Essays for TDT4235
Tor Stålhane
IDI / NTNU
Intro
The essay counts for 30 of the 100 points
used to grade the students of this course
The essay must be written as a group effort
All the students in a group will get the same
number of points
The essay should preferably be written in
English although essays written in
Norwegian will also be accepted.
Formal requirements
• 10 – 12 pages plus title page, 12 points
Times New Roman, double line spacing
• The essay must have
– A front page with title and the names of all the
group’s participants
– Introduction, main section, discussion and
conclusions
– At least five non-web references
Topics
The following slides shows a set of possible
essay topics. The first line of each topic
shall be used as the essay’s title – also if
the essay is written in Norwegian
Each group must select one of the topics
listed
More than one group may select the same
topic
Essay 1
How to select the best new tools.
There is an increasing number of new
development tools available in the market
place. They all promises great
improvement in one or more project
success factors.
Trying out all of them is way too costly. What
should we do?
Essay 2
How to create good relations between QA
and developers
Among developers, the quality assurance
department is often seen more as an
enemy than as a friend.
Why is this, and how can we improve the
relations between developers and QA to
their mutual benefit?
Essay 3
QA and testing
Some companies consider testing as a part
of QA, while others consider it as a part of
development and that only the control of
the process for test development is a part
of QA.
What will give the best solution – testing as
part of QA or testing as part of
development or a separate testing group.
Essay 4
Get on the band wagon
The IT industry is famous for jumping at any
new fad – be it tools or methods – often
without much thought of possible
consequences.
Why is this and what are the consequences
– good and bad – of this tendency?
Essay 5
Too late or too early
It is a general observation that companies
that have success feel that they do not
need SPI while companies without
success feel that they cannot afford SPI.
How can we make software development
companies do SPI before it is “too late”
and what should they do when they
believe it is too late?