Essay Collection 2010

Abstract:One of the main goals of every software team should be to finish their project. To fulfil this goal it is necessary to accomplish many assignments and finish many small elements. Project manager that controls this project must have an overview about how the work on elements and assignments proceeds and whether the project is following the time frame. To walk around all of the employees and control them is no longer effective.Every operative worker uses supportive tools to administrate software projects. I will focus on those supportive tools that have its application in small teams. Also my goal is to illustrate how this helps the whole team and mainly the project manager. How often can it be used and how often should it be used. The most important aspect remains the final effectivity of the tool for the team.

Abstract:The meaning of planning in software projects is rather straightforward. The planning has definitely its purpose in small teams, as well as in large ones dealing with software products. Even the meaning of planning in school projects on the level of team projects is very crucial and obvious. But how about school software projects made by one student only? I think that the planning has its purpose also in such a specific project with a relatively small extent. I offer some reasons why a student should plan in his/ her projects. Some of them might seem trivial but at least the realization of them plays a significant role in the process of project making. I point that in the movement from an intuitive planning of school projects to the real planning need not be any great effort. On the other hand, it may bring great benefit to students.

Abstract:Changing environment is a common case in teamwork on a software project. Changing of specification or another customer wishes should not surprise us at all. It is a fact and every developer and manager should get used to it. Times, where testing was the last phase in software development, are long gone now. We prefer to track and correct bugs in early states of development. Such a discovery is an invaluable advantage to software quality. In software development we try our best to find the best practices to ensure quality from project start and at the same time deal with permanent environment changes. In this essay I focus on possibilities of a small team to ensure quality from project initialization. I sort out applicable test practices and their evaluation how they can ensure quality in a small team. To them belong the Continuous integration technique, automatic tests and test driven development. I evaluate the right attitude of a developer by creating quality software. Take a thought of possible evolution of testing in future.

Abstract:There are usually 6-7 students that are brought together to carry out the work on the Team project, who commit themselves to constant effort to achieve the common goal. This goal is in fact comprised of two parts. Firstly, they seek to gain experience with the teamwork in non-trivially sized project but on the other hand, there is an outcome of their work too, the product. The experience is later applied when the student steps out into the real world and the product, in case it has some educational or accademic potential, remains used by the school. Consequently, if it does not have those two qualities, it is usually abandoned altogether. The students usually fail to exploit the commercial potential of the theme of the project, even though it would require manageable portion additional effort. They probably fail to see the potential profits they could gain or are humiliated by the lack of their business related knowledge. We think that one of the main reasons of not transfering the project to the commercial domain is the fear that they will simply not make it. In this essay we try to quantify this anxiety using the means of the risk analysis, we elaborate about the methods used to reduce the risk probabilities. Finally, we asses the conversion of the team project work to the commercial domain.

Abstract:In the process of developing and creating a software product, it is necessary to have the overall survey over the progress of the project. Watching the progress, we can reach the visibility of the project in every phase of its development. In order to arrive at this, we have to follow the characteristic attributes of the software project. They help us evaluate the software product and the process that was a part of the project. But the tools we use for monitoring do not always and necessarily bring the information needed concerning the state of the project. It is necessary to study carefully the data acquired and bear in mind what they actually stand for. These tools are hence only a means that may lead us to our goal. It is upon us how we will use these tools. In this essay, I will prove that it is necessary to doubt the data acquired from separate measurements and that it is essential not to trust measurements themselves.

Abstract:Nowadays new software products are created every day. People that work on them usually work in a team. For the product to be created in a good duality and in a short period of time, the structure of the team that participates on its development is very important. This essay analyzes the factors that can influence the team, its efectivity and co-operation. It analyzes the character of a personality from the point of view of Hippokrat, C. G. Jung and Myers – Briggs. Every one of them formed a different methodology for a resolution of the personality. Next important point is a good communication and an ability to solve conflicts. There in no manual on how to create an ideal team, however I will try to bring up the factors, confront them and apply on my team. Last but not least I would like to point out the importance of understanding and tolerating mistakes of others and on their consecutive improving. It is important not only for the work in a team, but moreover for life alone.

Abstract:Every software project needs to be managed. If we ignore project management, it leads to chaos and global dissatisfaction of both sides - the customer and also software developers. It is a difficult job to manage any kind of process and even more difficult is making the right decisions without quality basis. Various tools give us a real view of actual state of our project, such as tools for task management, issue tracking, resource tracking, bug tracking and many others. All of them require additional writing and additional teamwork. This essay discusses the need of these tools for managing project by a team leader and also how they affect the teammates, their collaboration and their productivity. The essay mainly covers answering the questions such as: Whom really help the support tools? Do they help only the team leader or the whole team? May they help improve motivation?

Abstract:Planning software projects brings some risks, which are often hard to uncover. Project time estimation can be difficult especially for managers with lack of experience, e.g. managers of projects on subject „Team project“. Hence, it can happen (and also it happens), that the project does not shape the right way, time lapses can happen. It is the task of the managers to choose the right alternative, which can turn the project on right way and recover the dropout. In the essay, I contemplate the problems of crisis situations in projects and analyze alternatives that are recommended to use on similar situations (extreme programming, etc.). I consider the view point of the subject “Team project”.

Abstract:Nowadays, in the age of fierce competition and conscious clients is Quality an often repeated word at many meetings. The situation in software section is similar. Companies try to develop a quality software to satisfy customers' needs, gain a good reputation and adequate profit and also minimize the costs to troubleshoot low-quality software. The term 'quality software' is not easy to define and there are many ways to describe it. In my opinion testing shouldn't be the last step in the process of development of a quality product. Therefore this essay focuses on the relation of quality and testing. I will try to specify the term 'quality software' and closely describe the importance of testing in the process of software development. This specification should limit unrealistic expectations and inadequate implementation of testing into the product development.

Abstract:Everyone has experienced that a certain activity took him more time to complete than he expected. In a development of an information and software projects such delay can represent a failure. To prevent that ,a risk management in development is used. Teams of students working on their team projects deal with new technologies and accept new roles. Roles such as a team-leader or a responsible person for a dedicated part of a project. The reader can learn about a method of identification of risks. These methods are mostly suitable for small teams and should also cover a sufficient area of small projects. Risk Identification is only one part of risk management, therefore this essay describes the basics of risk management and its implementation in practice.

Abstract:Monitoring of software project includes using chosen metrics. Each other may vary from level, view or accuracy. Success of every project, its dynamic and flexibility is influenced by monitoring. It is important to choose metrics carefully. Sometime they are correct, another time they show wrong way. The essay considers traditional measuring methods. It tries to explain which metrics are reliable. Further it is finding new connections between completely different methods. Finally essay suggests several new possibilities of measurement in software project.

Abstract:Proper division of responsibilities in the team project is a difficult issue, and every manager has to take it into account during planning. Each team consists of people who are selected for the project, not only on the basis of their knowledge and skills, but also by their psychological and personality profile. Often it is important to focus on the communication and abilities to cooperate with other members in a team. All these characteristics form a team. While their skills and knowledge create a functional part of the project, the member’s unique personality and proper motivation make a spirit of a project team. The essay discusses the personality characteristics of team members. Nevertheless I focus on the consistency as well as conflicts between knowledge and whole personal characteristic of a team member. I monitor the interaction and communication between people in various situations, arising from their unique characteristics and personalities.

Abstract:My essay is bound by scope of support tools for managing software projects, with emhpasis on human resources utilization and task monitoring. It contents introduction into management of software project. It seeks, which options exist for actual support of managing, planning and task monitoring. There is a number of them, for example Gantt chart or Network graph. It researches, which features of support software are demanded or desired from software engineers. Essay touches some commercial and open-source tools for support of managing software projects. Author is trying to compare them objectively, considering group of chosen features. Furthermore, essay brings author's opinion on necessity of using coplex tools in smaller projects.

Abstract:Success of every project relies on planning. Plan creating and updating is very important for project to proceed correctly. The plan should look ahead, reveal situations, which are likely to happen, and propound guidelines to handle those situations. Even though the plan itself should prevent unexpected situations from happening, surprises are inseparable part of every project. It is therefore important to actualize plan and do not fully bank on its first version, the one created at the very beginning of the project, without any relevant information about project progress. The paper presents some concepts of evolutionary planning as a technique for effective management of a software project. It is focused on continuous plan modification usefulness. Risk factors of different aspects of planning are concisely described, along with some ideas to minimize those risks.

Abstract:Any activity, including the holding of a position in software project brings the risk of creating unpredictable errors that degrade the resulting software product and reduce its quality. There are two ways to solve this problem. The first is to eliminate the generation of errors, which is superhuman, and probably unsolvable task. On the contrary, the second way and much simpler option is to find these errors and avoid possible spread of these errors, which largely contribute to the quality of the resulting software product. Finding errors can be managed by testing. In this document, I will try to clarify aspects of testing, when and how to test. I will mention possible ways of testing and compare them between each other. I will introduce interesting development methodology, Test Driven Development, and also i will mention my opinion about this issue.

Abstract:The risk and potential problems have become a part of all major projects, whether it is a software project or other one. Each project being developed is now accompanied by greater or smaller risks by nature. The final result is reflected by them, either in the quality or price, which are nowadays very important factors. This work attempts to explain what exactly the concept of risk means, how a underestimation of the risk becomes to the actual problem. The question why should we in fact handle the risks and why not to underestimate the analysis dominates in this essay. Since the programmers and stuff are interfered by risk themselves, I describe their behavior under the influence of risks and issues.

Abstract:Several problems in the team can occur during a software product creation. They are especially more severe, the larger team is involved in the project. It is not new, that project monitoring is used as solution. But monitoring is not that simple, because it comes with new problems. In this essay I look on the problem from the perspective of the employee and also employer. I think that their cooperation is required for the monitoring to be successful. In my opinion, every team member has a right to know everything about monitoring and what its results are used for. Then they should not be afraid about their privacy, which is further described in the essay. Employer should not take employers just as sheeps. Today, cooperation and adequate respect for team members does not always work, because workers are afraid of monitoring, which may also lead to inaccurate monitoring results. This essay is therefore primarily concerned with how such issues arise, as I think they can be easily avoided. Then we can create a functional team to satisfy all team members and to make monitoring productive.

Abstract:The secret of a man’s mind has been always fascinating not only for many thinkers and scientists. Mankind has been slowly uncovering the mentioned secret but it is still a complicated problem and because of this fact, it remains still open and actual. In this essay, we comtemplate about the personalities of software engineers and their impact not only on their specialization, but also on the roles, which are familiar to them in team work. The problem of communication between the team members is discussed and several obstacles, which will probably have to be faced by the team, are identified. The alternatives how to divide the duties between the team members according to their personalities are analyzed. Acceptable distribution of competences and responsibilities is searched for, strong attributes of the personalities are considered. On the other hand, possible problems, issued from the weaker attributes are mentioned. We confront the theoretical result with typical personality characteristics in the analyzed team.