Software Development Best Practices, Vision & Goals Statements - Essay Example

?Project Vision ment Increase the productivity/efficiency of the “Valentino – Personal Introductions Agency” by replacing their current deployedtechnology with state-of-the-art information, communication and technologies (ICT). In order to achieve the vision following actions would be taken (Construx, 2007): Develop an online matching program that would substitute the existing matching program (software application) used to facilitate more than eight (8) million single men and women in the United Kingdom to find their best matches. The quality, confidentiality, performance, usability and security would be the highest priority features of the online matching program. Maintain historical information regarding the old and existing members of the Valentino service that would help to identify the trends to better predict and manage future or upcoming Valentino members. Benefits and Costs After deployment of the state of the art matching system, it is expected that the company would get a huge number of benefits that include: the enhanced productivity, increased efficiency, high security, improved quality, more system usability, high performance, lower maintenance costs and efforts of the in-house software development tram of the company hence achieving employee satisfaction and fewer bugs as compared to the existing matching program software application. These benefits would ultimately lead the company to achieve its goals, the value of market share would be increased and the company would continually get more profits. As far as the cost of replacing the matching system is concerned, there are following costs of the items that need to be considered. Cost of procuring the computer hardware items including the servers, desktops, LAN development equipment etc. On the other hand, the second cost item is the software applications including the Operating Systems, antivirus, Microsoft applications etc., moreover, the cost for development of software application – the Valentino matching system. And the last cost item is the human resources involved to facilitate the development, moreover, the operating expenses or the miscellaneous cost. Project Scope Diagram Requirement Catalogue The requirements of the Valentino matching program can be divided into functional and non-functional requirements which are given below (Maciaszek, 2007): Note: Priority 5 = Top, 1 = Least Functional Requirements ID Req. Name Priority Description vm1 Register 5 The applicants (new clients) would have to register themselves with the company to avail the services by provision of required information in the form/questionnaire. vm2 Fee 5 An amount of ?150/- would be charged from the client upon new registration per year and it could be paid either by credit card or cheque. vm3 Contacts 5 The client would be provided a list of six (6) most compatible matching members to contact either by telephone or letter / email. vm4 List 5 The clients can demand as many lists as they desire and the subsequent (or additional to the first list) lists would be charged ?5 each. vm5 Confidential 5 The Valentino service is completely confidential and applies the rules of the Data Protection Act, however, upon request of the clients their names can be shown to the other members’ list. vm6 Update 5 The clients would be given functionality to update their profile information including location, photograph, payment method, and matching requirements. vm7 Control 5 The clients would be facilitated to control their personal information either to show or not to the other members of the company. vm8 Profile 5 The clients can update their relevant information whenever and as many times they want free of charge. vm9 Free 5 A list of compatible members would be provided to the client free of charge, if and only if, the client got less than three (3) members in the previous list. vm10 Login 5 In order to use the system, the clients need to log into the system by providing username and password provided to them after completing the process of registration. Non - Functional Requirements ID Req. Name Priority Description vn1 Quality 5 The software application needs conforming the quality parameters include: the agreed cost, time / duration, 100 % conformance to the above given user’s requirements (functional and non-functional) and accuracy of the matchmaking module. Moreover, documentation of the software application needs to be in accordance with the international standards, when reviewed it could be understandable to the developers and analysts. vn2 Correctness 5 The integrity and correctness of the Valentino’s software application are two of the main characteristics of the introduction agency, therefore, the results or lists generated by the system should be 100% accurate and without defects. Therefore, data migration is one of the critical activities. vn3 Usability 5 It is essential that the system should be easy to use even for the IT illiterate people, as there are a huge number of members don’t prefer to use the internet, therefore, it is necessary that the system could be used for such members of the company without any difficulties. vn4 Performance 5 The performance of the system should as much efficient that it could be able to generate reports/lists (compatible members) within one (1) minute; moreover, the applicant’s application processing time should not be more than two (2) minutes. Moreover, the fee transaction and processing time of the software application would not exceed one (1). vn5 Security 5 The client or any other person could not be entered into the system without proper username and password. Moreover, once the client gets login should not able to see other member’s profile without appropriate permissions. Detailed Description ID vm1 Name Register In order to utilize the services of the company, the applicants (new clients) would have to register themselves by provision of required information in the form/questionnaire and an amount of ?150/- fee. The system should be able to process the application of the applicant, the provision of a username and password within two minutes (vn4 – non-functional requirement). Moreover, the appropriate compatible list of members should be provided within the next one (1) minute. Detailed Description ID vm10 Name Login As the result of completing the registration process, the client can only log into the system after providing the username and password. The system would check the correctness (vn2 – non-functional requirement) of the provided username and password, if the authenticating processes (vn5 – non-functional requirement) validated only then the client would be allowed to use the system. Use Case Diagram The following diagram shows the use case of the first requirement ID ‘vm1’ and named ‘Register’ and the second relevant requirement ID ‘vm10’ and named ‘Login’ (Ochodek, 2009). Flow of Events Client Registration Actor Action System Response 1 This use case begins when a client (applicant) is new to the system and wants to register him / her with the system by clicking on the registration tab/button. 2 The system prompts the applicant to enter his / her personal information. 3 The applicant enters all the required information (E-2). 4 The system saves the information and asks the applicant to enter credit card information. 5 The applicant provides required credit card information (E-2). 6 The system verifies the credit card information and charges an amount of ?150 from the credit card (E-1). 7 The system provides his username and password 8 The system provides a list of six (6) compatible members. Alternate Flows E-1) If the applicant has not entered credit card information or information in the required fields, s/he will not be able to register her/himself with the system. Moreover, if the entered information is wrong, the applicant can re-enter the information or terminate the use case. E-2) If the applicant has entered incorrect information (may be a typing error), the applicant can re-enter the information or terminates the use case. Assumption It is assumed that the applicant have chosen the credit card as payment method in order to pay an amount of ?150 as a service fee. Flow of Events Client Login Actor Action System Response 1 This use case begins when the client is registered (E-3) and logs on to the system by providing user name and password. 2 The system verifies the username and password (E-4) and opens the home page of the respective client. Alternate Flows E-3) If the applicant is not registered then he/she can initiate use case one (1) to register him/herself or terminate the use case. E-4) If either username or password is incorrect the applicant can re-enter the information or terminates the use case. Related Requirements The above given scenario of the use case relates to the two functional / non-functional requirements described in the requirement catalogue section. The IDs and names of the requirements are ‘vm1’ and ‘vm10’, ‘Register’ and ‘Login’, along with associated non-functional requirements’ IDs and names are ‘vn2’, ‘vn4’ and ‘vn5’, ‘Correctness’, ‘Performance’, and ‘Security’. Class Model Description of Class Diagram In an object oriented application, the class diagram describes the basic structure of the system that is developed to represent the classes within a model having attributes or variables, operations or functions and relationships of one class with other classes (Martin, 2002). The class diagram of Valentino – matchmaking software application has been given above, the entity or class name “Person” illustrated with rectangle divided into three sections, the first section contains the name of the class i-e “Person”, the second section contains the attributes or variables of the class, whereas, the third section contains the functions or methods of the class. In the above diagram, a person has an operation of ‘Register ()’ to become a member of the company, after performing the operation of ‘Register ()’ the person becomes client of the ‘Personal Introductions Agency’ and would be able to perform certain operations including the profile settings, requests to add member list, and search for other members. As the class of the client is inherited class therefore, these can perform the same operations as the person. The variables or attributes of a client class contain username, password, credit card information and date of registration. The relationships between classes are represented by a straight line that contains the name and multiplicity. For example, the relationship between the Person class and Address class is determined by a straight line specifying that a person can have only one address and there must be an address of a person, otherwise it would satisfy the relationship and could not be able to register. Moreover, the above given class diagram introduces the concept of generalization between the client and person class. Rich Diagram Description of Rich Picture The rich picture describes the key elements that can lead to the deployment of a successful software application, on the other hand the problems that could be faced by the stakeholders after implementation of the software application. I have used three (3) elements of the software deployment scenario in the rich picture include: the management of the Valentino – introduction agency (stakeholder), the essential features of the software application and the problems that users (stakeholder) can face after deployment of the online software application. The management of the introduction agency would be happy if the software application has all the key features that could lead to the successful business. But on the other hand, the management may need to hold several meetings for deployment of the software application, arrangements for the training of the end users, development of security policy etc. These activities are necessary to not only get customers satisfaction but also employees of the agency would be satisfied if they feed good to use the software application. The second element is the key features that are clearly mentioned in the rich picture. The users of the online software application could have a huge number of difficulties that include but not limited to the usability problems because of computer / internet illiteracy, the software application system might not available to the users because of their slow internet connection speed, the users could get confused on how to use the system just because they don’t know what they want to do and how this could be done. Critical Factors As per the requirements of the Valentino – the matchmaking company, there are certain values of their business which need to be followed and applied accordingly to the developing software application; otherwise the software application would not be accepted by the company. Moreover, on the other hand the same features / values of the business have ability to achieve the business benefits. Some of the business values or must have features of the software application include: the integrity of the results of matchmaking process, the confidentiality of the registered members of the company, the quality of services of the introduction agency, the privacy setting of the registered members and the selection of members to be added in the list on the basis of commonalities and preferences, moreover, one of the main features is the information security to avoid unauthorized access. The company has developed his reputation on the basis of the above given business features, therefore, the company would not accept the software application if the above given features would not be available in the developing software application. Moreover, the company progress towards achieving its benefits and business goals if the factors including the usability (easy-to-use) of the software application, the accessibility, More or less the above given factors belongs to non-functional requirements of the introduction agency, therefore, it would be worthwhile to mention here that these factors can only be acceptable, if and only if the developing software application conforms to all the functional requirements of the introduction agency. Development Scenarios The following are three (3) software application development scenarios, each have several advantages as well as disadvantages. The upcoming paragraphs present a brief description of the diverse development scenarios and recommendation on selection of development scenario for the Valentino introduction agency. i- The development of software application by the IT team hired by the Valentino. ii- Procuring an off-the-shelf software application and its customization so that it could be used efficiently at Valentino. iii- Outsourcing the software application development in a way that the software vendor may develop the software application from the scratch from inception or requirement gathering phase till its successful deployment. I have chosen the in-house software development and outsourcing the software application development scenarios in order to discuss the pros and cons of each scenario. The advantages of in-house software application development include: the internal employees know the working businesses values, processes, objectives and goals of the organization more clearly; therefore, it is easy for them to they can precisely depict heart of your business through development of software application, the easy maintenance and improvements with the passage of time, acceptance by the internal users, the company has control over each and every aspect of the software application development process, time, activity, quality and integrity. On the other hand there are several disadvantages of the in-house development that include: on-job training is required to keep the system up-to-date with the latest technologies, moreover, it can become the expensive in terms of cost if the in-house employees do not acquire relevant skills and expertise to develop the software application within specified time and cost. The advantages of the second development scenario – the outsourcing, include: the outsourcing is an ideal scenario when large and complex software applications need to be developed, as usually the proper software houses has a huge number of employees with a team or department of software quality assurance and control, teams with specialized expertise in each field i-e usability, availability, accessibility etc. Some of the disadvantages of the outsourcing include: slow development of software application, huge efforts are required for planning and coordination, high costs of development and maintenance, less concentration from the vendor due to busy schedule etc. (Traxler, 2012). Keeping in view the advantages and disadvantages of the in-house development and outsourcing development, moreover, considering the scenario or case study of the Valentino introduction agency, I would recommend that the Valentino may go for in-house software application development. There are many reasons for my selection and one of the main reasons is that the Valentino has already an IT team that are maintaining the Valentino’s existing software and facing difficulties to manage old software development technologies. If required the Valentino can enhance the capabilities of the in-house development team by providing a comprehensive training on the current software development technologies. Moreover, only the IT team can easily understand and implement the core values and requirements of the Valentino that can ultimately lead the agency to achieve their desired benefits and goals. Works Cited Construx., 2007. Software Development Best Practices, Vision & Goals Statements. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 November 2012] Maciaszek, L. A., 2007. Requirement Analysis and System Design. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited Ochodek, M., 2009. Introduction to Use Cases. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 November 2012] Martin, R. C., 2002. UML – Tutorial: Part 1 – Class Diagrams. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 November 2012] Traxler, D., 2012. Outsourcing vs. Hiring in-house – Pros and Cons. [online] Available at: [Accessed 12 November 2012] Read More