Skip to main content

Battleships as a Metaphor for Plans of Planning Exercise






I have learned from engaging with the module that leveraging Agile over Waterfall in terms of software development is particularly useful when there is ambiguity and when, the customer is not certain on what problems they want the software to address. The lecturer aided this understanding through instructing us to play a game of battleships. The battleships, were used as a metaphor for planning.



First, the lecturer instructed us to play a game using a forty-shot iteration e.g. creating one finished product, similar to the waterfall model.  Then, we were instructed to play again using a lower number of iterations per game e.g. 10 shots per iteration therefore creating four iterations before the game was over. All members recorded a higher balance after playing the game using multiple iterations. This was because of the high levels of ambiguity, as we did not know where the battleships were.



Below are two results I received from playing the game



1.       Using 40 shots (i.e. no iterations)







2.       Using 5 shots per iteration (i.e. 8 iterations per game)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Research Essay

A major assessment component for the Design, Development and Creativity module was conducting a research essay which involved working individually or in pairs. Myself and my partner, Beth conducted our research essay on updating a digital product, the UCD student portal through the introduction of a digital collaboration tool as a core offering for all students studying at the University. This essay involved conducting both primary and secondary research. In terms of primary research, we conducted a questionnaire, interviews and observational research to understand how students currently interact with the UCD student portal and how it can be improved. Once we understood the problems associated with blackboard and how it could be updated by making it a more engaging site, we conducted secondary research, studying existing literature and case studies on the topics of collaboration and utilising collaborative tools. Upon decision on the update required, a usability, requi
Post a Comment
Read more

The Soul of a New Machine

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Tracy Kidder’s, The Soul of a New Machine, particularly as it tied many concepts discussed during the module together. Topics and themes which stood out for me were Management and the Importance of hard work. The management style visible in the Eagle project was Mushroom Management. That is, management appeared almost absent. The “kids” were given a general idea of work expected of them and then they were expected to complete the work independently. No one knew who to go to and any issues that occurred between the “microkids” and the “hardy boys” needed to be negotiated among themselves. It can be argued that this management style brought out the best in the “kids”. Many of them commented on the level of responsibility they were given, something they would not have received at rival companies, such as IBM. Something which stood out for me was the way that Carl Alsing announced that it was Tom West who built the Eagle. To me, this underlined th
Post a Comment
Read more

First Lecture

I attended my first lecture for the module Design, Development, Creativity yesterday and I found it fascinating and I am very much looking forward to engaging with the module over the course of the semester. What stood out for me from yesterday's lecture was the activity we carried out in small groups on Buxton's avalanche case. The case described an event whereby friends skiing got caught in an avalanche and one of their friends, Saul was missing. During their avalanche training, the friends were given instructions on which of their survival tools (probe, shovel, transmitter) to use in which order and how to go about the rescue triage (rescuing the most able individuals first before moving on to the least able).Having not followed the sequence of  their training in exact order, the group of friends still managed to save Saul within 10minutes. What stood out for me from this exercise was the fact that systems are complex entities which comprise of many independent factors
Post a Comment
Read more