ATCO Eats: Requirements Standard Plan

The COVID-19 crisis hit the food and hospitality industry really hard, and restaurants are still recovering from it. By investing in the deployment of a new app, The Firebird Pub & Grill aims to integrate their food offer into McMaster’s community in a seamless way, by interacting with internal information systems for event caterings, as well as providing an ideal support for students' life on campus with mealboxes. Launching this new system will also targets the expansion of the patrons' pool, by focusing on McMaster as part of the Hamiltonian community.

The Firebird operates as a classical restaurant on campus. Events are organized to attract graduate students, and a patio was added for outdoor seating in the 90’s to increase seat capacity during summer months. Often desribed as Hamilton’s hidden jewel, its location does not help to attract external patrons (e.g., no parking). Local patrons would consider it as any restaurant in the area: for example, staff cannot order catering for events through Mosaic, and have to consider it as any other invoice.

The expected benefits of this app primarily center around increasing the on campus population. Despite the fact that Covid-19 is mostly under control, people are still generally shy to go out and be in person on campus with all of the new infrastructure allowing them to complete many of their tasks for school from the comfort of their home. However we have seen a sharp increase in people enjoying going out with their friends and family once the pandemic restrictions were lifted. Therefore the largest benefit that this app can bring is an increase in the on campus population. This is enabled for students by having the new take-out box system that allows students to order whenever and pick up warm and delicious food between classes easily as well as accepting student meal plan cards. It is also enabled by the integration with Mosaic to facilitate payment from departments and faculty for catering for events which can entice more people to be present for in-person events to enjoy the delicious food from the Firebird. Finally the loyalty program will incentivize repeat customers so that they can enjoy complimentary benefits at the Firebird! (note that the exact nature of the benefits has not been determined at the time of creating this document and will be refined at a later date.)

The goals that present these benefits, as well as the stakeholders that they affect can be seen in this goal model diagram:

The high level functional requirements for the application based on client input can be defined as follows in no particular order:

Of these functional requirements, 2 that are of critical importance is the integration with campus staff and integration with campus life. Integration with campus staff is critical to facilitate catering services of The Phoenix across campus through various system integrations. One of the main goals of the integrations is to reduce burden on staff for ordering catering services by having to pay out of pocket and then seek reimbursement from their department or faculty. Integration with campus life is another critical requirement to enable students to more efficiently get quality meals during particularly time-constrained periods of their studies, thus improving their quality of life during their stay at McMaster.

Some high level non-functional requirements for the application can be defined as follows in no particular order:

These two non-functional requirements critical for legal reasons. As The Phoenix is on McMaster property, it must comply with the by-laws created and enforced by the university. As The Phoenix is also a bar with a liquor license it is also critical that they operate their business with respect to the by-laws and regulations of the Ontario Government.

The use case diagram above highlights how we anticipate our direct stakeholders will interact with the app for the principal use cases. More details for these usages are as follows:

Below is a list of limitations that the system will not do:

The system interacts with two external components:

Some assumptions made can be found below:

Some of the potential effects of the application can be defined as follows:

Some Invariants of this system can be defined as follows:

The system relies on the following four software components:

In addition to these components, the system will interact with two external components to support integration with Mosaic and payment processing (see E.2 for details).

Patrons use Client-App (a mobile application) to interact with the system, for the loyalty program as well as ordering meal boxes. this application can also be accessed in a web browser. Restaurant staff use a web-based system named Web-Portal to administrate the system (patrons database, catering orders). It is important to note that Administrative Staff does not interact directly with the system, and will continue ordering catering or booking tables by phone or email

Nothing available (yet).

For the functional requirements, the validation will be done during development through acceptance testing. Acceptance testing will complement unit testing by providing a way to express and automate feature validation using the Gherkin Language. Early validation will be supported by the definition of mock-ups and their validation by relevant stakholders (see S.3 for an example with the Line Cook stakeholder). As part of the release process of ATCO Eats (see P.3 for release milestones), we will organize pre-deployment acceptance workshop(s) involving key personel from The Firebird, as well as representative instances of our other patrons-related personas.

For the non-functional requirements:

This section is a DRAFT

This section is a DRAFT

Nothing available (yet).

Nothing available (yet).

This section is a DRAFT

Some of the risks present during development are listed below:

We will rely on interviews to interact with direct stakeholders indentified in G.7. For each stakeholder, we identify the kind of interview, and the most important question to be asked.

Subject: Collaboration Inquiry - "ATCO Eats" Food Ordering App

Dear ACME sales team,

We hope this email finds you well. The Firebird Management Team is reaching out to explore the possibility of collaborating with your esteemed team for the development of our upcoming food ordering app, "ATCO Eats." We are impressed by your expertise in software development, particularly in the food industry, and believe your skills align perfectly with our project requirements.

The primary objective of "ATCO Eats" is to offer a user-friendly and feature-rich platform that enhances our customers' food ordering experience. Key functionalities include seamless order placement, real-time tracking, secure payment processing, and a comprehensive loyalty program. We are confident that your contributions will play a vital role in transforming this vision into a practical and successful application.

Should you be interested in pursuing this collaboration, we kindly request your availability for an initial meeting to delve deeper into the project scope and discuss potential collaboration terms. Your professionalism and expertise will undoubtedly be an asset in the development of "ATCO Eats." We eagerly await your response and the opportunity to work together.

Best regards,

The Firebird Management Team

Date: August 1, 2023

Attendees: The Firebird Management, Project Team Members

Agenda: Requirements Gathering for Food Ordering App - ATCO Eats

Meeting started at 02:15PM.

Meeting Summary:

On August 1, 2023, The Firebird Management and the project team members convened for the first meeting to discuss the requirements for the development of the "ATCO Eats" food ordering app.

The Firebird Management conveyed their vision for a user-friendly and efficient app that would provide a seamless food ordering experience for their restaurant. ATCO Eats innovation is its Smart Menu Recommendation System. Unlike traditional food ordering apps, ATCO Eats employs advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze customer preferences, order history, and even real-time data, enabling it to make personalized menu recommendations for each user. This feature sets the app apart from its competitors, creating a more engaging and delightful ordering process that keeps customers coming back for more.

Key requirements highlighted during the meeting include:

The project team diligently recorded all requirements and addressed various queries raised by The Firebird. Both parties acknowledged the importance of data privacy and security, regulatory compliance, and seamless integration with existing systems.

More specifically, the following key elements were listed in terms of operational concerns:

Next Steps:

The project team will consolidate the gathered requirements and prepare a comprehensive document for review and validation by The Firebird. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for December 6, 2023 to present the finalized requirements and initiate the app development phase.

Adjournment:

With a shared sense of enthusiasm and commitment, the meeting concluded on a positive note, reflecting the dedication of The Firebird and the project team towards creating a successful ATCO Eats food ordering app.

Meeting adjourned at 04:30PM.

End of Minutes

Subject: Request for Ideation Workshop

Dear Firebird Management Team,

We’ve identified some initial similarities between ATCO Eats and existing platforms like Uber Eats. To ensure that ATCO Eats is tailor-made for your needs and stands out in the market, we propose an ideation workshop. This session will allow us to collaboratively brainstorm and refine the project’s direction to meet your unique requirements effectively.

Your participation in this workshop would be invaluable in shaping the project’s path. Please let us know your availability, and we will arrange a suitable time for the session.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Best regards,

Date: August 15, 2023

Location: ACME Inc. HQ

Participants:

During the ideation workshop, The Firebird and the ACME Requirements Engineering Team engaged in collaborative discussions to refine the project’s direction and identify features.

The Firebird quickly agreed that their initial description of ATCO Eats was similar to systems like DoorDash or Uber Eat and, as such, might not be the product they had initially envisioned.

As a result of the ideation discussion, The Firebird identified a new list of priorities for ATCO Eats, which replaces the initial ones.

During the meeting, The Firebird management team mentioned several times that University by-laws regulate campus life and that ATCO Eats will have to be compliant with these by-laws.