CS169 Software Engineering

March 6, 2000
Professor Doug Tygar

Concept Phase Review

All group members must attend the review, and all must be prepared to answer questions, but not all must present material during the presentation. Everyone is expected to contribute to the content of the presentation. Please bring (2) printed copies of your slides to the presentation.

The goal is to nail down the product as much as possible, and outline the key required resources (code, tools and equipment). It is useful to be explicit about possible features the product will not have, since reduces the temptation to add them later.

The presentation should address each of the following:

• One-slide definition of the product
• 2-3 slides on the target market (desired customers) and the competition
• The key features of the product (what makes it good)
• Target platform: what does the user need to use the product. For products, answers should include the supported platforms and operating systems; for services, answers should include the browser and any required plug-ins or browser features (such as ActiveX, Java or JavaScript). Try to be specific.
• The complete feature list
• A set of additional features for version 2 (which you won't build for this class)
• Potential features (typically those of a competitor) that you have chosen to leave out
• Basic implementation plan: one-slide summary of how you will implement this project. Typically covers the language and tools used, and key components that you intend to take off the shelf.
• If this is a prototype, how does it differ from the real product. For example, you may decide to do the prototype in Unix with Tcl/Tk even though the product will use Windows95 widgets. Or if the product requires special data, you may decide to use fake data for the prototype.
• Development requirements: what resources or technologies are needed to develop the product. For example, do you need a web server (that you control), or special tools such as the Java Development Kit. If only some members have access to a required resource, please state this explicitly.
• You may also include one or two key issues that you would like input on. For these cases, try to come up with explicit alternatives rather than open-ended questions.

The writeup should contain much of the same information, organized as a 3-5 page concept review document. In particular, be sure to include:

• Project definition and theme
• Target market
• Target platform
• Complete feature list. You don't need to provide detailed descriptions of every feature, but you should try to provide enough detail to make it clear how the feature will work. Consider rough (hand drawn is fine) sketches or screen shots of similar programs/pages.
• Version 2 features
• Implementation plan & development requirements -- summary of language, tools, and off the shelf components.
• Differences from a final release