COM435 Software Product and Process Management Lecture Review

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the COM435 module including software development methodologies, Agile/Scrum/Lean frameworks, testing types, usability metrics, and risk management.

Waterfall Model

A rigid, sequential software development life cycle progressing through Requirement Analysis, Design, Code, Integration, Test, and Deploy, requiring perfect requirements at the start.

RAD (Rapid Application Development)

A time-boxed approach emphasizing rapid construction and user feedback, fixing scope and quality while treating time, cost, and resources as constraints.

Spiral Model

A risk-driven model that repeats four quadrants: (1) plan objectives, (2) identify and resolve risks, (3) develop product increment, (4) plan the next phase.

Black Swans

IT projects so catastrophically over budget or behind schedule they fall into a category representing extreme failure; specifically 17% of large projects according to cited research.

Agile Manifesto (2001)

A philosophy valuing individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change over processes, documentation, contracts, and planning.

The 7 Types of Waste (Lean)

Partially done work, extra processes, extra features, task switching, waiting, unnecessary motion, and defects.

Build-Measure-Learn

The Lean action loop aimed at maximizing customer value while minimizing total time through the loop via validated learning.

Product Owner

The Scrum role that represents the client, owns the product backlog, and sets priorities.

Scrum Master

A servant-leader who facilitates ceremonies and removes impediments but has no decision-making authority over the team.

Communication Channels Formula

$Channels = \frac{n(n - 1)}{2}$ used to illustrate why small, focused teams are preferred as communication complexity grows non-linearly.

MoSCoW Prioritisation

A technique to categorize backlog items into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have for the current phase.

Planning Poker

A consensus-based estimation technique using the Fibonacci-like sequence ($0, \frac{1}{2}, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100$) to represent relative story size.

Daily Scrum

A strictly 10-minute time-boxed meeting where team members share what they did, what they will do, and any blockers.

Sprint Retrospective

A 30-minute ceremony focused on reflecting on people, relationships, and tools to identify concrete action points for improvement.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

The smallest version of a product that still delivers real value to users, ensuring early feedback and avoiding wasted effort.

Lead Time

A Kanban metric representing the total elapsed time from when a work item enters the board to when it exits.

Value Proposition Canvas (VPC)

A tool mapping the relationship between a customer segment (jobs, pains, gains) and a value map (products, pain relievers, gain creators).

Volere Snow Card

A stakeholder-friendly template for documenting formal requirements including rationale, fit criterion, and customer satisfaction ratings.

INVEST Criteria

Qualities of a good user story: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.

Vertical Slicing

The practice of creating user stories that touch every architectural layer (UI, Logic, Persistence) to deliver an independent increment of value.

The 3 Cs (Ron Jeffries)

Card (capture intent), Conversation (build shared understanding), and Confirmation (record agreement via acceptance criteria).

Altitude Metaphor (Alistair Cockburn)

A way to categorize story levels: Cloud/Kite level (summary goals), Sea level (user goals), and Underwater level (sub-functions).

Spike Story

A special user story designed to remove risk or uncertainty rather than deliver product value directly; often time-boxed to 12 hours or fewer.

Usability (ISO 9241-11)

The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a context of use.

Keystroke Level Modelling (KLM)

A method to estimate optimal task time by summing primitive operators such as homing ($360\,ms$), clicking ($230\,ms$), and mental operations ($1,350\,ms$).

System Usability Scale (SUS)

A 10-item questionnaire with 5-point Likert responses that produces a score from $0$ to $100$, where above $80$ is Grade A.

Red Routes

Frequent or critical user actions that must be unobstructed and prioritized for design optimization.

Heuristic Evaluation

A usability inspection method where experts evaluate a product against Nielsen's 10 heuristics, such as 'Visibility of system status'.

Risk Exposure

The combined measurement of the probability and the size (impact) of a potential failure.

ROAM Board

A tool used in SAFe to categorize risks as Resolved, Owned, Accepted, or Mitigated.

RACI Matrix

A chart defining stakeholder responsibility states: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.

Verification vs. Validation

Verification confirms that specified requirements are fulfilled; Validation confirms the software is complete and works as stakeholders expected.

Static Testing

Form of testing that does not require code execution, such as reviews, dry runs, or flow graph analysis.

Regression Testing

Checking for adverse consequences resulting from changes, ensuring new modifications haven't broken existing functionality.

Testing Pyramid

A model showing that lower layers (component tests) should be more numerous and automated, while higher layers (acceptance) are coarser and slower.

North Star Metric (NSM)

A single lagging indicator that best captures the core value a product delivers to customers, used to align an entire organization.

Velocity

A delivery metric tracking story points completed per sprint to forecast future capacity; must not be used as a performance goal.

Bus Factor

The number of contributors per repository; a repository with a factor of 1 is a single point of failure.