You have just been employed by a long-established software development house and are coming to realise that all is not well with your colleagues: Software development Assignment, OU, UK

Assignment Brief

You have just been employed by a long-established software development house and are coming to realise that all is not well with your colleagues.

There is a mixture of staff working for the company some of whom have been there for a very long time and there is a lot of ‘professional discussion’ going on over what is the optimum development methods, life cycle models and ways to improve what the company produces to outdo competitors. Some of your new colleague’s favour old tried and tested ways, others favour newer methods, and some are in favour of using different methods for different projects.

As the newest employee, you are seen to be both neutral to the arguments and have knowledge of up-to-date methods. Consequently, you are being tasked to prepare and demonstrate options in a number of different areas relevant to the discussions. In the first instance, you are expected to look at different software development

lifecycles and produce a presentation and detailed lecture notes supporting your ideas.

2. The waterfall model is popular among some of your colleagues, produce an assessment of the merits of applying it to a large-scale development project. Bear in mind there are several versions of this model.
3. Produce a presentation describing two iterative software lifecycle models and two sequential software lifecycle models. Go on to show how risk is managed in each of these models.
4. Then to ensure that this is all clear produce a discussion, illustrated by an example, as to why a particular lifecycle model might be chosen for a particular development environment. Make both sides of the discussion clear and detailed.

For the second part of this, there has been much discussion over the quality of some

specifications put to the company for development and the issue of feasibility has come to the fore.

Your next task is therefore to explain the importance feasibility studies can have on the

whole development process. To this end you will have to produce a document that includes all the following:

1. An assessment of the impact different feasibility criteria has on a software investigation.
2. A straightforward explanation of the purpose of doing a feasibility report on potential software development.
3. A discussion of the different components that make up a feasibility report
4. A description of how alternative technical solutions can be compared effectively.