SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

- Waterfall Model with prototyping

Reasoning:

·         The waterfall model is typically best suited for problems that have clearly defined and static requirements. Due to the short production time available to create the RCR system it is important that we lock down the customer’s needs with little to no variation, otherwise we risk falling behind schedule. We do not have the luxury of being able to backtrack and re-implement based on our mistakes. As such choosing a waterfall model will help enforce a strict and structured schedule helping to address the risk of falling behind.

·         By choosing to use the waterfall model with prototyping the team is encompassing some prototyping early into the production. We feel that this will be critical as the team does not have a lot of experience working with the Lego Mindstorms system. The prototyping time will allow for some early results to assert (or negate) our assumptions on what is capable and how we should proceed at a technical level.

·         Another aspect unique to this project is how the team was formed. Having little to no experience working with the other members in the group caused the team to lean towards a model that all the members are comfortable with. Thus, from a risk-management point of view, the team felt the waterfall model provided less risk than experimenting with a foreign development process that could hamper productivity.

WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE

The work breakdown structure for the RCR system is presented in a top-down hierarchical method. It is utilized to show the discrete components of the development process, which ultimately make up the project scope presented in Section 2 of this project plan.

TIMELINE

The timeline reflects the work effort, dependencies and the duration for all the project’s tasks, which are listed in the work breakdown structure.

- Document that houses the Work Breakdown Structure and timeline