XYZ Software Organization Case Study - IT Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Assessment: Case Study

Description:
XYZ Software organisation develops several human resource management software systems that are widely used throughout fortune 1000 companies. Like the popular software companies this organisation firmly entrenched culture of using the waterfall development method to develop their software products for over 20 years. The organisation consists of nearly 600 engineers involved in developing their products operating in several different locations.
XYZ development organisation develops products consisting of nearly 25 applications that include software for HR, payroll, timekeeper, accounts and others. Much of the product development uses the Java programming language, followed by .net. XYZ under took the agile development transition beginning in 2005 for the engineering team.

Why Agile???
The first step towards adopting an agile development process came from the senior executive level of the organisation, Chief Technical Officer (CTO). From this perspective the current development process “didn’t feel right” . While the organisation wasn’t broken going into the agile development transition, CTO’s driving concern was to ensure that as the organisation grew they would not fall into the trap that some other large organisations encounter slowing productivity as opposed to the nimbleness that small teams possess. Factors contributing to the feeling were the high number of problem reports, time spent debugging the code was increasing at the cost of implementing less features the target release date for recent versions of the product slipped and employee burnout was being experienced. The 12 month product development cycle plan consisted of roughly six months of coding and six months of testing. The plan typically resulted in five months of coding and seven months of testing.

The goal of adopting agile development practices were:
Lower overhead associated with development
change responsiveness to customer needs
improve quality of the products

Due to employee burnout, fun was also a reason for adopting agile software development practices. The management team understood that developers wanted to write code. They wanted to create new technology and solve problems. Fixing bugs and regression testing was considered less fun but was a significant piece of the development effort.
For a twelve months cycle, developers were spending five months were high pressure times, due to the unpredictability of testing and debugging. Long hours spent finding and addressing the bugs during the last seven months was a common practise. A more sustainable pace was needed, not ‘bug bashes’ where people would stay late to fix bugs within the products. Management wanted to change the cycle from 5/7 to 11/1, where eleven months were spent doing the fun stuff. This coincides with statements made by Pete Deemer, Chief Product officer at Yahoo! (India Research and Development):

Details about the agile implementation
The first steps for adopting agile development methods were initiated by the CTO by having consultants come in and evaluate the organisation. After the consultants observed the organisation development practices the CTO then presented the results to the organisation and laid out how the development transition would be made. The presentation also showed the engineering team why the change was necessary and how things would improve. This executive level support enabled easy buy-in by the engineering team, as it came from the CTO himself. A rallying cry of “11/1” was used to motivate employees to see the positive aspects of agile development. “11/1” indicated that the engineering organisation was going to focus much more on the actual development work (11 months), and less time on the integration and final testing phase (1 month). Not only would the change help the company and direct stakeholders, but it would also help the employees by focusing on what engineers want to do, as opposed to the more mundane aspects that were occupying increasing amounts of time. Five full time consultants were brought on board, and a team of five to ten internal full-time agile coaches was assembled to provide training to the organisation. It took about three months to roll out agile development practices to the organisation. After a six months period the consultants left leaving the internal coaches to finish carrying out the agile transition. The method took place in two phases. The first phase instituted in 2005 focussed on adjusting the development practices used. These practises include the incremental approach to developing the products in smaller, “bite-size chunks” and retrospective. The second phase instituted in 2007 involved the adoption of Scrum practices within the organisation. This phase introduced role changes for managers and provided greater empowerment to the development teams.
Although XYZ was a traditional waterfall development-based company, there were some practices that the organisation had used were agile based (without using the agile name) that made the choice of choosing agile development easier.
It was decided that the entire suite of products would make the transition to agile development together. This was due to the overhead penalty that was forecast by transitioning one or a few groups and then having to apply an agile transition process to the remaining groups later. Further it just made sense to transition all teams at once, since there were several products that in essence became integrated into one large suite of application. In the words of one director of development they were entering uncharted territory, transitioning the whole development organisation at once, contradicting recommendations in agile development articles and consultants’ suggestions.
1.3 Assessment of the transition
In order to gauge the progress of the agile transition coaches are involved to check the pulse of the teams. They meet every 2 weeks to discuss the status of the transition. The subsequent addition of scrum practises made it easier to determine an agile health assessment and will show if and where additional focus is needed. The organisation is looking at the possibility of using quarterly audits to assess the state of agile development.
1.4 Role Changes
XYZ encountered role changes for some of the positions within organisation.
1.4.1 Project Managers (PM)
During the agile transition, PM positions were eliminated. As part of the agile process, product owner positions were used. Most of the PM became scrum masters but those that didn’t want to change left the company.
1.4.2 Developers
The role of the developers changed from writing code solely for the product to spending half of their time writing test code. The position also required a change in their mindset from a “throwing it over the wall” approach.

1.4.3 Testers (QA)
Testers had the initial notion of “we’ll test it once not more than once “. This also underscores the importance of automation testing, as in the words of one director of development “ You’ll be running the test a thousand times”.
1.4.4 Managers
Middle managers got squeezed the most from the agile development adoption. The lower teams make the process work, and senior managers make proclamations about what needs to be done. Prior to adopting agile development, they thought about the product, and not much time on how to make engineering better. The middle management group is only accountable for productivity.

Your Tasks:
Task 1: Identify & explain the reasons the current development methodology “didn’t feel right”
Task 2: Identify & explain the weakness of the Waterfall Method relevant to the XYZ case that led to change its methodologies.
Task 3: How is the “11/1” concept different to other development methodologies?
Task 4: What could be the difference between iteration, a release candidate and a product release?
Task 5: Describe with explanations the benefits that XYZ might gain by using agile methodology
Task 6: Why were the changes made?
Task 7: Would the changes have been made if XYZ used a different methodology like RAD
Task 8: What is your answer for Task 7? Yes or No, justify the same.
Task 9: What could be some cost that XYZ might experience in implementing Agile Methodology?
Task 10: If you are the CTO of XYZ which methodology will you suggest? Why?

Assessment 1 Checklist
Student’s name:
Did the student: Completed successfully Comments
Yes No Task 1: Identify the reasons the current development methodology “didn’t feel right” Task 2: Identify the weakness of the Waterfall Method relevant to the XYZ case that led to change its methodologies. Task 3: How is the “11/1” concept different to other development methodologies? Task 4: What could be the difference between iteration, a release candidate and a product release? Task 5: Describe with explanations the benefits that XYZ might gain by using agile methodology Task 6: Why were the changes made? Task 7: Would the changes have been made if XYZ used a different methodology like RAD Task 8: What is your answer for Task 7??? Yes or No, justify the same Task 9: What could be some cost that XYZ might experience in implementing Agile Methodology? Task 10: If you are the CTO of XYZ which methodology will you suggest? Why? Task Outcome: Satisfactory Not Satisfactory
Assessor name: Assessor signature: Date:
Assessment 2: Project Safe Internet Cafe is one of the busiest Internets browsing Centre which is located in the Sydney CBD. Their business hours are from 8.00AM to 8.00 PM. Safe Internet Cafe is currently using old computers which are 10 years old in the browsing centre and manual time management system. They calculate bill and internet uses manually. Now the owner of the browsing centre decides to change all the computers with new computers and implement new internet management system software. Owner wants to make Safe Internet Café completely automated. When a customer uses the internet and takes any other facilities from the internet café. System will calculate his/her bill automatically and will give the bill to the customer.
Safe Internet Café owner has signed with UBAck Technology Pty Ltd to upgrade their infrastructure and develop a system. So he can run his business automatically. UBAck CEO appoint you as a project manager and asking you to develop a project proposal for this application using MS-word and using MS-Project 2007 draw WBS, Gantt chart followed by Network diagram and Design Diagram to show the activities you have planned for the browsing centre.
Your project starts with the disposal of the new system. Assume there is no change in the interiors.
Duration: 3 months
Budget: $50,000 (only for the computer related expenses)
Your goal is to get the right workstations and develop an Automated System with the right setup and at minimal cost in time for starting the new project in one-month time.

Task 1: Identify the strategic and operational needs of the ICT project
From the above project scenario, as a business analyst you need to identify the strategic and operational needs of the ICT project during the planning phase.
 

Task 2: Project Plan
To present the project plan you need to create following documents Using Microsoft Project Software or Gantt Project and then paste screen shots on the project plan document / workings:
Work Breakdown Structure that identifies all the tasks required to complete the project
Identified Work Products (deliverables) at the end of the task for each identified task
Activity Sequence as part of a Schedule (Gantt chart). This should include clearly identified project Milestones (significant points in the project that mark an achievement or completion of a stage). The Critical Path should also be clearly identified.
Project Costing based on the following assumptions:
Price of the workstations.
Price of setting up a network including new broadband cables.
Include any other costs required for this project.
Cost benefit analysis

Task 3: Monitor and Report on Project Progress
Assume you are almost half-way through the project, planned in Task 2. Perform all the tasks outlined below and provide appropriate documentations to the Trainer.
Create a Task Sheet to log all work done on each task including actual start date, actual end date, time taken and who worked on the task.
A reporting plan with information about the periodic reports you will require for your project, including: who will prepare them; the format and content; how often they will be produced; who will receive them; how the reports will be delivered.
Identify the risks involved in this project. (at least 5)
A status report tailored for your project by adapting/changing the sample template supplied below to prepare a report of the current status of your project.

Task 4: Finalize the project
As a Project Manager review your project outcomes in relation to your original Project Plan for Buying a Notebook” project and present your findings.

Task 5: Provide a presentation
You need to create at least fifteen presentation slides and present to client (Here your trainer is your client)

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