Participation of team members on planning process

Branišová Jana

Abstract. This essay gets focus at importance of involving team members on planning process. It revolves three models of participation team members - dictatorial regime, voting and consultative body. It maps these models on different environments and tries to answer the question if the application of models depends on environment where team works. Which model can bring a project to a successful resolution? It tries to figure out what is the most suitable model for specific environment. Essay compares the development of the project team in the school environment with development in the environment of the company. It wonders which one is suitable for static and which one for dynamic environment.

Britvík Andrej

Abstract. According to numerous surveys a lot of software projects fail nowadays, just like they did in the past. They experience cost and schedule overruns or significantly reduced functionality. Some of them are even canceled before completion. Even if numbers say that projects nowadays are a bit more successful than before, it does not have to be true. People seldom admit that they failed. Risk management is trying to prevent projects from failing by eliminating risks produced by many factors that affect project outcome. There are known lists full of various risks so it should not be a problem to identify possible risks for our project. Even if we identified all the risks, it is not guaranteed that our project would be successful. In this essay I am trying to expose hidden dangers of risk management. These dangers may have a significant effect on project outcome and people might not even know they exist.

Quality in little

Dupaľ Martin

Abstract. A quality product is required for each output of all projects. To achieve a quality product, there is nowadays a lot of different methods and even more specialized works dealing with this issue. Only a few of these studies and methods rely on a fact, that the product will be developed by a small and limited team. In this essay I will discuss the possibility of quality manager for a small team to develop a product. More specifically, I will discuss the project, which was assigned for my team during the Team Project subject (STU FIIT). I will focus on responsibilities, opportunities and quality manager responsible for the product development, as the quality is not just endless testing. Testing is only one of the last responsibilities that managers need to ensure quality.

Documentation can’t be only document

Dušek Martin

Abstract. You can go to every target by a lot ways. This world is controlled by many software, information systems or technologies, which helping to do things more effective, faster and with better quality. Also when you write documentation for software product, you have to use innovative technologies and try to do it better. Biggest trend in writing documentation is using system for online documentation – Wiki. In this essay you can read something about this method, history, future, advantages, disadvantages and about my own opinion how we can find solutions for this disadvantages. How we can write documentation is only first step. We have to know, what we really need in this documentation. I think we have to write only what people really need, no more, no less.

Riadenie projektu, prečo nepostupuje vývoj podľa plánu

Gomola Matej

Abstract. This essay focuses on tools supporting project management and issue tracking. Introduction of such tools affects much of the work on project and though it should be considered in what scale or extent is the tool applied. In the end of the essay I consider how can a management tool in some organizations become a reason for slowing the progress of the project. I focus on a part of issue tracking, communication and information sharing. In conclusion I try to propose solutions and avoid problems, that are likely to arise when such tools are used.

How on risks

Grega Jaroslav

Abstract. In today's world full of uncertainty, it is necessary to count with many dangers in each area. Such area is the development of software and information systems. In this essay I would like to acquaint the reader with the issue of risk management. The introduction will describe basic terms of risk management. Then moving on to the actual problem which I will apply knowledge of risk management in the subject team project. After a brief introduction to explain why risk management is important and why it is important to deal with it. Since not everybody knows how to deal with managing risk, I decided to bring this essay as I see it based on their own experience.

The Importance of a Heart and a Cover of a Software Product

Gregor Martin

Abstract. Can you imagine the situation when a project fails? Especially in software development is a key criterion don’t let the project fails. Management of monitoring takes care of that and can determine not only the current status of the project with methods of a development control and special metrics, but also predict the progress of the development and cost of the development and resources required for its completion. You can monitor the status of internal and external development. An internal monitoring is meant quality of code that ensures the integrity, stability and robustness of the system. External state are completed external visible and functional properties of the product. We will look at methods and monitoring capabilities for both internal and external aspects of the development and its impact on the resulting software product.

Usefulness of monitoring and agile software development

Kollár Adrián

Abstract. To facilitate planning and improvement of monitoring of the development process, there are various metrics that try to measure a product or process itself. Software metrics, however, suffer from some problems which arise from the nature of the software itself. The essay will explain the nature of these problems and it will try to answer the question about contribution of metrics to software development process. An important issue is the agile software development, which is used by more and more companies these days. In accordance with the agile methodology, decisions are made by professionals and rely mainly on intuition. Recently, there were various modifications of metrics used for the needs of agile development process. If these metrics have to be meaningful, they have to be modified to reflect the agile development methodology. Can these metrics be beneficial? Is it useful to use them?

The joy of monitoring

Králik Gergely

Abstract. The process of project monitoring is the possibility to learn about the state of the project development. Using project monitoring we can estimate the quality of the program, also we can measure the efforts of the individual members of the team. Now, when the agile software development is widely used we need to invest more time to the project monitoring, so we can estimate the risks, and avoid errors. The term monitoring can means monitoring of the code quality, but also means monitoring the team members as individuals. So we can determine if they work according to the plan. Monitoring consists of three main elements: collection, analysis and preparation of records. This paper describes how to monitor projects using metrics for monitoring in software development. This essay describes the options of observing the quality of the work or the process of the task allocation.

Software quality in everyday life

Kyžňanský Michal

Abstract. Word quality and mainly the one referring to software represents a magical concept which unfortunately suffers from being unfulfilled from the very beginning of usage of word software. Every management mainly deals with the people and that is the reason why I as a quality manager focus on approach to the people, how to be closer to them and pull the whole development team in a nonviolent way to achieve new levels of software quality. Quality manager often experiences sciamachy because on the one hand flawless software is utopia and on the other introducing new practices that will raise the quality level is not an easy task. Programmers ego and old established practices are just a few of the many problems that are waiting to be solved by quality manager. I am focusing mainly on the procedures and behaviour which can result in reduction of problems connected to quality crisis if properly established and integrated. Important weapons that quality manager can use is sensible approach, gaining trust on every level of organisation and development team and setting objectives. Fulfilling of these objectives must be measurable and in the end will increase quality not only in front of customers but also give programmers sense of good work. To be successful as a quality manager owners and managers must clearly see the benefits brought by activities connected to quality management by means of reducing costs for future development.

How to not plan for failure

Michalec Peter

Abstract. Different methods for planning schedules are nowadays used not only in schools, but also in various companies or personal lives. It also plays a large role in software projects for both individuals and teams of people. Everyone tries to do their best to plan the project well, although the extent to which the project is well planned is hardly measurable. Custom software is created for many years and created several advices which managers should keep in mind during planning, so that their project will not fail. The scrum methodology as one of the agile software development methods, strives to provide solutions to improve and clarify the planning of software projects. After a few years of experience with this methodology, there are tips on how to improve such a little planning. It is important, however, to pay attention and try to follow these tips. This is especially important for inexperienced students, who for the first time face teamwork in the team project subject to our faculty.

E-mail writing. Do we do it right?

Nagy Gábor

Abstract. The goal of this essay is to consider the proper way of using e-mail communication. After describing some clear advantages of this communication way author tries to put the advantages under some conditions. According to research and personal opinion essay tries to show that the well-known advantages are not automatic and can be discarded by wrong usage. This work thinks about the main reasons of e-mails’ decreased efficiency, makes a conclusion and gives us some problem solving hints.

Out-of-date documentation is useful, too

Ogurčák Filip

Abstract. Technical documentation is an essential but often ignored part of the final software product. Ignored in the sense, that attention is given mainly to the functionality of the final product and for regular updates of documentation no time remains. Documentation, however, is not only for final customer, but is also important for programmers, development team leaders and company management. In this essay I would like to focus on the fact, that out-of-date documentation has still enough additional value for customer, programmer and manager controlling the progress of the project. In this case is important developed product as a whole, connection between modules and representation of general functionality. Finally is showed an absence of a standard, which would make technical documentation unified and simplified.

Distributed Development – a step forward or backward?

Ort Miroslav

Abstract. Software development is a difficult process, which the integral part is the cooperation of a large number of people. Due to a globalization trend distributed software development becomes very common. Teams of analysts, designers, programmers and testers are scattered all over the world. Their mutual cooperation is based on communication at a distance. In the essay I discuss the importance of distributed teams and the reason of their existence. In addition I discuss communication tools, which members of distributed teams need to communicate with each other and advantages and disadvantages of the communication tools. Furthermore, I focus on the effectiveness of communication at distance and I describe my own experiences in the essay. In the conclusion I try to look closer at the team spirit building when team members are distributed all over the world.

Only one version is rarely enough

Ošvát Michal

Abstract. Version, version, version. This is how could we modify the well-known quotation of one Russian´s revolutionary adn translate it from school environment into software development. Nowadays, a software versioning a necessity,when we consider large software projects. On the other hand it can be also very good and helpful tool. It´s not only because of a need of creating different software versions, but the need of versioning is here also because of large number of programmers, who participate parallel in software development process, and this is well supported by versioning tool. In this paper I try to substantiate the need of software versioning, discuss its advantages, and the main focus is on possible problems, which can appear, and unfortunately- there are plenty of them.

Are there any risks of risk management?

Pakan Filip

Abstract. Despite advanced technologies and support tools for software development still a lot of software projects fail nowadays. In recent years attention is turning towards risk management. Research in this field has shown that identifying and efficient controlling of risks may significantly decrease the probability of project failure. Practice confirms the findings of research and proves that risk management has already saved numbers of projects and large amount of resources. Although there are many undoubtable benefits of managing risks in software projects I will try to propose some drawbacks of risk management from my point of view in this essay. Furthermore I will try to identify and discuss what risks are closely related to risk management. Moreover I will offer some of my own ideas to eliminate risks of risk management in context of new and inexperienced team developing software system. The goal of this essay is not to discourage the readers from integrating risk management into their projects. The goal is to notify the readers about potential weaknesses of risk management and to propose them several useful hints how to manage risks even more precisely.

There was noise even in smoke signals

Palát Peter

Abstract. Content of this essay is reflection about problems in communication in teams, which are not working in one place. Members of these teams communicate with each other at minimum level resulting in frequent misunderstanding. Attempt of this essay is to specify communication in general. This topic was dealt with in the past by many people in various disciplines as social psychology and philosophy. Knowledge from these disciplines is mainly related to communication within personal meetings. Therefore it is very important to think about how modern information technologies can make easier communication in distributed teams. In conclusion of this essay, there is description of author’s personal experience with work in distributed team, together with problems related with communication and their solutions.

Does it make sense to test software manually?

Sucháč Filip

Abstract. Every software company wants to develop a quality product. Specific part of processes that are dealing with achieving software quality is testing. There are lots of approaches to testing. In many companies exists a position called tester that is occupied by people who are testing product under development manually and reporting detected bugs. In this essay I am dealing with pros and cons of manual testing, describing what characteristics should good manual tester have and what approaches to testing are good to be chosen.