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 functionalities 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 he/she knows.

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

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

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.

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?

Features Summary

This case listed the key features needed for the app. The list is quickly summarized here:

• A fitness tracker for recording health information, such as blood pressure and cholesterol
• A medication tracker (electronic pillbox) with a calendar and alarm notifications
• An electronic address book for recording contact data of doctors and other health-care professionals
• An emergencies list for storing vital phone numbers and addresses to provide quick access to hospitals, urgent care clinics, children, and friends in an emergency. List entries will trigger interactive GPS mapping software to help locate hospitals and other health-care venues.
• An emergency information list in which customers store important data about themselves in case it is needed in an emergency
• A resources feature that lists links to other popular online health sites, such as WebMD
• A payment feature that tracks health expenses and allows customers to make related payments through their phones
• Usability issues

Tasks

1. Using this feature list above, develop two user stories for any features from the previous list, and technical stories to describe the software requirements for the health-care app. Remember, user stories describe what users need to do to execute a task or perform a job function, focusing on the who, what, and why of a requirement in a simple, concise way.
2. Develop an initial Third Avenue Health application scope statement using the scope statement template provided in Module 5. Recall, a good scope statement should contain all or some of the following information: project scope description, product functional and design requirements, product user acceptance criteria, detailed information for project deliverables, project constraints, and references to supporting documents.
3. Select a list of features that will become the MVP for the first iteration of the health-care app and develop an initial Work breakdown structure (WBS) for developing the MVP version. Remember, MVP version contains a subset of features that will be included in the final version. This version should be ready to ship in six weeks and the team decided to have three sprint cycles to develop the MVP version. You can use the work breakdown structure template provided in module 5 to complete this task.