A group of local farmers has decided to work together to start a brick‐and‐mortar store where they can sell all their products under one roof. They call themselves Farm Central. Farm Central has approached your employer to bid on developing their stock management website. The website will track incoming and outgoing stock and which farmer each item belongs to. Your employer has been shortlisted after the submission of the original bid. Now it is time to create a proposal to convince the client that your employer is the right company for the job. Your inputs as a software developer are required for two parts of the proposal as specified by the client: 1. “Develop a prototype of the stock management website”; and 2. “Propose a plan for implementing the final solution.” To address the first point, you will need to develop a prototype web application that can be demonstrated to the client’s bid committee.

There are three people on the committee:

1. The Accountant – a person who cares about the accuracy of the data because it will affect the income for each farmer;

2. The Head of Marketing – a bubbly person who is very visually oriented, who cares greatly about how quick and easy the process should be for the farmers that drop off stock; and

3. The Store Manager – a very practical person that knows the people working in the store will need to be trained to use the system.

Your prototype will need to impress each of the bid committee members if your company hopes to be awarded the project. To address the second point, you will have to create the content for the proposal.

Instructions

Write a Report about Requirements and Design Patterns

The client was not very specific in their request for a “plan”. So, your marketers got involved, and they indicated that you should write a short report (500 to 700 words) on the following aspects:

1. Which non‐functional requirements are of high importance? Why? How are you going to address these requirements? How do they impact how you plan to develop the software?

2. Are design patterns and architecture patterns relevant? Motivate your position. How should they be applied in the project, if at all?

Remember that your target audience is the bid committee, and you should write your report accordingly.

Points to consider:

What should the tone of the report be?

How much technical detail should be included?

How can you structure the report in a way that the very busy bid committee members will easily spot the critical points?

How can the use of diagrams improve communication?