CS 487 Team Organization

This course will help you to understand software development as a series of engineering activities. An objective of the course is to build software development team-working skills. Students will gain hands-on experience through building a software system using the waterfall lifecycle model. Students, working on teams, will develop the following life cycle deliverables: software requirements specification, software design specification, test specification, code and user manual. At the end of the semester, each team will give a demonstration of their system.

How the teams will be organized:

  1. Each student must be a member of a team.
  2. Each team will be composed of 4 students.
  3. Each team must choose a different team leader for each life cycle deliverable.
  4. For each deliverable, the team will fill out a phase evaluation form that indicates how the work was distributed among the team members. These percentages will be used, at the end of the semester, when final grades are computed.
  5. It is the responsibility of each team member to share equally in the work.
  6. It is the responsibility of each team member to communicate and work productively towards a common goal with the other team members.

The first week of class:

You must organize into teams. Check the blackboard grade book to see if your team name code has been posted. Teams will be posted as they form and are approved. If you can’t find a team, please contact me. I can help you get on a team.

Each team must:

  1. Choose a team leader for the software requirements analysis phase.
  2. Choose a team name and a 5-character code for the team name. The code will be posted in blackboard.
  3. Create and agree to a plan describing how your members will communicate/work as a team. (ideas: communicate through email, meet before each class for an hour, telephone, fax documents to each other for review…) This should be brief, but each team member must agree to it.

Due: Begging of Project

  1. Name, section number and student ID of each team member.
  2. Name and Logo/Slogans
  3. Team plan for communication.