Mobile Lending Library: Developing An Agile Mobile Application For Rural Areas

Agile Methodology for Mobile App Development

1.1 Business context

Mobile Lending Library (MLL) is a small non-profit business that provides mobile library service in rural areas, towns and villages in which there is no permanent library. The customer base of this business is basically elderly people that are less adapted to technology. The business have decided to reach the clients beyond their existing customer base. The current inventory has not been added to the database and it is being maintained using A4 paper ledger. Hence, it becomes difficult to track the items that are being borrowed and by which person. Therefore, MLL has decide to develop an application for overcoming the issues.

1.2 Chosen development methodology

Agile methodology has been chosen as the development methodology for developing the mobile application. The chosen methodology is a lightweight process of software development that incorporates iterative cycles and ensures success of an IT project. It involves the users for establishing, prioritizing and verifying the requirements (Abrahamsson et al. 2017). In this methodology, the project is carried out by relying on the knowledge and expertise of a team rather than focusing on documentation. In traditional development methodologies, there are issues such as lack of input from users and change or incomplete requirements that may cause delay or even failure of projects. The Agile methodology increases the chances of delivering successful projects. The traditional methods focuses and invests a large amount of time in designing, capturing and documentation of requirements while agile method is oriented towards people and is adaptive (Gill 2018). The traditional methods focuses on managing changes in requirement and project scope against the plan rather than delivering product that satisfies the client. However, agile method considers the changes and allows the project to implement those changes as and when requested by the client.   

1.3 Eight principles of DSDM Atern

The eight principles of DSDM Atern along with their application in context to the project are listed as below:

Focus on the business need – This principle reflects that the decisions being taken in the mobile app development project must be in line with the project goal and business needs of MLL.

Deliver on time: There is a need to focus on the time required for development of the mobile application so that it can be delivered to MLL on time.

Collaborate: There should be active cooperation and collaboration between the members that will be working on the project (Carroll and Morris 2015).  

DSDM Atern Principles for MLL App

Never compromise quality: The quality of the product to be delivered should be approved from stakeholders and the project should be executed according to that specifications only.

Build incrementally from firm foundations: This principle reflects that a prototype of the mobile application can be delivered to MLL before estimated delivery date so that they can provide feedback on the deliverable.

Develop iteratively: The project must be conducted using iterative development for delivering the right outcome to MLL.

Communicate continuously and clearly: This principle can be implemented for improvement in communication of team members as well as individuals associated with the project (Ahmad, Soomro and Brohi 2014).

Demonstrate control: The monitoring and controlling of progress of the project have to be evaluated in context to the project goals, objectives and specifically the business needs.

The four hypothetical people that will be recruited for the MLL mobile application development project are listed as below:

Person 1 – Mobile Application Developer

Skills

• Proficient in problem solving
• Positive attitude towards learning
• Fair knowledge in proper naming of variables (Company and UK 2014)
• Strong foundation in various technological areas

Experience: This person should have at least five years of experience working in this particular field then only he/she will be able to clearly understand requirements of the client.

Weight of Contribution: This person will be involved as full time employee during the entire project until delivery of the product.

Person 2 – Database Designer

Skills 

• Fair knowledge of data modelling and database design
• Proficiency in object oriented analysis and design techniques
• Proficient in application of queries (TestingWhiz 2018)

Experience: This person should have minimum three years of experience in this field so as to facilitate accurate design of the required database.

Weight of Contribution: This person will be employed on a task based contract. This person will be accountable throughout the process of database design and integrating it with the mobile application.

Person 3 – Tester

Skills

• Must be rational, analytical as well as logical
• Identification of errors and understanding complexities
• Knowledge of latest testing tool and techniques (TestingWhiz 2018). 
• Planning for testing and documentation

Experience: This person must have at least 10 years of working experience in this field.

Weight of Contribution: This person will employed as full time employee to complete the project.

Person 4 – Quality Analyst

Skills

• Technical skills and knowledge in programming languages
• Analytical and accurate communication skills
• Able to work individually as well as in a team
• Development of standards and procedures for determining product quality (The Balance 2018)

Experience: This person should possess a minimum of seven years of experience working in an industrial environment or major projects.

Weight of Contribution: This person will be employed on a task based contract until delivery of the product.

3.1 Role of the Business Sponsor

Business sponsor is the person of an organization who is responsible for directing the project in right direction so that it is successful in achieving the desired outcomes. The Business sponsor is also involved with financing for project initiatives as well as approves the ideas in context to project. The Business sponsor plays a major role in developing the project charter, defining the initial scope of project along with taking part in the communication management process (Philrichardson.co.uk. 2018). This person has high influence in a project for strategic planning, determining feasibility of a project and implementing the project objectives successfully. Business sponsor also undertakes the responsibilities as well as activities related to financial and organizational aspects for providing quick decisions for the project. Finally, this person is also associated with evaluation of the project upon completion in context to the defined requirements.

List of Project Personnel for Mobile App Development

3.2 Identification of suitable candidate for the Business Sponsor role

The suitable candidate as identified from the given attributes of the personnel’s associated with MLL is Moira Glendinning. This person is suitable for the role of Business Sponsor as she will be able to provide guidance and direction for empowerment of the project with her ability of decision making. This person has been working as CEO of the business and hence she will be able to successfully develop strategic planning for the project to implement the project objectives in a successful manner. Moira Glendinning has also experience in activities related to financial and organizational aspects from her involvement with the business. She will be able to authorize required resources and provide decisions in terms of financial aspects or cash flows required for the project.

3.3 Reasons for not selecting the other three people

Bob Brodie

• This person works on a voluntary basis for two days per week which means that he has less involvement with the business.
• This person has only driving skills and there is no other professional skills.

Bridget Gilchrist

• This person works for MLL on a voluntary basis that means she is less involved with the business and works only to stay busy in her retirement.
• She is also associated with other interests like childcare and writing a fictional novel which means she is less interested in the business.

Angus Welsh

• This person has experience only in handling of accounts and payroll.
• This person has fair technological knowledge but not aware of the business aspects.

 

Figure 1: Annotated diagram to show involvement of each member

(Source: Created by Author)

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors	Resource Names
MLL Mobile Application Development	37 days	Thu 25-01-18	Fri 16-03-18
Sprint #1	2 wks	Thu 25-01-18	Wed 07-02-18		Business Sponsor, Mobile application developer
Sprint #2	2 wks	Thu 08-02-18	Wed 21-02-18	1	Database designer, Quality Analyst
Feature #1	16 hrs	Thu 25-01-18	Fri 26-01-18	1SS	Business Sponsor, Mobile application developer
Feature #2	64 hrs	Mon 29-01-18	Wed 07-02-18	3	Database designer, Mobile application developer
Feature #3	24 hrs	Thu 22-02-18	Mon 26-02-18	2	Mobile application developer, Quality Analyst
Feature #4	56 hrs	Tue 30-01-18	Wed 07-02-18	3	Business Sponsor, Mobile application developer
Feature #5	32 hrs	Thu 22-02-18	Tue 27-02-18	6	Mobile application developer, Tester
Feature #6	40 hrs	Wed 28-02-18	Tue 06-03-18	7	Mobile application developer, Quality Analyst
Feature #7	16 hrs	Wed 07-03-18	Thu 08-03-18	8	Database designer, Tester
Feature #8	48 hrs	Fri 09-03-18	Fri 16-03-18	9	Business Sponsor, Mobile application developer
Feature #9	8 hrs	Thu 15-02-18	Thu 15-02-18	3,15	Database designer
Feature #10	32 hrs	Fri 16-02-18	Wed 21-02-18	11	Quality Analyst, Tester
Feature #11	40 hrs	Thu 22-02-18	Wed 28-02-18	12,16	Business Sponsor, Quality Analyst
Feature #12	12 days	Thu 01-03-18	Fri 16-03-18	13	Business Sponsor[50%],User[50%]
Sprint #3	1 wk	Thu 08-02-18	Wed 14-02-18	4	Tester
Sprint #4	2 wks	Thu 08-02-18	Wed 21-02-18	6	Quality Analyst

 

Figure 2: Gantt chart for the project

(Source: Created by Author)

Project Approach Questionnaire

DSDM Project Approach Questionnaire (PAQ)	Collective Opinion
Ref	Statement	Strongly Agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
1	All members of the project understand and accept the DSDM approach (Philosophy, Principles and Practices)		ü
2	The Business Sponsor and the Business Visionary demonstrate clear and proactive ownership of the project.	ü
3	The business vision driving the project is clearly stated and understood by all members of the project team		ü
4	All project participants understand and accept that on-time delivery of an acceptable solution is the primary measure of success for the project	ü
5	The requirements can be prioritized and there is confidence that cost and time commitments can be met by flexing the scope of what’s delivered.				ü
6	All members of the project team accept that requirements should only be defined at a high level in the early phases of the project and that detail will emerge as development progresses.	ü
7	All members of the project team accept that change in requirements is inevitable and that it is only by embracing change that the right solution will be delivered.		ü
8	The Business Sponsor and Business Visionary understand that active business involvement is essential and have the willingness and authority to commit appropriate business resources to the project.	ü
9	It is possible for the business and solution development members of the Solution Development Team to work collaboratively throughout the project.	ü
10	Empowerment of all members of the Solution Development Team is appropriate and sufficient to support the day-to-day decision-making needed to rapidly evolve the solution in short, focused Timeboxes	ü
11	The DSDM roles and responsibilities are appropriately allocated and all role holders understand and accept the responsibilities associated with their role.		ü
12	The Solution Development team has the appropriate collective knowledge and skills (soft skills and technical skills) to collaboratively evolve an optimal business solution.			ü
13	Solution Development Team members are allocated to the project at an appropriate and consistent level sufficient to fully support the DSDM timeboxing practice		ü
14	Tools and collaborative working practices within the Solution Development Team are sufficient to allow effective Iterative Development of the solution.				ü
15	All necessary review and testing activity is fully integrated within the Iterative Development practice.			ü
16	Project progress is measured primarily through the incremental, demonstrable delivery of business value.
17	There are no mandatory standards or other constraints in place that will prevent the application of the DSDM Philosophy and Practices on this project.

References

Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J. and Warsta, J., 2017. Agile software development methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439.

Ahmad, G., Soomro, T.R. and Brohi, M.N., 2014. Agile Methodologies: Comparative Study and Future Direction. European Academic Research, 1(11), pp.3826-3841.

Asghar, A.R., Bhatti, S.N., Tabassum, A., Sultan, Z. and Abbas, R., 2016. Role of requirements elicitation & prioritization to optimize quality in scrum agile development. work, 7(12).

ben Othmane, L., Angin, P., Weffers, H. and Bhargava, B., 2014. Extending the agile development process to develop acceptably secure software. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 11(6), pp.497-509.

Carroll, J. and Morris, D., 2015. Agile project management in easy steps. In Easy Steps.

Company, M. and UK, A. (2014). Top 5 Skills Employers Look For In A Mobile App Developer | Bubble Jobs. [online] Bubble-jobs.co.uk. Available at: https://www.bubble-jobs.co.uk/blog/blog/top-10-skills-employers-look-mobile-app-developer/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

Dingsoyr, T. and Moe, N.B., 2014, May. Towards principles of large-scale agile development. In International Conference on Agile Software Development (pp. 1-8). Springer, Cham.

Gill, A.Q., 2018. Distributed agile development: Applying a coverage analysis approach to the evaluation of a communication technology assessment tool. In Information and Technology Literacy: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1633-1655). IGI Global.

Kiely, G., Kiely, J. and Nolan, C., 2017. Scaling Agile Methods to Process Improvement Projects: A Global Virtual Team Case Study.

Leadership & Project Management Champions. (2008). Roles and responsibilities of a Project Sponsor. [online] Available at: https://leadershipchamps.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/roles-and-responsibilities-of-a-project-sponsor/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

Matharu, G.S., Mishra, A., Singh, H. and Upadhyay, P., 2015. Empirical study of agile software development methodologies: A comparative analysis. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 40(1), pp.1-6.

Philrichardson.co.uk. (2018). Project Sponsor – Roles and Responsibilities. [online] Available at: https://philrichardson.co.uk/pa450/teamwork/sp_role.htm [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

Study.com. (2018). Database Designer: Job Description and Education Requirements. [online] Available at: https://study.com/articles/Database_Designer_Job_Description_and_Education_Requirements.html [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

TestingWhiz. (2018). 15 Skills Every Software Tester Should Master in 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.testing-whiz.com/blog/15-skills-every-software-tester-should-master-in-2017 [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

The Balance. (2018). Skills Software Quality Assurance (QA) Engineers Need. [online] Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/list-of-software-quality-assurance-qa-engineer-skills-2062484 [Accessed 25 Jan. 2018].

Turk, D., France, R. and Rumpe, B., 2014. Assumptions underlying agile software development processes. arXiv preprint arXiv:1409.661