Software Development Workshop

Building Blocks of Software Engineering

Presented by: Nancy Brooks Phillips, Senior Quality Assurance Manager and Pam Beaumont, Principal Quality Assurance Engineer, Fidelity eBusiness

Workshop Description

The workshop will focus on working as a team on a project.  The project description will state the criteria for successful completion of the project.  The groups will be given a chance at the end of the workshop to explain how they interpreted the requirements, and the steps they took to complete the project.   

The workshop participants will be separated into two or more groups depending on the number of participants in the session.  Each group will have to work together to analyze the general description of the desired end results, and use the supplied materials to achieve the stated project success criteria.

The project will give the workshop participants a concept of what software engineers do to gather requirements, implement a project, and release it to production.  There will be a brief discussion about the different models of project life cycles.

Leader’s Job Description

Software Engineers / Developers play a variety of roles with the technology framework of the organization; they can be implementers of new products, maintainers of existing products, or supporters of systems. Technology framework can be defined as the applications used by the organization, and the systems that support the applications.  For example when you play a game on SONY PlayStation 3, you are using an application, and the system is the PlayStation 3 console.  A software engineer created the PlayStation 3 game, and one of her requirements was that the game would be able to be played on the PlayStation3 console.  

We spend the majority of our time working on projects to test new features and /or new products for Fidelity eBusiness.  Our projects generally follow a staged approach. The first stage includes fact gathering to determine the goal of the project, this includes the creation of requirements, and the determination of the scope of the project.

If the project is approved, then the design and implementation stage of the project commence.  The design stage includes documenting the project, and the technologies that will be used to implement the project.  The implementation stage is when the programmer writes the code.

In our organization, the next stage is the testing, this is when quality assurance engineers look at the documentation of the project, and exercise the code developed for the project to ensure that the code can perform the requirements specified during the design stage. 

If the project is deemed a success, then it is released to the clients who use our product, and we move on to the next project.

Advice For Career Path

For a career in Software Engineering, Computer Science and Computer Information Systems are natural feeder degrees.  In order to prepare for these degrees student should concentrate on math, science, communication, and programming classes.   Programs like FIRST Robotics are a great way to gain exposure to Software and Engineering careers.

• Math and science skills teach the student how to analyze problems, and break problems in to smaller parts to be solved. This skill will be used in the requirements gathering stage and the implementation phase of the project life cycle.
• Communication skills encompass verbal and written skills. As a software engineer, you have to be able to explain, both written and verbally, complicated technical issues in a way that a non-technical person can grasp the concepts. Communication skills are used during every stage of the project life cycle.
• Programming classes give the student exposure to current technologies.  It allows the student to experiment with programming prior to college. 

From experience, it is easier to understand the information the professor was trying to impart faster if when you have a background in the subject. For example, I took AP Biology, and Chemistry in high school, and I took Biology and Chemistry in college. Because of my background, I was able to pick up concepts faster in college, this gave me an edge, which allowed me to tutor fellow students in the class.