Proposal

Background

Young people use a variety of interaction methods: from harmless interactions such as

youth clubs and after school meetings, to behaviours that can cause distress to the community

such as graffiti and petty crime. Today, the youth culture is so diverse that it would seem

impossible to envision a common ground. Technology has reinvented the social wheel, it has

created environments that are utilised daily for users to share their opinions and associate

with others using an interactive system that is tailored to an individual’s interests.

For the Ohara Council, it is easy to see that a social network is the new cultural trend

amongst youth. Creating a positive, safe and interactive youth environment is important to

any council because it helps to enhance the community. A secondary factor is the long-term

benefit a council may provide by investing in its young people. A young person’s upbringing

may be the cornerstone of their adult life and aid in the development of their social ethos at

such an early stage may help sculpt a contributing member of society.

A localised social network can also help to fill the time of teenagers with more

constructive activities. As teenagers spend more time in a virtual environment, rather than a

physical one, it is logical that fewer problems concerning the youth will arise if their time is

better spent online.

With Ohara Council setting up their own social network, inclusive of hardware,

software and staff, meaning that the community would reap many benefits as it is bespoke.

Those involved are the youth who will use this social network and by extension, their parents

who are concerned about their safety and privacy. The Ohara Council is doing this for the

community as well as the youth, thus adding both the council and the community to the list of

stakeholders (although they do not directly use it). Each of these stakeholders’ criteria would

ideally be met, but as it is often said, the “customer” does not always know what they want. It

is essential to employ a different method of research before querying the stakeholders about

their respective needs. A wide spectrum of literature is also a key necessity; the smallest

detail can be as crucial as a given axiom when considering young people online.

It is undeniable that young people can be, and far too often are, taken advantage of in

the privacy of their own home in a virtual environment. Careful attention to detail must be

undertaken continuously and iteratively throughout this work-in-progress; it seems suitable to

use an iterative development process. This will allow full-flexibility in development, with

room for alteration whilst staying on track. The framework of Scrum fits well in this respect.

The problem to be solved is privacy, the most pertinent difficulty in this age of technology.

Any misjudgement where privacy is an issue can have serious ramifications. The ability to

protect these fragile digital footprints in a professional and precise manner is one in which

Scrum can yield many benefits.

Objectives

When given the task of creating a proposal for a social network site for children aged

between 12-18 years old, the team quickly realised that there are several issues that would

need to be dealt with; there are many concerns related to youths using the Internet and social

networking sites. First and foremost, there are matters related to the safety of the young users.

The age of the people involved causes a very dangerous conflict between their legal rights

and their need for social communication through medium of the Internet. Without the proper

education and protection, inexperienced users can quickly find themselves in uncomfortable

and possibly even dangerous situations. An example of such a situation could be getting

approached by an unknown individual online, or photos of users appearing online without

their consent. The proposed social networking site will have protective features in place, to

prevent these things from happening.

Another common problem that the proposed social networking site needs to take very

seriously is cyberbullying. This is something that happens quite frequently amongst

adolescents online and it can cause an abundance of problems. The wellbeing of children is

related to how they perform at school and later in life, which further justifies why

cyberbullying needs to be eradicated. A secondary goal of the project is to also create a social

networking site that gets the children more involved in the youth department of the council. It

is suggested in this proposal that this can be achieved by creating a playing area online that is

simultaneously safe, fun and educational.

In this proposal, the software development framework of Scrum is being used.

Something so agile, focused and flexible, yet structured can ensure that all of the questions

are answered and that all of the problems discovered are resolved quickly. This will also

build the requirements through research conducted by the team. Evaluation of literature,

studies and publications will allow the research team to approach the given problem of

privacy with an in-depth knowledge, reinforcing the way the difficulties of such a sensitive

subject is being approached.

Literature Review

In order to design the aforementioned website, the team had to go through previous

research that had been done in the field and find the issues which may be faced, and propose

solutions for them. In order to have more refined and focused research, the team analysed the

issues with privacy within the structure of the proposed social networking site. There are

several fundamental issues in creating a social networking site that need to be considered,

especially when it comes to young people. Disclosure of personal information is one of the

major issues; therefore, it is crucial that it is controlled in order to prevent the potential

consequences. According to Bryce and Klang (2009), there are a variety of ways in which

young people disclose their personal information online. They could be giving it out in

passive ways, such as posting on profile pages or blogs; they could be actively divulging this

information via chats and e-mail. This is a serious concern to the Ohara council and the team,

seeing as this could lead to potential risks such as cyberbullying or online sexual exploitation.

They also examined the level of choice and control over information disclosure. Users have a

high level of control and choice over what they disclose in interactions, but very low control

over its potential uses by others. However, a case study done by Gross and Aquisti (Beye,

Jeckmans, Erkin, Hartel, Lagendijk) states that users do not change the default privacy

settings provided by social networking sites, despite the fact that they are easy to use.

Furthermore, Tuffield and Harris have stated that a study has been done on young

Americans who are active social networking site members. The study shows that young

Americans were uneducated towards issues relating to privacy; 42 percent of young

Americans answered all of the five online privacy questions incorrectly, while 88 percent

answered only two or fewer correctly. In another study done by Stoddart (2011) school

children want to protect their online privacy, but many of them do not know how.

Bryce and Klang conclude that, to control this behaviour, one of the main strategies to

employ is encouraging safe and responsible use of the Internet by educating children and

increasing awareness. Also Beech,et al.,(2012) show that grooming can be another

consequence of giving out sensitive information, therefore it is fundamental to take

preventative measures by developing education for youths against online abuse.

Privacy largely involves keeping information in its intended scope. A breach can

occur when information is shared with a party for whom it was not intended. It can also

happen when information is abused for a different purpose than was intended, or when

information is accessed after its intended lifetime. This is also reflected in data protection

laws, such as the Data Protection Act of 1998 in the United Kingdom, where limitations are

imposed to the extent and duration of use of personal data. (Beye et al.)

Different operating environments complicate the use of security and safety settings on

individual devices. Numerous applications that are the disposal of children tend not to

disclose the company’s data collection and sharing practices. Nor do they usually provide

easy-to-use opt-out options for parents or children (Holloway, Green and Livingstone, 2013).

Browsing history and user interactions are rich sources of information. Preferences,

friendships or even explicit data such as physical location can be inferred from them.

Teenagers who use social networking sites as a platform to flirt are 300% more likely of

being harassed online in comparison to those who do not (Sengupta, Chaudhuri, 2011). 11%

of UK children have encountered sexual images online (although, 41% of parents are

unaware of this), 8% say they have been bullied on the internet (21% say that have been

bullied at all, online or offline), 12% of 11-16 year old internet users have received sexual

messages and 4% have sent them (UK Council for Child Internet Safety, 2010). These

statistics show that there is a strong need for the content of websites to be monitored.

Hunter (2004) found that when bullied, most 9 to 14-year-old schoolchildren told

their friends or families rather than their teachers. From that research, it was also found that

when students were cyber bullied, most of them reported telling their friends. Students may

be reluctant to tell their families and teachers about cyber bullying because they might find

their friends to be more tech-savvy and therefore a better resource for advice. (Aricak et al.,

2008)

In conclusion, educating young people on how to use the social networking sites

privacy settings and how to protect their personal data is the main safeguard against abuse.

Also, increasing awareness with both parents and social networking sites providers is another

way of protection.

Work Packages

Focus and Objectives:

The goal that the team is working towards is to create an independent social

networking site for children and teens who are involved with the council’s youth department

while simultaneously keeping them safe while online. One of the main concerns that the

council has is privacy and how much information children are able to give away freely online

to strangers, without realising how this can be harmful and damaging to not only themselves,

but the people around them as well. The council is also extremely focused on the ability that

children have to easily form relationships within the social network. Forming relationships on

the social network will help children engage with one another, on and offline, about common

interests and ideas they might want to share.

Resources:

During the course of the project, the team would be comprised of six members. Each

member of the team will have a specific job role within the project. A product owner and

scrum master will be elected by the team and each of the other members will have a

designated topic to produce. The project will take an estimated fourteen weeks to complete

from start to finish. The team will meet on a weekly basis for an average of four hours to

discuss progress, difficulties, successes and goals. Team meetings can and will be held if

deemed necessary by the scrum master. Each member of the team will be responsible for

producing quality work each week and all work will be reviewed by the team, critiqued and

revised if necessary. Every member of the team will have access to readily available hard and

software that includes but is not limited to: monitor, keyboard and CPU, each being the

component of a computer, drawing boards for note taking and team discussions, notebooks

used for personal notes, printers for printing leaflets and informative documents and Internet

access for web searches and use as a multi-person platform for a collaborative workspace.

The budget has been set by the team through an analysis of each component of the project,

based on the resources needed. Furthermore, each task assigned to a team member has a

smaller budget within itself, to keep the team on track with it is finances. Once the project is

completed, the team will implement a group of unbiased testers to test the project for any

technical, aesthetic, grammatical and usability flaws. The testers will also check for relevance

of the project based on the specifications provided by the Ohara council.

Deliverables:

With the completion of the project, the team intends to deliver a fully functional

social networking site for children that is to be delivered to the Ohara council. In order to

clearly state the deliverables, the team has compiled a list of deliverables broken down into

different categories.

Hardware deliverables:

Server rental and equipment that are required to run the social network: a suitable

server and equipment. These will be chosen by the team to host the social network online. A

partner hosting company will provide a lease for the server and its equipment and will

maintain it at a specified rate. Increased complexity of the social network’s functionality and

user base growth will likely require an upgrade of the server; use of additional servers might

be considered in the future.

For an additional cost, technical support can be provided to look after the server faults

and technical problems that might arise. Contracted technical support will ensure that the

server’s technical problems are resolved in a timely manner, meaning the website will be up

and running at all times.

Software deliverables (website-specific)

Software packages to maintain the website: The team will install and configure any

software required to run the social network. With contracted technical support software

updates, monitoring of resources and intrusion will be included. Verifiable parental consent

will be also implemented to restrict children of certain ages from registering for an account

on the social network. It will be a social network’s feature in which users under a set age

have to get their parents to verify their account by either post or telephone. After each age

verification request, the social network’s administrators will be able to either allow or refuse

the request by using administrator’s access to the social network. A graphical user interface

(GUI) will be provided.

Opt-out option for data sharing will be available at the time of the user registration

and the user will later be able to change the option in the user settings page. The option will

simply disallow any data sharing that otherwise, if data sharing is allowed, would be used for

internal and third party user data analysis, or to provide personalised content. Also, User

Access Control will be implemented so that a user will be able to cease all connections with

specified users, meaning that the access to user’s activity, profile and communicating will be

denied for blocked people and vice versa. The social network will have tracking features that

will enable the client to track user behaviour within the website for different reasons such as

betterment of existing features, or personalised content for the user. Users will have an option

to opt-out off tracking features, or disable it later in user settings page.

User management features will be provided for the administrators which will include

user management functionality such as user deletion and suspension, giving users warnings

for misconduct, and editing user details. This feature will allow the administrators to update

user details to keep them accurate and warn and prevent offending users from further

misconduct. User interaction monitoring feature will be implemented for the administrators to

monitor user interactions for any harassment, cyber-bullying, flirting, sexting, or other

inappropriate communication and content between the users. Live monitoring with automated

word filter will be provided to monitor the user interactions. When the monitoring system

reports a user, administrators will be able promptly warn and suspend users, or treat the

automated report as a false-positive meaning it has mistakenly been treated as a positive.

With the delivery of this feature the team will provide sample abuse scenarios with possible

outcomes to help you define the boundaries between user warnings, user suspensions, false-

positives, and cases where further action is required. The sample scenarios can then be

adjusted to meet your internal requirements and/or the law. The administrators will also be

able to access any previous reports and warnings of users at any given time.

User reporting feature will extend the user interaction feature and will allow users to

report cyberbullying, harassment and other misbehaviour of other users to the administrators.

Users will be able to select the type of misconduct so the administrators would be able to

prioritise and handle the reports based on importance. Private profile setting will be

implemented to allow social network users to keep their profiles private. Private profiles

would hide information such as thumbnails, messages on friends’ pages, tags, team

membership from users that are not added as friends. When users register for the social

networking site, the setting will be turned on by default, and users will have the option to

change the setting after registration.

The social network’s users will have access to functionality to delete their own

content. This feature will however keep the content archived, but not accessible by the public.

This is to avoid the users from fully deleting the content which may have to be used as

evidence in more serious cases of misconduct. A feature to notify a different user login

location will be implemented so a user would be notified if his/her account is being used from

a different location than usual (e.g. further than 50 miles radius of usual location, or a

different country). This will help users detect any odd locations and act on it promptly by

changing their password or contacting the website administrators. Users will be able to add

current session locations to a safe location list to prevent the system sending further

notification e-mails.

Other deliverables

The team will provide software documentation with the delivery of the software. The

documentation will consist of two parts. Part 1 will be end-user documentation that will

include information on how to use the website, from both user’s and administrator’s

perspectives. Part 2 will include technical software specification, maintenance requirements,

key files for the website, overall website’s file structure, as well as documentation on

functions, subroutines, variables and constants used in the source code. Part 2 is going to be

an important for maintaining the website, and future feature updates as it will include

information on how the social network is coded, so that it can be used by future developers to

familiarise with the source code.

Benefits

To ascertain that a parent is present when their child is using services such as social

networking sites creates many benefits when concerning legal integrity. This provides an

informative approach to exactly what the social network will provide. This concept is known

as “verifiable parental consent benefit” [1] (Bauman & Tatum, 2009). It encompasses direct

communication to the parents and sufficient control of their Childs activity. Furthermore, it

ensures that only the parent of the child for whom consent is being requested, can access and

respond to these requests. This process will also record and report a parent’s reply to a

consent-request to the operator. If need be, it will request to revoke consent earlier granted so

that they have their child’s personal information removed immediately. Opting out of data

sharing ensures that nobody will be able to share user data without their consent. It simply

allows registered and non-registered people to contact them or view their profile, preventing

identity theft from anyone whether they use the social networking site or not.

Turning off the tracking feature means you will get rid of the unique ID identifier

cookie saved in your device, which prevents the social networking website from tracking

your location, as well as sharing that information with other people, advertisers and

marketing corporations. By being able to cease connections with other users who are

displaying abusive behaviour, users will be less vulnerable to online harassment. This feature

will help with the number of reported and unreported cases of online bullying each year.

Hopefully, this will deter users who either deliberately or accidentally display abusive

behaviour while interacting on a social networking site. Monitoring the interaction of users

for signs of harassment helps maintain healthy communication and aids administrators in the

hopes of terminating an abusive conversation before it begins. It is also a useful feature for all

types of stakeholders. Parents can view their child’s activity whenever they deem fit. An

administrator of the network can warn users and remove accounts that are displaying abusive

behaviour to prevent them from any misuse. By monitoring the content of the website, it will

prove that it is reliable for children to have an account, because lots of advertisers and

marketing companies do not care about their viewer’s age. Checking everyone’s history and

behaviour when reported is beneficial when it comes to social participations such as joining

groups, having conversations and debates. Sometimes within such debates, children do not

know how to handle it; the debates can then become problematic and they therefore must be

reported in order to prevent children from accessing them again. The benefit of not sharing

information such as thumbnails, messages, friends, pages, tags, group membership etc. is to

ensure that a child cannot be found online by predators.

Having a report feature allows users to report instances of abusive behaviour, for

example, bullying, to admins, which can be tracked down and prevented in the future. In

addition, the victim could receive support from teachers if they wished; teachers would be

able to help solve their issue or report to a higher authority if need be. Educating the masses

about online privacy could help teach children how to better use social networking, for

example things such as: the amount of time they should spend online, appropriate photo

sharing, what information to share and what not to share and genuine friend’s requests. One

of the main benefits in having children educated about online social networking is because

the lines between public and private are unclear for children and it is vital to get them to

comprehend the limits of online privacy. Unusual activity alerts such as sending email when

user login from different location that normally login could raise the question of whether they

recognize this activity or not (Beye et al., 2010) If not, then an option to change their

password immediately could be sent to prevent their account from being hacked. Having an

educational page about online grooming upon registering is beneficial to prevent things like

that from happening. Children need to understand that not everyone on a social networking

site or in a chat-room is necessarily who they say they are. Private information should only be

shared with family and friends whom children have met in real life and not just in a social

networking site. Moreover, if children wish to meet with someone whom they’ve met in a

social networking setting, they should inform their parents and also be accompanied by one

for their own safety. If a child is aware of the dangers, they will become a more responsible

online user. Deleting content that has previously been posted will stop predators from

stalking users and help protect user’s activity by deleting old posts (Madden, 2012). A user

might wish to delete old posts for any number of reasons, such as: irrelevancy, unimportant

or too old.

Sprint Backlog 1

Sprint Duration: October 21st– October 28th

User Story Tasks

1 I demand that

“verifiable parental

consent” is used in

the collection, use or

disclosure of

personal information

for my child/children

Design the Verification Request Page

Code the Verification Request Page

Test the Verification Page

Save any file(s) relation to the consent request to the database

2. I want to easily

opt out of data

sharing to ensure my

child's privacy

Create Opt-out button in privacy section

Code the Opt-out button

Design the UI

Test the Out-out button

I want users to have

the option of ceasing

connections with

other users who are

having abusive

behaviours

Design "block user communication" button

Design "unblock user communication" button

Code the "block user communication" button

Code the "unblock user communication" button

Test the "block user communication" button

Test the "unblock user communication" button

I want to be able to

turn off tracking

features

Design tickbox button for registration page

Design tickbox button for settings page

Code the tickbox buttons

Test the tickbox tracking option

Sprint Backlog 2

Sprint Duration: October 28th– November 3rd

User Story Tasks

1 I want to see

monitoring of user

interactions to see if

they are being

harassed online

Design activity report page

Code activity report page

Test the Verification Page

Save any file(s) relation to the consent request to the database

Test the activity report page

Update terms and conditions page

Design automated word filter UI

Code automated word filter

Test automated word filter

Design live monitoring system

Code and implement live monitoring system

Test live monitoring system

Create possible abuse scenarios with outcomes (for admin use)

Sprint Backlog 3

Sprint Duration : November 3rd

– November 10th

User Story Tasks I want to have the

ability to warn a user

or delete their account

Code user warning function

Test warning function

Code account deletion function

I want to see

monitoring of user

interactions to see if

they are flirting

Categorize flirting keyword

Add keywords to filtering system

Apply filtering system to pages

Test the applied filter on pages

Sprint Backlog 4

Sprint Duration : November 10th– November 17th

User Story Tasks

I want the website’s

content to be

monitored so that

inappropriate content

would not be seen by

my child

Analyse new keywords to determine what leads to inappropriate content

Add new keywords to filtering system

I want everyone's

history and

behaviour to be

checked when

reported

Code report function

Test report function

Create profile history function

Test profile history function

Code administrator page to give access to history and behaviour of users

Sprint Backlog 5

Sprint Duration : November 17th– November 24th

User Story Tasks 1.I want my

information such as

thumbnails, messages

on friends’ pages, tags,

group membership etc.

not to be shared even

when my profile is

private

Create option for profiles to be private

Set private option as default option Disable sharing function if profile is private

2.I want to report

instances of cyber

bullying to computer-

savvy teachers or

administrators

In the report function, add a new option to report cyber-bullying Create a procedure that administrators follows in the case of a reported bullying

3.I want users to be

better educated in how

online privacy works

Create a privacy tutorial that has to be completeted in order to access main functions

of the page. Create a game that quiz the user about privacy and security online Create function that gives every user profile a golden star if they finish the privacy

quiz Test tutorial

Test game

4.I want to be able to

delete content that I

posted

Create deletion function

Test deletion function

Sprint Backlog 6

Sprint Duration: November 24th– December 1st

User Story Tasks 1. I want the system to

send me an email

when I login from

different location than

I normally login

Let system access, store and encrypt the location of each user

Create a function when logging in, that check is the location is the same as normal.

Create an automatic email that is sent to the users email, if the locations don't match

In the email, create a function that let's the user "add location to preferred locations"

2. I want the awareness

of children to be

increased by educating

them on risks of online

grooming

Add info about online grooming to the privacy tutorial and to the quiz game.

References

Annual Report to the Parliament of Canada (2011), Report on the Personal Information

Protection and Electronic Documents Act

Aricak, T., Ahhan S. S., Uzunhasanoglu, A., Saribeyoglu, S. , Ciplak S., Yilmaz N., &

Memmedov C., (2007). Cyberbullying among Turkish Adolescents

Bauman, S. and Tatum, T. 2009. Web Sites for Young Children: Gateway to Online Social

Networking?.Professional School Counseling, 13 (1), pp.2

Beye, M., Jeckmans, A., Erkin, Z., Hartel, P., Lagendijk, R. and Tang, Q. n.d.Privacy in

Online Social Networks. [e-book] p. 13.

Bryce, J. and Klang, M. 2009. Young people, disclosure of personal information and online

privacy: Control, choice and consequences. Information Security Technical Report, 14 (3),

pp. 160--166.

Cohn, M. (2012). ScrumMaster.

COPPA. (1998). Child Online Privacy Protection Act p. 1,2,5,9

Holloway, D., Green, L. and Livingstone, S. (2013). Zero to eight: young children and their

internet use

Hunter, S. C., Boyle, J. M. and Warden, D. 2004. Help seeking amongst child and adolescent

victims of peer-aggression and bullying: The influence of school-stage, gender, victimisation,

appraisal, and emotion.British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74 (3), pp. 375--390.

Madden, M. 2012. Privacy management on social media sites. p. 3.

Marwick, A. E., Diaz D. M. , Palfrey J. (2010),Youth, Privacy, and Reputation

Schwaber, K. (1994). Agile Project Management with Scrum p. 9

Sengupta, A. and Chaudhuri, A. 2008. Are Social Networking Sites a Source of Online

Harassment for Teens? Evidence from Survey Data. p. 4,5,6,7.

Tuffield, M. and Harris, S. n.d. Pudsey of a Friend: Issues and Concerns. [e-book].

UK Council for Child Internet Safety (2010), Good practice guidance for the providers of

social networking and other user-interactive services

Whittle, H., Hamilton-Giachritsis, C., Beech, A. and Collins, G. (2012) 'A review of

online grooming: characterstics and concerns', Journal of Aggression and Violent

Behaviour, 18 (1), pp 62–70.

Report

Project Objectives

The first objective was to design a social networking website for a local council,

which will be used by children, aged twelve to eighteen. The team was required to research

any issues regarding the design and to propose solutions. In order for the team to differentiate

between issues that were more or less important, a mass literature search was conducted. The

conclusion was that the most pressing concern was privacy. Once the research had been

completed, user stories were identified. In order for the Scrum work to be completed, a

backlog refinement meeting was planned. From there, sprints, daily Scrum, sprint reviews

and sprint retrospective meetings were outlined. The product backlog items were mulled over

multiple times in order to make sure they were up to the INVEST standards: independent,

negotiable, valuable, estimate, small and testable. (Cohn, 2010) Within the Scrum framework

of project management, it states that a product backlog has to be created; user stories should

be prioritized by asking and voting for each item within the product backlog. (Schwaber &

Sutherland, 2013)

Each member of the team is responsible for reaching a sprint goal and negotiating

which items from the product backlog will be committed to a specific sprint backlog. Within

each sprint backlog, requirements of each sprint are clarified and tasks are identified. Work is

then divided between each member of the team, depending on availability and amount of

time that it will take to complete each task. Once all sprints have been defined and assigned,

the work is completed, followed by a sprint review meeting of the tasks that have been

completed. Lastly, work is then reviewed, finalised and considered to be “Done” before being

presented to the council. Having a clear definition of “Done”, helps the team work together

more collaboratively. It helps to increase clearness and even eventually results in the

consistent development of a high quality of work. This ultimately means the creation of

software that has been properly tested, which can then be made for immediate use of its

intended users.

Estimating and Planning

After the product owner provided the team with a compiled list of user requirements

collected from stakeholders, the user requirements were translated into user stories as

required; the development framework of Scrum was applied (M. Cohn, 2004). The user

stories were then broken down into smaller tasks which allowed the team to have a better

understanding of the size of each user story; each user story had to be prioritised and have its

size estimated. The use of user stories combined with Scrum’s estimation and planning

techniques has allowed the team to work on the project’s deliverables in an organised way.

The team estimated the size of each user story by using story points and Scrum’s

Poker planning technique. Story points helped to determine how much time and effort was

required for each user story to be implemented. Scrum’s Poker planning technique allowed

each member of the team to fairly participate in the story point size estimation process. This

has proven to work in several instances, because we have found that the high or/and low

estimators’ reasoning has led to a change of the initially allocated story points after re-

estimating.

To prioritise the user stories the team has carried out Kano model analysis which

allowed the determination of the customers’ needs with respect to feature desirability. The

completion of the analysis provided the team with the user stories that were categorised into

categories of must-have, linear, exciter, and indifferent features. The mentioned categories in

Kano model determined the priority and because the must-have features are expected by the

end-user, it was important to implement them first, otherwise the team would not have met

the client’s expectations. Linear features were second most important to implement as they

could have caused customer dissatisfaction if not implemented, but increase customer

satisfaction if implemented. Exciter features were third most important to implement as they

would not cause customer dissatisfaction if not implemented; indifferent features were least

important because they wouldn’t affect the customer satisfaction at all.

The team chose to use weekly sprint iteration because the project’s completion

timeframe was short. Frequent, weekly sprint iterations have also helped the team to maintain

a steady workflow and a prompt response to any tasks that haven’t been completed in any of

the sprints on time. To reduce the effort spent on estimating, large and uncertain-size user

stories were marked as epics, as they may not fit into one sprint.

Product Owner and Product Backlog

A clear distinction for the role of the product owner must be made when using Scrum

to create a proposal. There are obvious roles within the scope of the project; however,

deriving user stories from these roles tends to cause uncertainty. Categorising certain roles

such as a “report writer” is vague and covers the entire group role as a collective. Naturally, it

was decided to distinguish the stakeholders of the proposal using their roles in the same way

in which Scrum works. A group of six would be split into the three roles of Product Owner,

Scrum Master and the team. Although the third categorisation involves four of the six people

involved, the empirical nature of Scrum means that it would not enhance the project by

giving any specificity to the roles of these people; the definition is used to initially define

different stakeholders and their requirements. A fortunate facet to the project is that there are

six parts to the proposal. This is, however, a double edged sword as these are defining roles

within themselves; they would have to act as a parallel to the aforementioned roles, but not

mentioned in the product backlogs to ensure clarity. Once each user had settled into the roles

and the capturing of requirements had begun, it was easy to assume the roles that had initially

been defined.

In the proposal, the complexity of the task had been exacerbated by the fact that it was

necessary to assume the roles of the stakeholders. The users, their parents and the

administrators were all theoretical users and fictional stakeholders based on the literature.

This was used to identify the target demographic and to envision the scope of their

requirements. The benefit of having the “stakeholders” in the room for the completion of the

proposal was that real questions could be asked and answered. Real user stories could be

derived from a person who had actually invested in the project. It was therefore decided that

user stories would initially refer to the most relevant role to create specific user stories. The

format of a user story had potential to be utilised in the understanding of why certain parts of

the proposal are important, but it had some pitfalls. One of these arose when the purpose of

each component in the proposal was questioned. Here is an example: “As a team member, I

want to write the background because...”, this is where the difficulty began. It is not enough

to say that the background must be written as it is necessary to complete the work as they are

all equally necessary components. When it would come to using the Kano model, each user

story would be identical as no stakeholder would be satisfied with the absence of any vital

component within the proposal. It could be argued that prioritisation could still occur in later

stages, when referring to the Scrum Master. However, it is not fulfilling the purpose of the

Product Owner's role or the purpose in Scrum and a new approach needed to be taken. The

way in which such user stories were to be structured had everything to do with the content of

the user story and the purpose behind it. The user story was, therefore, defined using that

person’s role and why it is an important feature within the scope of the project. Little has

changed but the assumed role of each stakeholder was to be one that defines the purpose of

the part within the proposal. A version of the user story would then be “As a team member, I

want to write the background so that people understand the purpose of the project.” Once this

structure had been adopted, the first iteration could begin.

The first product backlog, as it would be expected, was naturally quite rudimentary, as

it is necessary to use the iterative nature of Scrum to give the project depth and to let it

“evolve”. The face value of the requirements, at first glance, seemed to suggest that the work

was to be completed and nothing more. A great emphasis in Scrum is placed in the definition

of the word “done”; this may be a qualitative and/or quantitative argument within the scope

of the proposal (Schwaber & Sutherland, 2013). The dynamic nature of the product backlog

was dependent on the two factors which have just been discussed i.e. its “evolution” upon

iteration and how that alters the definition of the word “complete”. An example of how this

occurred would be in the “benefits” section of the proposal and how it alters according to the

“literature review”. Upon iteration, the literature review would uncover certain aspects of the

“Privacy” theme which were perhaps omitted beforehand. Certain laws were discovered to be

relevant to child privacy such as the Child Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA,

1998). Though this law pertained to the United States of America, the international nature of

the Internet and the potential for the servers allocated to be located outside of the United

Kingdom meant that international law must be taken into consideration. Once this was

established the user story “As the product owner, I want the literature review to cover a

diverse demographic because it is necessary to consider all potential users” needed to be

changed. For clarity and to reinforce the appropriation of the user stories, it was decided that

it is most relevant to the product owner because it is their role to “deliver the vision”

(Schwaber, 1994). The vision in this case, is privacy, which has many legal implications and

ramifications if it is not handled correctly. The new content of this user story within the

product backlog is as follows “As the product owner, I want the literature review to cover a

diverse demographic, including but not limited to; international law because there are legal

responsibilities a social network must embrace.” This is one example of how the product

owner changed the product backlog as they are responsible for the contents, grouping and

prioritisation of the product backlog and ensuring the scope of the project is clearly

envisioned. Below is an example of the second iteration of the product backlog, with the new

user story in context.

Scrum Master and Sprint Backlog

The Scrum Master is responsible for making sure that the Scrum Master and Product

Owner are performing -Cohn, (2012). A Scrum Master helps to develop the Product Owner’s

effectiveness by helping them find ways to maintain the Product Backlog and release plan.

Therefore, in the team, Scrum Master Hassan Azimi designed a Sprint Backlog to visualise

the tasks related to every specific user stories, the time the team needs to do the tasks, break

down and divide the tasks between team members and estimating the time which the team

needs to do all tasks as well as individual tasks.

The team’s Product Owner was responsible to prioritise the user stories. Requirements

from each team members related to the issue captured in the Product Backlog. One of the

important theories was evaluating the requirements, particularly those on the top of the

Product Backlog, to be better communicated as INVEST; independent, negotiable, valuable,

estimable, small, and testable user stories (Cohn, 2012). The other important material was

reassuring that does everyone knows how to use Scrum. Azimi helped inform team members

by displaying everyone’s job and or building visible charts in Sprint Backlog. Although

prioritizing the Product Backlog Item was one of the Product Owner’s, Azimi also helped

Berry to organize backlog items into suitable releases and priority collections.

Arranged Sprint Planning Meetings by Azimi or sometimes Berry helped the team to

define objects that resulted from these meetings, which was a Sprint Target and a Sprint

Backlog. Furthermore, the Scrum Master arranged meeting stand-up for everyone asking

what they have done, what they are going to do and what their problems have been. It is

obvious that the group must have a definition of complete and in each Sprint review meeting,

each team member acknowledged if any of their items is “complete”.

Another responsibility of the Scrum Master was to eliminate obstructions to the

team’s progress as far as Scrum is concerned. The Scrum Master promotes teamwork, which

means the group itself should eliminate problems wherever is possible.

Azimi served the product owner in several ways, including discovering techniques for

effective Product Backlog management, openly communicating vision, targets, and Product

Backlog items to the Development Team, teaching the Scrum Team to create clear and

concise Product Backlog items, apprehending long-term product planning in an empirical

environment, apprehending and practicing agility and facilitating Scrum events as requested

or needed.

Sprint Meetings

Sprint Meeting 1 Date: October 3rd

What was done:

• The group members got together for the first time

• Decided that Jake Berry was going to be the Product Owner, and Hassan Azimi was the

Scrum Master

• Chose a particular area of the proposed social network site to focus on, which

was privacy.

• Split up the task of finding literature into smaller tasks, and delegated them to the

different team members

Sprint Meeting 2

Date: October 10th

What was done:

• Decided to continue finding literature related to the problems regarding social networking

sites, privacy and security.

• Talked about how the proposed social networking site could work for youths. This

discussion

side-tracked after a while, the group might have benefitted from better leadership.

Sprint Meeting 3

Date: October 14th

What was done:

• Shared our main findings from the literature, discussed if the sources were credible.

• Some of the team members missed this meeting, which was unfortunate for the group

and for the coursework progression.

• Decided that the task for next meeting was to create user stories from the chosen literature.

Sprint Meeting 4

Date: October 21st

What was done:

• Presented and discussed the user stories of the different team members

• Prioritised desirability of the user stories in order to create the product backlog

Sprint Meeting 5

Date: October 28th (Reading Week)

What was done:

• Started making Sprint Backlogs

• Finalised the Product Backlog

Sprint Meeting 6

Date: November 4th

What was done:

• Found some additional literature that was turned into user stories and added to the

product backlog

• Not much else was done during this meeting; the group was not very productive

Sprint Meeting 7

Date: November 11th

What was done:

• Started planning the work on the proposal

• Delegated different parts of the proposal to the different team members, the work was

delegated as follows:

Jake Berry - Background

Joakim Randulff - Objectives

Hassan Azimi - Benefits

Shannon Greene - Work Packages

Zilvinas Pikelis - Work Packages

Sediqa Rezaee - Literature Review

Sprint Meeting 8

Date: November 18th

What was done:

• Reviewed what had been done for the proposal so far

• Continued working on proposal parts

Sprint Meeting 9

Date: November 25th

What was done:

• Started planning the work on the report

• Delegated report parts to different team members; the work was split up as follows:

Sediqa Rezaee - Objectives

Zilvinas Pikelis - Estimating and Planning

Jake Berry - Product Backlog

Hassan Azimi - Sprint Backlog

Joakim Randulff - Sprint Meetings

Shannon Greene - Critical Review

Sprint Meeting 10 Date: December 2nd

What was done:

• Some team members worked on their part of the proposal, others on the report.

• Started stitching together the proposal, and began the process of proofreading and

correcting mistakes.

Sprint Meeting 11

Date: December 9th

What was done:

• Continued working on proposal and report

• Decided some deadlines for when different parts of the coursework should be finished

over the winter break.

Critical Review

During the course of the project, a few valuable lessons were learned about the

meaning of teamwork. There were a great number of benefits in completing this project and

many more important lessons learned. The overall outcome of the project was a success, with

only a few complications that were overcome easily.

The most obvious benefit that was received from completing this project would be a

better understanding of how Scrum is implemented. The Scrum method is very beneficial

when it comes to managing a project. It was found that once the techniques that Scrum used

were understood, it was very easy to apply them to the project. Another major benefit from

this project was the importance of working in a team. It was obvious from the beginning that

if a team is not willing or able to participate in group work, then this project would be a

failure. Throughout the project, good communication was maintained; this helped over time.

All members of the team were willing to stay in constant communication with one another

through means of Google Docs, Facebook, text messaging and phone calls. Lastly, it was felt

that the team learned how to effective time management during the course of this project. It

was instantly clear the team would have to keep up with a set schedule in order for all of our

work to be completed by the due date with a high quality of standard.

Within every team, there are bound to be a few issues that arise. One of the main

concerns throughout the course of the project was the lack of communication in terms of the

assignment specifications. This only occurred during the first half of the project. Each

member of the team had a different idea of what the assignment was about and how it was to

be completed. There was some confusion on the team’s general understanding of the given

task, but once the project was discussed in more in depth, the difficulty was conquered.

The second most imperative issue that was faced during the project was attendance.

Having six members in one group, it was difficult for everyone to be present at all times.

There were many meetings where all members were present and ready to work, but just as

many meetings took place where at least one or two members of the team were not present or

late. Keeping the team informed of all decisions that are made at meetings is difficult when

not every member is present. Also, when advice and feedback was sought through a module

leader, each member of the team would interpret that information differently. It’s easy to pass

on misconstrued information to a team member when solely relying off of memory and a

personal interpretation of information given.

Throughout the duration of the project, almost every member of team put in an ample

amount of effort to ensure that work was produced in a timely fashion, while also keeping it

at a high level of quality. The division of labour was equal, but the effort put in by each

member of the team was not. There were times when a team member didn’t contribute the

amount of proficient work that was thought to be required of them. This in turn, caused a

strain on the other members of the group who would have to make up for this redundancy.

Also, keeping to a time table was a difficulty faced. Most of the team members were prompt

with their work and wouldn’t have to be asked to show proof that their work had been

completed, whereas there were instances where a team member would have to be asked,

sometimes numerous times, to produce a piece of work.

Lastly, keeping all members of the team informed on the update of our personal

efforts was impractical. From the beginning, a shared folder on the Google Drive was set up

meaning the collaborative sharing and editing of work was possible. In most cases, a team

member would upload an entire document to the system and then other team members would

be open to view and edit it at their leisure. It was found that on occasion, some ideas and

instructions would be misconstrued so that a piece of work was either not relevant or not up

to the standard of quality that was aimed for and would have to be heavily edited. In these

instances, it would have been beneficial to have more frequent meetings with updates on

advances in the assignment. This would have prevented an entire portion of work from

having been done incorrectly and having to spend time on correcting it.

Though the team had these weaknesses, there were a greater number of strengths. The

grace period between an inquiry from a member of the team and a response from another

member of the team was sufficient and productive. In most cases, responses from team

members were immediate or shortly after the inquiry had been made. In worst case scenarios,

it would only take from twelve to twenty four hours for a team member to respond to a

question that had been posted. Taking all aspects of a person’s daily activities into

consideration, this seemed like a reasonable and appropriate amount of time.

The team also collaborated very well. In the beginning of the project, there was some

confusion as to what the specifications of the assignment were, but as more time passed and

more insight was gained, the team was willing to help one another accomplish tasks in a

timely manner while simultaneously maintaining a high standard of work. Nearly every

member of the team was willing to put in the necessary effort. Throughout the course of the

project, almost all members of the team were focused, driven and attentive.

There were many aspects of this project that were crucial to its success. One of the

main supporting team elements was Google Docs, a virtual environment where the team

could have a collaborative workspace that was editing enabled. When it was time for all team

members to produce a certain part of the project, Google Docs was very helpful with regard

to making a collective document of all work that had been fashioned. After the initial

introduction of the project, most of the team had a good understanding of what was being

expected of them. Some members of our team had background knowledge in Scrum, which

proved to be incredibly beneficial. Those who didn’t have said knowledge quickly did

independent research to keep themselves informed and on track. The team was very good at

helping one another, each member was assigned a specific part of the project to manage and

produce. If a question was to arise not pertaining to a certain team members designated work,

they would usually attempt to help and respond to the question. Nearly every member of the

team was willing to help if necessary. Another advantageous standpoint was that most of the

members were always on time and presents to workshops and scheduled meetings. Over the

course of the semester, meetings were held which were additional to the scheduled

workshops. Almost every member of the team was present to these meetings and on time.

Lastly, one of the most beneficial aspects of our group was the fact that every member was an

avid Facebook user and therefore could read and respond to inquisitions at their own leisure,

almost any time of day.

Through many trials and tribulations of all sorts, the project was a success. The team

managed to pull through and produced a piece of collaborative work which was a lesson in

the practice of Scrum as well as teamwork.

Product Backlog

Priority Estimate Sprint User type User Story

1 8 1 Product Owner As the product owner, I want the

literature review to cover a diverse

demographic, including but not

limited to international law because

there are legal responsibilities a

Social network must embrace.

2 5 1 Sprint Master As the Sprint master, I want to aid in

the understanding of scrum because

the team, as a whole is partially

dependent on my knowledge of it.

3 3 2 Team Member As a team member I want the work

packages to be clearly defined so

people understand what needs to be

done.

4 5 2 Product Owner As the product owner, I want to

emphasise the vision of privacy

within

the proposal because I am

committed to this project.

5 5 2 Team Member as a Team member I want the

literature review to be from credible

sources so that our information is

valid.

6 3 2 Product Owner As The product owner I want the

benefits to be reflective of the

literature review so we can solve

problems based on relevant

problems.

7 5 1 Sprint Master As the Sprint Master, I need to

implement scrum where necessary

to ensure the project is complete

within the correct framework.

8 5 3 Product Owner As the product owner I want the

objectives to represent the view of

all

stakeholders so that the empirical

data is valid

9 3 3 Team Member As a team member I want to write

the background so that people

understand the purpose of privacy

within a social network for young

people.

10 3 3 Team Member As a team member I want the work

packages to be of a manageable size

so that the work is measurable.

References

Cohn, M. (2004). User stories applied. Boston: Addison-Wesley. p. 3,4,5,6)

Cohn, M. (2012). ScrumMaster (2012). The Scrum Almanac. Berlin: iBooks.

COPPA. (1998). Child Online Privacy Protection Act.

Schwaber, K. (1994). Agile Project Management with Scrum

Schwaber, K. and Sutherland, J. 2013. The Scrum Guide. p. 12, 13, 14, 15.