2D1363, Mjukvarukonstruktion, 8
poäng
Aktuell kursomgång: period 2-4
06/07
Kursledare: Rand Waltzman
Datorpostadress(er): rand@nada.kth.se
Requirements Document Work Schedule (RDWS)
The work schedule that you will produce is your
introduction to some of the more formal aspects of project management. The schedule will be in the form of a Gantt Chart. I have (or at least probably will have by the
time you read this) discussed Gantt charts in the lecture. The basic idea is very simple. Your current project goal is to produce a requirements document. In order to do this, you must break down your
work into tasks, subtasks and a set of milestones. Each task and subtask, in turn, must be
assigned to a member of the team. The
project coordinator must have a way of keeping track of the task breakdown,
task assignments, milestones and their corresponding rates of progress to
completion. That is where the Gantt Chart comes in.
Tasks have start and end points, are short relative to
the project and are significant (not
"going to library", but rather, "search literature"). Use
verb-noun form for naming tasks, e.g. "create drawings" or
"build prototype". Use action verbs such as "create",
"define" and "gather" rather than "will be made".
Each task has a definite beginning and an end. It is very
difficult to estimate durations accurately. You should make these estimates as
a group so that everybody is on the same page. A good rule of thumb is: Doubling your best
guess!
The purpose of the work schedule is twofold. First, it will be your guide as group to keep
track of what you are doing and make sure that you complete the Requirements
Document on time. Second, it allows me
to see that you have carefully thought this work through, broken it down into
manageable tasks and distributed the work in a rational manner. When I read it, I should get a warm fuzzy
feeling that there is a good chance you will succeed.
In order to make your Gantt Chart,
I strongly recommend an open source piece of software called GanttProject.
It is extremely easy to learn and to
use. Its only purpose is to produce a
Gantt Chart.
And since you do not have a lot of time to do this, I suggest you stick
with something that makes it easy to quickly get up to speed. The other great benefit of this is that you
can export your Gantt Chart (including task
assignments) conveniently to a pdf file which you
will be required to turn in. You are not
required to use this particular software.
However, you are required to use some type of project management
software (other than just a word processor or drawing program). But whatever you use must be able to export
the chart and task assignments to a pdf file because
that is what you will send to me.
Finally, you will be required to use some type of collaboration software. I strongly recommend the cost free version of a program called Basecamp. “Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, or reports - they fail from a lack of communication and collaboration.” This software is fantastically easy to use and you don’t even need to install anything on your own machine. You use it as a web application and they store your work for you. Since it is a web application, it is accessible from anywhere and is a great way to keep in touch as a group. It just takes a few minutes to sign up for a free account and learn how to use it.
There is a lot of free project management software
available. Most of it is rather more
complicated to use than the two programs I have recommended. I strongly urge you to use these for now
unless you are experienced with other products. The startup cost in time for most products is
fairly high, mostly because they do so much more than the two basic tasks I
have outlined above. For now, these are
all you need. I will discuss other more
powerful tools and development environments next period. However, if you are interested, I recommend
that you take a look at site called SoftwareProjects.org.
They have quite a list of
recommendations for free project management software of all kinds. But start by reading the review of GanttProject (it comes up when you follow the link).
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