Project Closure Report¶
Lezioni alla pari¶
April 19, 2020
Team Members¶
Ovidiu Andrioaia
David Cirdan
Luciano Mateias
Zhiyang Xia
Document Control¶
Change History
| Revision | Change Date | Description of changes |
|---|---|---|
| V1.0 | 04/19/2020 | Initial release |
Document storage
This document is stored in the project's GIT repository at: https://github.com/KilliKrate/Software-Documentation-G6/blob/master/docs/Project%20Closure%20Report/index.md
Document Owner
Group 6 is responsible for developing and maintaining this document.
Table of Contents¶
Project Performance and Outcome
Project Experiences and Observations
Unrealized or Outstanding Outputs
Improvement Recommendations and Comments
Project Background Overview¶
Project Overview¶
The main goal of this project was to develop a platform under the guise of an application from where teachers, students, work groups and many other team-based organizations could share any type of material and coordinate their work between them, whilst maintaining everything local and confidential.\ The project started with the definition of the main goals that needed to be achieved in order to comply to the purpose of the application: + Designing the architecture of the various components and documenting the process and procedures + Finding partners and stakeholders who are willing to support the project + Developing the application with Python and Javascript, providing the back-end and front-end + Launching the beta + Fixing bugs, receiving feedback, various refinements + Final release to the public
Project Dates¶
| Milestone | Date of initiation | Date of completion |
|---|---|---|
| Software documentation and design | 04/11/2019 | 04/15/2019 |
| Finding partners and stakeholders | 04/17/2019 | 05/17/2019 |
| Database architecture and development | 04/20/2019 | 05/03/2019 |
| Back-end and front-end development | 05/05/2019 | 05/27/2019 |
| Video streaming feature | 05/15/2019 | 06/10/2019 |
| Launch of beta | 06/20/2019 | 07/01/2019 |
| Final release | 09/02/2019 | 09/13/2019 |
Project Organization¶
Project Participants:
Team Members
Ovidiu Andrioaia: Project Manager and Back-end Developer
David Cirdan: Front-end developer
Luciano Mateias: Back-end developer
Zhiyang Xia: Front-end developer and Marketing Manager
Stakeholders
Nadia Dallago: Database architecture and design
Lorenzo Decarli: Back-end development
Partners
ITI G.Marconi Verona: main partner and customer
Università di Verona: sponsor and quality assurance
Project Performance and Outcome¶
Project Success¶
The project was successful in its premise as our partners have fully adopted our platfrom as a service for their teams and group organizations inside their establishment. In particular, ITI G.Marconi Verona has integrated the application in its schooling network, whereas Università di Verona used the system to make further research inside the education field. Many other independent users and organizations downloaded the project from GitHub.
Project Outcome, Goal and Objectives¶
Most of the intended objectives and outputs where achieved as planned. \ Problems encountered during development where mainly caused by time constraints and a lack of resources and budget, as the deliverables where not delivered accordingly to the planning and no founding was granted upon project start. \ Nevertheless, customers have provided a good feedback and were not taken back from the lengthy development of the application, neither the shortage of means.
Project Deviations¶
The pre-planned milestones and project deliverables had been delayed many times due to time constraints, lengthy research and browsing and sometimes technical issues.\ The scope of the project hasn't been narrowed, on the contrary, it has widened as the development was taking place: for instance, the video streaming feature appeared only after most of the platform had been already designed and built, and this is applicable to many other little features and details that have been implemented into the application, mostly graphical and aesthetical.\ The time constraints pushed the project to develop the essentials at first, that resulted in a bare-bones platform, but which could still be presentable, and only with time and effort evolved into the polished and refined final product. \ A major lack of resources and funds were the main cause of the slow pace of the project, but also the inability to build a high-end, feature rich, extensible and advanced application.
Models, Methods, Tools and Processes¶
To build the application the following tools have been adopted: + Programming Languages: Python - Javascript + VCS: GitHub Inc. + Defect tracking: Bugzilla + IDE: PyCharm + Database: SQL
The SCRUM method has been used to organize the work between team members and the project developing steps. Instant messaging apps were made use of in order to keep contact.
Project Experiences and Observations¶
Unexpected Impacts¶
There were no major unexpected impacts during the development of the application, either negative or positive. However, the team has encountered some minor difficulties, mostly communicative and technical, that caused various misunderstandings between the members or missed reception in some cases.\ It has has to be noticed, though, that the project required a lot more time and effort than expected, as at the start of the process, it was not conceivable to develop such a complex application, it was just a small basic platfrom, that over time evolved into the final product.
Project Management Methods and Tools¶
The project management methods, such as the SCRUM method for organizing work and task, objective planning has been a productive and efficient way on approaching the project. The Bugzilla tool made bug fixing and typo corrections much easier, whereas the Version Control System adopted under GitHub simplified the synchronization between file versions and remote working.
Unrealized or Outstanding Outputs¶
List of Outstanding Items¶
There haven't been any outstanding items that have impacted project completion, though the team had to deal with a lot of new knowledge that wasn't acquired and new skills and tools which made the development process definetly more lengthy than what expected. There was also a long period of holidays and external working commitments which slowed significantly the pace of the project.
Unrealized Outputs¶
The possibility to integrate the application into a web based system has not been put out due to time constraints, but also because the skills and effort required where not met by the team members. Ultimately, this task has been put aside.\
The data storage solution of a hosted database and the usage of frameworks didn't make it in the planning of tools and systems to use for the project because of scarce adapatability to the scale of the platform and the high-demanding nature of these requests.
Improvement Recommendations and Comments¶
Suggestions and Improvements¶
On a final note, here is a list of reporting notes on the project that specify all the procedures, techinques, strategies that could have been done better, or improvements to the finished project:
- More time could have been invested in the learning of a framework to facilitate the development and create a more polished product
- Organization between team members and communication could have been more effective if proper tools had been used, Trello for example.
- A more in depth documentation and design plan for the application as many details and architectural decisions weren't clear from the start.