T-76.4115/5115 Software Development Process Framework

Jari Vanhanen

Contents

• T-76.4115 Software process framework• Project management• Requirements engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Course Arrangements

• Tools– MSDN AA

• accounts have been e-mailed to all students– Magic Draw UML Tool

• instructions have been e-mailed to project managers– Aalto Student Wiki launched 1.9.2010

• Mentors and peer groups will be assigned soon– see “Projects”-page

• Group names and home pages– e-mail to teacher

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Course Arrangements

• Contracts– all group members sign the same copy – choose correct IPR and NDA options– include project manager’s home address– DL 20.10. or as soon as possible

• e.g. companies may ask for NDAs• Jari Vanhanen, SoberIT, PL 19210, 00076 Aalto

Contents

• T-76.4115 Software process framework• Project management• Requirements engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Process Should Match the Context

• Typical challenges in the T-76.4115 context– no existing, common development culture within the team– varying level of experience between developers– physical and temporal distribution– project is done for an external customer– software will be maintained by other people

• Process is never ready– continuous improvement needed

Creating and improving the process (work practices, tools etc.) is part of project management/QA.

Have you already found other challenges?

T-76.4115 Software Process Framework

• Helps you plan how to do the work

• Includes educational aspects– trying certain practices in a real context

• Enforces certain crucial/good work practices• Allows lots of freedom (and responsibility) for

customization

• Minimizing risks requires some “overhead”

T-76.4115 Software Process Framework

• Guidelines and templates• Mandatory and recommended practices

– mandatory ones written as “group must do xxx” and summarized in Overview (Chapter 3)

http://www.soberit.hut.fi/T-76.4115/10-11/instructions/index_process.html

Check more materials from SoberIT’s SE courses.

T-76.4115 Framework vs. Agile Methods

• Agile sweet pots [Cockburn] match quite poorly the course context– experienced developers– 2-8 people in one room– on-site usage experts– one-month increments– fully automated regression tests (unit and/or functional tests)

• However, many agile practices are still useful

T-76.4115 Framework vs. Agile Methods

• Many agile practices are included in or can be adapted to the T-76.4115 framework– short iterations and sprints– iteration planning, iteration demos– project/iteration/ sprint backlogs– (daily)/weekly scrum– reflection workshops– all XP’s programming level practices may be adopted

• TDD, pair programming, collective ownership, coding standards, refactoring, continuous integration

– etc…

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T-76.4115 Framework vs. Traditional Methods• Some things borrowed from traditional methods

– more rigorous planning of project’s work methods– risk management – trying use cases for documenting requirements– more rigorous QA

• explicit quality goals• planning QA practices based on quality goals• trying a code review

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In real life there are also very large and/or quality critical projects that need more rigorous work methods.

Iterative Development

• Why iterations?– regular control points– force packaging the results

• remember testing and delivery!– enable giving feedback

It is recommended to split a course’s iteration into two sprints.

Software Process – Iterations

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Jari Vanhanen

Software Process – Iteration Planning

• Group and customer plan each iteration’s goals and deliverables – goals are higher level ideas of what is expected from the iteration– deliverables include software units and documents to be created/updated

• Customer selects and prioritizes iteration’s content based on– business importance– group’s effort allocation for the iteration– group’s rough effort estimates for implementing sw units – group’s estimates about architectural impact

• Group concretizes goals and deliverables into required tasks – re-planning, if task effort estimates and allocated resources differ largely

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Iteration planning meeting

Deadline for the PP Iteration plan Mo 4.10. 13:00 by e-mail to customer, mentor and teacher

Software Process – Iteration Demo

• Arranged in the end of each iteration– tell impossible dates/times (8:00-19) to the teacher immediately– at SoberIT (Innopoli 2)

• Participants– at least the critical members of the student group– customer, mentor, teacher, Accenture

• Group presents project status and iteration’s results including sw demo– 45 minutes including questions– slide set = progress report

• no need/time to present all content in detail

• Customer evaluates the work performed– private discussion about the given points with the mentor after the demo

Tip! Combine the next iteration planning meeting to

the iteration demo.

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Jari Vanhanen

Contents

• Software process framework• Project management• Requirement engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Project Management

• Planning– how are we going to do the work

• Tracking– noticing any deviations to the explicit or implicit plans

• Steering– reacting to the deviations

Content of T-76.4115 Project Plan

1. Introduction

2. Stakeholders and staffing

3. Goals

4. Resources

5. Work practices and tools

6. Phasing

7. Risk log

planning is more important than documenting its results, but documenting

is also needed in this kind of a project

• ”contract” with the customer• basis for tracking and

steering

Identify Stakeholders and Staffing

• External– customer representatives, mentor, 3rd parties

• Internal– project group and its roles– sub groups?

• Show the relationships between the stakeholders– e.g. organizational chart

• Contact information– emails, phones, skype, web pages etc.

You can rotate or change the assigned roles within the group.

Project Goals

• Defining goals– identify

• consider all stakeholders– resolve conflicts

• everyone’s commitment• manage expectations

– define verification criteria• objective vs. subjective

– prioritize• Goals and priorities change

– keep them up-to-date and document changes (and reasons)• Project’s results will be evaluated against project’s goals

Define personal learning goals separately!

Resources and Budget

• Personnel– 27h/credit/person - ~15h spent before the project

• -> 120-200h for project work + educational aspects– effort allocation per iteration

• how many hours per person– depends on roles, vacations etc.

• planning allocated vs. required vs. max. available?

• Materials– hardware and software resources– other materials (books etc.)

Work Practices and Tools

• Plan which practices and tools you will use and how– analyze the major challenges in the context of your project

• Document the practices shortly– all stakeholders need to know how work is done

• Continuous process improvement– reflection workshop in the end of iterations

• present action points in progress report– analyze practices in the final report

• Make sure the practices are deployed– and the usage is visible to the mentor

Increasing visibility to mentorusing low overhead approaches:

• build trust with the mentor• show him work products, e.g.

code review notes• invite him to work sessions• invite him to reflection

workshops

Phasing

• Iteration dates fixed

• Add important events to the general project schedule– internal milestones

• Plan tentative goals and deliverables for all iterations with the customer

• Tentative plan is refined during iteration planning– make PP iteration plan immediately

Communication

• Plan efficient communication channels between all stakeholders• Who needs what information and when?

– provide enough information, but avoid information overflow• How to ensure that everyone has received important information?• For example

– project Wiki/web pages• documents, online sw demos

– regular meetings– Skype conference calls– e-mail lists– discussion forum– status reports/project metrics

Time Tracking

• Purpose– managing resource usage (fixed

budget)– visibility for tracking project

progress– learning to estimate better

• Plan how and when– time reporting tool

• AgileFant, GoogleDocs, …

– personal reporting daily• reliability

– weekly summaries on web

Report all project related hours such as studying etc...

T-76.4115 Typical Effort Distribution

design; 8

documenting; 17

infrastructure; 4

meetings; 17programming; 32

proj. management; 8

studying; 8

testing; 6

Documenting

• Required documents– project plan

• including QA plan and description of work practices– requirements document – technical specification* – user’s manual*– progress reports (a slide set for the iteration demos)– final report

• Course provides some document templates– their use is mandatory, but irrelevant topics can be omitted

• Documentation practices– use a change log– clear and compact form– once and only once

• avoid duplication• use links/references• give IDs to items (reqs, tests, …)

– use spelling checker

• Document delivery– send URL to 1)customer, 2)mentor, 3)teacher– www-page must contain separate documents and a zip-package– DL is 1-2 days before iteration demo

Risk Management

• Risk identification– involve all stakeholders– use brainstorming and lists of typical risks

• Risk analyzing– for the most important risks analyze

• probability, severity• effects• controlling actions

– document risks to the risk log• Risk controlling

– implement controlling actions to avoid or reduce risks• Risk monitoring

– check the risk situation and status of controlling actions– update the risk log in the end PP and I1 iterations

Project Management - Hints

• Arrange a project kick-off– get to know each other– find out about each other’s commitments and personal interests– discuss roles and responsibilities– good team spirit is crucial

• Arrange a weekly, co-located work session– at least for sub teams

• Start work immediately in the beginning of iterations– more calendar time to react to unexpected situations

• Test unfamiliar technologies and tools early to minimize risks

• Spy on others to get ideas– projects from previous years/this year– give a reference, if you copy some materials

Software Process – Project Management

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Contents

• Software process framework• Project management• Requirement engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Requirements Engineering

Ensure that the project’s results solve the customer’s problem

Requirement types functional requirement

a required function or service of the system from the users’ point of view typically documented as use cases

non-functional requirement a required property

e.g. usability, performance, reliability, security, safety constraint

a limitation to the choices available to developers for implementing the system e.g. “the system must run on Windows”

ElicitationFind out using any possible means:

• business goals• main domain concepts

• user groups• requirements (on high level)

AnalysisAnalyze the gathered information.List identified requirements shortly.Estimate roughly: customer value,

effort, architectural impact.

AnalysisRe-estimate the “most important” requirements.

Iteration planningChoose iteration’s requirements.

RepresentationFind out the details of iteration’s requirements.

(Re-)AnalysisRe-estimate required effort.Ensure realism of the plan.

ValidationReview iteration’s requirements.

Get customer’s approval.

Implementation, QA, DeliveryCollect feedback from the customer.

I1&I2 Iterations PP Iteration

Ch

ang

e man

agem

ent, statu

s tracking

, tracing

In practice many activities are parallel and iterative!

Requirements Engineering

Other RE Activities

• Change management– requirements (refine, add, delete)– content of the iterations

• Status tracking– requirements’ statuses communicate project progress to the

customer

• Tracing– showing relationships between requirements and other artifacts

• e.g. test cases are often derived from requirements

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Contents

• Software process framework• Project management• Requirement engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Quality Assurance

• QA means here all practices that are used to– achieve the required level of quality in the end product– evaluate the actual achieved level of quality

Planning QA

• Identify the most important quality goals– among non-functional requirements, implicit customer expectations, project goals and risks – for which parts of the system are the goals relevant

• Choose QA practices based on the quality goals– testing levels, test types, other QA practices– mandatory QA practices include

• test case based functional testing (50%), unit testing, coding standard, a code review

• Plan when the QA practices are performed– plan concrete QA tasks during iteration planning

• Plan what QA materials are needed– test cases, test data, test logs, defects reports, tools, guidelines

• Plan the utilization of QA information– for evaluation of quality status, for convincing the customer

Functional Testing

• Test case based (TCB) testing– pre-designed test cases based on requirements– must be used for at least 50% of the functional requirements

• Exploratory testing (ET)– not defined in advance – continually adjusted plans and re-focusing on the most promising risk

areas– minimizes the time spent on documenting

• Managing ET - Session Based Test Management (SBTM)– 45-120 minutes– test session charters– exploration log

Reporting QA - Quality Goals and Practices• State of major quality goals• Contribution of each QA practice

Practice Main quality goals

functionality usabilitymaintain-

ability x y z

test case based functional testing

*** **

unit testing with JUNit * ***

coding standard***

code review* *

practice x

Quality:green = goodyellow = moderatered = badwhite = don’t know

Effect:*** = large effect** = moderate effect* = small effect<empty> = no effect

Reporting QA – Quality Status per Subsystem

Subsystem Quality Confidence Comments

File conversions 2 1 Only few minor defects found, very efficient

implementation.

GUI editor 0 Not started

Encoder 0 2 Carefully tested, 2 critical bugs found during last test round, lots of small problems.

Admin tools 1 2 Nothing serious yet

Quality:2 = good1 = moderate0 = bad<empty> = don’t know

Confidence:2 = high1= moderate0 = low

Consider also other relevant quality metrics such as defect counts,

code metrics...

Defect Tracking

• Defect = bug, change request, idea, …• Ensure that found defects are handled• Defect tracking process

– how any stakeholder can report defects – how to decide which reports will be implemented and when – who tests the implemented changes and when – possible links to requirements change management process

• Defect status– evaluate found defects before the end of each iteration– list open defects in the end of the project

Peer Testing

• Peer groups test each other’s systems in I2– any additional collaboration is highly recommended

• At least 8 hours of testing effort• Exploratory testing

– give at least two test session charters• Report findings

– exploration log– defects, ideas, etc.– summary

• Evaluate the value of the testing done by the peer group

Software Process – Quality Assurance

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Jari Vanhanen

Contents

• Software process framework• Project management• Requirement engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Design

• Architecture design– identify architecturally significant requirements– create architecture description

• based on the most significant requirements• at least functional and development views

– validate architecture• does it address the significant requirements

• Construction design– class diagrams– error handling– database schema definitions– …

• Documenting design– negotiate with the customer

Software Process – Design and Implementation

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Jari Vanhanen

Contents

• Software process framework• Project management• Requirement engineering• Quality assurance• Design & implementation• Iterations

Iterations - Project Planning (PP)

• Iteration planning– work plan for the next ~3 weeks– customer in a minor role compared to later

iterations

• Project planning– goals, resources, work practices

• Adoption of all relevant practices– communication– time tracking– requirements elicitation– …

• Requirements engineering– business goals, main domain concepts, user

groups– list of requirements

• name & short description

• Initial drafts of the system architecture– select the implementation technologies– technology prototypes?

• Iteration demo– project plan and main requirements– project status

Iterations - Implementation 1 (I1)

• Iteration planning– architectural importance– business value

• QA plan

• RE, design, implement, QA, delivery

• Decide about technical documentation– level of detail, format, …

Iterations - Implementation 2 (I2)

• Iteration planning

• RE, design, implement, QA– keep a demo to the customer also in the middle of the iteration

• Create the User’s manual

• Finalize technical documentation

• Delivery to the peer testing– fix critical defects

• Delivery to the customer– installation/training?

• Evaluate your work and the course

Other Practices

• In addition to the practices discussed in the process framework you may use any other relevant practices

• See for example the Recommended practices -document– Heuristic evaluation – Usability tests – Design patterns – Pair programming – Refactoring – Automated unit tests – Test-driven development – Test automation on system test level – …

http://www.soberit.hut.fi/T-76.4115/10-11/instructions/recommended_practices.html

Experience Exchange Sessions (EESs)

• Dates in the course schedule– first ones on Thursday 7.10.

• Send two proposals for discussion by previous day 13:00– teacher prepares agenda for the session

• Discussion language is Finnish• Two persons per group may participate• Innopoli 2, SoberIT seminar hall

Next Steps

• Arrange the first meetings– with the whole group, customer,

mentor

• Start project planning– roles and responsibilities– urgent work practices

• communication• time tracking

– iteration plan• DL Mo 4.10. 13:00

• Start requirements elicitation

• Sign the contract with Aalto