Software Development Project
Spring Semester, 2011
DUE Friday, April 29, 2011 at 11:30 am

Phase 5 - Design and Construction of Final Version, Project History and Lessons Learned

In this phase you will complete and demonstrate your system and all accompanying documentation.   Your system deliverable will include all of the features and functionality you are going to implement.  You are advised to plan ahead and avoid last minute 24/7 development of your final work products. While last minute work under pressure may be effective for some individuals and even some teams at times, it is generally an ineffective way to complete complex team tasks. You leave yourself little slack for coordination and QA. The best prepared teams will finish development early and spend the final days finding and fixing defects and stabilizing their systems.

The project report must contain the following sections. Weights for credit are shown in parentheses. Your work must be complete, correct, convincing and in conformance with the instructions and guidelines given in the Phase Report Format and Professionalism section of the class syllabus.

1. Executive summary.

2. Implementation Status (5%)
Clearly indicate what intended functionality has been fully or partially implemented, and what remains incomplete. Identify and explain any deviations from your implementation plan from the previous phase. Specifically address all expected, but incomplete, work items. Why are they incomplete?

Describe any consequential changes you have made to your original project specification, design, or implementation plans. List all features, use cases, functional, or nonfunctional requirements that you have either added, dropped, or changed from your original proposal and implementation plan. Describe how the overall quality or integrity of your final system is enhanced or diminished as a result of these changes. 

3. Test Cases and Defect Report (15%)
All test cases from Phase 4 must be executed and the date of the test and the person running the test must be recorded. Report any test cases that fail to return the results as specified. Any test case from Phase 4 that is not executed without error (unless excused by the faculty advisor) may result in a substantial penalty on the overall project grade.

For each known error, omission, or defect remaining in your system, provide a brief description, rate its severity and describe its remedy together with an estimate of the developer effort required to fix it. Is this defect the result of faulty or incomplete analysis, design, implementation, project planning, project management, or what? Discuss how it impacts the overall performance of your system.

Estimate the number and severities of remaining (but unknown) defects in your system.
Explain your estimate.

Your defect report should be honest, complete, and thorough and based on the best QA methods your team can execute. Unreported defects found during the faculty review reflect poorly on the team and will be taken as evidence of incomplete or inadequate QA and team management and may significantly reduce the team's overall project grade.

4. Summary of final usability report (20%)
Create a final usability report based on properly conducted, formal tests with real test subjects. Find real subjects; do not use members of your partner team or others who are familiar with your system as test subjects. Describe the usability tests you conducted - the scenarios or scripts, the subjects, the conditions, the outcomes (your measurements or observations) and/or experimental results. Provide documentation of all protocols involved in your usability testing. List the problems found, their severity, and your responses to them.

5. Project Management Section (5%)
a. Time Accounting
b. Feasibility Update
c. QA Manager's Report
d. Project Metrics
e. Risk Management
f. Problem Status

6. Project History / Lessons Learned Section (25%)
This section documents the history of your project and the lessons you have learned this semester. This section will be copied and made available to future IS students and project teams. You are writing this section to help other IS students and teams learn from your experiences.  This section should include the following material, but adapted to your individual experiences as appropriate:
1. Description of the system you have implemented. Include sufficient narrative about the purposes of the system, its major stakeholders, its intended users, its benefits, etc. Summarize the capabilities your system provides to meet the needs of its users.
2. Overview of the implementation. Include details of the design, implementation and process appropriate for student readers to comprehend the development tools, methods, languages, specialized software and databases you worked with or developed. What challenges did you face? How did you solve these challenges?
3. Complete a Lessons Learned analysis - Your lessons learned should be realistic, appropriate, thoughtful and consequential.
4. Final assessment of overall quality (teamwork and process as well as technology), summary of all metrics and assessment of overall achievement. Discuss the relevance / usefulness of your team's project metrics (including cumulative time accounting) and the overall cost of quality. Discuss the effectiveness and quality of your team's process, communications, management, and ultimate deliverables. What have you really learned this term? What lessons would you pass on to future IS project teams? (We anticipate this section will be several pages in length, at a minimum). 
Submit an RTF, PDF or MS Word version of this section as well as an HTML version (for posting on the IS web site) with the archival materials, described in item 7 below. 

7. Individual Statement of Accomplishment (25%; credited to each student individually)
Each student on the team must submit a brief report (2-3 pages maximum) accurately summarizing his/her contributions (technical, project management, documentation, etc.) to the overall project. What did you do? How did you contribute to the ultimate project outcomes? Did you do your fair share of the intellectual work of the team? What lessons did you personally learn from this experience that you will carry forward to future projects or future teams?

8. Archival Materials (5%)
Turn in all archival material needed to preserve and/or recreate your system. These materials will not be returned to you. This includes the following:
a. Copies of all files needed to preserve and/or recreate your system. Include source code, online help files, copies of databases with substantial sample data, project or make files, installation files, and other appropriate files. This material should be turned in on suitable archival electronic media (CD, DVD, etc.).
b. A ReadMe, or equivalent file, fully explaining the archival material you have provided. Include instructions clearly explaining how to set up, recompile, or install your system. List all special hardware, software, compilers, operating systems, and other special considerations needed to successfully create a working version of your system.
c. Final versions of your user and technical documentation. These documents must be put in a separate binder with suitable cover pages. Include copies of these files on the archival media you submit with this phase.
d. Electronic copies (rtf or Word and HTML) of the Project History/Lessons Learned Section (see item 6 above). These copies may be on the same media as your files and documentation but should also be submitted on Blackboard.

Last Updated 01/01/2011 [rsw]