UNIVERSITY OF MAURTIUS

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATION

MAY 2016

MSc Software Engineering Projects and Management

PROGRAMME
MSc Project Management

MODULE NAME Software Project Management

Monday
DATE MODULE CODE CSE 6209
09 May 2016

TIME 09.30-12.30 hrsq1` DURATION 3 Hours

NO. OF
NO. OF
4 QUESTIONS TO 3
QUESTIONS SET
BE ATTEMPTED

Instructions to Candidates

1. This question paper consists of Section A and Section B.

2. Section A is compulsory.

3. Answer any two questions from Section B.

 SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT – CSE 6209

SECTION A (COMPULSORY)
Question 1 [40 Marks]

CASE STUDY

Agile Software Development at Airbus Defence and Space

Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus Group that was formed by
combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium, and Airbus Military. The
new division is Europe’s number one defence and space enterprise, the second
largest space business worldwide, and is among the top ten global defence
enterprises. It employs some 40,000 employees and generates revenues of
approximately €14 billion per year. The company’s products include fixed and
rotary-wing aircraft, homeland security systems, public safety communications,
defence electronics and avionics, and threat detection systems.

Airbus Defence and Space produces an Operations Support System (OSS) for
military helicopters such as the UH Tiger, NH90, and CH-53. The OSS combines
operational command and control with technical logistical support over the entire
process cycle of a helicopter squadron, from receipt of orders, through mission
planning, evaluation, and logistics within a single integrated planning system.
Airbus produces variants of its OSS for different helicopters, each of which must be
adapted to the specific requirements of its customers including the German, Finnish,
and Spanish armed forces.

The challenge

In the past, Airbus developed the OSS using a waterfall development process in
which the entire project was integrated, validated, and verified late in the
development cycle. “By the time the customer reviewed the project there were often
major differences between what we had produced and what the customer was
looking for,” said Jalina Walddörfer, Requirements Manager for Airbus Defence and
Space. One system was used for requirements management and another for test
automation so data had to be manually exported between these systems. This took
considerable time and meant that there was no real-time traceability between
requirements and testing.

Documentation was generated manually, which consumed enormous amounts of

time and did not provide an accurate record of development activities. Several years
ago, the group became subject to compliance with RTCA DO-278A which provides
safety guidelines for software development and requires substantial increases in
documentation relative to the previous process. “The only way it would have been
possible to meet DO-278A requirements using our previous manual processes for the
many variants that we produce would have been to substantially expand our staff,”
said Dr. Roland Kempter, Chief Engineer of Operations Support Systems for Airbus
Defence and Space.

The solution

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OSS management made the decision to introduce agile methods using a scrum
process in which software is developed in short sprints and presented to the
customer for feedback every four to six weeks. When the sprints are completed, the
software is integrated, presented again to the customer, and final documentation is
produced.

“It was obvious that a new toolset was required to streamline the development and
documentation process,” said Heiko Stehli, Software Architect for Airbus Defence
and Space. Airbus selected PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager because of its ability to
integrate requirements management, configuration management, test automation,
documentation, and DO-278A compliance.

“PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager’s process model makes it easy to completely

automate the scrum process,” Stehli said. “Continuous integration enables everyone
to work off the latest code base, which reduces errors and improves productivity.
Now each development team has a much more stable and iterative code base.”

Requirements as the sole vehicle of information transport have been superseded by

contract major work packages consisting of system and software requirements,
backlogs, and test cases. Less granular system requirements make it possible to
incorporate customer feedback at the sprint level.

“With a system as complex as the OSS, it’s important to maintain a record of what
decisions were made and why,” Walddörfer said. “A problem with our previous
requirements management tool was that whenever we created a baseline the history
was only available in the baseline tool. PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager, on the other
hand, maintains a historical view of the how the documents have evolved over time
so it’s easy to determine who to ask if something is unclear.”

PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager’s disciplined agile workflows bridge the gap
between the scrum process and DO-278A reporting. Other than some high level
documents produced at the start of the process, all other artefacts including system
requirements, work items, defect reports, and integration and test plans are stored in
PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager and linked to the software architecture. Features
are maintained in solution specific containers that hold only the features that are
relevant for a specific variant. Each variant comprises a group of modules so the DO-
278A documentation for any variant can be produced without manual effort.

The results

“The new OSS process makes us much faster, while also improving the quality of
project planning, code quality, customer satisfaction, and user satisfaction,” said Dr.
Kempter. “Substantial time savings are provided by our agile process, which
identifies errors or differences in interpretation early in the development process
when they can be corrected with minimal time and effort. PTC Integrity Lifecycle
Manager provides a single version of the truth with full traceability from
architecture through documentation across every variant, which makes our
developers much more productive. Collaboration is improved because everyone can
see what everyone else is doing. Management makes better decisions because we
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 SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT – CSE 6209

have full control and visibility into who is doing what. DO-278A compliance would
not have been achievable at a reasonable cost with our previous toolset, but now we
can generate the complete documentation for any variant with the push of a button.”

The first two increments produced with the new toolset were on time, cost, and
quality and incorporated almost 100 percent automated test coverage. The OSS
project has seen major improvements in customer satisfaction. Furthermore, a
survey showed that 72 percent of Airbus employees working on the OSS project
believe the new process is better or equal to old. The improvements achieved in the
OSS process have gained attention throughout Airbus and several other groups are
considering moving to PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager.
(Source: Airbus Defense and Space, J4301- PTC AIRBUS DEFENSE AND SPACE -CS-EN-0914)

(a) What is scrum and explain how it has been beneficial to OSS, as opposed to
the waterfall model?
[4 + 6 Marks]

(b) PTC has the ability to integrate requirements management, configuration

management, test automation, documentation, and DO-278A compliance.
This improves traceability between requirements and testing, as well as better
planning. According to you, what are the likely implications of planning
ahead of testing when using the PTC tool?
[4 x 3 Marks]

(c) Discuss how the PTC tool helps in staging this agile project.
[2 x 3 Marks]

(d) Define the characteristics that the PTC tool have, that may help the OSS
project to move to a Level 3 of the Capability Maturity Model.
[4 x 3 Marks]

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SECTION B
Answer any two questions from Section B

Question 2 [30 Marks]

(a) Baselines are used as the measurement against which

all changes or deviations are analyzed and must be approved,
documented and implemented. Define five metrics that may be used to
assess changes to a baseline?
[5 x 2 Marks]

(b) Before a crisis materialized, the project team may be able to define some
elements of crisis management, such as the responsible parties and drop-
dead date, but the team may be hard pressed to plan the exact details until
the crisis occurs. Explain what the project manager must do in such a
situation.
[14 Marks]

(c) Choose two of the most common software risks stated by Caper Jones and
discuss how they are still relevant to new software development
processes.
[2 x 3 Marks]

Question 3 [30 Marks]

(a) CompWorld is a global leader in IT equipment, has its headquarters in

London, UK. With extensive European manufacturing facilities, customer-
focused companies in 30 European countries and more than 10000
experienced employees, CompWorld is aiming to be the ‘‘no. 1’’ computer
company in its home market in Europe, by the year 2020. CompWorld
provides the industry’s most complete portfolio of best-in-class IT products,
from the smallest notebooks to the most powerful data centre solutions. To
achieve its aim, CompWorld is planning to implement an ERP system.
Currently, different legacy systems are used at each locations, and the
objective of CompWorld headquarter is to standardise their information
system.

i. Suppose your company has been chosen for this implementation, what
approach for software sizing will you use for estimation? Support your
approach with appropriate justifications.
[2 + 8 Marks]

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ii. CompWorld agreed to assign your company this contract, provided

that the global implementation is completed in 18 months. Despite
having teams with adequate experiences, this project has significant
complexities. Which class of software project would you classify this
implementation if estimation is carried out using a basic COCOMO
model?
[5 Marks]

(b) What is the importance of resource loading for a software project? Why is it a
critical element in effectively managing the project plan?
[2+3 Marks]

(c) When resource leveling a project, there are a number of heuristics that can
help us prioritize those activities that receive resources first. Explain how
each of the heuristics works.
[5x2 Marks]

Question 4 [30 Marks]

(a) An artefact is one of many kinds of tangible by-products produced during the
development of software. State three planning artefacts and three operational
artefacts for a software project.
[3 + 3 Marks]

(b) A software project is suffering from severe deadline pressures. Discuss how
time boxing may be used for this project.
[12 Marks]

(c) Explain the process involved in project procurement management. Use a

known software development project to explain the process.
[6 x 2 Marks]

END OF QUESTION PAPER