T-76.5158 Special Assignment in SE: SEPA

1. Introduction

The course T-76.5158 Special assignment in SE: SEPA can be taken together with T-76.4115 Software Development Project I (6p). Passing both of these courses substitutes the old T-76.115. Other probably more laborious ways for passing T-76.5158 can be discussed with a professor.

SEPA (software engineering practice assignment) involves selecting one SE practice, familiarizing with it, accounting for its deployment to the project, and collecting experiences of its use and documenting all these steps in a SEPA diary. SEPA can be done alone or as a pair work.

Passing T-76.5158 requires about 40 hours of additional effort related to the T-76.4115 project containing:

• carrying out a SEPA (requires about 20 hours of work per person)
• spending 20 extra hours to the T-76.4115 project, including any kind of work e.g. using the SEPA practice

The group must include the SEPA diaries in the document delivery in the end of all iterations. They are evaluated on a pass/fail scale after the project. A failed SEPA with only minor deficiencies can be improved and re-delivered after evaluation.

2. Content of SEPA

1. Select and familiarize with a practice.
The pair must select a topic and read at least one reference about it. The selection should be based on their personal learning goals, but also considering the suitability of the practice to the project and its effects to and interests of the other group members. The "SEPA Topics"-document describes some practices, but the pair may suggest to the mentor selecting some other practice. The pair must document the reasoning behind the selection in the SEPA diary.

2. Plan the use of the practice.
Deployment of a practice requires planning how the practice is used in the project including, e.g., how, when, and by whom it will be used, and how the experiences of use are collected. Planning may include writing some work guidelines or giving training to the group. The pair must document the plan in the SEPA diary and e-mail it to the mentor before the deployment of the practice becomes relevant. However, the latest deadline for steps 1&2 is the end of the I1 iteration.

3. Use and improve the practice.
The pair must ensure that the planned persons use the practice in a disciplined way during the rest of the project. However, if the original plan of applying the practice was not reasonable, the way of using the practice may be improved during the project. If the topic cannot be used in the project at all, select a new topic as soon as possible.

4. Collect experiences.
Experiences may include subjective (developer's opinions) and objective metrics (e.g. quality/effort data) related to at least the effects and costs (planning and usage effort) of the practice. The pair must garher, analyze and document the experiences in the SEPA diary for each iteration and as a summary.