CLA-R Question 1

[NelsonUWP]

http://download.ni.com/evaluation/certification/cla-r/cla-r_sample_exam_english.pdf

1. The king hires your team to produce software for his new astronomy observatory. When the software was eight months late, he commissioned an external audit to find out why the software was late so he could determine who to send to the Executioner’s Block. The software audit revealed four issues that contributed to the lateness of the project. Match the failure with
the person who should have handled the issues better.

1. The king added new requirements late in the process and was not told to expect a later release date.

2. Bugs found early in design kept recurring because no new tests were added to test suite when bugs were first fixed.

3. Test suite was only executable on central build machine, not on each developer’s machine, so changes could not be checked before being submitted.

4. Control refnums were passed into the main DAQ analysis subroutine, so when UI was adjusted, the DAQ module also needed rewriting.

a) Project Manager
b) System Architect
c) Developer
d) Test Engineer

I feel like I should preface this with what the perceived definitions (or my perceived definitions) of the roles are:

• Project Manager - Person responsible for all the managerial aspects of the project: setting dates, dealing with customer, budget, etc.
• System Architect - Person responsible for designing and implementing the overall architecture of the program and ensuring the architecture is upheld throughout development. Should be the most LabVIEW proficient person on the project and understands the nuances within the environment. 
• Developer - Person responsible for programming the different modules per requirements laid out under the direction of the system architect.
• Test Engineer - Person responsible for creating a process that would test a particular product and carrying out the tests.

1. The king added new requirements late in the process and was not told to expect a later release date.

• My answer: Project Manager
• Correct answer: Project Manager
• I don't really have an explanation for this one, it's pretty straight forward.

2. Bugs found early in design kept recurring because no new tests were added to test suite when bugs were first fixed.

• My Answer: Test Engineer
• Correct Answer: Developer
• The problem is that "bugs found early in design kept recurring" because "no new tests were added to test suite" this seems like a fairly black and white Test Engineer deficiency and definitely not a Developer deficiency based on how the question placed blame. If this was worded moreso as "Bugs were introduced due to inconsistencies between the code and requirements documents" I would say it's the Developer's fault. The question placed blame on "no new tests were added to test suite". Developers typically aren't responsible for testing their code (formally) due to independence issues that arise.

3. Test suite was only executable on central build machine, not on each developer’s machine, so changes could not be checked before being submitted.

• My Answer: System Architect
• Correct Answer: Test Engineer
• Although this has to deal with the "Test Suite" on executable on the central build machine, I don't think this is a deficiency with the Test Engieer as much as the System Architect. This could be argued either way depending on the responsibilities laid out by the System Architect/Program Manager. However, I still feel like the responsibility of the System Architect is to properly bridge any gaps between the development and testing activties while the Developers and Test Engineers remain focused on their specific tasks.

4. Control refnums were passed into the main DAQ analysis subroutine, so when UI was adjusted, the DAQ module also needed rewriting.

• My Answer: Developer
• Correct Answer: System Architect
• By this time Developer was the only option left for me but still made sense. I can see how this one leans more towards System Architect due to the fact that they should have made it more modular. However, depending on the requirements the UI could have been locked down and the Architect shouldn't be responsible for scope changes. 

I think the problem is that NI is expecting us (the test takers) to define these roles by oursleves rather than giving us a definition of what they expect of these rolls. 

Am I missing any documentation where these roles are defined? The only information I can find for the CLA-R prep is the eKit (http://download.ni.com/evaluation/certification/cla-r/cla-r_exam_prep_guide_english.pdf) which is very limited and vague.

[crossrulz]

I think these roles are defined in the LabVIEW Software Engineering course.  I'll have to dig through it to make sure.  Yeah, a bunch of us were complaining about the CLA-R for similar things to this.  Most, if not all, of the concepts tested are out of the NI training material.  So you have to know what NI's definitions of everything is.  Once we found a few of those, things made more sense.

And it also somehow came out that they aim for people who take a CLA-R to get an 80%.  Which is a pass.  But throw the bell curve on that and a lot of people are going to fail to get the 70% needed to pass.

[NelsonUWP]

Unfortunately, it seems like most of these Software Management questions are extremely ambiguous. If you look at question #7:

7. Which of the following statements is an example of a constraint that should be identified in the
project requirements document?
a. Develop the application for execution on a Windows 95 computer
b. The user interface must include the corporate logo of the company that hired you to
develop the application
c. The application must acquire data at a rate of 1000 samples per second
d. The development cost of the application must be less than $10,000

There is no cost included in any requirements document I have ever worked on; we only put dollar amounts in project planning documents. All of the answers to me are valid except D (which is apparently the correct answer). I looked through my Managing Software Engineering in LabVIEW book from the training and I don't see anything that properly identifies document names, specific roles, handling assumptions, changes, etc. All of these things happen very differently on a company-by-company basis. And should we answer the question correctly, or how NI wants us to answer?

I know you've responded to my other post about questions 5 & 6 so you can see that out of the first 7 questions I have serious issues with 4 of them. I can argue some ambiguity on a couple more, but I think it's more important to address these larger issues first.

I appreciate the sample exam, however, from what I've seen so far, I'm frustrated with the ambiguity in the questions and if they carry-over into the actual exam, I'll fail for sure. I did take the retake at the CLA Summit this past year but I failed by a single question and I really only took it because it was free; I did a lot worse on this sample exam.

[crossrulz]

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NelsonUWP wrote: I did take the retake at the CLA Summit this past year but I failed by a single question and I really only took it because it was free; I did a lot worse on this sample exam.

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You are not alone.  Almost everybody I talked to passed or failed by 1 question.  I remember first doing the practice exam and got a 40%.  I was very happy with my 80% on the CLA-R back in March (I enjoyed it being free).

I also disagree with some of these questions.  Like with question 7, I would go with A based on modern times.  Now when that question was written back in '96 (total guess about that) it would not have been a constraint.  To me, the cost doesn't go in the spec.  It goes in the contract documents and/or Statement of Work (SOW).  The spec is just how the thing is supposed to work.

Luckily, I don't remember any questions like these when I did the CLA-R.

[JÞB]

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@NelsonUWP wrote:

Unfortunately, it seems like most of these Software Management questions are extremely ambiguous. If you look at question #7:

7. Which of the following statements is an example of a constraint that should be identified in the
project requirements document?
a. Develop the application for execution on a Windows 95 computer
b. The user interface must include the corporate logo of the company that hired you to
develop the application
c. The application must acquire data at a rate of 1000 samples per second
d. The development cost of the application must be less than $10,000

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A) belongs in the system Requirements spec (It speaks to general limitations)

B) in the Software design spec (How the deliverable will integrate into a use case, Look and Feel, - here it has a "Look"

C) In the Software Requirements (What must the deliverable do, or actions,)

D) speaks of scope and resources and belongs in the Project Req Doc (What constraints define the business case for the project? at 20k$ it may be cheaper to pay a worker 20$ / hour to do the 200 hours of manual data entry the project saves over the product lifetime and suffer the 5% human error rate for incorectly typing the data into a spreadsheet)

All that aside, the LabVIEW Advanced Arhitecture course would be the guide for "Jargon" definitions on these tests.  NI didn't really go out and "Make them up" in a vaccuum though.  At A CLA Level you should be able to discuss the merits of the various software development models and chose one appropriate for your development teams needs.

If this isn't a LabVIEW proverb yet, I should have stuck it in that thread long ago: "Its a whole lot easier to teach a software engineer LabVIEW than it is to teach a LabVIEW developer software engineering."

Just because LabVIEW makes it easy to sling wires and create useful code doesn't mean we can't make it even easier for our teams by standing on a firm foundation of generally accepted SE practices.

[NelsonUWP]

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the whole 

"At A CLA Level you should be able to discuss the merits of the various software development models and chose one appropriate for your development teams needs."

goes against the point of the test. I can't discuss these answers with a machine, I get a right or wrong answer. 

Also a Project Requirements Document is a very vague term, it could mean different things amongst different companies and I haven't seen anything in any documentation for CLA prep. Where I come from it's not a requirement that a company stick within a specified dollar amount, it's a contractual obligation. Once the contract is agreed upon, you are contractually obliged to finish the project and they pay you the amount, overruns are generally at the risk of the supplier. 

[JÞB]

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@NelsonUWP wrote:

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the whole 

goes against the point of the test. I can't discuss these answers with a machine, I get a right or wrong answer. 

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Then,  Might I suggest attending the CLA convention.  While I am not qualified to attend (yet) I have some understanding of discussion topics that arise and you would have an opportunity to discuss those answers with something a bit more responsive than a machine.

I will stand by my earlier statement that review of the LabVIEW AA course material would aid you in identifying the software development model that is assumed for the scope of the question at hand.  For each of your questions here, being able to assume the Dev Model (from component names) would allow you to demonstrate a familliarity with the model component functions.