Project Assignment 4 – App Description and Kanban Board

In this assignment, you will write and present an app design summary. You will also review the work required to implement the project and construct a simple Kanban board and Cumulative Flow plot.

Reading List

To prepare for this assignment, read

Assignment Description

App Description Document

Immediately after meeting with your scientist, you should write an App Description Document using your notes from the interview. The App Description briefly describes what you expect to design and implement. It is a one or two page document which includes the following sections

  • App Idea – a few sentence description of the main purpose of the app and what it will enable.
  • Users – a list of different user types with a few word description of the user and their role using the app. Include information such as their expected age, and expertise with technology.
  • App Usage – This is a brief description of the users using the app.
  • Data – List of general data types. This is NOT a detail list. For example you could list “form data”, “device gps coordinates” and “photos.”

I will ask you to read your App Description to the class. We will discuss the different aspects of your description. You should use these discussions to delineate what aspect of the App Description is missing and prepare for your second scientist meeting.

Email your Scientist/Client

App Description

After you have reviewed the App Description with me and the class, and your team has revised the App Description, email it to your scientist. In the email, ask your scientist to review the description and make any revision. The App Description can be attachment or inline in the email, but make it distinct from the body of the email so that it is apparent that that it is a separate document.

Second Interview Reminder

Also in this email remind your scientist/client confirming the next meeting. If you are meeting by Zoom, make the Zoom meeting and include the Zoom connect information in the email.

Carbon copy your team and me on the email to your scientist.

Kanban Board and Cumulative Flow

You will use a Kanban board to organize project tasks and  monitor your team’s progress throughout the project. A Kanban board is divided into columns depicting the different phases of completing a task. Minimally there are three columns called “To Do”, “In-progress” and “Done”. Tasks are cards that describe the task, the assignee of the task, and more information about the task. Developers, i.e. teammates, move the cards from one column to the next as they accept a task and complete it. 

Also, you will use the “Cumulative Flow” plot to analyze and communicate your progress to others, such as me and your client. A cumulative flow diagram is a plot over time of the number of tasks that have entered or passed through a phase of task completion. The number of curves in the cumulative flow diagram is equal to the number of’ columns in your Kanban board. So if your Kanban Board has three columns, “To Do”, “In-progress” and “Done”, there will be three curves in the cumulative flow plot. Note that the curves are cumulative so they are always increasing. Initially the fastest growing curve is the curve for the “To Do” because they are created at the beginning of the project, but as tasks are worked on and then completed the curves for the “In-progress” and “Done” tasks catch up with the “To Do” curve.

Make the Kanban Board  

We will use JIRA to make the Kanban board, and generate the “Cumulative flow” diagram. To make a new Kanban board, navigate your browser to JIRA. 

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Log in using your MTU Google account. After the browser navigates to your “Home” page, select the “Jira” app. After the browser navigates to the “Projects” page, click the “Create project” button in the upper right corner. The next page asks for you to choose a project template, select “Software development” in the panel on the left.  A new panel appears on the right, select “Kanban”. A modal appears explaining Kanban boards, click “Use template” buttons in the upper right corner.  A new page appears asking to “Choose a project type”, choose “Team-management” by clicking the “Select a team-management project”.  In the new window, give the project a name, for the time being name it “CS4760-Team-<your team number>. You can change the name later if you wish. A key is generated for you. (Use the key that was generated.) Then click the “Next” button in the lower right corner. 

Eventually the Kanban board is made for you with three columns “To Do”, “In-progress” and “Done”. You can add columns if you think appropriate. The Kanban board does not have any task cards. Start making the tasks for the project by entering the name for the task in the empty card and clicking the “Create” button in the card. The card will be made and put in the “To Do” column. Because you might not know how to name your tasks or even what tasks there are for the project, I suggest that you use the list of “Project Assignments” to name your tasks. A list of project assignments are at the bottom of

https://cs4760.csl.mtu.edu/assignments/cs4760-assignments/project

In ten minutes, you have created your Kanban board with all the tasks in the “To Do” column. Later you can add sub-tasks to a task by clicking the card for the task. 

You should add all you team members to the Kanban board by clicking the icon of a silhouette of a person and plus sign. You are asked for email addresses. Use MTU email addresses. Also add me, pastel@mtu.edu to the Kanban board.  

Make Initial Cumulative Flow diagram

In the Kanban board view for your project, click “Add view” in the left side panel. A modal appears with a list of views. You can un-click the “Timeline view” and “Project pages” because we’ll not be using them. Then click “More features” at the bottom of the modal. A new right panel appears, scroll down and find “Reports” and select it. Now click “Back to project” at the top of the left panel. At the Kanban board view, click “Reports” in the left panel. A new right panel appears, click “Cumulative flow diagram”. The plot will show the “To Do” curve growing quickly. 

Note you can copy the plot, by right clicking the plot and selecting “Save as”. This will download a SVG to your computer. 

The team is responsible for creating and maintaining the Kanban board. On your team website, you will post the “Cumulative Flow” plot prominently, such as on the website home page. To post the graph on your website you might need to use a second application, such as Google Draw. You copy the plot from Jira and paste it into Google Draw. Then use Google Draw to export the image to a file. The PNG format is good.  The PNG that you have created can now be added to the website. You should keep this graph up to date weekly.

Submit on Canvas and Due Date

Submit on canvas your initial app summary and cumulative flow plot before you present. I will give feedback during your team presentation.

Grading Rubric

The App Description will be evaluated by timeliness and completeness. In particular, I will look for:

  • Clear, concise and correct app idea
  • Identification of specific user types
  • Workflow that clearly illustrates the use of the app
  • Identification of major data types that app will collect and/or present

The cumulative flow diagram will be evaluated for demonstrating the major steps for designing and implementing the app. I do not expect that you and your team will know all the steps required to program the app, but I do expect that you and your team have looked at remaining project assignments.

Prepare for the Next Assignment

In your next assignment you will prepare for your second interview with the assignment. There are no lecture readings, but you should read the assignment.