Week 2 Requirements Tutorial
Outline#
In this week’s lab you will:
- Get to know everyone else!
- Get into your assignment groups
- Requirements activities based on lecture content
These lab sessions, whether in-person or online, will give you plenty of chances to discuss things with other people in your lab group.
In this course, as in most (all?) others, your fellow students are your best resource. Between you, you might not know the answer straight away, but together you might find that you can work it out. If you can’t, then of course you can ask your tutor—but your tutor might not be able to help you immediately. This also means that if you’re helping one of your fellow students understand something, put yourself in their shoes. It takes courage to ask a question, especially if you feel like everyone else in the lab knows what’s going on (although that certainly isn’t true). Be gentle and helpful in your answers, and remember that you can be honest about stuff that you don’t know—you’re all on this journey together.
Tutorials will be roughly split into two parts. Where the first hour will be based on the tutorial exercises, and the second hour will be allocated for groups to work on their group assignments. Note that this is just a guide and may vary depending on your tutor and what you as a tutorial group want to get out of a tutorial. If everyone wants more time on certain topics or activities just let your tutor know.
Activity 1: Get to know everyone else!#
Go around the room (whether in person or online) and tell everyone:
- Your name
- What degree you’re doing
- What year you’re in
- Are you an domestic or international student?
- Pick at least one, or come up with something else you want to tell everyone else about yourself:
- A cool fact you know (i.e. The first computer mouse was made in 1964 by Doug Engelbart. It was made of wood and was rectangular in shape.)
- Something you like to do (i.e. I like to play video games.)
- What are you looking forward to the most about this course?
Activity 2: Get to know your assignment group#
Get into your assignment groups, your tutor will have a list. Quickly (~5-10 minutes) get to know each other in your assignment group a bit more! Afterall, this will be your group for the rest of the semester. If you are in a online tutorial, split up into breakout rooms. If you’re in an online tutorial, and feel comfortable doing so, unmute yourself and turn your camera on!
Attending tutorials is also the best way for you and your group to get general feedback on any in-progress assignments and to get to know the course content!
If your tutor cannot see your name on their list for any reason, send a message to Instructors on Piazza. The list will also be made available here. Groups have been randomly allocated within your tutorial. Group sizes may vary depending on the number of students in your tutorial. Varying group sizes will be taken into account for group assignments.
Activity 3: Requirements Tutorial Tasks#
Work through the following tasks in your assignment groups (in breakout rooms if online) and then quickly present to the rest of the tutorial group after completing each task. Get through as many tasks as you can. If you do not have time to complete a task, think and try them yourself. You can always post on Piazza.
Task 1: Product Vision Task#
What is a product vision? As a group come up with a product vision for an imaginary scenario. This task should take ~30 minutes, including some presentation time for each group.
As a group, create an imaginary scenario for a product and come up with at least 5 user stories for this scenario. Explain your scenario and why you think they are good user stories.
Do you have personas - “Imagined users” for who you think might use your product? Who are your stakeholders? Would you use lots of low-fidelity mockups or a handful of high-fidelity ones? Are there any risks involved, if so, how could they be mitigated?
Based on your scenario, using Moore’s Vision Template, come up with a Product Vision.
Product visions are simple statements that define the essence of the product to be developed - Sommerville 2018 (ESP Book)
Think about why the product is being developed, who are the target customers/users and why customers/users should buy or use this product? What makes this product unique?
Task 2: Estimating Product Development Time#
Based on your product vision from the previous task, come up with a Product Development Time Estimate. This task should take ~20 minutes, including some presentation time for each group.
Estimate in 8 hour work days (a standard 9 to 5), 20 work days a month.
As a group, decide how you would break up the tasks and allocate them amongst your group. This is an essential skill, and you will need to be able to do this in the upcoming group assignments.
Can your group come up with a “metric” or some other standard of measurement to measure the amount of time spent on each task and the progress made?
Present your approach to the other groups.
Think about how you could look at tasks and estimate the amount of time you would need to spend on each task. Remember that no matter how well you plan, things will constantly change or take longer than expected, so make sure to factor this in.
Task 3: The Scrum Cycle#
Based on your list of tasks compiled in the previous task, utilise the Scrum Cycle to simulate working through the tasks. This task should take ~20 minutes, including some presentation time for each group.
- What are the Product Backlog Item (PBI) states?
- How would you work through the PBI states?
- How could you apply the product backlog activities to each PBI?
Present your approach to the other groups.
What would your Scrums look like? Reflecting on task 2 what kind of effort is needed for each item? Could you picture what a scrum meeting looks like?
Task 4: UML Diagrams (Extension Task)#
Looking back on task 1, task 2, and task 3, would you be able to create UML use case diagrams or activity diagrams for your product?
Activity 4: Optional Activities#
If there is still time at the end of the tutorial you can choose to take a closer look at the first group assignment, or if you have any questions about the individual assignment ask your tutor any clarifying questions, or better yet, ask and post on Piazza so that your question may help someone else as well. There will also be a FAQ for each assignment that will be updated with commonly asked questions on Piazza.