Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 1

CSC-3324: Chapter 3

Title: The Feasibility study

Mandatory reading: I. Sommerville, Section 7.1

Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 2

Wrap up... What is Software Engineering (SE) ?

The major goal of SE is to produce good

software cost effectively… What is good

software?

In order to produce good software, we need to

follow a good SE process… What is a good

process?

Some SE process models are widely used and

universally recognized…

Software engineering is concerned with theories, methods and tools for professional software development

Maintainability, Dependability,

Efficiency, Usability

Understandable, Visible, Supported, Accepted, Reliable,

Rapid, etc.Structured set of activities

(steps) required to develop a software system....

The waterfall model

Separate and distinct phases of specification and

development

Prototyping development

Specification and development are interleaved

Component-based development

The system is assembled from existing components

Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 3

The feasibility study...

Requirementsdefinition

System andsoftware design

Implementationand unit testing

Integration andsystem testing

Operation andmaintenance

ValidationFinal

version

DevelopmentIntermediate

versions

SpecificationInitial

version

Outlinedescription

Concurrentactivities

Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 4

The feasibility study... No matter which SE process we want/expect to follow,

we must previously perform a feasibly study in order to demonstrate:

The business opportunity; The feasibility of the project in terms of technology enablers

and schedule constraints… Our global understanding of the requirements and our

confidence in a future better understanding… Must be quick and cheap... Typically in Morocco, it is about 10M/D, 2000-

5000Dhs… Depends on the context…

Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 5

The feasibility study... The formal deliverable of the feasibility study is a document

that contains at least the following information: An overview of the clients requirements; How the projected system will help... The feasibility of the project with respect to our expertise... The feasibility of the project with respect to the available of

technology enablers... The Business opportunity for our company... A formal Go (or Stop)... An expected schedule…

Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 6

Important issues to check...

What are current problems? How will the proposed system help? What will be the integration problems?

(Current and projected systems) Is new technology needed? What skills? Users... Budget... Schedule...

Soft. Eng. I, Spring 2007 Dr Driss Kettani, from I. Sommerville 7

Homework and deliverable for next week

Find out in the web the standard layout and contents of the

feasibility report for the following organizations (only one)

and use it in the FOD of your project:

DoD: The US Department of Defense;

S.E.I.: The Software Engineering Institute (Carnegie Mellon U.);

C.S.E.: The Center of Software Engineering (U. of Southern

California.

Your feasibility and orientation report due on Feb. 12th 2007