CSC444 – Software Engineering – Final Report

Assignment: Write a report summarizing your experiences with the Personal Software Process, the general idea of structuring software development activities, and insights and statistics from the assignments you did in the term.

Due: November 28, at start of lab session.

Weight: 5% of final grade.

Requirements:

• Your report needs at least two sections: One summarizing your statistical results while using the PSP, and another summarizing your ideas and insights about the PSP and processes in software development. You can add more sections if you wish –an introduction and a conclusion section are almost always necessary, and the two sections described above can be split in any way you deem appropriate.
• Your section summarizing your statistical results should include, at least, the following:
• Data and charts about your time estimates and time performance, for each type of activity, and in total.
• Data and charts about defects injected and removed, for each type of activity, and in total.
• Data and charts about your estimates and actual LOC numbers, including reused elements.
• Data about your LOC/hour, CPI, and the level of correlation between your estimates and your actual performance
• A chronological analysis of the accuracy of your estimates throughout the six assignments of the term, and of the number of defects injected.
• The structure of the section summarizing your ideas and insights is up to you. Some ideas you may want to explore:
• Benefits and drawbacks of using a structured process such as the PSP for your programming activities
• If you had to use the PSP, what would you change to it to make it more effective?
• Measuring to understand vs. measuring to control
• The nature of estimation of software tasks: why is it difficult, how well does the PSP do it, how can it be improved?
• There are, of course, many other ideas you may want to address. Do not consider the list above as mandatory, or as a checklist. It is only an indication of what type of discussion we are expecting from you.
• Your ideas and arguments will be graded according to their relevance, originality, depth, strength of argumentation, and clarity, and by the quality of your proposals for changes to the process.

Deliverables:

The only deliverable is your final report, which at most should be 10 single-spaced pages, including appendices (if any). Note that this is an upper limit, and you are not graded by the number of pages you submit as long as you don’t go over it.