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19-Soft-A7 Software Development Process · December 2014

Question 3 of 8: Gantt Timelines for an 8-Week Project — Waterfall vs. Agile

Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)

Notes on this paper

National Exams, December 2014 — 04-Soft-A7, Software Process (open book, 3 hours). Notes on the paper: FIVE of the eight questions constitute a complete paper (the first five as answered in the answer book are marked, each of equal value); this solution answers all eight as a full study resource. Most questions call for short, bulleted written answers; Question 4 introduces a hypothetical emergency reporting system (a field officer reports an emergency, a dispatcher records the issue and allocates resources) that Question 5 builds on.

Reference texts. Sommerville, Software Engineering, 10th ed., Ch. 2 (Software Processes), Ch. 3 (Agile Software Development), Ch. 5 (System Modeling), Ch. 8–9 (Testing), Ch. 22–23 (Project Management, Configuration Management), Ch. 9 (Software Evolution/Maintenance); Pressman, Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach, 9th ed., Ch. 2–3 (Process Models, Agile), Ch. 23–24 (Project Management, Risk Management), Ch. 29 (Function-Point sizing), Ch. 22 (SQA), Ch. 24 (Software Configuration Management); SWEBOK v4 (Software Engineering Process, Software Configuration Management, Software Maintenance KAs).

Question 3: Gantt Timelines for an 8-Week Project — Waterfall vs. Agile (10 marks)

Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.

Given. An eight-week project. Two process models to schedule: (a) Waterfall, (b) Agile with 2-week sprints. Each timeline must show managerial, development, and quality-assurance activities.

Find. A timeline chart (Gantt) for each model, with approximate durations for every stage.

Approach. For Waterfall, lay the four generic activities out sequentially (requirements → design → implementation → testing) with managerial oversight and a deployment gate running alongside; for Agile, repeat a fixed 2-week sprint pattern (dev → QA/review) four times over the same eight weeks, with management activities (stand-ups, backlog grooming) running continuously.

Part a) — Waterfall.

Q3(a) Waterfall Model — 8-Week Project Timeline012345678project weekProject kickoff / planningRequirements analysisSystem designImplementation (coding)Weekly status reviewsTest planningSystem / integration testingDeployment & sign-offManagerialDevelopmentQuality assurance
Figure 1 — Waterfall: requirements (1 wk) → design (1.5 wk) → implementation (3 wk), with test planning starting alongside implementation and system/integration testing (1.5 wk) concentrated near the end, followed by a 1-week deployment/sign-off; weekly status reviews (managerial) run the whole 8 weeks.

Part b) — Agile, 2-week sprints.

Q3(b) Agile (2-Week Sprints) — 8-Week Project Timeline012345678project weekRelease / backlog planningSprint 1 devSprint 1 QA + review/retroSprint 2 devSprint 2 QA + review/retroSprint 3 devSprint 3 QA + review/retroSprint 4 devSprint 4 QA + review/retroDaily stand-ups / backlog groomingManagerialDevelopmentQuality assurance
Figure 2 — Agile: four identical 2-week sprints, each roughly 9–10 development days followed by ~2 days of sprint QA + review/retro; release/backlog planning opens the project and daily stand-ups/backlog grooming (managerial) run continuously across all four sprints.
Final results
ModelStructure
WaterfallSequential: requirements (1 wk) → design (1.5 wk) → implementation (3 wk) → test (1.5 wk) → deploy (1 wk); QA concentrated near the end.
Agile (2-wk sprints)4 repeating sprints, each ~9–10 dev days + ~2 QA/review days; QA distributed across every sprint.