Handbook

This topic introduces students to more advanced aspects of software engineering, with a focus on the roles of people, process, and tools/technologies and an integrated approach to manage these with the concept and application of DevOps. This topic will introduce the various well known software process improvement frameworks and standards, such as CMMI and ITIL, in the context of their benefits to organisations, and discuss how these can be tailored to suit small organisations or teams of software developers. The definition, implementation, measurement, management, change and improvement of processes for major technical and managerial activities, including requirements analysis and management, design, implementation, testing, configuration management and project management, will be covered. Human factors and philosophical issues associated with managing complexity and uncertainty in software system development will also be discussed, which leads to an in-depth discussion on DevOps, both as a concept and an integrated toolset, for managing source code, task and sprint management, releases, deployment pipelines and recording and tagging of tests against releases. Students will be required to carry out a put-it-together open-ended project with an integrated approach and reflective mind in a group.