English
Menu

Software Development and Project Management

Learn software development and project management with multiple-choice questions: development processes such as the waterfall model, the V-model and agile development (Scrum), requirements and design (UML, module cohesion and coupling), test techniques (equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, statement and branch coverage), Git and reviews, project management with WBS, critical paths, EVM and PERT, and SLAs and problem management.

Practice 10 questionsRandom questions from this topic · about 5 minutes Practice this topicAll questions in this topic, in random order Weak questionsRetry only the questions you last got wrong

Critical path calculator →

EVM (earned value) calculator →

Software Development and Project Management: key points

The quality and delivery of software depend less on how much code is written than on what is built in what order, how it is checked, and how its schedule and cost are managed. In development close to semiconductors and hardware, such as firmware, drivers, EDA scripts and verification environments, how well this is done also shapes the final product.

This topic covers ways of developing software such as the waterfall model and the V-model, Scrum, test-driven development and CI/CD; design ideas such as non-functional requirements, UML, and module cohesion and coupling; and test techniques such as equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis and branch coverage. It also covers the basics of project and service management, mainly through calculation questions: critical paths in arrow diagrams, three-point estimates, earned value management, risk responses, SLAs and problem management. It also helps with the software development and management sections of IT certification exams such as Japan's Fundamental and Applied Information Technology Engineer Examinations.

All Software Development and Project Management questions (40)
  1. Which is a characteristic of the waterfall model of software development?
  2. In the V-model of software development, which test corresponds to the requirements definition phase and checks that what was decided in that phase is satisfied?
  3. In Scrum, which role is accountable for the content and ordering (priority) of the Product Backlog items and for maximizing the value of the product?
  4. In Scrum, which event takes place at the end of a Sprint to show the completed Increment (the working product) to stakeholders, gather feedback and adjust future direction and the Product Backlog?
  5. In agile development methods such as Extreme Programming (XP), what is the activity of reorganizing the internal structure of a program so that it is easier to understand and change, without changing its externally visible behavior?
  6. Which describes how test-driven development (TDD) proceeds?
  7. Which describes continuous integration (CI)?
  8. Which correctly describes the difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment?
  9. Which of the following requirements for a business system is a non-functional requirement?
  10. In UML, which diagram is suitable for showing how the state of an object changes in response to events (a button press, a timer expiring, a temperature being reached and so on), as in the control software of a rice cooker?
  11. In UML, which diagram shows the messages (calls and replies) exchanged between several objects in time order from top to bottom?
  12. Among the levels of module strength (cohesion) used to evaluate module independence, which has the highest strength and is considered most desirable?
  13. Among the types of coupling between modules, which is the weakest and gives the highest module independence?
  14. Which GoF design pattern makes the objects that depend on an object be notified automatically when that object's state changes?
  15. When a static analysis tool is used on firmware source code, which problem is it best suited to finding without running the program?
  16. Which describes black-box testing?
  17. An input field accepts only integers; values from 1 to 100 inclusive are accepted and all others cause an error. When the input is divided by equivalence partitioning, how many equivalence classes are there in total (valid and invalid classes combined)?
  18. A program sets the admission fee by age (an integer of 0 or more): ages 0 to 17 pay the child fee, 18 to 64 the adult fee, and 65 or older the senior fee. Which set of test values is most appropriate for boundary value analysis to check the boundaries where the fee category changes?
  19. The specification says 'issue a warning if the temperature is 85 °C or higher', but the firmware mistakenly contains 'if (t > 85)'. The temperature t is an integer. Which of the following test values can detect this error?
  20. The values of temp and err can be chosen independently of each other. For the code 'if (temp > 80) { fan = HIGH; } else { fan = LOW; } if (err) { log(); }', what is the minimum number of test cases needed to achieve statement coverage (executing every statement at least once)?
  21. The truth values of a, b and c can be chosen independently of each other. For the code 'if (a) { S1; } if (b) { S2; } if (c) { S3; }', what is the minimum number of test cases needed to achieve branch coverage (executing both the true and false outcomes of every decision at least once)?
  22. For the decision 'A and B' (A and B are conditions whose truth values can be set independently), two test cases were run: (A = true, B = false) and (A = false, B = true). Which statement about coverage criteria is correct?
  23. In bottom-up testing, what is built to stand in for a higher-level module that does not exist yet, so that it calls the lower-level module under test, passes it test data and receives the results?
  24. During testing, a reliability growth curve was plotted with the test time (or the number of test cases executed) on the horizontal axis and the cumulative number of defects found on the vertical axis. The curve is still rising, with no sign of saturating (leveling off). Which judgment is most appropriate?
  25. In the integration testing of firmware with 25 KLOC (25,000 lines), 30 defects were found. Based on the organization's past results, the guideline for defects found in this phase is 2 to 4 per KLOC. Which is the most appropriate evaluation of this result?
  26. In Git, two developers changed the same line of the same file on different branches, and one branch was then merged into the other. Which describes what happens?
  27. Which method of reviewing design documents or source code is led by a moderator, assigns roles to the participants, is carried out formally using checklists and the like, and records the defects found and confirms their correction?
  28. After a firmware version known to work correctly there are 1,000 commits, and the latest commit has a bug. The bug was introduced by one commit and occurs in every commit after it. When the culprit commit is identified by binary search, as with git bisect, what is the maximum number of times the firmware must be built and tested?
  29. In a WBS, which breaks down a project's deliverables and work hierarchically, what is the element at the lowest level, used as the unit for estimating duration and cost and assigning people?
  30. In an arrow diagram with nodes ① to ⑥, the activities, written as 'name: start node → end node, duration', are A: ① → ②, 6 days; B: ① → ③, 4 days; C: ② → ④, 4 days; D: ③ → ⑤, 4 days; E: ④ → ⑥, 2 days; F: ⑤ → ⑥, 3 days; and a dummy activity: ② → ③ (duration 0). What is the shortest duration of the whole project?
  31. A project has the following activities, durations and predecessors: A: 4 days (no predecessor); B: 2 days (none); C: 3 days (A); D: 2 days (B); E: 5 days (C); F: 4 days (C and D); G: 2 days (F). If all other activities start as early as possible, what is the maximum number of days by which the start of activity B can be delayed without extending the total project duration?
  32. A project has the following activities, durations and predecessors: A: 6 days (none); B: 4 days (none); C: 4 days (A); D: 4 days (A and B); E: 2 days (C); F: 3 days (D), and its total duration is 13 days. The extra cost of shortening each activity by one day is ¥300,000 for A, ¥50,000 for B, ¥100,000 for C, ¥200,000 for D, ¥80,000 for E and ¥250,000 for F. Which is the cheapest way to shorten the total project duration by one day?
  33. A three-point estimate of an activity's duration gives an optimistic value of 4 days, a most likely value of 7 days and a pessimistic value of 16 days. What is the expected duration given by the PERT formula?
  34. In a project with a budget at completion (BAC) of ¥20 million, at a certain point the planned value (PV) was ¥8 million, the earned value (EV) ¥6 million and the actual cost (AC) ¥7.5 million. Which correctly describes the project's status at that point?
  35. In a project with a budget at completion (BAC) of ¥12 million, the current planned value (PV) is ¥6 million, the earned value (EV) ¥4.8 million and the actual cost (AC) ¥6 million. Assuming the current cost efficiency continues, what is the estimate at completion (EAC)?
  36. In a software project that is behind schedule, the number of developers was increased from 5 to 10. By what factor does the number of communication paths between two people (the number of pairs) increase?
  37. Which project risk response shifts the impact to a third party, for example by taking out insurance against the losses if the risk occurs, or by having a specialist company take on the work under a contract?
  38. Which describes the function point method used to estimate software size?
  39. The SLA for a service specifies a monthly availability of at least 99.95%. A month is taken as 30 days, and planned downtime is included in the calculation. This month the service has already been down for a total of 15 minutes due to failures. How much more downtime is allowed for the rest of this month while still meeting the SLA?
  40. In IT service management, which process mainly aims to investigate the root cause of recurring failures and prevent them from happening again through permanent fixes?

Books on Software Development and Project Management Ad

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Other topics in Computer systems