Due: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 at 11:00 AM

Read Cockburn, Chapter 2.

Class Discussion
        Prepare two questions for discussion in class.  Turn in the text of
your questions
        with the rest of this assignment and also bring them to class.

Please turn in your answers to the following questions:

1. Projects Ingrid and Mentor Graphics had very different experiences
using C++.  Describe the differences and explain why or why not the use
of C++ was the cause of the different outcomes.  What did you learn
about management actions to help projects succeed or to allow them to
fail?  There are some very specific differences in management approach
in the two projects.

2.  If you were the manager of project Manfred, what would you have done
differently at the (a) beginning of the project? (b) during the project?
(c) toward the end of the project?  When answering remember that the
customer's main request all along was to make the program run faster. 
Note that simply directing the programmers to write code that runs
faster is unlikely to work unless you find a way to motivate them to
improve performance.

3. The Object Technology International project using Smalltalk was quite
successful.  What contributed to the success of this project that was
not present in Manfred?

4. Projects Reginald, Stanley and Tracy all failed for reasons that can
be perceived at the working level as frequent changes of direction by
management.  How would you use your knowledge of these cases to improve
the decisions you would make as a manager?

5. The discussion of Project Udall suggests several management decisions
that made important contributions to the success of this project.  Can
they be applied to most projects?  Answer by describing the situation,
the decision and the result and then explaining why the decision can be
used for other projects.

6. The material that is presented from page 23 to the end of Chapter 3,
could be viewed as a presentation on the advantages and risks associated
with using an object oriented approach to projects.  Suppose that you
heard this presentation while you were considering taking on the task of
managing and object oriented project.  For you, what are the three most
important reasons for running the project as an OO project?  What are
the three largest risks?

Answering the questions in a meaningful way requires some knowledge of
the background and experience of the team that will be working with you
on the project.  Select a range of experience and skill that you feel
comfortable with and describe it before answering the questions.

The management environment surrounding your work could also influence
your answers to the questions.  In some organizations, it could be
absolutely essential for the project to succeed under some criteria if
the technology is to continue to be used in your company.  It might also
be the case that the use of OO techniques is well established in your
company so quite different measure of success are used.  Describe the
place of your company in this range before answering the questions.

Your answer to this question looks something like this

I. Description of team members
II. Description of Management Approach and Expectations
III. Answers to the two questions.

Remember, you pick the first two answers and then select the parts of
the "presentation" that are most important to you with those people that
that management environment.

There is no unique answer to this question.  What's important is that
you give good reasons for your choices.