Choosing the right SDLC model in Software Engineering - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Choosing the Right SDLC Model

📖 Scenario: You are a project manager at a software company. You need to decide which Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model to use for a new project. Different projects need different approaches based on their requirements, team size, and flexibility.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple decision guide that helps choose the right SDLC model based on project characteristics.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called project_characteristics with specific project details

Add a variable called team_size_threshold to help decide the model

Use a for loop with variables characteristic and value to analyze the project

Add a final decision variable called chosen_model based on the analysis

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Choosing the right SDLC model helps teams plan and execute software projects efficiently based on their unique needs.

💼 Career

Project managers and software engineers use this knowledge to select development approaches that fit project size, clarity, and customer involvement.

1

Set up project characteristics

Create a dictionary called project_characteristics with these exact entries: 'requirement_clarity': 'high', 'team_size': 8, 'project_complexity': 'medium', 'customer_involvement': 'low'.

Software Engineering

# Create the project_characteristics dictionary with given entries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary with the exact keys and values.

2

Add team size threshold

Create a variable called team_size_threshold and set it to 10. This will help decide if the team is small or large.

Software Engineering

project_characteristics = {
    'requirement_clarity': 'high',
    'team_size': 8,
    'project_complexity': 'medium',
    'customer_involvement': 'low'
}
# Create the team_size_threshold variable and set it to 10
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the number 10 to the variable team_size_threshold.

3

Analyze project characteristics

Use a for loop with variables characteristic and value to iterate over project_characteristics.items(). Inside the loop, check if characteristic is 'team_size' and if value is greater than team_size_threshold. If so, set a variable large_team to True, otherwise False.

Software Engineering

project_characteristics = {
    'requirement_clarity': 'high',
    'team_size': 8,
    'project_complexity': 'medium',
    'customer_involvement': 'low'
}
team_size_threshold = 10
# Use a for loop to check if team_size is greater than team_size_threshold
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Loop over the dictionary items and check the team size compared to the threshold.

4

Decide the SDLC model

Create a variable called chosen_model. Use an if statement to set chosen_model to 'Waterfall' if project_characteristics['requirement_clarity'] is 'high' and large_team is True. Otherwise, set chosen_model to 'Agile'.

Software Engineering

project_characteristics = {
    'requirement_clarity': 'high',
    'team_size': 8,
    'project_complexity': 'medium',
    'customer_involvement': 'low'
}
team_size_threshold = 10
large_team = False
for characteristic, value in project_characteristics.items():
    if characteristic == 'team_size' and value > team_size_threshold:
        large_team = True
    else:
        if characteristic == 'team_size':
            large_team = False
# Decide the chosen_model based on requirement_clarity and large_team
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an if-else statement to assign the correct SDLC model to chosen_model.