Week 5- Quite complicated on the whole

The discussion of the avalanche case was extremely valuable and productive. The case discussed the sudden avalanche faced by a group of mountain climbers, the problems faced by them and the solutions they were taking in that direction. We discussed a range of solutions and also a lot of answers to the most interesting question- “What saved Saul?”

After that, we discussed what are the key features required in a team to manage it effectively which was quite much in association with the avalanche case situation as there also the lady was trying to save her husband with a friend’s help. The features ranged widely and few examples were trust, training & education, presence of mind, confidence, faith, preparation, mutual understanding, cooperation and a calm mind etc.

The activity theory and its implementation to software engineering included the subject, object and labour areas. Organigraph teaches us a diagrammatic representation of all the aspects and associated areas of product development. This approach make us realise that almost every aspect of product development revolves around and is directly associated with the customer like maintenance, support, product management, sales, support and development. The Software Development life cycle involves Feasibility, investigation, analysis, design, implementation and review & maintenance. I have noticed that there are many different forms of SDLC studied earlier and now but the essence of every cycle remains the same. In all the stages of SDLC especially during requirement analysis, implementation & evaluation, it is important to actively involve the customer as well.

The Kongregate games case actually turned out to be very complicated for me. It involved some complex (according to me) calculations which I was not able to understand properly.

Week 4- Gambling our way to prediction

We started off by discussing the readings given last week related to Silver bullet, designing and estimating. The project overview was discussed which gives a blue print of the features to be considered while taking a project forward. These included- Quality, cost, time and scope. We went on observing each of them carefully and found that time taken is directly proportional to the clarity of the goals set and the amount of work delivered after every stage. Setting unrealistic goals decreases the possibility of success and too much firmness on the guidelines can again spoil the soup. On the whole, time to time feedback both by users & developers was important. The chances of success are less if the scope of the project does not address the problem area properly but can become overly complex if it tries to deal with too many problems at a time. Quality & Cost play an important role as well. The project is going to fail if quality is compromised and the company can suffer huge losses if the cost is not been taken care of. After that there was a brief overview of systems and its types.

After that, each one of us briefly discussed the prospective projects we would undertake which presented a lot of innovative ideas. I personally have selected “Systems in Space” in which I would be pursuing intensive study of the systems that are used in space crafts and satellites. I selected this topic as it was my childhood dream to work at NASA and when I got this opportunity to get a free hand at selecting a topic, I preferred to choose this one.

The Buxton’s avalanche case was given as homework in which a person called Saul gets stuck in the avalanche and his wife and friend try to free him from that.

Now here is the Gambling fun part- Planning Poker, this was the very first time I had seen his unique planning and estimation technique which was not boring as the conventional pen paper method. We were a group of 5 people and one by one everyone acted as the client and read out the question for which rest of us made an estimate by selecting a relevant card. The situation was to teach school children how to make and operate robotic models. First there was some concern about which measuring unit to consider while predicting. Whether the time, effort, cost but we decided that we’ll not disclose our units and if there is a huge gap, we’ll go ahead to reveal. We started off with different units but then realised and ended upon the “effort” (easy or tough). On the whole, we agreed upon more or less the similar values and discussed all of them after every question, whether they were same or not. In all, a good technique, which I am looking forward to taking back to India and using in the real time professional world.

Week 3- Good feedback received

We started off by discussing the research activity undertaken by us the previous week. I and Agrima interviewed 6 random people and told them a few terms related to the latest technological designs and noted what was the first thing that came to their mind when they listened to that particular word. The words ranged from superb, excellent to complex and useless. We received a positive feedback from Prof Higgins on that. We also discussed and assessed the techniques used by others which included- Look (Observation), learn (engaging with people and taking feedback), ask (evaluating proposed designs), and try (practically performing a technique or simulating the environment). Ours was an example of the ‘Ask’ technique.

We then moved on to the Life cycles and its different types and tried to get the most accurate definition of the word- Life Cycle. Some of the general forms discussed were the initially used and very famous- Waterfall model which fixed the requirements at the beginning and then went on to undertake other steps, but changing the requirements in a waterfall model is quite difficult. Spiral model also presented the increase/decrease of the risk along with the passing stages of development.

This also reminded me of the RAD- Rapid Application Model studied during my undergraduate degree which had the option of going back to a previous level if something goes wrong and also focusses on making a quick prototype of the software as soon as the requirements are finalised (hence the name- Rapid). We also had a look at the photos of some of the design failures and design beauties.

We were also instructed to think & decide upon our research projects to be undertaken.

Week 2- From building a robot to building a team

The class started with the follow up discussion on the NATO software conference a part of which was read last week.

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the backbone of every software whether big or small developed in any organization of any scale and it essentially helps in carrying out the processes in a much more organized pattern. On the whole, the essence of every SDLC remains the same in terms of its structure and what it tries to attain, few differences matter depending on software to software and organization to organization. Some common stages involved in every software cycle includes- Feasibility, Requirement analysis, Design, Coding, Implementation and finally Testing and Maintenance. One or more stages may be combined depending on the use. For example, some of the SDLC’s which I studied during my undergraduate degree had Testing & Maintenance or Coding & Implementation as a single stage.

And then the “Playing” part began. We were given an apparatus which looked like a robotic set. It included the main controller, sensors and connecting wires. We tried out the working of the model with different sensors, different programs to make it run in different direction & ways. Then we sketched out our own robot model on a paper representing the same apparatus. After that, we were given an instruction manual to make a given model of an operational robot. It was a group activity and I was involved with four more people- Agrima, Abeer, Sarthak and Gagan. Unfortunately we were not able to replicate the exact structure on time but we were happy for working in good coordination and getting the insights of team work & management. Here are the refection points:

Pros:

We started off well, in a very organized manner
We distributed the tasks equally between pairs of two and three which was a good decision as we were able to do it well
Perfect coordination & mutual understanding between the team

Cons:

Took a lot of time to start, figuring out the instruction manual
Got confused in between, used the wrong tools to connect and then correcting them was too late to do

The homework for today includes an experiment with an activity based research methodology given to or selected by us. My partner is Agrima Raina and we have been given the topic- “Word concept association”

Week 1- The first step towards a new journey

In today’s first class of Managing Systems development, we received an overview of what the module is going to be. The marking scheme, which included the weightage of the continuous assessment as well as the written exams to be held at the end of the semester (mid to end December) was also discussed. This includes a research proposal, a short video and a 4 page summary of the blogs which we’ll maintain throughout the year. Prof. Allen Higgins very smoothly explained the association between our culture, history and today’s technologically advanced world and has strongly recommended to read the book- “The soul of a new machine” written by Tracy Kider to appreciate the same. The book is hard to find but we eventually hope to get either a hard or soft copy soon.

After that, we discussed the elements of Systems development which included the parts of it like Systems, design, creativity, management and the needs & reasons to develop a system. This was a good food for thought as we very often use these terminologies but never actually try to properly define them. After that, we moved on to the critical analysis of the particular section assigned to us from the NATO conference related to systems and software and had a quick look at the milestones in technologically advancement.

Prof Higgins was kind enough not to give us any homework on the first day except to search for the book.