In this guest post an industry expert will share some tips in order to manage your project well. Skills in project management are critical for software development so applying a popular approach for your coursework will serve you well in future endeavours.
An Introduction
So you've decided to embark on SEC Computing 👏 👏. If you are starting Year 11, the coursework is definitely on your mind.
Before we start, it helps to know a bit about the background of the writer of this post, being myself. I took on the Computer SEC exam many years ago, and pursued it further at Intermediate Level, eventually continuing on to obtain a Bachelors in Computer Science. After a number of years of getting my feet wet in coding teams, I started taking on more project management responsibilities. I have been project managing software products for the last 10 years, while also collaborating on their design and development.
The Approach
There are various methodologies for implementing complex software products. You need to pick the right one and I believe that keeping the user at the forefront is key. Ultimately what you program should result in a happy customer! For me, two particular frameworks make this possible: Agile and Design Thinking.
Watch the following quick videos if you are not familiar!
Agile Software Development is all about visualising work clearly, approaching it in increments, getting feedback, and improving the product based on that feedback thus works well Design Thinking.
This is in contrast to the classic Waterfall method of getting all the requirements first, spending a lot of time trying to build something perfect, and then hoping the client likes it. A more modern approach should save you time, stress and help you gain high grades.
So let's dive in...
Six Tips
1. Think Big Picture
Have a good idea of what you need to pass. A common mistake to make if you are inexperienced is to nut fully understand what examiners expect of you. Some students make it too big in their heads, while others make it too small. Avoid falling into this trap getting familiar with what the SEC Computing Coursework actually requires. Your teacher has kindly showed me the coursework guidelines, which has allowed me to refresh my memory of the different requirements.
For your benefit, I will summarise here. You need to produce a program, but you must submit a write-up that consists five main areas. In the table below, I have mapped each area to the corresponding Design Thinking stages. You will use an iterative approach which I will explain later on.
Coursework Criteria | Goal | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Problem Definition | Understand the user and get clear on the problem we're going to solve. | You need to empathise with your user and do a little design work. The framed problem needs to be well explained. Keep it small and simple! A very high level plan for look and feel will help you understand whether you understood your user. |
Solution | Design and build iteratively, learning and improving as the project matures. | This is where we build our solution, in small iterations using the: ideate; prototype; and test stages. When you generate a flowchart, program it, and test it. Yes, there will be mistakes, that is the idea. You have time to perfect it and your teacher can help you take it to the next level to get really high marks by introducing special design features. |
Running of the program | In the final iteration we demonstrate our program and make sure all the testing covers the problem statement. | You build the program, you fixed many bugs... but the deadline is approaching. Just use the program with different test values and talk about it. Get a friend or a parent to use your program. This maps to the user testing stage in Design Thinking. |
User Instructions | Packaging to use in a real environment. Launching a feature! | A really small user manual so that someone who does not know about computers can understand how to operate the program. A user manual must include installation instructions, launching and troubleshooting. |
Comments and Conclusion | Reflection, feedback and evaluation. | You have solved a problem! How well did you do? What was good, what could be better? This will serve as a nice and balance conclusion for your project. |
The above can fit into a vague timeline as illustrated below:
2. Be aware of the constraints
Your teacher will give you some rules that you need to follow to ensure that you will never be at risk of not getting your qualification. Make sure you understand them well and stick to them. I had a discussion with your teacher about these:
You Must Submit A Typed Writeup The programmed solution accounts for only a small part of your assessment. The main artefact is the documentation matching the requirements set out in Tip 1. Marks are awarded for formatting and for sticking to the headings set by the people who designed the syllabus. In order to make it easy for you to adhere to this constraint your teacher has created a template that you can download at the bottom of this post.
Look At The Marking Scheme Not all parts of the writeup have the same amount of marks but it may surprise you that the code is only 4 marks. It will not benefit you to spend too much time coding, without thinking about the design, because the code and the design are equally important. On the other hand, just doing the first section and then giving up will not give you a pass grade. Aim to get everything done at an adequate level to get your marks. The marking scheme is in the syllabus document.
Do Not Plan Work During High Pressure Periods Year 11 is tough and there are certain periods throughout your school year where the pressure tends to be higher. This is most especially true during Test Week and Mock Exams. Do not plan to do coursework during this time, and do not plan too much work over Christmas Break. Try to stick to the deadlines set by your teacher. More on this next.
3. Stick to deadlines by timeboxing
A timebox is a common time management tool for efficiency. Have you ever noticed that if you have three days to do a task you will get it done, but you will also get it done if you have just one day? This is actually called Parkinson's law.
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
This is not intentional and it is simply the way we are wired. So if time can shrink and expand what is the consequence? Well, it is the quality of the work! It is important to set a timebox that makes sense for the task at hand, and for that, you should use the marking scheme to guide you.
The image below illustrates time-boxing for a simple scenario of cleaning your room.
4. Adopt the Iterative Approach
Leverage Agile and time-boxing to create iterations for each of the three phases described above. For the high grades your solution should be built in versions whereby each version is improving on the previous through feedback from your teacher.
The advantage of using iterations is that you reduce risk. After each iteration your work should be good to submit even though it might not get full marks. Like this if plans change and there is less time on your hands, you can adjust. Better submit something of a lower quality but feels complete rather than unfinished work.
For example, let's say that John and Mark are doing the following project for their coursework:
John and Mark have 2 months to cover Phase 2 before finalising their documentation. John and Mark will adopt different approaches:
John will use a traditional approach.
Mark will adopt agile.
John | Mark |
Meticulously frames the problem. | Agrees with teacher that each iteration is 2 weeks. In a span of two months he can get help and feedback from his teacher 4 times. |
A lot of time is spent on the code. There are many things he does not know. His detailed problem is more challenging than he thought. | In the first iteration he is just roughly sketching out ideas and discussing with his teacher overall what the work entails. |
He is not sticking to deadlines, and he is not communicating with the teacher. He feels like giving up. Just a week to go, and in a panic he finds something online that he can understand. | Using teacher feedback he is also getting advice from friends and relatives who gave him ideas that he can consider. |
The deadline would be the first time his teacher sees the program in action. The teacher has feedback and she found bugs and logical errors that do not make sense. | In his second iteration he focuses on increasing the quality and implement at least one idea from his teacher. He is also asking his teacher to help him debug an issue. |
John cannot improve his project and his grade. He will just mention the feedback in the conclusion, but it only has two marks. | By the third iteration both teacher and Mark feel the project is good to submit so it is just a matter of polishing it up. |
Many students tend to use John's sequential approach because they feel they like immersing themselves and getting it out of the way. This can work well for other school projects but for programming at your level, the iterative approach is the way to go. Like Mark, you should work to get feedback regularly and build your solution in versions. Be sure that you are on the right path and address difficult questions with your teacher. If you adopt Mark's approach and at some point get ill, you will be able to adjust expectations much better and your teacher will be in a good position to give you good advice.
Now we will apply this thinking to our original phase diagram. I have added in some iterations and matched them to tentative dates. No need to be too prescriptive with our dates. A rough idea is enough.
Take note:
Each phase has an appropriate time-box for the amount of work involved.
Phase 2 is the longest because it is the most laborious, we are timeboxing.
Phase 2 extends over overlaps with your Christmas break, plan a manageable amount of work with your teacher. At this stage, you are really comfortable with the process and you are already making progress with the design and development.
The number of iterations for each phase varies. For Phase 1, 2 iterations is enough, but for Phase 3, one iteration is probably alright because it is just a conclusion.
5. Keep track of your progress visually
This is perhaps my favourite tip. Agile makes work more visual and one of the best ways is to use a Kanban board. Pending work is kept in the backlog, and the most pressing work is moved to the 'To do' or 'Up next'. New cards are added whenever new work becomes known, and cards being worked on move to the in progress. Here is a typical Kanban board with some simple columns to show the different stages our work may be in.
However, using a board is not mandatory, as long as you find a nice visual way to track your progress, it will motivate you to work harder. Programming is fun, but it is way more fun when someone is cheering you on. Come up with a way that works for you and your teacher.
6. Plans change, it is OK
This is more a word of advice rather than a tip. We live in a chaotic world, and Computing will not be the only subject you tackle. It's good to have a plan but also know that plans can change. Adaptation is actually a very important part of Agile. You will need to catch up on another subject next term and need to gain time. You can widen your iteration time-boxes slightly to give yourself some space. If you do not get as far as you wanted by the time Christmas break arrives, you can scale down the complexity to get it done in a shorter time-box. It is better to have a full deliverable at 75% than have missing components.
Helpful links and resources
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? A YouTube tutorial using JavaFX [link] by Almas Baimagambetov.
Hangman Game in Java. A light-hearted YouTube tutorial without using complicated GUI packages [link] by Coding with John.
Food Ordering Menu Driven Program. A captioned YouTube video [link] by Bhilai with up-beat background music that demonstrates a solution of an adequate level.
Probability predictions of strange scenarios using Monte Carlo Simulation. A short report [link] by Alvin Alexander has the bones of an original project.
Java 4 Kids Book by Java World Champion Yakov Fain. A light-hearted e-book [link] written for teenagers like yourselves! A step-by-step guide to build Tic-Tac-Toe is included.
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