SDM IMD 2014-15

Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute for Management Development

Mysore
PGDM End Term Examination – September 2014
Term -
Course Title: Managing Software Projects

Duration: 90 minutes Max. Marks : 35

Instructions to Candidates:
Note: Tables are provided separately with the Question Paper, for FP Metrics and COCOMO calculation.

Question 1: (8 marks)

Study the table below listing the Activity Duration estimates and sequencing for
Project Delta; and answer the following questions.

Activity Description Optimistic Likely Pessimistic Predecessors

A Contract Signing 3 4 11 --
B Questionnaire 2 5 8 A
Screen Design
C Coding Techniques 3 6 9 A
review
D Develop Prototype 8 12 20 B,C
E Code Review 3 5 12 B
F Unit Testing 2 4 7 D
G Integration Testing 6 9 14 C
H Presentation to 1 2 4 E,F,G
Clients
Deployment

a. Arrive at the estimated duration times for each activity using the Beta
distribution.
b. Draw the network / precedence diagram for the project activities.
c. Identify the critical path(s) with the forward and backward passes.

Question 2: (7 marks)

Based on the following brief descriptions of the project,

a. Determine the mode of Project

b. Using the intermediate COCOMO
i. Calculate the amount of effort it will take to develop the project
ii. Calculate the development time based on the effort estimate using
the cost drivers.
iii. Assume cost drivers to be nominal where you do not have enough
information.

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Brief project description:

- The estimated size of the software project is 20, 00,000 LOC.

- The analyst and developers have experience of developing similar systems.
- The company will spare no expense to acquire the latest software development
tools
- The company has received a government grant for storing extensive data on a
large database
- The system has a real-time component that will require modelling of the
system behaviour.
- Programmers are experienced but not in the language chosen for
implementation
- Developers experience with the operating system is adequate.

Question 3 (8 marks)

You are managing a software development project. The project is expected to be

completed in 8 months at a cost of $10000 per month. After 2 months, you realize that
the project is 30 % completed at a cost of $40,000. You need to determine whether the
project is on-time and on-budget after 2 months. In addition to this your Boss says
you need to find out the Cost and Schedule Variance.

Question 4 (12 marks)

An application has to be created named "FPTracker", and as its name implies, it's a
tool that is used to calculate Function Points (FP) counts on other applications. For
instance, a company wants to perform FP counts on their applications, this application
would record the data from the functions in the applications using this tool. As output,
it provides some convenient reports and an analysis of the data to help not making
errors in the FP counts.

The FPTracker application consists of the following primary process areas:

1. Project management, including creating, editing, and deleting projects.

2. Entity management, including creating, editing, and deleting External
interfaces and Files/data structures.
3. Process management, including creating, editing, and deleting External
Interfaces, External Outputs, and Database inquiries
4. Reporting, which includes several useful FP reports.

Calculate the function points for the above descriptive case-let.

The prototype input / output screens look as follows:

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REFERENCE TABLES
I. Rate

Sl. no Environmental factor Rating (0-5)

1 Data Communications
2 Distributed Computing
3 Performance Requirements
4 Constrained Configuration
5 Transaction Rate
6 Online Inquiry
7 End-User Efficiency
8 Online Update
9 Complex Processing
10 Reusability
11 Ease of conversion
12 Ease of Operation
13 Used at Multiple sites
14 Potential for Functional Change

II. Complexity Factor

Simple Average Complex

No. of Outputs x4 x5 x7

No. of Inputs x3 x4 x6

No. of inquiries x3 x4 x6

No. of Files x7 x 10 x 15

No. of Interfaces x5 x7 x 10

COCOMO Tables - Complexity Factor

Level Basic Intermediate

Mode a b a b
Organic 2.4 1.05 3.2 1.05
Semi-detached 3.0 1.12 3.0 1.12

Embedded 3.6 1.20 2.8 1.20

Very Low Low Nominal High Very Extra High

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High
Personnel Attributes
Analyst Capability (ACAP) 1.46 1.19 1.00 0.71
Application Experience
(AEXP) 1.29 1.13 1.00 0.91 0.82
Programmer Capability
(PCAP) 1.42 1.17 1.00 0.86 0.7
Virtual Machine Experience
(VEXP) 1.21 1.1 1.00 0.9
Programming Language
Experience (LEXP) 1.14 1.07 1.00 0.95
Project Attributes
Use of Modern Programming
Practices (MODP) 1.24 1.1 1.00 0.91 0.82
Use of Software Tools
(TOOL) 1.23 1.1 1.00 0.91 0.82
Required Development
Schedule (SCED) 1.24 1.08 1.00 1.04 1.1
Product Attributes

Required Software
Reliability (RELY) 0.75 0.88 1.00 1.15 1.4

Database Size (DATA) 0.94 1.00 1.08 1.16

Product Complexity
(CPLX) 0.7 0.85 1.00 1.15 1.3 1.65

Computer Attributes

Execution Time
Constraint (TIME) 1.00 1.11 1.3 1.66

Main Storage Constraint

(STOR) 1.00 1.06 1.21 1.56

Virtual Machine
Volatility (VIRT) 0.87 1.00 1.15 1.3

Computer Turnaround
(TURN) 0.87 1.00 1.07 1.15

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