SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ASSIGNMENT

NAME: MOREDECAI CHIPHWANYA

REG: 19321351015
DEPERT: BSC THIRD YEAR
ASSIGNMENT NO: 1
TO : MR M. MKANDAWIRE

1|Page
 APPLY SPIRAL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF CAR TRACKING ANDROID
APPLICATION
It’s a risk-driven model which means that the overall success of a project highly depends on
the risks analysis phase. Risk analysis requires specific expertise on every iteration. Thus, to
review and analyse the project from time to time, special skills are needed. At a first sight, it
may seem like this model is complicated and clumsy, and there are no reasons to consider
this approach as one of your options. But, like any other SDLC models, Spiral Model, besides
its disadvantages, has its unique strong sides. For example, there’s a possibility to add some
additional functionality at the last stages of software product development. Since risk
monitoring and regular expertise are core characteristics of this methodology, the overall
project becomes more transparent.
Spiral Model Brief Review of Main Characteristics In a few words, Spiral Model of software
development can be characterized by repeatedly iterating a set of elemental development
processes and eliminating risk, so it is actively being reduced. To understand how you can get
your goals using Spiral Model.
Take a look at this diagram:

The Spiral Model consists of four main software development life cycle phases. The whole
development process repeatedly passes through these stages. Each iteration is called Spiral.
Four main phases of Spiral Model are:

2|Page
  Determine Objectives
 Alternatives
 Constraints
 Planning Phase
DETERMINE OBJECTIVE
This is where everything starts. Team members try to gather the product objectives,
requirements (e.g. Business Requirement Specifications or BRS, System Requirement
Specifications or SRS), alternatives in design, etc. In the subsequent spirals, all requirements
are generated according to the customer’s feedback. Thus, permanent communication
between customer and project management is crucial.
EVALUATE ALTERNATIVES
Evaluate Alternatives, Identify, Resolve Risks or Risk Analysis Phase is probably the most
significant development stage. What are the risks in this context? Risks are possible
conditions and events that prevent the development team from its goals. There’s a wide range
of them, from trivial to fatal. The primary task for the development team is to enumerate all
the possible risks and prioritize them according to importance. The next step is to determine
the potential strategies that can help to overcome the risks. Evaluation of these parameters
can cause changes in the next steps. At the end of this stage, a prototype is produced.
DEVELOP, VERIFY NEXT LEVEL PRODUCT, OR ENGINEERING PHASE.
This is when the planned product is developed along with further testing. During the first
spiral, when the overall requirements are not so clear, the so-called Proof of Concept (POF) is
created to get the customer’s feedback. Later, in subsequent spirals, a working version of a
product called build can be developed and sent to the client to get new, more detailed,
feedback. Such an approach allows achieving higher clarity on requirements.
PLAN NEXT PHASES, OR EVALUATION PHASE.
This phase allows evaluating the output of the project to date before the project continues to
the next spiral. Spiral Model is called meta-model because it uses
both Waterfall and Prototype models. But it’s highly important to understand that Spiral
Model is not just a sequence of waterfall increment
NOTE: In fact, Spiral model is pretty flexible. You should remember that the diagram we’ve
talked about earlier contains some oversimplifications. It may seem that everything on the
project follows a single spiral sequence while it’s not. Real life project life cycle is more agile
and flexible than this simple representation. There’s even a possibility to revisit the previous
decision. For the car tracking application needs the extra attention.
For the application for tracking the car has to meet the following points from the customer
the owner of the company

1. Permanent remote fleet control

The car tracking app means continuous access to information about your vehicles and the
opportunity to get all the information you need about their location and condition at any

3|Page
moment. The advantage of such awareness is obvious: you can be constantly on the alert and
respond to possible changes in a timely manner.

2. Fuel consumption control

You must admit that an unreasonable increase in fuel costs adversely affects the overall
performance of the company and reduces its profitability. Moreover, it's often not only the
extra cost of gasoline, but also the tricks of drivers trying to hide the misuse of fuel.

The fuel consumption sensors coupled to the vehicle GPS tracking application and constantly
exchanging information with it help solve the problem. This allows you to always be in the
know and control the situation.

3. Analysis of the fleet effectiveness 

In order to increase the efficiency of the fleet and reduce the cost of transportation, the entire
logistics scheme should be substantially changed. GPS fleet management software collecting
data about each vehicle and optimizes the load distribution between all of them will help you
to achieve the desired goal.

The following are the stages the developers can follow by using the spiral model

1. Defining concept

On this stage, there is only the initial vision of the product that can create value to the
potential users. The team need to have a possibility to get feedback from their first users as
quick as possible. Such conception can help understand more clearly what features are the
most valuable for the users. They have some analysis data about features and requirements
that should be implemented at first. The main aim is to understand what potential increment
they would like to have at the end of the iteration.

2. Inception stage

After the team determined the main conception and initial architecture vision, the team need
to start to plan our first iteration. The most critical requirements are sent to the top of the list.
Then there is a need to asked each developer of our team how many requirements they think
can be turned into completed functionality. Afterwards, they decomposed each requirement
(identified work tasks) and defined the best possible way to develop them. They can include
modelling and prototyping solution to make a more accurate estimate.

3. Design stage

The need to elaborate a mock up that described software functionality and features in detail.
The mock up is then processed by designer. The design elements have to be described quite
clearly to help a developer build software with minimal additional input.

4. Construction of iteration and testing

4|Page
At this stage, the team delivers high-quality working software in priority order, which is
created in accordance with the changing needs of their potential users. What’s more
important, the team could deploy this solution into a preproduction testing.

5. Installation stage

This stage provides the mechanisms to move the latest application and development changes
into production.

6. Post production / Maintenance stage

At the end of each development iteration, the team has to have a partial working solution to
show their users. On this basis, users give them their feedback on the current state of their
system. After collecting and analysing these requirements, they can be able to change the
priority of tasks in the next iteration and even include some requirements from scratch

ADVANTAGES
 Risk monitoring is one of the core parts which makes it pretty attractive, especially
when you manage large and expensive projects.
The car tracking application need the monitoring now and then Moreover, such
approach makes your project more transparent because, by design, each spiral must
be reviewed and analysed
 Customer can see the working product at the early stages of software development
lifecycle
 Different changes can be added at the late life cycle stages
 Project can be separated into several parts, and risky of them can be developed earlier
which decreases management difficulties Project estimates in terms of schedule,
costs become more and more realistic as the project moves forward.
 loops in spiral get completed Strong documentation control

DISADVANTAGES

 Since risk monitoring requires additional resources,

 this model can be pretty costly to use.
 Each spiral requires specific expertise, which makes the management process more
complex. That’s why Spiral SDLC Model is not suitable for small projects A large
number of intermediate stages. As a result, a vast amount of documentation  
 Time management may be difficult.
 The end date of a project is not known at the first stages

 .

5|Page