Unit:

Agile Development
Assignment title:
Mobile Lending Library
March 2018

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
Mobile Lending Library (MLL) is a small non-profit business based in Nairn, which is a
town in Scotland. They provide a mobile library service for residents of the local area, who
live in rural areas or small towns and villages which do not have a permanent library. This
enables the elderly and those who rely on public transport (which is not good in rural
areas) to get access to regular books, audio books, CDs and DVDs from the library’s
collection. They have been operating for two years, and most of their inventory has been
donated to MLL by members of the public, though they did receive a start-up grant from
the local council which paid salaries for two years and start-up costs including the cost of
purchasing £4000 of inventory. Their clients range widely in age and experience of using
technology, but a large number are elderly and less proficient with technology due to the
demographics of remote rural areas and the poor broadband connectivity in the area, and
the lack of advertising of the service other than via local newspapers which are largely
purchased by retirees.

Recently, MLL have managed to secure a £50,000 grant to expand their project. They
want to be able to reach clients beyond their current customer base. To do this, they need
to find out what new inventory they should purchase, and need to improve their service by
offering a more flexible service. For example, often the van will visit a village and nobody
will use the service: it would be better if the van could be ‘booked’ by clients by checking
what times it is available to visit their area. The van would only go to the area if at least
one booking was made. They would also like clients to be able to request books and
DVDs so the money can be spent on inventory that will be popular. Most of the current
inventory has not even been added to a database: books and other items are ‘checked
out’ using an A4 paper ledger and it is hard to track which items are out on loan to who at
any given point in time, or when they are due back. In order to address these issues and
provide a more tailored service, they’re looking to develop an app that can be installed
directly on anyone’s phone, with an associated advertising campaign to raise awareness
of the service.

MLL want this app to be easy to use, and are mindful of the fact that projects sometimes
come with a lot of detail regarding financing, terms, duration and skills required. They are
keen for clients of the library to be involved in the design and testing of the app to ensure
that it will be straightforward for them to use, taking into account the accessibility issues
some of their clients have (e.g. vision and motor issues due to the aging process). It is
important that the work also includes creating a full database and booking system for the
inventory, and that the app can connect with this to enable clients to track which items are
available and in stock, or if loaned out, to reserve items for when they are returned. Clients
should also be able to view any items they have on loan, and when they must be returned
before incurring fines. MLL would also like to provide a website booking system, which
would need to share the same database as the app. However, they are aware their
£50,000 budget may not stretch to developing both and purchasing new inventory for the
mobile library, so the app is the priority at present.

Dragonfly Developments (DD) is a development consultancy based in Inverness, a short

distance along the coast from Nairn. They have purpose built rooms for Facilitated
Workshops and Agile software development projects. MLL has decided to contract DD on
a “time and materials” basis for the development of their new app and backend.

The key deliverables associated with this application are as follows:

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 • Adding inventory (books, audio books or DVDs) to the system.
• Allowing clients to request new items of stock.
• Allowing clients to view what they currently have on loan, and the due dates.
• Allowing clients to reserve stock currently out on loan.
• Allow staff to record that a user has borrowed a particular item.
• Sending notifications to clients when stock they have reserved becomes available.
• Allowing clients to request a visit to their area by the van on a particular day within a
3 hour time-slot.
• Allowing clients to rate items they have borrowed.
• Allow clients to provide short reviews of items they have borrowed.

Understanding that you are new this area, the CEO 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 MLL management.

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 choosing the development team.
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 clients as part of the MLL staff and regular
clients, 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 DD, you will need to
collaborate with a named person in the company structure.

Mobile Lending Library Personnel:

• CEO (Moira Glendinning) – She is the driving force behind the project and the
budget holder. She has time put aside in her busy schedule to be available for this
project. She is happy to make a couple of the staff available for the project on a
part-time basis, and empower them to make decisions.
• Accounts Manager (Angus Welsh) – He has been with the company for 15 months
and handles all the accounts and payroll. He considers himself fairly
technologically knowledgeable, and is rarely parted from his latest smartphone.
• Van Driver (Bob Brodie) – Bob is a semi-retired fisherman who drives the Mobile
Library two days per week on a voluntary basis.
• Van Driver (Bridget Gilchrist) – Bridget is a retired librarian who drives the Mobile
Library two days per week on a voluntary basis. She is used to using computerised
systems from her previous paid employment as a librarian and is keen for the
Mobile Library to move forward with this project. Her other volunteering, interests
and childcare for her grandchildren keep her busy in her retirement and she is also
writing a historical fiction novel.
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 • Van Driver (Garry MacQuarrie) – Garry is a self-employed joiner who drives the
Mobile Library one day per week on average. Garry is paid for his time on a day-
rate basis. He has some knowledge of technology and is keen for the project to go
ahead. His joinery business has periods where he has a lot of time available but he
rarely turns down work and so can be very busy with his business for long stretches
of time if he gets a large contract.
• Van Driver (Adam Flett) – Adam is a retired database administrator and aspiring
photographer and painter who moved to Nairn a few years ago because of the
beautiful scenery and outdoor lifestyle. He drives the van two days a week on a
voluntary basis.

Tasks

Task 1 – 25 Marks
The CEO of MLL understands that you are new to both app design and software
development within this business context. As such, she would like you to critically discuss
your chosen development methodology and explain why it is appropriate for a user-
centred project like this application. Your report should outline the EIGHT (8) principles of
DSDM Atern and evaluate how these principles will be applied to the project.

This task requires 500 words.

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).

This task requires 300 words.

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 FOUR employees to choose from for this role:

• Bob Brodie
• Bridget Gilchrist
• Moira Glendinning
• Angus Welsh

Provide a response which:

• Describes the role of the Business Sponsor in a way which explains the importance
of the role. (5 marks)

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 • Identifies a suitable candidate for the Business Sponsor role from the four people
listed above. (2 marks)
• For each of the three people who were not selected, provide TWO (2) reasons why
they would not be suitable for the role. (6 marks)

This task requires 400 words.

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 MLL will be involved. Do this with relation to the Identify 
Plan  Evolve  Review iterative development cycle.

Task 5 – 25 Marks
Provide a plan for the project, with the expectation this will be presented to the senior
management team of MLL. 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.

The word limit for the entire coursework is 2,000 words.

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Submission requirements
A word-processed document must be submitted incorporating the full documentation of all
tasks of the assignment above. 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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