Cool Eco Bottles
Cool Eco Bottles Web-based Order Handling System
Cool Eco Bottles is a small-sized company, which sells over 20 different styles of insulated reusable water bottles. The company is 2 years old and has grown sharply over the last year mainly due to the anti-single use of plastic and a sustainable marketing drive. The market response to their product has been tremendous, retail outlets have done very well. The current pandemic has caught the business completely off guard and they would now like to expand by offering their product to the general public via a Web site that must be deployed fairly quickly, well within 3 months from now.
Cool Eco Bottles do not have their own software development department and contract out their software development projects. However, the Managing Director is frustrated by the problems associated with previous traditional ‘waterfall’ projects, in particular the lack of support for changing requirements and the long delivery timelines. After several interviews with various software development companies, she has decided that Cool Eco Bottleswill use Virtue Concepts to develop their Web site. Virtue concepts is a London based specialist consultancy that offers its services for Scrum-based Agile projects.
Cool Eco Bottles Personnel
The Managing Director – the driving force behind the project and the budget holder. She has also put aside time in a busy diary to be available for this project.
The Finance Director – keen to be involved, but can be prone to doing a perfect job and is always too busy to attend meetings.
The Operations Director – has been with the company from the start and was a senior team member from the business community on an Agile software development project at a previous job. Also responsible for the Order Handling team and happy to make at least one available for the project and empower them to make decisions. Keen to be involved and has made space in his diary. Well informed about what is going on in the company.
Chief Accountant – generally represents the Finance Director at meetings and is empowered to make decisions on behalf of the Finance Director. Has worked in all departments within the company over the years. Passed accountancy examinations 2 years ago.
The Warehouse Manager – not available for the project, but happy to make at least one Warehouse Operative available for the project and empower them to make decisions on her behalf.
The Marketing Director – available for the project and is also a certified Workshop Facilitator and Agile Project Manager.
Virtue Concepts
Virtue Concepts is an Agile software development consultancy in London. They have purpose-built rooms for SCRUM to stand up meetings and Facilitated workshops and use the DSDM Atern framework for all of their software development projects. Virtue Concepts assign a dedicated team for each of their projects. The team can be located on-site or off-site.
Virtue Concepts Personnel
Mary– available for the project, she is a very good programmer with a good working knowledge of Web development and a good communicator.
John– available for the project, he is an excellent Web developer but has been known to have stand-up arguments with customers.
Julia– available for the project, she has good Web site development skills and works for the Samaritans in her spare time.
Charles– available for the project, he has worked on several Agile development projects as a Team Leader and has a very good understanding of Web site development.
Seth– available 3 days a week throughout the project and has a good understanding of Web development and testing.
Table 1: Baselined list of requirements for the Web site
| ID | Requirements | Priority | Days |
| 1 | As the Managing Director, I want a monthly report showing the percentage of bottles that have been sold via the Web site, so that I can get a feel for the benefits, in terms of profit, that we are getting from the Web site. | 3 | |
| 2 | As a customer, I want to order online and be able to modify my shopping cart so that I can change my mind about what I want to buy. | 5 | |
| 3 | As a Customer, I want to enter separate delivery and invoice addresses so that I can receive bottles when staying at a friend’s house. | 3 | |
| 4 | As the Finance Director, I want all online transactions to be secure so that our customers feel safe. | 6 | |
| 5 | As the Managing Director, I want to be ensured that the site is the Data Protection Act safe so that we do not get fined hundreds of thousands of pounds. | 8 | |
| 6 | As the Marketing Director, I want an ‘About Page’ so that we can promote the finer details of the brand. | 3 | |
| 7 | As a Customer, I want a choice of delivery slots so that I can arrange my diary appropriately. | 5 | |
| 8 | As the Warehouse Manager, I want to place an ‘out of stock’ message on appropriate bottles so that customers do not end up having to wait for ages due to bottles being out of stock. | 5 | |
| 9 | As the Operations Director, I want to accept all forms of payment so that we can capture the largest market possible. | 5 | |
| 10 | As a Customer, I want to choose whether or not I am sent marketing information so that I do not get loads of junk mail. | 2 | |
| 11 | As a Warehouse Operative, I want to check delivery addresses so that I can place orders with similar postcodes in the same delivery batch. | 3 | |
| 12 | As a Customer, I want to be able to change my account details so that my most up to date details are recorded. | 3 | |
| 13 | As an Order Handling Clerk, I want to use the Web site to process telephone purchases so that I can stop using the paper-based system. | 2 | |
| 14 | As a Customer, I want to have bottles gift wrapped and sent to an address other that than my own so that I don’t have to bother wrapping and delivering presents. | 4 | |
| 15 | As a Customer, I would like to design and personalise my bottle. | 3 | |
| 16 | As a Customer, I want to be sent an SMS message to remind me when my bottles are going to be delivered so that I am in when they arrive. | 3 | |
| 17 | As a Customer I want daily emails to let me know the status of my order because I get nervous when I don’t know what is going on. | 4 | |
| 18 | As the Marketing Director, I would like a promotions page so that we can inform our customers of current discounts on offer. | 3 | |
| 19 | As the Chief Accountant, I want the Web site to adhere to legislation regarding VAT so we are not hit with a hefty fine. | 2 | |
| 20 | As a customer, I want to be able to process returns via the Web site so that I do not have to phone up and answer all of those stupid questions before being put through to a human being. | 4 |
Section A – Management Summary and Assumption List
The case study tells us that the Management Director has decided to recommend one of the approaches associated with Agile Methods to the team of Virtue Concepts. The Agile Method that they would prefer would be SCRUM with Agile.
Produce a management summary explaining whether SCRUM with Agile concepts would be an appropriate method to use for the project. Outline any advantages/drawbacks that you perceive. Give examples from the Case Study to support your answer.
A list of Assumptions and References listed retrospectively.
Section B – High-level requirements analysis and MoSCoW prioritisation
Table 1 of the case study provides details of a Facilitated Workshop session run by the Virtue Concepts consultants and attended by a number of the key staff in the organisation of Cool EcoBottles.
At the end of the session a list of ‘Baseline requirements’ was produced.
This list is inappropriate as a set of requirements for developing a website, as a number of the requirements need to be sorted out to meet the criteria for a ‘high-level requirement’ – remember, a high-level requirement should be a functional requirement that can be delivered to the user as part of an incremental approach using a timebox (or a number of timeboxes).
Using the information given throughout the case study to help you, complete the following:
B1. Review the ‘baseline requirements’ list given in table 1.
B1.1 Identify any of the requirements that you feel are not appropriate to be considered at high-level requirements, giving your reasons for this.
B1.2 Rewrite, and add to, the list to end up with a total of 8-10 high-level requirements (functional and non-functional) that you feel are required for building the website. Briefly justify the need for each of your high-level requirements against information you have gathered from the case study.
B2. Use the MoSCoW/Timebox rules to prioritize the requirements in your updated ‘high-level requirements list’.
B2.1. Produce an updated ‘high-level requirements list’ clearly showing the prioritization you have given to each of your requirements.
B2.2 Explain how you set about prioritizing the requirements and justify your reasons for the decisions that you made.
Section C – Legal, Social, Ethical and Professional issues
C1. Cool Eco Bottles personnel needs to start considering Legal, Social, Ethical, and Professional Issues (LSEPI) in relation to its day-to-day operations. Produce a management summary identifying Legal, Social, Ethical, and Professional issues that a system developer for the company would need to be aware of. Provide two practical examples from the case study that relate to each aspect of LSEPI identified.
C2. Produce a management summary outlining the purpose of a professional body, such as the British Computer Society. As a part of this, provide a practical example for each of the four BCS Code of Conduct sections to illustrate how the professional body may guide the choices and decisions of its members.
