Software project engineering and management

Duration

20h Th, 280h Proj.

Number of credits

Lecturer

Benoît Donnet, Bernard Hauzeur, Guy Leduc, Laurent Mathy

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

In this course, teams of 4-6 students will carry out a substantial integrated software project, which builds on the knowledge, know-how and skills acquired during their bachelor studies (programming, software engineering, data bases, operating systems and networks).

Yet, this is not a "coding project", but one that can only succeed through an efficient collaboration between all team members in addition to the proper mastering of a series of tools and techniques as used in leading IT projects (JIRA, SCRUM, GitLab, CI/CD, Kubernetes, devOps/gitOps, knowledge sharing & collaboration tools). The quality of final code is only a part of the grading criteria.

The environment is as close as possible to leading practices in the software industry. Project steps are adjusted given the high volume of practical knowledge to acquire. The project is structured in 5 SCRUM 'sprints' at an average 4 weeks interval during which usable and published product increments are released using 'devOps' techniques.

Seminars are organized to provide fundamental guidance in project design, management, tooling, as well as team coordination, and communication. Students must acquire by themselves much of the additional knowledge required by this project given the enormous diversity of modern software tools, platforms, technologies, methodologies and practices, and availability of suitable information on the Internet.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The project aims at developing the students' ability to carry out a realistic, complex and collaborative software project from an initial and incompletely defined idea throughout to the operational deployment of a working application.

The students will learn and actively practice new disciplines like requirements engineering, architecture, modelling, solution design, source control, test driven development, continuous integration, deployment automation, containerization, project management, team leadership, reporting, oral presentation, and knowledge sharing, thereby improving their autonomy and ability to work efficiently in a team, and their communication and reporting skills.

This course contributes to the learning outcomes I.1, I.2, II.1, II.2, III.1, III.2, III.3, III.4, IV.1, IV.2, IV.3, IV.4, V.1, V.2, VI.1, VI.2, VI.3, VI.4, VII.1, VII.2, VII.3, VII.4, VII.5, VII.6 of the MSc in computer science and engineering.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

A bachelor degree in computer science or engineering with a major implication in computer science. Incomplete achievement of IT-related courses from the bachelor degree may prevent entry into the present course.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Seminars on:

• modern software architecture and landscapes;
• fundamentals in project management with a focus on Agile methodologies, SCRUM in particular;
• software engineering techniques: requirements engineering, modelling, testing, source code management, CI/CD, microservices;
• (basic) knowledge management;
• team dynamics.

• XWiki to structure and maintain the whole project documentation from early sketches to final specifications, meeting minutes, progress reports, presentations, and procedures (minimal overhead with maximum benefits if you listen well);
• JIRA for the management of the projet's backlog and reporting (same as above);
• Gitlab for source code control and integration, with suitable pipelines in place that automate build, test, and deployment steps;
• Docker for building containerized images and local dev support and testing;
• an OpenShift/Kubernetes cluster for application deployment and execution.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Additional information:

• Seminars;
• 5 review meetings spread from October to early May;
• "Weekly SCRUM" meetings (part of the project execution)
• The project itself is mainly carried out remotely by students (studies, coding, docs, plans, team coordinations,  reporting). Teams are free to organize their agenda.

Recommended or required readings

Slides used during the seminars and a wiki do provide guidelines, hyperlinks, and tips yet are far too short to support all activities of the project, nor contain sufficient knowledge required for an efficient execution => using these guidelines, plus references to the technologies applicable to their particular project, students are expected to extensively search, collect, and equip themselves with all necessary knowledge and resources for their specific project. Self-learning activites can weigh 15 to 30% of the project execution workload.

In most efficient teams, members do specialize on learning topics and teach each other members in collaboration.

Written work / report

Continuous assessment


Additional information:

No exam in June.

Grading is based on the content of the project's wiki, of JIRA and Tempo, of gitlab, in addition to review presentations and working demonstrations of the application at stake. 

Students are expected to document their project, their actual organization and the technical solutions with appropriate justifications about design choices.

Each of the 5 project sprints bears a distinct objective and weight into the final grading. As follows:

• Sprint 0 - 10% - hands on all tools at stake, selection of technologies, drafted project backlog, and demonstration of a mock of the application (modified tuto app)
• Sprint 1 - 15% - requirements engineering, early models, improved backlog, application mock deployed and running in the cluster (menu and navigation)
• Sprint 2 - 25% - careful SCRUM execution (sprint backlogs, retrospectives, velocity) and 50% of the App working, tested, and deployed
• Sprint 3 - 25% - managed SCRUM project delivering 100% of the achievable / planned / predicted functionalities, efficient CI/CD pipelines supporting devOps, quality source code
• Sprint 4 - 25% - a short final run (literally) to prepare the final defense of the project (pitch talk), as well as package the whole for handover to the client. Also a last chance to fix or improve the App and supporting materials.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

Teams comprise 4 to 6 students, formed as much as possible on individual project preferences, while ensuring a diversity of student profiles in each group (i.e. computer scientists and engineers, mixed levels and expertises).

Presence at the seminars and review meetings is compulsory.

The project starts early during the 1st quarter. The final sprint review (final defence and demonstration) takes place on the second week of May. The project execution is suspended from mid-December to January for mid year exams regarding all other courses.

Course materials (archived lectures, course schedule, project list) and administrative communications are hosted on the eCampus web site : PROJ0010-A-a : Software project engineering and management 20h Th, 280h Proj.

Additional resources and facilities notably relating to the execution of software projects are available at the course's dedicated wiki.

Contacts

MS-Teams or Discord group chat and channels will be created per project to communicate with the educational team in addition to e-mail.

Coordinators:

• Benoit Donnet (Benoit.Donnet@uliege.be)
• Bernard Hauzeur (B.Hauzeur@uliege.be)
• Guy Leduc (Guy.Leduc@uliege.be)
• Laurent Mathy (laurent.mathy@uliege.be)

• T.B.D.

Association of one or more MOOCs

There is no MOOC associated with this course.

Items online