and how much more it will cost until completion

Question 5

How does Project management help us with projects going beyond the schedule?

Answer 5

Estimate the time needed before a project starts

Monitor the progress and find out how much time remains until completion

Question 6

How does Project management help us deliver all features?

Answer 6

Estimate what features can be developed in the given time and cost frame
Monitor progress and find out what features have bee completed, and which ones will be completed before the end of the project.
IF needed, re-negotiate features

Question 7

What are 2 ways of software project management? Describe them.

Answer 7

Conventional and Agile

In conventional, projects need initial commitment through bidding or contract. There must be a project plan with schedule, budget, risk, etc. It manages large teams with long projects. The contract is inflexible. Org is not willing to change org mindset

In Agile, there are smaller teams of typically no more than a dozen people. The initial commitment to schedule or budget. There is no customer or the customer is flexible

Question 8

What is a development process? Software development and project management rely heavily on this

Answer 8

A model that tells us how to build software. It defines the stages, their relationships, and the activities for them

Question 9

What is a lifecycle?

Answer 9

The entire life of a software as a sequence of activities

Question 10

What did software development looks like in the early days?

Answer 10

Code and test inputs and outputs. Do until done.

Question 11

In a _________ process, you cannot go back to a stage once you have completed it

Answer 11

waterfall

Question 12

When is waterfall development best used?

Answer 12

Building something that has been done before many times OR

Adding a feature to your existing software

Question 13

What are some problems with waterfall?

Answer 13

Late design breakage
Late risk resolution
Requirements driven functional decomposition (all requirements are equal and implemented exactly as the spec says)
Adversarial stakeholder relationships (subjective requirements reviews, contract disputes, etc)
Focus on documents and review meetings

Question 14

In waterfall, what can late design breakage lead to?

Answer 14

Band-aid solutions and quick fixes, resulting in a fragile and unmaintainable product

Question 15

In waterfall, what happens when we focus too much on documents?

Answer 15

Only small percentage understands the software
Only few real risks are exposed
Cannot confirm the compliancy of software
Only few critical drivers amongst hundreds of requirements
A design considered innocent until proven guilty

Question 16

Describe the incremental process of software development

Answer 16

You breakdown the design into builds that can stand alone

1. Implement and test first build
   2…N. Implement, integrate, and tests successive builds until product is complete
   N+1. Operations tests the product and either ships it or returns it to devs

Question 17

What are strengths of the incremental process?

Answer 17

Very fixed chunks
Conceptualizable
Fast Deliverables
Cheap $ outlays

Question 18

The iterative process (I&I) (spiral model) has what 4 stages that cycles?

Answer 18

Planning and analysis
Design
Implementation
Assessment

Question 19

What are the principles of I&I?

Answer 19

Architecture first approach (design and integration first, then production and test)
Iterative life-cycle process (risk control through ever-increasing function, performance, quality)
Component-based development (object oriented, visual modelling)
Change management environment (metrics, trends, process instrumentation)
Round-trip Engineering (complementary tools, integrated environments)

Question 20

An architecture is similar to a _______

Answer 20

blueprint

Question 21

In I&I, each iteration can take place one or more times in each phase of the ______ phases (inception, elaboration, construction, and transition)

Answer 21

project

Question 22

Why do conventional methods fail?

Answer 22

The customer don’t even know what they want, yet the conventional method assumes all requirements must be finished up front

Question 23

What do agile methodologies assume?

Answer 23

Your developers are good, so you should concentrate on solving organization and communications problems of your process

Question 24

What makes agile agile?

Answer 24

Agility in the development process such that reaction time to change is minimal

Question 25

Where should agile not be used?

Answer 25

Projects that require initial commitment (getting something done by certain time or budget
Customers unwilling to move ahead with high level requirements
Orgs that do not want to lose authority to the dev teams

Question 26

Agile operates in a ___ to ____ uncertainty range

Answer 26

low, mid

Question 27

The agile manifesto describe _ values and __ principles, which gives rise to many different practices determined by the agile method

Answer 27

4, 12

Question 28

What are the 4 values in the agile manifesto

Answer 28

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools (do not blindly follow rules)
2. Working software (that adds customer value) over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation (devs who always CYA are less productive)
4. Responding to change over following a plan (we do planning, but we adapt)

Question 29

What are the 12 values in the agile manifesto?

Answer 29

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly