Assignment Question
1. Find a research report from your area of specialisation which is approximately around 150-
300 pages and evaluate it using criteria we discussed in today’s lecture. Please feel free to
refer to the lecture slides. Please make sure to answer the following questions together with
other criteria discussed in 2 to 5 pages with 1.5 spacing.
A. Comment on the specificity of the research questions and whether the report
addresses the questions it sets out to.
B. Comment on the layout of the report and how individual chapters are related to
each other. Is it a coherent way or suggest improvements to the layout and discuss in
detail as to why they are essential.
C. Is the report clear about the scope of research? Does it state its limitations and leave
readers with interesting avenues of research?
You are about to develop an app that analyses data from software repository and makes predictions
about the technical debt contained in the next release. You created a system specification and made
Function Point estimate resulting in 500 unadjusted Function Points.
You make the following assumptions about the organizational and project context:
Your development organization/team has a thorough understanding of the product objectives and
much experience in working with similar systems. There is neither a need for concurrent hardware
development nor a need for developing new/innovative data processing algorithms. (PREC = Extra
High)
There is no (or little) need for conformance with pre-established requirements and external interface
specifications. You use the ‘no rush’ rule in your development teams. (FLEX = Extra High)
Your Architecture/Risk resolution is average with few (2-4) critical risk items (RESL = Nominal)
All involved stakeholders share a common vision of the product to be developed as well as a
common communication and cooperation culture. There exists a well-established trust relationship
among all stakeholders. (TEAM = Extra High)
Your organization has a maturity corresponding to a CMMI level of 3. (PMAT = High)
You make the following assumptions about the product to be developed:
If the predictions produced by the app are repeatedly inaccurate, this could imply a major financial
loss. (RELY = High)
There is no or very little need for code reuse of the app to be developed (RUSE = Low)
You make the following assumptions about the available personnel:
Your analyst and your programmers in the team have top design and programming ability, work
efficiently and thoroughly, and have the ability to communicate and cooperate well with all team
members. (ACAP = Very High, PCAP = Very High)
The team members have experience with programming in Java for at least three years. The same
applies to the experience with the development platform and tools. (APEX = High, PLEX = High, LTEX
= High)
You make the following assumptions about the project constraints:
Your team is distributed over offices in Tallinn and Tartu but has all kinds of high-speed, multi-media
communication tools available. (SITE = average of Nominal and Extra High - could be High or Very
High)
The schedule should be optimal with regards to effort consumption. (SCED = Nominal)
Find the followings:
A. How much effort will the system consume (not including maintenance in your estimate)?
B. How much will the system cost, if you assume a monthly salary of 3000 US $ per developer?
C. How will the effort and time estimates change, if you try to make the project as short as possible
(i.e., you try to compress the project schedule as much as possible)?
Hints:
Use online COCOMO Tool to complete activity. If you cannot identify information regarding a specific
Scale Factor or Effort Multiplier (Cost Factor), assume that it has the value “Nominal”
9. Design and develop the research plan to conduct research on “A Cash Management in a
Supermarket Store”. The project needs to be completed in 1 year. Estimate the followings:
a. How many modules/activities involved?
b. How much time each activity takes?
c. How many people needed to complete task in stipulated time.
d. Which approach is the best one for this problem (Top down ot Bottom Up)? Why?
