CpSc 372

Assignment 1

Feasibility Study

 

Before software engineers begin to build a specific product, there is a business process in which decisions are made about whether to use the company's resources for a particular product or not. The product idea to be investigated at this time is a pinball game. The pinball game would be implemented by the product line organization, using the assets created for the other products, and added to the product line. The goal of this assignment is to determine whether it is feasible to add the pinball game to the Arcade Game Maker (AGM) product line.  

A feasibility study is conducted to determine if a particular product is economically and technically feasible. The feasibility study includes a risk analysis that identifies potential problems. In this situation, the Business Case for the product line provides a starting point for this analysis. The feasibility also depends upon how similar the new product is to existing products. The Requirements document contains a commonality/variability analysis for the existing products.

Steps:

1.     Begin a log that shows the members of the group. Update this log to show all meetings of the group and who attends each meeting. List the location of the meeting, the beginning and ending times of the meeting, decisions made at the meeting, and responsibilities assigned during the meeting.

2.     Read the Business Case and Requirements documents from the product line. View the UML model of the product line (This is a zip file of the directory containing the Together project). In particular, consider the system level use cases.

3.     Modify the Commonality section of the requirements document to account for the pinball game[1].

4.     Examine the sections of the Business Case and modify any sections that should be changed to incorporate the pinball game.

5.     Modify the UML model to incorporate the pinball game. In particular, modify the use case diagram and the use case descriptions. Use case descriptions are found in the requirements document.

6.     (Extra mile[2]) Modify the excel file for the cost benefit analysis of the incremental product line approach to reflect the additional product in all three increments.

7.     Based on your analysis write a memo to the Vice President for Product Planning recommending for or against adding the pinball game to the product line. Justify the recommendation.

8.     Zip/tar all the modified files plus the log together and submit the bundle.

 

This is a three to four person team assignment. Electronic copy is due by email by 4 pm Friday, September 5, 2003 in the department office. Mail sent after 4pm will be discarded.

Grading will be based on:

1.     Completeness of the analysis

2.     Correctness of the reasoning

3.     Any value added beyond the basic assignment



[1] Use the Change Tracking facility of Word to highlight changes as you make them.

[2] Extra mile sections are optional. It will not count against you if you don’t do it. It will give “extra” credit if the work is correct.