Individual Assignment 1: Agile Basics [35 MARKS]

• Due date: 7th of August (Sunday) 2022, 11:59pm
• Assignment Weighting: 5% of total grade
• Starting the assignment: See the instructions
• Submission: Submit your through GitLab - 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 edit the corresponding markdown files. Make sure to carefully read and edit the correct markdown file for each task. Do not rename or modify the markdown files except to answer the tasks.

Activity 1 [20 MARKS]#

You are required to answer the following tasks in the provided IA_activity_1.md file. Please refer to the uidlist file in the cloned repository for the correct file you will need to analyse for Activity 1. The files will look something like g24-unibath.txt and you must be carefull to find and analyse the user story file that is assigned to you. The last major change to the uidlist file was completed on 25/07/22 at 9:22am. If you forked before this you may need to fork again, or double check the uidlist file in the repository.

You are given a set of user stories (namely, its product backlog) for a randomly allocated system (from g02 to g28) 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.

Locate the correct file containing the user stories you are required to analyse in the repository you just cloned by searching for your UID within the key-value pairs of the uidlist file in the cloned repository.

Task 1.1. [5/20 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. [5/20 MARKS]#

Which technologies constraints and business needs can you infer from the user stories of your allocated system? Why did you infer them?

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. [10/20 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? Please give 2-3 example user stories for each PBI state, and justify why you think 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 [15 MARKS]#

You are required to answer the following tasks in the provided IA_activity_2.md file. You are required to read and analyse the user stories on Github for the “Solid” project and complete the tasks below.

The “Solid” project is a real specification that lets people store their data securely in decentralized data stores called Pods (namely, secure personal web servers for data). Everything they develop is MIT-licensed and available in their GitHub organisation. Solid (not to be confused with SOLID Principles) allows users to submit their user stories through issues in a GitHub project.

Activity 2 is a case study work, and every question has to be answered for the case study “Solid”. You cannot give generic answers, and your answers have to apply to this case study. If you answer these questions with the user stories of previous activities, you will not receive any marks.

Click here to go to the GitHub repository with Solid’s user stories. The stories are submitted as the titles of the issues. Remember to check both the open and the closed issues.

Task 2.1. [5/15 MARKS]#

Find 3 examples of Solid’s stories that do not follow the corresponding template. List the examples, and for each user story, explain in 2-3 sentences what is wrong and how you would fix it.

Task 2.2. [6/15 MARKS]#

Collect a group of Solid’s user stories (between 3-5) and write an scenario. Explain in a paragraph (up to 250 words long) what inferences you made regarding those selected user stories to create such scenario. As before: be explicit and concrete, do not paraphrase the same statement multiple times to reach the word limit, and be clear–if we do not clearly understand why you created this scenario and not another, you will loose marks.

Task 2.3. [4/15 MARKS]#

Find 2 examples of Solid’s user stories that are well-written features and that have the three characteristics of features. Please, list the selected examples, and for each of them, write 2-3 sentences explaining each characteristic and why do you think the selected user story has that characteristic.

Getting Started#

Go ahead and fork the assignment repository.

After you have forked the repository, you can then clone your fork to your local machine, git clone <repository-url>.

For this assignment, you will need to edit the corresponding markdown files. Make sure to carefully read and edit the correct markdown file for each task. Do not rename or modify the markdown files except to answer the tasks.

It would be recommended to have a read of the course markdown guide before starting if you have not used markdown before.

The last major change to the uidlist file was completed on 25/07/22 at 9:22am. If you forked before this you may need to fork again, or double check the uidlist file in the repository.

Submission Instructions#

Once you have modified and saved your markdown files, you will want to add and commit them. Once done push the changes up to gitlab.

It is important to check the files in your fork on the gitlab website to ensure that everything is as you expect it to be.

A snapshot of your fork will be taken at the deadline and these will be the files we will mark, we won’t accept late submissions without an approved extension, nor submissions by other means apart from gitlab. So it is important that you check what is on the website is what you want to submit!

You must also fill in the Statement of Originality on Wattle

FAQ#

A FAQ for frequently asked questions about the assignment.

How do I know what user story file I need to analyse?#

1. From your fork of the assignment repository, navigate to the uidlist file. The last time this file was updated is shown in the file name (e.g. uidlist-2022-07-16:23:54:04.csv).
2. Search this file for your UID, next to your uid you will find the name of the file you are required to analyse (e.g. g10-scrumalliance.txt). You must analyse the correct file to get marks for Activity 1.

If you cannot find your UID within this file, send a message on the course Piazza to Instructors so we can update the list.

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.

More Coming Soon