Guidelines: Individual Project Critique
200 Points - Due 2pm, Friday, May 9, 2003
You need to turn in both, a hard and a soft copy of your critique.
Hard Copy Submission - Submit a hard copy by the above mentioned deadline in SAL 329.
Soft Copy Submisstion - Zip your critique and email it to cs577gdr@sunset.usc.edu

Length:
8-12 pages (+/- a factor of 2) recommended, but not absolutely required. Don't use very small or large fonts

Main Question:
If we were to do the project over again, how would we do it better, and how does that relate to the software engineering principles in the course?

The Individual Project Critique shall consist of the following elements (more emphasis on element 1, i.e., how your team's process could have been better):

1. Process Improvement (2/3 of emphasis)
Candidate topics include but are not limited to:

• Challenges in COTS assessment, tailoring, and integration
• Use of the WinWin Spiral Model
• Use of various tools (Effort report system, USC-COCOMO tools, Rational ClearCase; Rational Rose; MS-Project, Gnats, Hyperwave, etc...)
• Guidelines for Model-Based Architecting and Software Engineering (MBASE) deliverables
• Information sources (lectures, website, papers, CeBASE-577-archive, course notes, etc...)
• Human Resources (Professor, Guest Speakers, Teaching Assistant, Library clients, Library Personnel, Architecture Review Board members, etc.)
• Management (staffing, organization, planning, controlling process and product)
• IV&V and its roles, guidelines, etc. (if you were an IV&V or your team had one)
  

We would be particularly interested in feedback on the various tools, that is constructive in suggesting improvements rather than just identifying shortfalls; it should be balanced in identifying things that were helpful as well as obstacles; and it should be relatively high-level in focusing on strategic factors rather than individual bugs (turn in separate bug reports for that). We would also be interested in well-reasoned improvement suggestions to the MBASE guidelines.

2. Product Improvement (1/3 of emphasis)
Describe possible improvements in the various components of your product: i.e., if you had to design the system again, how would you do it better, knowing what you know now.