BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 1 Project Management Concept

Question 1
Syntax Tech Company provides software consultancy services to business clients, it focuses on selling
accounting software. The company consists of 4 different departments: sales and marketing, customer
services, information technology (IT) and finance. Each staff will be assigned to a department according
to his or her area of specialization and expertise. The sales and marketing department consists of 3 staff,
2 staff work in the customer service department, while 3 staff work in the finance department and 3
experienced staff work in the IT department. Each department is supervised by a functional manager
and each functional manager in turn reports to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

(a) Construct an organizational structure diagram for the Syntax Tech Company.

(b) Explain TWO (2) advantages of this organizational structure from the perspective of an employee.

Question 2
You are a project manager of an online education management system developed for a local college.
After communicating with the customer for collecting requirements, the following scope is defined: the
system will be used to manage communication between lecturer and students, uploading and
downloading learning materials (such as tutorial questions, lecture notes, assignments specifications),
make announcement, and assessing students’ assignments.

Construct a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the online education management system using an
outline numbering format. Assume that you have chosen the Waterfall software process model.

Question 3
T-Shirts2U is a small company which supplies and manufactures customized t-shirts. Since 2016, this
company has experienced a tremendous increase in its orders. However, the current system which is
partially automated is unable to keep up to pace its growth: it is unable to keep track of the orders
efficiently, it is unable to provide accurate information to the management on which item promotions
are more profitable and there have been mistakes in some of the order fulfillments. Assume that you
have been contracted by T-Shirts2U to develop a new ordering system for the company that will solve
the stated problems.

Discuss TWO (2) important factors that should be considered to assure the success of the above project.
Give reasons to support your answer.

Question 4
You are a project manager in a global project with a virtual team consisting of employees from Asian
Countries. Identify TWO (2) possible challenges in managing a global team as described in the
scenario.

1
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Question 5
Using a 10% discount rate, calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) and Return on investment (ROI) for
Project X and Project Y. Based on your calculations, suggest the most profitable project. Show your
calculation to justify your answer (round up discount factor to 4 decimal points).
Discount Rate: 10%
Project X Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total
Costs 100,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 -
Discount Factor 1

Discounted Costs 100,000

Benefits 0 100,000 120,000 100,000 -

Discount Factor 1
Discounted Benefits 0

NPV
ROI:
Use discounted value

Discount Rate: 10%

Project Y Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total
Costs 100,000 70,000 60,000 20,000 -
Discount Factor 1
Discounted Costs 100,000

Benefits 0 100,000 150,000 90,000 -

Discount Factor 1
Discounted Benefits 0

NPV
ROI:

Comment:

2
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 2: PROJECT PLANNING, CONTROL & PROCESS MODELS

Question 1
Case Study: Beamscope Canada, Inc.

Beamscope Canada, Inc. is an electronics distributor located in Scarborough, Ontario. In their manual
order processing system, when a customer called to place an order, the clerk would scribble it down,
run down the hall to the credit check guys and flip through files and folders to see if their credit was
okay. The clerk would then run to see whether Beamscope actually had the item in stock and then go
back to the telephone to confirm the order. There were two PCs at the company and they were doing
$93 million (Canadian dollars) worth of business. The phone orders were manually routed to the
warehouse, where they would sit for at least a week. Plus, it was hard to know what was actually in the
warehouse and where it was. It took Beamscope five to seven days to ship an order and very often, there
were mistakes made with the orders. In addition, products were collecting dust at Beamscope's physical
warehouses. It also took a long time to compile reports for senior management and by the time the
reports were printed, the information was already outdated.

The senior management at Beamscope envisioned a new system that not only takes on order entry but
also features a radio frequency bar-code system for inventory control, electronic data interchange and
a data warehouse for decision support. In the new system, customers can place orders themselves, check
the status of previous orders and download product literature. If an item is temporarily out of stock, the
system will suggest a substitute or put the customer on a list for back orders. The system will also allow
users to browse 120,000 square feet of shelves holding 8,500 different products in the company's two
warehouses. In addition, the new system is directly tied into United Parcel Service, Inc.'s electronic
shipping system.

Well-defined objectives should be specific, measureable, achievable, relevant, and time- constrained
(SMART). Consider the following initial objectives for Beamscope’s project to develop a new system
that automates their order processing, inventory and warehousing:
● to implement the new system on time and within budget;
● to design a system that is user-friendly;

Do these TWO (2) objectives fulfil the SMART criteria? Justify your answer. In addition, provide
examples of well-defined objectives for each of the above initial objectives.

Question 2
Your team has been assigned to handle the Beamscope’s project, duration is 24-months with a high-
budget project. The user requirements for the system are still uncertain but the company has committed
to a few departmental managers to be highly involved and provide consultation for this project. In
addition, the scale of the project is large and it entails the use of a new technology your team is
unfamiliar with.

Consider which software process model would you propose for the above project: Rapid Application
Development or Spiral model? Justify your answer.

3
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Question 3
Everything goes well until the tenth month of the project. The team seems slowed down and
demotivated although all the team members are seniors and experts in their professions. You have tried
to motivate the team with various corrective actions such as training, introducing incentives, reducing
workload, reassigning tasks, encouraging the team, and even increasing the supervision. Nevertheless,
the project is still behind schedule.

a) Identify ONE (1) previous corrective action that should NOT be applied on this team.

b) Suggest and explain TWO (2) other possible corrective actions to motivate the team to get back on
schedule.

Question 4
a) You are managing a project A with 12th month’s durations and now you are in 10thmonth. The planned
value (PV) for the 10th month is RM110,000. The actual cost (AC) of this project is RM115,000 with
80% of the work actually completed and the budget at completion for this project is RM 150,000.

You are required to show the steps in your calculation below:

● Calculate the Earned Value (EV), Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV) for the
projects. Comment on your project’s status based on the calculated results.
● Measure the cost efficiency and schedule efficiency of budgeted resources.

b) Given the following information in table below:

Table 1: Project A progress
Activity Estimated Duration Estimated Cost(RM) Status Earned Value
(month)
P 1 20,000 50%
Q 3 20,000 80%
R 2 30,000 80%
S 4 40,000 70%
T 4 45,000 60%
U 4 55,000 0
V 2 20,000 0
Total 20 -
Total 230,000
You are managing a project with 20th month’s durations and now you are in 10th month. The actual cost
(AC) spent for 10 months is RM 95,000. The budget at completion for project A is RM230,000.
• Calculate the Earned Value (EV), Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV) for the projects.
Comment on your project’s status based on the calculated results. You are required to show the
steps in your calculation.

Based on the results calculated on b), propose and explain ONE (1) corrective action to ensure the
project’s success.

4
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 3: Quality Management & Assurance

Question 1
“ISO 9001 applies to any organization, regardless of size or industry. More than one million
organizations from more than 160 countries have applied the ISO 9001 standard requirements to their
quality management systems. Organizations of all types and sizes find that using the ISO 9001 standard
helps them.” (Source: American Society for Quality)
Discuss THREE (3) reasons why an organization should comply to ISO 9001 standard.

Question 2
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
Suggest ONE (1) software quality attribute for Beamscope’s project (ordering and inventory control
system).

Question 3
Visit this website: https://www.infoq.com/articles/create-culture-quality, read the article.

Recommend and elaborate on TWO (2) actions to be carried out to create a quality culture in a software
development company.

Question 4
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
Propose TWO (2) product standards for Beamscope’s software development project and give reasons
to support your proposed product standards.

Question 5
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
Cleanroom software development is a technique that helps enhance software quality. Evaluate TWO
(2) advantages of this technique if it were to be implemented in Beamscope’s project.

5
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 4: Software Metrics

QUESTION 1
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
Proposed TWO (2) normalized metrics that would be appropriate for Beamscope’s project.
Provide justifications to support your answers.

QUESTION 2
Referring to Table 1, calculate the function points (FP) for the both projects. Show the steps in your
calculation. Round up your answer to 2 decimal places.
Table 1: Information domain values for Project A and B
Measurement parameters Weighting factor Project A’s Count Project B’s Count
Number of inputs Complex (5) 4 4
Number of outputs Simple (2) 6 5
Number of inquiries Average (4) 8 8
Number of files Average (3) 4 2
Number of external interfaces Simple (2) 2 1
The adjustment values ∑Fi for both projects 50 40

Function Point formula: Count Total x [0.65 + 0.01∑Fi]

Referring to Table 2, analyse the quality of project A and B using the normalized defects found and
pages of documentation. Using Function Point in normalization, show the details of your calculation.
Round up your answer to 2 decimal places. Evaluate which project has higher quality based on the
calculated result. Justify your answer.
Table 2: Defects found and documentation for Project A and B
Project A’s Count Project B’s Count
Defects found 90 70
Pages of documentation 120 130

QUESTION 3
Table 1 shows the size measurement of Project A and B.
Table 1: Project A and B size oriented measures
Non normalized Normalized with KLOC
Project A Project B Project A Project B
Total Line of Code (LOC) 306,000 256,000 - -
Errors 288 233
Defects 30 20
Page of Documentation 205 180
*Round up your answer to 4 decimal points.
KLOC is thousand line of code Round up your answer to 4 decimal points.

Complete the Table 1 column under “Normalized with KLOC” for both projects and compare both
projects. Which project has higher quality? Justify your answer.

QUESTION 4
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
The senior management considers security as the most important quality attribute that should be
included in the new system.

Identify and illustrate TWO (2) example metrics that may be used in the proposed system to measure
the proposed security attribute.

6
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 5: Risk Management

The risk categories are product size (PS), business impact(BU), process definition(PR), customer
characteristics(CU), development environment(DE), technology to be built(TE), as well as staff size
and experience(ST).
Risk management strategy considered as risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk reduction, risk mitigation,
or risk transfer.

Question 1
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
Differentiate the following risk management strategies with appropriate examples from the Beamscope
project: risk acceptance, risk mitigation and risk transfer.

Question 2
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
Beamscope’s project team has suggested that junior staff should be assigned with non-critical tasks so
that if anything goes wrong (e.g., late delivery of the assigned task), there will be no big impact towards
the project’s deadline.
Identify the TWO (2) strategies that can be used by the project team to manage the risk.

Question 3
Consider the following risk table in table 1: Risk Analysis
Risks Category Probability of Occurrence *Impact Risk Score

Unstable database TE 50% 3

Inadequate software architecture PR 30% 2
Errors caused by team members ST 60% 4
Constant changes in requirements PS 10% 1
*Impact values: 1 – negligible 2 – marginal 3 – critical 4 – catastrophic

a) Calculate the risk score for each risk, rank the risks according to their priority (i.e., from highest to
lowest risk scores). Show details of your working and round up your answer to 2 decimal places.
b) Propose ONE (1) risk management strategy for the risk with the highest priority that you identified
in part a).

Question 4
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1 & 2,
You are required to
a) Identify the TWO (2) potential risks for the Beamscope project from different categories and
impact value for each risk.
b) For each of the risks that you identified in part a),
• Identify and explain the category that the risk belongs to.
• Illustrate the impact to this project should the risk occur.
• Propose a suitable risk mitigation monitoring and management actions for each risk.
Risk log format as shown below:
Risk name Category Impact Risk Mitigation, Monitoring and Management activities
Mitigation:
Monitoring:
Management:
Impact values: 1 – negligible, 2 – marginal, 3 – critical , 4 – catastrophic

7
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 6 – Software Process Improvement

Question 1
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 1 Question 3,
Identify TWO (2) factors should be considered when carrying out software process improvement to the
Ordering System of T-Shirt 2U company.

Question 2
You are measuring a software process to solve an issue which is to shorten the development time of a
programmer. It was found that software development time always takes longer than planned. 2 main
areas that might contribute to the issue are: time required to finalize product requirements with
customers and requirement changes. Hence, you have identified 4 metrics in measuring these 2 areas
which are time taken for communication with customer, number of communication with customer and
pages of requirement documentation. On the other hand, you also found that your top management does
not agree with your findings and thus will not support your software improvement process (SPI) efforts
financially. Seeing that the management is not supportive, your colleagues appeared less cooperative in
giving you feedback when you tried to collect the data for process analysis.
a) Construct a Goal-Question-Metric paradigm to illustrate the software process improvement goal as
shorten the development time.
• Formulate TWO (2) questions to assess the given goal.
• Provide TWO (2) appropriate software metrics for each question you have listed.

b) You have decided to carry out the process change of SPI. Identify TWO (2) problems or difficulties
that you might face.

Question 3
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 1 Question 3,
Discuss any TWO (2) possible changes that you may implement to achieve software process
improvement for the T-Shirt2U project.

Question 4
Refer to the case study in Tutorial 2 Question 1,
During the execution of the project, the senior management at Beamscope finds that it is quite difficult
to trace the progress of the project.
Propose the TWO (2) most significant process attributes that the senior management has to consider
during the Software Process Improvement (SPI) activity with the major goal to improve the project’s
progress visibility.

8
BAIT3153 Software Project Management(Oct2021) Tutorials

Tutorial 7: Software Configuration Management

Question 1
In the context of version management,
a) Describe what is branching and merging, and explain how these two terms are related.
b) Describe the relationship between codelines and baselines

Question 2
System release is a version of a software system that is distributed to customers. Discuss TWO (2)
factors that you should consider when releasing a new version of software.

Question 3
One of the change management activities is to approve the change requests from stakeholders. Discuss
the factors that influence the decision on whether a change request should be approved

Tutorial 8: System Dependability & Critical System

Question 1
Compare and contrast safety and resilience of system dependability.

Question 2
Consider the following scenario:
“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first automated insulin-delivery system.
This represents a step toward a called artificial pancreas that could automatically regulate blood sugar
levels for people who have diabetes. The device made by the manufacturer Medtronic has been
approved to treat people with Type 1 diabetes who ages 14 and older.”
(Source: https://www.livescience.com/56305-automated-insulin-delivery-device-approved.html)

a) Identify any TWO (2) important dependability dimensions that apply to the automated insulin-
delivery system. Justify your answer.

b) Safety is an important quality attribute to the insulin-delivery system. Suggest TWO (2) appropriate
safety requirements.

Question 3
Give and describe TWO (2) examples of critical systems, which include a mission-critical system and
a business-critical system. For each system that you have given, assess which dimension of system
dependability is the most important. Provide justifications to support your answer.

Question 4
Discuss the importance of redundancy approach to a business-critical system. Explain your answer with
an example of business-critical system.