Transcript Lecture 3

CS 509
Design of Software Systems
Lecture #3
Monday, Feb. 2, 2004
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Class Format for Today
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Term Project Administration
Return Quiz #1
Questions
Brief review of Chapter 3:
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Project Communication
 In Class Exercise:
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First Team Meeting
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CTS Project & Quiz #1
 Return Phase 1 (Requirements) documents
and Journals
 How is Phase 2 going?
 Return Quiz #1
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Solutions available soon on course web site
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Questions?
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From last week’s class
From the reading
About the CTS Project
Anything else?
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Chapter 3
Project Communication
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Overview
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Software engineering participants
Types of communication
Roles & Responsibilities
Anatomy of a meeting
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SW Engineering Participants
 A collaborative activity involving
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Domain experts, Analysts, Designers/Architects
Programmers, Managers, Technical Writers
QA Engineers, Graphic Designers, Users
 No single person can understand or control
all aspects of the system under development
 Changes require participants to update their
understanding of the system
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Types of Communication
 Development & Client Review status meetings
 Through documents: requirements, design, etc.
 Handle crises and misunderstandings:
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Phone calls, email messages, hallway conversations
 Brainstorming sessions, design meetings
 Bug fixing / Release management meetings
 Postmortem reviews
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Roles & Responsibilities
 See Table 3-1, page 87
 Cross-functional roles
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API engineer, document editor
Configuration manager, tester
 Consultant roles
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Application & solution domain specialists
Client, end user
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Running a successful meeting
 What is the purpose of holding a meeting?
 What are the elements of a good meeting?
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What are the roles?
What do you need to prepare?
What should you take away?
 What are some common things that go
wrong in meetings?
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Meeting Purpose
 Enable a number of participants to:
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Share ideas within a team
Get input from outside the team
Brainstorming - coming up with new ideas
Schedule a project or phase of development
Review status of work completed so far
Bring up & discuss current problems
Negotiate & resolve issues
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Successful Meeting Elements
 Meeting facilitator - responsible for:
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Organizing, scheduling
Creating an agenda
Keeping the meeting on track
 Minute taker - responsible for:
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Taking notes to record discussion
Capturing open issues
Distributing minutes after the meeting
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What participants should do
 Help facilitator to keep the meeting on track
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Everyone is responsible for making a meeting
successful
 Prepare in advance
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If you have an agenda, know what you need to say
 Be a good listener
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When someone else is speaking, don’t interrupt
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What sometimes goes wrong?
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Scheduling difficulties, inappropriate attendance
Facilitator isn’t prepared and/or is disorganized
Discussion gets too detailed or gets off track
Obstructions to effective communication:
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Interruptions, taking things out of context,
defensiveness, finger pointing, etc.
 No effective follow-up:
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No minutes, or nothing done with minutes
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Communication Exercise
Our First Team Meeting
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Meeting Agenda
 Objective:
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To produce comprehensive requirements for CTS
 Tasks:
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Come up with general outline for new document
Review individual documents for errors/omissions
Edit (cut & paste) into single document
 Request for volunteer:
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To record minutes
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For Next Time
 Read Chapters 6 & 7: System Design
 Reminders:
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Phase 2 (Functional Specifications) Due
Quiz #2 on Chapters 3, 5, 6
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