From Ernest Morozov:People here are some answers for Frost and Cooper. They are on point.Start posting everything.Lets make this easy. If your answers suck dont bother.
Gabe Frost and the Future Economy
1. Describe 3 factors that Gabe says will give the USA a stronger GDP. Provide some color on each of these factors.A) Cloud services that are becoming more and more available on the internet are limited by server data centers. Currently server data centers are limited by the amount of power that is required to run them and their actually data capacity. They are usually located near dams or any other form of energy creation. GDP growth will be sparked if the United States improves servers technology, making them more energy efficient and with larger capacity. With better servers cloud services could really take off.
B) Another factor that will make the GDP stronger is interconnection of the three screens, which are TV, cell phones, and computers. A good example of this interconnection would be doing banking over the phone. Leveraging these services will develop a different experience for consumers and grow US GDP.
C. Another large growth factor for the GDP is sensors. GPS sensors will be common place in the future. Every laptop and mobile device will have location sensors. It will allow people to have a better understand or their surroundings and their context in those surroundings. Sensors can also be used for tracking the amount of energy that is being used and routing that energy more efficiently. The medical field will also implement sensors in many different ways. Finally wireless data transfer has to become ubiquitous in order for us to truly gather information from multiple sensors. Thus, sensors will be the next step for our GDP growth.
2. Why does Gabe think productivity is related to patents?New technological ideas take a while before they are allocated towards GDP growth. The current patent and intellectual property laws slow down the allocation process. Companies that are developing technologies are preventing other companies from using those ideas in a way that would create future growth. Productivity would increase significantly if it became easier to get patents and use patents more efficiently. Companies could implement patented technology faster and have it allocated towards GDP growth.



James Cooper and Predictable Software Delivery1. What success measures did James say were the most difficult to achieve?There are three measures of success. A) Providing quality creative and technical talent B) Being easy to work with C) Meeting the agreed to budget (time / cost)Time and cost containment is a top priority for medium to large scale projects. Meeting the agreed to budget time and cost is the most difficult measure of success. It seems that these measures are developed by multiple functions of the organization, thus it is difficult to please everyone. Other reasons are:
• Budgeting. The department hiring the vendor has to get budgetary approval and needs to know how much to ask for.• ROI. The finance folks want to know that there's an economic benefit to the firm for doing the project.• Time to market. Schedule is sometimes important for external reasons (trade show, product launch)
2. Why is IT project estimation difficult? The primary reason IT projects estimation is difficult because there are so many variables involved. • Requirements are difficult to capture in writing• The act of viewing software changes the requirements• Stakeholder infighting changes priorities• Developer productivity varies greatly (up to 10x) so estimates made by one won't apply to another3. What is "Target Cost" or planning poker? What advantages does it provide? It is important to understand that software is very difficult to specify in detail. It is MUCH easier to see software and react to it. Target costing is a different way of implementing software for vendors and clients. It is highly differentiated from the Waterfall method. Target costing focuses on delivering the software incrementally and encouraging feedback loops that better align the needs of the customer and the client. The fallowing are the target cost basics: • Agree to a budget and schedule• Compile a feature list, prioritize, estimaterelative size (planning poker)• Deliver features incrementally• Ideally no increment is more than 5% of budget• −Client sees working software after each increment• Steer project against budget If target cost exceeded, vendor's rates fall to cost (sometimes thought of as “fixed profit”)The risk is shared by both vendor and client, that software is presented very early, available to change. Decisions are moved until the latest responsible moment. Features are expressed very early in the process. Estimation uses the planning poker method. Planning Poker is a consensus-based estimation technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of tasks in software development. It is a variation of the Wideband Delphi method. It is most commonly used in agile software development, in particular the Extreme Programming methodology. Target steering involves consistently meeting with the clients and identify what is finished, what needs to be changed, and how it fits to the budget.
Advantages over waterfall: Traditional water fall method:• Fails to provide feedback cycles necessary todiscover the true requirements of a system• Creates an adversarial relationship between clientand vendorTarget cost:• Aligns incentives• Provides frequent feedback to ensure we're building the right system• Provides an easy way to assess progress againstbudget• Provides mechanisms for adjusting scope to meet The budget (steer)