Unit:

Agile Development
Assignment title:
Social Interactions
March 2017

Important notes
 Please refer to the Assignment Presentation Requirements for advice on how
to set out your assignment. These can be found on the NCC Education
website. Click on ‘Policies & Advice’ on the main menu and then click on
‘Student Support’.
 You must read the NCC Education documents What is Academic
Misconduct? Guidance for Candidates and Avoiding Plagiarism and
Collusion: Guidance for Candidates and ensure that you acknowledge all the
sources that you use in your work. These documents are available on the
NCC Education website. Click on ‘Policies & Advice’ on the main menu and
then click on ‘Student Support’.
 You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work. The form
is available on the NCC Education website. Click on ‘Policies & Advice’ on
the main menu and then click on ‘Student Support’.
 Please make a note of the recommended word count. You could lose marks
if you write 10% more or less than this.
 You must submit a paper copy and digital copy (on disk or similarly
acceptable medium). Media containing viruses, or media that cannot be run
directly, will result in a fail grade being awarded for this assessment.
 All electronic media will be checked for plagiarism.
Introduction
Social Interactions (SI) is a local charity based in Kent, England. The charity has been
operating for three years and it works on two campaigns per year. These campaigns focus
on getting people in the local area to work together to achieve social good through
volunteering. More recently, SI has received a significant amount of government funding,
which has enabled them to start a more ambitious project.

Six months ago, SI developed a campaign to help people in the community identify areas
of graffiti, vandalism, and damage. By calling a dedicated phone number, people in the
community could log a problem, and SI would then arrange for the appropriate
government, council and private companies to be contacted to deal with it. The number of
times an area was logged was used to prioritise their focus.

The project was such a success that SI is keen to expand the project through the
development of a mobile app. The hope is that by allowing users to take photographs, the
associated meta-data when the image is uploaded will enable quicker responses and a
greater uptake of the project. They hope for this app to be a test case for expansion into
other areas of the country should it prove to be a success.

SI wants this game to be designed as accessible to those older users that were most
involved with the original campaign. However, SI has given you significant freedom to
design the form the app will take will take.

APPetite for Deployment (A4D) is a mobile development consultancy based in Margate,

Kent. They have office offices which are less than 30 minutes drive from Social
Interactions. A4D have purpose built rooms for Facilitated Workshops and Agile software
development projects. SI has decided to contract A4D on a “time and materials” basis for
the development of the new app.

The key deliverables associated with this app are as follows:

 Taking photographs using the user’s device

 Allowing the user to tag these photographs with supporting text
 Representation of the local geography of the area, along with real-time updates of
hot-spots and outstanding reports
 Regular updates from SI regarding the current status of reports
 Accessibility for older users as a priority
 Accessibility for other users with impairments as a secondary goal

You are a private consultant who has been approached by A4D. The Managing Director
has asked you to put together a plan for a user focused investigation into the topic. You
are expected to explain how this problem statement can be turned into a more rigorous
requirement specification. You are NOT required to write this specification document, only
to come up with a plan for how it is to be developed. It is expected to be user focused and
incorporate regular checks for approval with A4D management. It is recommended that
you use Google Scholar to help with your investigation. Useful search terms would include
accessibility and older users.

In addition, the charity has indicated a preference for the app to be available for android,
and to work on older versions of Android from version 2.3 Gingerbread. This is due to the
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fact that many of their target older users do not have the most up-to-date smartphones.
The charity is open to the app being released on the Apple and Windows platforms in the
future, but it wants the first version released on Android as it believes that it is likely to be
the largest potential market for them.

Given that you will be managing a new team, you can recruit your own team members. In
particular, there will be a round of recruitment aimed at staffing your side of the
development. As part of this recruitment, you will be expected to put together a set of four
role specifications for the team you want to build. These role specifications should list key
skillsets (no more than four per role), expected weight of contribution to the project (full
time or part time, or task based contract), and previous qualifications and experience.
When you have set out your person specifications, you should assign the hypothetical
candidates to the sprints and timeboxes associated with your development methodology.

You have available a pool of testers and users as part of the Social Interaction staff and
volunteers, and you will be expected to make reference to these when it comes to setting
up your project structure. As with your staff, you can define the person you want for each
phase and they will be recruited as needed. However, within Social Interaction, you will
need to collaborate with a named person in the company structure.

Social Interaction Personnel:

 Managing Director (William Burnell) – He is the driving force behind the project
and the budget holder. He has time put aside in his busy schedule to be available
for this project. He is happy to make a couple of the staff available for the project on
a part-time basis, and empower them to make decisions.
 Finance Manager (Aayan Chaudhry) – He has been with the company for 15
months and handles all the accounts and payroll. He has not been involved in any
of the charity’s projects. Aayan lives in Essex and works remotely 4 days per week.
 Volunteer Coordinator (Melissa Black) – She is one of the co-founders of Social
Interaction. She is involved in the promotion of the organisation and recruitment and
scheduling of volunteers on projects. The graffiti hotspots project was her idea, and
she is happy to be involved in the project, although she does not know much about
mobile applications.
 Volunteer (Craig Wallace) – Craig is a volunteer who works with the charity one
day per week whilst studying for a social work diploma. He has been involved in the
graffiti hotspots project and is a keen app user. However, his studies often require
him to travel for work placements.
 Volunteer (Sandra Ebuehi) – Sandra is a retiree who volunteers with the charity on
a part time basis. She has been heavily involved in the graffiti hotspots project and
is happy to be involved with the app project.
 Volunteer Pool There are several other volunteers who assist with the charity on a
part-time basis. Some help out with specific projects, some work to a set schedule
and others volunteer as and when they have the time to do so. Many are retired but
have other responsibilities such as caring for grandchildren or aging relatives. They
can be relied on to help out, but not necessarily on a regular or intensive basis.

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Agile Development © NCC Education Limited 2017
Tasks

Task 1 – 25 Marks
The Managing Director of Social Interaction understands that you are new to both app
design and software development within this business context. As such, he would like you
to critically discuss your chosen development methodology and explain why it is
appropriate for a highly iterative, feedback based development project like this app. Your
report should outline the EIGHT (8) principles of DSDM Atern and evaluate how these
principles will be applied to the project.

Task 2 – 12 Marks
Create the person specifications for the FOUR (4) hypothetical people you will look to
recruit to the project. For each of these people, you should define:

 Skills (1 mark)
 Experience (1 mark)
 Weight of contribution (1 mark).

Task 3 – 13 Marks
You have been asked to explain the importance of the Business Sponsor role in the
Solution Development team and have been asked to identify a suitable individual to
perform the Business Sponsor role in the Solution Development Team. You have been
given a list of three employees to choose from for this role:

 William Burnell
 Aayan Chaudhry
 Sandra Ebuehi

Provide a response which:

 Explains the importance of the Business Sponsor. (5 marks)
 Identifies a suitable candidate for the Business Sponsor role from the three people
listed above. (2 marks)
 For each of the two people who were not selected, provides THREE (3) reasons
why they would not be suitable for the role. (6 marks)

Task 4 – 25 Marks
Produce an annotated diagram that shows the iterative involvement of: (1) each member
of the team; (2) the tasks with which they will be tasked; and (3) how the software will be
prototyped. The diagram should also show how users are to be incorporated into the
process and which members of Social Interaction will be involved. You should complete
this task in relation to the Identify  Plan  Evolve  Review iterative development cycle.

Tasks continue on next page

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Agile Development © NCC Education Limited 2017
Task 5 – 25 Marks
Provide a plan for the project, with the expectation this will be presented to the senior
management team of Social Interaction. You should provide information on the following
key elements:

 Timeboxes (5 marks)
 Estimates (5 marks)
 Expected sprints (5 marks)
 Anticipated deliverables (5 marks)

You should also provide a completed Project Approach Questionnaire (5 marks) that
addresses each of the key elements and provides your view as to where the criteria have
been met.

Submission requirements
A word-processed document must be submitted incorporating the full documentation of all
tasks of the assignment above. Your submission should be 2500 words +/- in length
(excluding diagrams). Diagrams created using alternative software should be converted
into a suitable image file format (e.g. JPEG) and inserted into the document as images.
The document should be submitted both in paper form and digital form. Digital copies
should be on an appropriate medium (CD, DVD, USB flash drive, etc.).

Candidate checklist
Please use the following checklist to ensure that your work is ready for submission.

Have you read the NCC Education documents What is Academic

Misconduct? Guidance for Candidates and Avoiding Plagiarism and
Collusion: Guidance for Candidates and ensured that you have 
acknowledged all the sources that you have used in your work?
Have you completed the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work
form and attached it to your assignment? You must do this. 
Have you ensured that your work has not gone over or under the
recommended word count by more than 10%? 
Have you ensured that your work does not contain viruses and can
be run directly? 

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Agile Development © NCC Education Limited 2017