CS577B HOMEWORK #3

Due April 25th 5 PM

1. (60 points)
a) If your team were to do the project over again, how would you do it better - and how does that relate to the software engineering principles in the course. Also, how could the class have been run better to improve the projects? Candidate topics include project guidelines and policies, tools and templates, other project resources, information sources (lectures, course notes, TA, library personnel), management (staffing, organization, planning, controlling process, and product). This answer should be 2-4 pages long.

b) What would have been the impact (cost, schedule, product performance, other) of continuing usage of the WinWin tool this semester to keep current with the project?

2. (35 points)
a) How did you perform relative to the different Key Process Areas of the Capability Maturity Model? You can use the goals and activities for reference. Venture an educated guess as to which level your team would be assessed at.

b) How could you have improved your project relative to the Key Process Areas?

c) Which, if any, Key Process Areas do not apply to this type of course and why?

d) How would the relevance of the Key Process Areas be different if the projects were scaled up? What if the teams were about 30 people large working together over two semester? What if they were 150 people large working together over two consecutive years providing several major increments?

3. (15 points)
Which of the Key Process Areas were, or could be, satisfied fully or partially by USC rather than your team? Consider assignments, class policies and procedures, tools and templates, other resources, professor and TA activities.

4. (5 points)
Describe how COCOMO™ could be used for planning in the Technology Change Management and Process Change Management areas. Provide two examples.

5. (35 points)
Suppose you are in a commercial company developing a product line of digital multimedia library applications. The product line is typified by the different applications developed during this semester.

a) Identify a few leading candidate product functions to make reusable.

b) The company is trying to implement a reuse program per the concepts discussed in class. Describe the activities that should be undertaken and their respective outputs (artifacts). Take 1 - 2 pages for this answer.

Grading Criteria:
Clarity of Understanding. Clarity of presentation; evidence of understanding of critical process and product issues.
Originality and Independent Thinking. Incisiveness of analysis of project specifics as compared to repeating statements of general software engineering principle.