Unit:

Agile Development
Assignment title:
Running Club
September 2018

Important notes
 Please refer to the Assignment Presentation Requirements for advice on how
to set out your assignment. These can be found on the NCC Education
website. Click on ‘Policies & Advice’ on the main menu and then click on
‘Student Support’.
 You must read the NCC Education documents What is Academic
Misconduct? Guidance for Candidates and Avoiding Plagiarism and
Collusion: Guidance for Candidates and ensure that you acknowledge all the
sources that you use in your work. These documents are available on the
NCC Education website. Click on ‘Policies & Advice’ on the main menu and
then click on ‘Student Support’.
 You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work. The form
is available on the NCC Education website. Click on ‘Policies & Advice’ on
the main menu and then click on ‘Student Support’.
 Please make a note of the recommended word count. You could lose marks
if you write 10% more or less than this.
 You must submit a paper copy and digital copy (on disk or similarly
acceptable medium). Media containing viruses, or media that cannot be run
directly, will result in a fail grade being awarded for this assessment.
 All electronic media will be checked for plagiarism.
Introduction
Ratho Road Runners (RRR) is a small successful running club based in Ratho on the
outskirts of Edinburgh. They organise weekly runs of different types and durations for club
members three evenings a week (short run, long run and interval training sessions). They
also organise an annual charity ‘fun run’ in December to raise money for a local hospice.
They have been operating for seven years and have around 40 regular members. Their
members range widely in age and experience, but the most problematic thing they have to
deal with is that they are staffed entirely on a volunteer basis. This means that there is a
considerable challenge that goes along with running the club – not only do attendees vary
on a race by race basis, so does the availability of staff. Occasionally, RRR also run
special events aimed at those with disabilities, and these events are advertised and
organised on an individual basis.

Recently, RRR have managed to secure a £25,000 grant from the local council as part of
their Fit 4 The Future initiative (F4TF). RRR have decided that the best way to spend the
money is on scoping out a system designed to make the whole endeavour easier to self-
organise. They want volunteers and runners to be able to register their interest in
particular events at particular times and have the software work to find the best day, the
best time, and the staff that are available to support the event. To ensure that the staffing
burden doesn’t fall too heavily on a few individuals, they are also keen that this software
perform a degree of load balancing to make sure that everyone gets a chance to
contribute and no one person is called upon for everything. The expectation is that this
would be a web application that cleanly integrates into social media platforms, and that the
events created as part of the club would be available to participants within RRR and also
those that see their friends taking part. It’s expected as part of this social viral method of
propagation that the software would post regular updates on running times, noteworthy
achievements, and personal records for all participants. Similarly, the software should
track the effort put in for volunteers and award achievements and recognition appropriately
based on what they have done and for how long.

RRR want this web front end to be especially easy to use, noting that those for whom they
cater are not necessarily very IT literate. They are keen for members of the group to be
involved in the design and testing of the app to ensure that it will be straightforward for
them to use, taking into account the accessibility issues some of their runners may have
(e.g. physical or visual impairments). It is important that the work also includes creating a
full database and booking system for the events, and that the web front end can connect
with this and social media platforms to enable runners to track events, attendance, and
volunteer pools. Volunteers should also be able to set up events, put times and dates up
to a vote, and register their availability for these on a case by case basis.

Sensible Software (SS) is a development consultancy based in Edinburgh. They have a

track record in the development of software aimed at the growing fitness app market and
have expressed in an interest in developing a proof of concept for this tool. RRR has
decided to contract SS on a “time and materials” basis for the development of their new
web application and associated backend.

The key deliverables associated with this application are as follows:

 Adding races to the system, via volunteers

 Allowing runners to register an interest in an event

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  Allowing runners to vote on time and date of events
 Allowing runners to see the previous achievements they have earned
 Allowing volunteers to see the previous achievements they have earned
 Tracking participation of runners and volunteers across all events, and awarding
achievements when set thresholds have been met.
 Integrating with the social media platforms of all users to advertise events and the
achievements of runners and volunteers to their friends.
 Load balancing allocation of volunteers to events based on their previous
participation.
 Making available statistics to runners based on their personal performance in
previous events.

Understanding that you are new this area, the President has asked you to put together a
plan for a user focused investigation into the topic. You are expected to explain how this
problem statement can be turned into a more rigorous requirement specification. You are
NOT required to write this specification document, only to come up with a plan for how it is
to be developed. It is expected to be user focused and incorporate regular checks for
approval with RRR management.

Given that you will be managing a new team, you can recruit your own team members. In
particular, there will be a round of recruitment aimed at choosing the development team.
As part of this recruitment, you will be expected to put together a set of four role
specifications for the team you want to build. These role specifications should list key
skillsets (no more than four per role), expected weight of contribution to the project (full
time or part time, or task-based contract), and previous qualifications and experience.
When you have set out your person specifications, you should assign the hypothetical
candidates to the sprints and timeboxes associated with your development methodology.

You have available a pool of testers and clients as part of the RRR committee members
and regular clients, and you will be expected to make reference to these when it comes to
setting up your project structure. As with your staff, you can define the person you want for
each phase and they will be recruited as needed. However, within SS, you will need to
collaborate with a named person in the organisation’s structure.

Ratho Road Runners Committee:

 President (Jenny McConnachie) – Jenny McConnachie is the original founder of
the group. She is an active runner herself, and has been instrumental in keeping
the group going over its lifetime. She is not particularly technically knowledgeable
but is very literate in issues of volunteer logistics and organisation. She works part-
time as a Dental Receptionist three mornings a week.
 Treasurer (Bill Coin) – Bill is the current elected treasurer of the group and is
responsible for handling the finances of the organisation. Primarily these come in
via membership fees and social events, and outgoings are mostly related to
advertising. He works full time as a Part-Qualified Accountant and has never used
any social media applications or websites.
 Social Secretary (Marcin Grabowska) – Marcin is a retired greengrocer who is a
major civic figure in the Ratho area. He sits on seven local committees, of which
the Ratho Road Runners is one. He is also a local councillor and serves as an
important bridge between the group and the restrictions that are placed on activities
by the local council.

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  Welfare Officer (Annette Lannister) – Annette is a local GP and a champion of the
value of regular exercise in the local area. She prescribes running as a physical
therapy for many of her patients, and as such has a keen interest in how the group
can be moulded to support their interests and wellbeing.
 Membership Secretary (Edward Stark) – Edward is a lecturer in computing at the
local technical college and has been responsible for almost all of RRR’s computing
infrastructure to date. So far this has mostly consisted of a small local Microsoft
Access database and a static web frontend. Edward will take a keen interest in the
project as it emerges.
 Vice President (Emily Tyrell) – Emily is the vice president for the Ratho Road
Runners. She has no particular responsibilities in the group so acts as a kind of
flexible member, offering support to individual members of the committee when their
work becomes too burdensome for a single person. She works full time for a major
financial services company in the area and often travels for business.

Tasks

Task 1 – 25 Marks
The president of RRR understands that you are new to both app design and software
development within this business context. As such, she would like you to critically discuss
your chosen development methodology and explain why it is appropriate for a user-
centred project like this application. Your report should:

 Outline the EIGHT (8) principles of DSDM Atern and evaluate how these principles
will be applied to the project (16 marks)
 Describe how agile methods can be used to effectively reinforce user and
managerial feedback throughout the project (4 marks)
 Discuss how the specifics of this project are served by the theoretical benefits of the
framework (5 marks)

This task requires 600 words.

Task 2 – 12 Marks
Create the person specifications for the FOUR (4) hypothetical people you will look to
recruit to the project. For each of these people, you should define:

 Skills (1 mark)
 Experience (1 mark)
 Weight of contribution (1 mark).

This task requires 300 words.

Task 3 – 13 Marks
You have been asked to explain the importance of the Business Ambassador role in the
Solution Development team and have been asked to identify a suitable individual to
perform the Business Ambassador role in the Solution Development Team. You have
been given a list of FOUR employees to choose from for this role:

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  Bill Coin
 Jenny McConnachie
 Marcin Grabowska
 Emily Tyrell

Provide a response which:

 Explains the role of the Business Ambassador and why it is important. (5 marks)
 Identifies a suitable candidate for the Business Ambassador role from the four
people listed above. (2 marks)
 For each of the three people who were not selected, provides TWO (2) reasons
why they would not be suitable for the role. (6 marks)

This task requires 400 words.

Task 4 – 25 Marks
Produce an annotated diagram that shows the iterative involvement of: (1) each member
of the team; (2) the tasks with which they will be tasked; and (3) how the software will be
prototyped. The diagram should also show how users are to be incorporated into the
process and which members of RRR will be involved. Do this with relation to the Identify 
Plan  Evolve  Review iterative development cycle.

Task 5 – 25 Marks
Provide a plan for the project, with the expectation this will be presented to the senior
management team of RRR. You should provide information on the following key elements:

 Timeboxes (5 marks)
 Estimates (5 marks)
 Expected sprints (5 marks)
 Anticipated deliverables (5 marks)

You should also provide a completed Project Approach Questionnaire (5 marks) that
addresses each of the key elements and provides your view as to where the criteria have
been met.

The word limit for the entire coursework is 2,000 words.

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Submission requirements
A word-processed document must be submitted incorporating the full documentation of all
tasks of the assignment above. Diagrams created using alternative software should be
converted into a suitable image file format (e.g. JPEG) and inserted into the document as
images. The document should be submitted both in paper form and digital form. Digital
copies should be on an appropriate medium (CD, DVD, USB flash drive, etc.).

Candidate checklist
Please use the following checklist to ensure that your work is ready for submission.

Have you read the NCC Education documents What is Academic

Misconduct? Guidance for Candidates and Avoiding Plagiarism and
Collusion: Guidance for Candidates and ensured that you have 
acknowledged all the sources that you have used in your work?
Have you completed the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work
form and attached it to your assignment? You must do this. 
Have you ensured that your work has not gone over or under the
recommended word count by more than 10%? 
Have you ensured that your work does not contain viruses and can
be run directly? 

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