Assignment 1: Agile Basics [100 MARKS]

• Due date: 11th of August (Sunday) 2024, 11:55pm (originally was 4th of August)
• Assignment Weighting: 5% of total grade
• Submission: Submit your through Wattle - See further instructions below
• Individual Assignment FAQ: See the FAQ for this assignment
• Policies: For late policies, plagiarism policies, etc see the policies page

For this assignment, you will need to submit a report to Wattle. Make sure to carefully read the instructions for each task.

Activity 1 [60 MARKS]#

You are given a set of user stories (namely, its product backlog) ¹. Activity 1 is a case study work; this means, that every question has to be answered for the case study that is assigned to you. You cannot give generic answers, and your answers have to apply to your specific case study. You will be marked against your specific case study system.

As soon as possible, locate the file containing the user stories you are required to analyse on Wattle by previewing the quiz.

Task 1.1. [20/60 MARKS]#

Carefully read all the user stories for your allocated case study. What is the product vision for your assigned system?

Using Moore’s Vision Template, write a paragraph or two explaining how you interpreted the user stories to craft this (some initial questions to guide you on this justification):

• What stories justify or lead to this vision?
• Is there anything not explicitly written in the user stories but you “considered” while writing this vision?

Feel free to discuss anything else you find relevant to this product vision. Your paragraph should be at most 300 words (do not paraphrase the same sentence multiple times). Your product vision does not count towards this word limit.

Task 1.2. [20/60 MARKS]#

Which technologies constraints and business needs can you infer from the user stories of your allocated system? Why did you infer them? Ideally try to find a couple of constraints and a couple of needs. Use around 300-500 words for the constraints discussion and similarly 300-500 words for the needs discussion.

Note: According to Cambridge Dictionary, to infer means “to form an opinion or guess that something is true because of the information that you have”. Therefore, you have to both: list the items, and explain why you think that is a constraint/need.

Task 1.3. [20/60 MARKS]#

Pretend that you are about to start the Scrum Cycle to develop your allocated system. What are the states of the PBI (Product Backlog Items) for your product backlog? What would you do with those items? Select 2-3 user stories from the allocated datafile for each PBI state, and provide justification for why they belong to this state. Write up to 300 words per PBI state justification. Example user stories do not count towards this word limit.

Your justification should convey all factors that led you to such categorisation, discuss problems/issues with the product backlog and the user stories, possible risks that could arise from developing straight away, possible missing information.

Your response should not be ambiguous, this means, that what you wrote should make all your reasoning explicit. The marker will not “read between lines”, and will assess only based on what is written and what is missing. Do not paraphrase sentences multiple times or drag out any responses/examples longer than is required.

Activity 2 [40 MARKS]#

You are working at a business software startup that wants to develop a new package tracking system for parcel delivery companies serving smaller e-commerce companies. The main focus should be on usability by less tech-savvy entrepreneurs and their customers, as well as the overall customer experience. For this, you spend some time in user understanding by interview potential users and customers of the product. One of the respondent persona descriptions is given below:

Zlatan, age 23, is a chemistry student who also works as a delivery driver. Originally from Belgrade, Serbia, his family moved to Sydney in 2012 and settled there. Over the years, he worked in various customer service jobs, and his current one pays a bit better than his last one. Zlatan hopes to ultimately find a job his chemistry degree will qualify him for, but the current setup suits him for now.

While technically a contractor, his packages are pre-assigned, his routes are pre-planned, his location and overall progress is tracked, and there may be special instructions for every package that are nonetheless not easy to interpret. Some packages are quite heavy and destined for apartment buildings without elevators, some people are really chatty, or insist on checking all the packages before signing for them, or otherwise take a long time. With some educated guessing, Zlatan sometimes saves a lot of time by “finding” that the recipients of a package are not at home right now, which leaves him more time for studying or going to the gym.

The aim of this activity is to gain an understanding of the ideation process from personas to deriving features.

Task 2.1. [10/40 MARKS]#

Based on the persona above, come up with an imaginary scenario description based on our understanding of how the system might be used by the end user. The answer may vary in length from two to three paragraphs up to a page of text.

Task 2.2. [15/40 MARKS]#

Extract 2-3 user stories from the scenario (including the justification for the action using the phrase so that at the end of the sentence).

Task 2.3. [15/40 MARKS]#

Come up with feature descriptions using the generated user stories. They can be in any amount but should try to be creative and explore the potential space for the generated user story. Finally, also explain each feature and what are the trade-offs between factors in feature set design.

Submission Instructions#

You must submit your finalised report as a PDF via TurnItIn on Wattle under the section Assignment 1 Submission Link

You must also fill-in and submit the quiz containing Statement of Originality - it is the same quiz (we should fix it for next time) as the Quiz that reveals your assigned Activity 1 data file.

FAQ#

A FAQ for frequently asked questions about the assignment.

Can i reference a user story/stories by line number?#

Yes, as long as it is clear you are referring to your story file.

Do references count towards the word limit?#

No, references do not count towards your word limit. You can also use footnotes to reference.

There are things missing from the user stories I have been provided/There are things I assumed, is this okay?#

Yes, as stated in the assignment instructions for task 1.1

Is there anything not explicitly written in the user stories but you “considered” while writing this vision?

You have the opportunity to state anything you considered or assumed.

My user stories seem to be based on something real, should I assume they directly relate to the real thing?#

It would be best to not assume they directly relate to the real thing where possible, but rather use whatever information you are provided first in your allocated file. If you assume anything from the real thing, make sure to note it down.