Experiences in Enhancing Functionalities in Apps Using a Customer-Focused Agile-Oriented Approach

Abstract

We describe our experience in developing a student assessment data capture and management app for a campus-based committee. The primary goal was to develop the app to be customized to the specific needs of the customer. The code from a similar app developed for another campus customer during the previous year was available to us. While this app had some features that were also replicated in our project, and that code could be reused as is, much of the functionality had to be adapted to the new customer’s requirements, and a number of features were completely new to this project. To implement this application, we took an Agile-oriented approach in which we stayed heavily engaged with the customer throughout, seeking to meet the customer’s goal of a user-friendly and intuitive GUI. Throughout the project, we encountered various obstacles. First, in a small university with no graduate program, there were few qualified students available for the project team, so the team was relatively small compared to the size of the project. In addition, we had a hard time limit dictated by the academic calendar and graduation dates. The ability to reuse code from the previous project helped, and the time spent in understanding this code was reduced considerably by the previous project’s adherence to appropriate design patterns and that our project used the same technology tools. To succeed in this environment, we also observe that it is necessary to work with the customer to identify the project scope, take a Scrum-based approach to track progress, and conduct code reviews to keep everyone “on the same page”. It is also critical to ensure that we get a team with the right skills, and ensure adherence to coding standards, for which we note that faculty member involvement in identifying the right students (rising juniors, for example), and especially in ensuring coding standards are met, is necessary