Third Avenue Software is a relatively young company that develops mobile applications for phones. The company is still trying to find its corporate identity and permanent footing; it has released several moderately successful products but is still looking for a best-seller. Likewise, the company is still trying to determine which internal systems work best for its employees. Project management is among these systems. The company has used a few agile principles in previous projects with some success; its new project will use agile and Scrum whenever possible.

Many of Third Avenues products thus far have been designed to serve niche markets, so the companys cofounders instructed their marketing staff and programmers to identify markets that have more universal customer appeal. A couple of programmers quickly turned their focus to the field of health care, which affects everyone directly or indirectly. The programmers drafted an idea for an app that could serve as a one-stop shop for customers health-care information and needs. The apps name is to be determined, but it will contain the following features and information. Because Third Avenue knows from experience with agile projects that software complexity ratings can be useful for later time and cost estimates, management asked the programmers to include initial complexity estimates for each major feature set. These numbers are shown in parentheses and use a scale of 1 to 8:

• A fitness tracker that allows customers to record and track their blood pressure readings, cholesterol levels, exercise regimen, calorie intake, and other related information (3).
• A medication tracker in which customers can enter their medications and schedules for taking those meds. This electronic pillbox will contain a calendar that displays the customers medication schedule and an alarm that sounds whenever its time to take one of the medications (3).
• A physicians list that is essentially an electronic address book for the customers health-care company, doctors, nurses, and physicians assistants. The list will include controls that allow customers to quickly incorporate existing entries from other contact lists in their phones (2).
• An emergencies list for storing vital phone numbers and addresses. This list will provide quick access to local in-network hospitals, urgent care clinics, and children or friends who can be relied upon to provide transportation in an emergency. As soon as the customer enters and saves an address, an interactive GPS map becomes available in a new window, with voice and text directions (6).
• An emergency information list in which customers store important information about themselves, such as medical conditions (e.g., the customer is diabetic), allergies, adverse reactions to drugs, and other personal information that a physician, nurse, or other concerned party might find useful in an emergency (2).
• A resources feature that lists links to other popular online health sites, such as WebMD. The customer will have the option to add links to the list (1).
• A payment feature that tracks the customers medical expenses and allows customers to make medical payments through their phones (4).

The budget for the project is $350,000, and Third Avenue management would like to see a finished application available in four months.

Scrum will be the preferred approach to managing the projects development because Third Avenue wants a working version of the application quickly but does not yet know the full scope of the project. This working version will be released for review and testing well before the planned official release in four months. Remember that agile projects involve numerous iterations and software versions before the final release. These versions should be responsive to the concerns expressed by all stakeholders.

For example, programmers assigned to the apps development might be needed to provide support for other company projects, and more functionality might be added to the app after various stakeholders have had an opportunity to evaluate the first working version.

Usability

Usability will be extremely important, as customers will tend to be older than those who download and buy the majority of mobile apps. For example, the app will require a prominent control for increasing the text display size. Such controls are available in a phones Settings feature, but many older users tend not to explore such hidden settings.

The features mentioned above need to be immediately available and easily accessible when the app is launched.

Another usability issue is crucial: How does the app balance customer privacy against the need to share some of the customers information in an emergency? For example, the emergency information list might be of no use in a medical emergency if the customers phone access is blocked by a password that only she knows.

Taken as a whole, programmers give usability issues a complexity rating of 4 on a scale of 1 to 8.

Monetizing the App

Another unknown is the question of how to monetize the app most effectivelyfor example, the app will use ads, but how? Pop-up ads are an annoyance to many people; will they be tolerated by users or will they be immediately rejected? Will the app offer premium services, and if so, what are they? Will a subscription paywall be viable after an initial period of free use?

Project Team

As one of the two senior programmers at Third Avenue, you have been selected to run the project for developing the health-care app. You will be joined by the following colleagues on the project team:

• Eric, a junior programmer who is considered by his peers to be the author of some of the best code at the company. You have also designated Eric to be the project ScrumMaster.
• Lia, another talented young programmer
• Brianna, a marketing representative who has experience in health care from a previous job
• Jack, the regulatory manager at Third Avenue
• Kendra, the Quality Assurance manager

Project Scope

Remember that project scope management is different in agile projects than in traditional project management. For example, participants in agile projects typically spend less time defining scope in early stages of a project. However, Third Avenue has high hopes for the health-care app and wants to make sure that all team members work out some basic, crucial requirements before proceeding. Also, agile projects generally require more iterations of working software than in traditional project management, so management must be willing to trust the process once the basic requirements are in place and understood.

To help develop scope, agile and Scrum approaches employ cards, user stories, and technical stories. User stories are often written on index cards and then arrayed on a wall or table top to help the agile team plan how to implement the ideas into the product. Technical stories are then developed from the user stories. Technical stories can contain one or more technical tasks that developers use to chart progress on a sprint board as work is conducted throughout a sprint. This approach facilitates group discussion, which often leads to a much better set of product specifications than the rather simple ideas expressed on the cards.

One of managements key goals is to have the team develop ideas for completing a minimum viable product (MVP) as soon as possible. An MVP is a streamlined, stripped-down version of a product that can still be released for real-world use and review. It contains a subset of features that will be included in the final version. An MVP must possess several key properties:

• It has sufficient usable features and value that users will buy it.
• These early users will see the potential benefits of the product and trust that it will only improve in later iterations.
• It provides a feedback loop that will help programmers improve the existing features and add new features with minimal delays.

Remember that the overall budget for the project is $350,000, and Third Avenue management would like to see a finished application available in four months. The MVP version, of course, must be available much more quicklymanagement wants it to be ready to ship in six weeks. The project team has decided that sprints will be done every two weeks, so the MVP version must be ready to ship for use and review after three sprint cycles. The budget for completing the MVP is $120,000.

Task 1 - Develop the project charter for the health-care app project.

Task 2 - Develop user stories and technical stories to describe the software requirements for the health-care app.

Task 3 - Develop an initial scope statement.

Because of managements concerns about scheduling, they have requested that you add two members to your team:

• Aziz, a Quality Assurance tester who began his career as a programmer
• Barry, a member of Third Avenues three-person accounting staff

As the product owner, you have done some research on agile-specific scheduling and think that the scheduling approach used by the FBI to complete its Sentinel computerized file system will work for the Third Avenue project. This scheduling approach was discussed in Module 6. In the Sentinel project, work was organized into user stories, each of which were assigned a number of story points based on how much work was needed to complete each task. Story points are an abstract measure of the amount of effort needed to convert a user story into a functioning piece of software. Story points are calculated, or sized, based on the estimated amount of work needed, task complexity, risk in doing the work, and time required to do the work.

At the start of each two-week sprint, the team decided which user stories to complete for that sprint. Completed parts of the app were then incorporated into the next iteration of the software build for customer review and approval. User stories still pending completion were kept in the product backlog awaiting future sprints. This approach helped the team focus on completing a system that met customer requirements in a timely manner. The agile approach emphasizes finishing subsets of software features for the customer in regular, short intervals as opposed to an attempt to define and schedule the entire project at the beginning.

Management has also asked the team to develop a list of project milestones and make sure these can be completed within the sprint schedule, which is once every two weeks.

Task 4 - Prepare a Gantt chart for the health-care app project.

As with other methods of software development, the applications size is a major indicator of how much it might cost to develop. In agile development, cost estimates are often made based on size measurements such as story points.

You will recall that each user story for the health-care app is assigned a number of story points based on estimates of how much work is needed to complete each major task. Based on prior experience with agile projects, the three-person accounting staff at Third Avenue Software has determined an average dollar production cost for a story point: $1200.

However, the staff accountants are not completely confident in this average dollar value because Third Avenues experience with agile projects is not extensive. The accountants would like the team to confirm their calculations, if possible.

Earned value management (EVM) is a more traditional project management method for determining whether a project is meeting time and cost goals. EVM requires calculation of three values for each major activity in the project:

• The planned value (PV), which is the authorized budget assigned to scheduled work
• The actual cost (AC), which is the realized cost for the work performed on an activity during a specified period of time
• The earned value (EV), a measurement of project work done, framed in terms of the approved budget for the work

Managers at Third Avenue are also eager to see evidence that the Quality Assurance staff are making progress in their ability to test the health-care app. They have asked the team to provide at least a basic framework of test specifications.

Task 5 - Prepare a Cost Analysis as described below.

1. Review the user stories, technical stories, and story points you developed in earlier parts of this case and then use the information to estimate the cost of the health-care app project. Third Avenue accountants estimate that the average production cost of a story point is $1200. Based on the values you calculate, do the project costs appear to be within the overall budget of $350,000? Do the costs seem to be within the MVP budget of $120,000? If the costs are not within budget, adjust the story points you developed in Part 3 to make sure your revised numbers are within budget. You might also have to reconsider the feature set within the MVP if it exceeds its budget.
2. Assume that you have completed one month of the health-care app project and have some reliable EVM data for cost accounting. Remember that the budget at completion (BAC) is $350,000 for the four-month project. You have received the following figures from the Third Avenue accountants:

PV $105,000

EV $122,000

AC $105,000

Using this information, answer the following questions.

• What is the cost variance, schedule variance, cost performance index (CPI), and schedule performance index (SPI) for the project?
• Use the CPI to determine the estimate at completion (EAC) for the project.
• Based on your answers, does the project appear to be on schedule and within budget?

Task 6 - Develop a short list of quality requirements for testing. Include at least five of the important app features and/or usability issues described thus far in this running case. In your list, briefly describe each requirement.

Task 7 - Develop a progress report for the project.

Task 8 - Develop a probability/impact matrix to document risks to the health-care app project.

Task 9 - Create a stakeholder management plan. Be sure to handle the stakeholders concerns and input for the health-care app after it has been released to the field. For example, continuing strategies are needed to monetize the software most effectively and to achieve maximum market penetration.

Task 10 - Create an issue log for the projects main activities.