2.1.1A: Processes and Practices

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From the course by University of Alberta

Software Processes and Agile Practices

2629 ratings

University of Alberta

Software Processes and Agile Practices

2629 ratings

Course 2 of 6 in the Specialization Software Product Management

This course delves into a variety of processes to structure software development. It also covers the foundations of core Agile practices, such as Extreme Programming and Scrum.

From the lesson

Module 1: Introduction to Processes

Are you someone who likes to see the big-picture? Being a forward thinker who knows what’s coming next is an invaluable trait as a software product manager. This module will prepare you to become this asset for your team. A software process organizes development from beginning to end. We are going to walk through each step of the development process. This will allow you to become familiar with the entire development process so that you can effectively organize product development and foresee upcoming steps--even if you’ve never worked in software development before!

2.1.1: Processes and Practices5:46

2.1.1A: Processes and Practices5:44

2.1.1B: Processes and Practices5:48

Meet the Instructors

Kenny Wong
Associate Professor
Computing Science, Faculty of Science

[MUSIC]

Tasks also relate to roles.

A role is a duty that a person takes on or plays.

Examples of some software engineering roles are a programmer,

a tester, a CEO, a client, or a product manager.

An actual person can play a role, and

in doing so, perform associated tasks for that role.

In short, a role performs a task.

Each person on a team has specific responsibilities or

tasks to perform while in a role.

For example, a programmer may take on the task of writing code for a certain

feature, a tester may be assigned to test that feature, and the product manager

may review that feature once it's complete to ensure it works as the client expects.

You can see how roles help to organize work based on the team members involved.

Consider an application in which users can share and view recipes.

A user has the option to create an account with a personal profile or

use a guest account.

Both the account holders and guests can browse recipes, but

a user must be logged into their personal account in order to post recipes.

Both types of users can also browse and search recipes from the main page.

Which of the following tasks could be performed by a guest role?

A, add optional information to their profile.

B, create an account.

C, search recipes.

D, browse recipes.

And/or E, post a recipe.

As specified earlier a user needs to log in to an account in order to post recipe,

therefore option E is incorrect.

Similarly, to have a profile, a user would need to have an account.

Therefore, answer A is also incorrect.

It was specified that both user types can search and

browse recipes, which means that those tasks could be performed by a guest role.

Also, a guest would be able to create an account to become an account holder.

Therefore, the correct answers are B, C, and D.

The next element that we will examine is a work product.

A work product is the output that a task produces.

[SOUND] This output could be anything involved in the development,

not just the final product.

Work products do include the final product, but

they also include other intermediate outputs such as designs, requirements,

source code, test cases and internal documentation.

Since work products are outputs of tasks,

we can say that a task produces a work product.

However, sometimes tasks use work products as input.

For example, the tasks of writing source code for

a feature will refer to the feature's design.

That design was the output of a previous task to create a design.

Therefore, a task also uses work products.

Finally, for any task to be completed, it needs resources.

Resources are anything that improves, advances, or funds work to be done.

These could be things such as time, money, technology, knowledge, or staff.

Therefore, we can say a task consumes a resource.

To put this diagram into perspective, let's look at an example.

Say we are developing an application,

your client requires that the user is able to upload a profile picture,

change their name, and update their personal description.

These are our requirements, a task we have to do is write a test for

uploading their profile picture.

An activity containing this task would be creating tests.

This task will be performed by a tester role.

The tasks consumes many resources, such as time, money, and technology.

The work product that this task produces are test cases.

The task also uses the requirements document as a work product,

since you want to verify that the product does what the requirements specified.

In this case, we want to test that the user is able to upload a profile picture.

You have been assigned to a new project.

In this project, your team is developing a new database and checkout system for

the local library.

It uses a mobile app to checkout books to the user's account.

Theodore is a programmer on your development team.

He has been assigned to writing source code for

adding new books to the database, establishing the database,

writing the text for the help page, and executing tests for creating an account.

Which of these assignments is an activity and not a task?

A, writing source code for adding new books to the database.

B, establishing the database.

C, writing the text for the help page.

Or D, executing tests for creating an account.

Answer B is the most correct answer,

since setting up a database has many tasks involved.

Theodore will have to do tasks such as design the database and write code for

the database.

He will also have to do tasks such as host the database and

transfer the current database to the new one.

Tasks are low level, specific actions like those in A, C, and D.

There could be many low level tasks in the high level activity

of establishing the database.

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