Software Process and Quality Course Introduction EEE493 2001

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Software Process and Quality Course Introduction
EEE493 2001
Royal Military College of Canada Electrical and
Computer Engineering

• Major Greg Phillips
• greg.phillips_at_rmc.ca
• 1-613-541-6000 ext. 6190

Major Ron Smith smith-r_at_rmc.ca 1-613-541-6000
ext. 6030
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Todays Agenda

• Introductions
• Why study process and quality?
• Course overview
• Administration

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Industrial Software Development

• Typical school assignment
• small enough to be completed by 1-2 people in 1-2
  weeks (part time)
• quality requirements? what quality requirements?
• Industrial software development
• products inherently large and complex
• development typically requires 3 months to 2
  years
• teams typically range from 5 to 1000 people
• quality problems mean
• inability of project to deliver
• loss of customer confidence
• loss of market share or future contracts
• business failure
• loss of money, property, or life

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Ariane 5
http//www.esrin.esa.it/htdocs/tidc/Press/Press96/
ariane5rep.html
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London Ambulance System
http//www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein/las.ht
ml
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Therac-25

IEEE Computer, July 1993, pp. 18-41 also
at http//ei.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Thera
c_1.html
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Denver International Airport
Scientific American, September 1994, pp. 8695
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US Average Project Schedule
Software Productivity Research http//www.spr.com
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US Average Cancellation Rate
Software Productivity Research http//www.spr.com
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Course Premise

• The basic premise of the course is that a better
  understanding of the software process, both at
  the personal and at the organizational level,
  will lead to better management of software
  projects and to higher-quality software.

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Objectives

• By the end of the course you should
• understand various software lifecycle models and
  standards
• use metrics in the software planning process
• understand key issues and practices for building
  quality software and
• be able to effectively measure and interpret
  measurements of both the development process and
  the developed products.

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Structure

• A sequence of lectures covering key themes in
  software engineering
• planning and control
• development processes
• estimation
• configuration management
• quality metrics
• verification
• A semester long group project using the Extreme
  Programming (XP) methodology to develop a small
  software application

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Materials

• Course web site at
• http//phillips.rmc.ca/493/
• Textbooks
• Hans van Vliet. Software Engineering Principles
  and Practice. 2nd edition. John Wiley Sons,
  2000. ISBN 0-471-97508-7.
• Frederick P. Brooks. The Mythical Man-Month
  Essays on Software Engineering. 20th Anniversary
  Edition. Addison Wesley, 1995. ISBN
  0-201-83595-9.
• William C. Wake. Extreme Programming Explored.
  Draft. To be published by Addison Wesley, 2001.
  ISBN 0-201-73397-8 http//users.vnet.net/wwake/

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Evaluation

• Development project (30)
• Reading assignments (10)
• Midterm exam (20)
• Course final (40)
• The final will examine material from the entire
  course with a slightly heavier weight on material
  not already examined on the midterm.

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eProps

• before tomorrows lab period you must read the
  five Key eProps documents on the course web
  site
• http//phillips.rmc.ca/493/eProps/eProps.html

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Next ClassIntroduction to Extreme Programming