University of Toronto Department of Computer Science CSC340F Requirements Engineering September 23 2006 Prof Steve Easterbrook Assignment 1 Project Selection and Risk Plan Due Date 9 20am Friday October 6 i e within 10 minutes of the start of the tutorial This assignment counts for 10 of the final grade Identify an organization that you can work with for the rest of this term and write an initial statement of the problem that you will analyze for this organization Identify and measure the project risks Note In subsequent assignments you will go on to perform a feasibility study analyze the requirements and finally write a specification for the problem you identify in this assignment The project is to be carried out in teams of four Each team will submit one report I Doing the Assignment This assignment has 8 steps They are 1 Select an organisation You will need to find an organization that is willing to work with you for the remainder of the term see below for suggestions 2 Make contact with the organization Check that you will be able to meet with some of the key people within this organization during the term to analyze their requirements 3 Identify a possible problem to analyze What is your initial idea for a problem that this organization has for which a software intensive system might be designed In later assignments you will refine your ideas about the nature and scope of this problem for now you just need a starting point 4 Identify the risks that you face in conducting a requirements analysis for this organization Anything that might affect your ability to complete the course assignments successfully is a project risk Use the risk identification tools covered in the lectures to help you identify as many risks as possible 5 Assess the risk exposure for each risk you identified and use this to rank your risks Use either a quantitative or qualitative approach the important thing is to be able to compare risks to find the biggest ones 6 Draw up a risk management plan for your top ten risks For each of your top ten risks write a brief management strategy including a any steps you can take to mitigate the risk b indicators you can monitor to give you an early warning of things going wrong and c a recovery plan to invoke if things do go wrong 7 Write a report that describes your chosen organization and problem and the results of your risk assessment 8 Document your teamwork and complete a team report see attached form II What to Hand In Hand in your report at the start of your tutorial on the due date Reports not handed in within the first ten minutes of the tutorial will be treated as late The report should not exceed three 3 pages not counting cover pages references appendices or forms It should include the following items 1 A brief description of the organization you plan to work with including a rationale for why you chose this organization no more than page 2 A brief description of the problem you will analyze for this organization no more than page 3 A brief description of the approach you used to assess the project risk no more than page 4 The results of your risk assessment in the form of a list of the top ten risks with a brief risk plan for each No more than 1 pages Written Presentation Requirements Be sure to include a cover page indicating the name of your team the names of all team members title of work course date and tutor s name Assignments will be judged on the basis of visual appearance grammatical correctness and quality of writing as well as their contents Please make sure that the text of your report is well structured using paragraphs full sentences and other features of a well written presentation Use itemized lists of points where appropriate Text font size should be either 10 or 12 point III Suggestions Finding a Problem Finding an organization that is willing to provide you with a problem is easier than you think Of course someone in that organization will have to spend some time talking to you and giving you information But then remember that many class projects from this very course actually were adopted by the customer organization and were turned into real software development projects There are several things you may want to try here Start by considering previous employers but also friends relatives acquaintances who may be in a position to give you access to an organization that is willing to have you study one of their systems and prepare a feasibility study for development of a new software system Ideally the organization you find will be large with many departments etc and you will be dealing with a few people in one department Failing this you may want to try a small business e g a retail store a professional office Other possibilities for feasibility study projects include an information system or web service for public software e g a help facility for Windows or Unix a public service that you know well e g driver license registration or one for which there is publicly available information e g OHIP related information systems There are also many organizations on campus e g clubs associations and the offices of various departments with which you could work In approaching an organization you should always talk to someone who has the authority to decide to assist you Remember that this project should be mutually beneficial and make sure you tell your customer this In fact you should offer to present a copy of your final report to your client and make sure it is delivered What kind of project should you choose Ideally the organizational information system you study will have several people involved and possibly could include an existing computer system The following are examples of typical projects Computerize a given business system e g inventory sales Computerize a firm usually small which currently uses no computers during its daily operations Evaluate an existing computerized business system in order to recommend modifications or even a new system Try not to bite off more than you can chew remember this is a course project You may find fairly early on that the project you have chosen is too large In this case perhaps a subsystem of the original problem can be chosen Discuss this with the instructor or your tutor Assessing the risks To help you identify describe and rank risks you may find the following helpful A Risk is a possible future undesirable outcome For each risk the Risk Exposure is defined as the probability of the undesirable
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