Project Kick Off and Skill Analysis

Today was the official project kick off, we had a group meeting where the overall project was discussed and next steps were issued.

The next steps are:

• Skill Analysis/Recognition
• Decision of Evaluation methods
• Resource Recognition
• Literature gathering for Lit Review

The blogs from today and onwards will take the shape of:

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The weeks aim --- what is to be achieved at the end of the week

Todays Aim - what i hope to achieve today

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Main Body of blog relating to todays Aim

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Reflection of Today - Achieve what i set myself

Aim for the following day

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Any Comments

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03/01/2014 - 09/10/2014 AIMs 

1. To analyse my skills and achieve my desired skill level for each skill
2. To gather at a minimum 20 pieces of literature for the lit review
3. To analyse and gather all resources and make plans for any resources that aren't yet available
4. Plan for worst case scenario
5. Narrow down my initial ideas from 5 to 2

AIM for 03/01/2014

1. To recognise which skills are desirable for each of my pathways
2. To analyse my level of all of the desirable skills
3. Plan for next steps to reach my desired skill level for each skill

MAIN BODY

Skill analysis

Today I went through all of my initial ideas and analysed which skills I would need for each pathway (please refer to the first blog post to see ideas/pathways), when re-reading the skill list I had created for each pathway there was a common theme of skills that would be required throughout the project.

These were:

• Interview Technique: how to plan and execute a flowing formal interview
• Analysis Skills: how to spot trends and analyse the pro’s and con’s of software
• Mobile Malware knowledge: need to know different types of malware and the threats they pose
• Mobile Vulnerability knowledge: need to know the different types of vulnerability that can occur in mobile applications
• Report/Document Writing: need to know how to plan and write an effective and flowing report

The full list of Skills is shown below in a table that describes which skills are needed for each Pathway.

Table 1.1 Skills per Pathway

This table gives a general idea of the variety of skills needed for each Idea, these are just general skills, and isn't a complete list, there will be other skills required to complete this project but at the moment these skills aren't known to me, but as soon as they become know I will add them to the list.

Now I have my list of skills, I need to analyse my current level of each one. To do that I created another table which details:

• The Skill
• My current level
• My desired level
• The next steps (which have a brief description of my current knowledge of that skill)

The desired skill level is number 1 to 5 (1 low and 5 high) and to help show what these numbers mean i created a simple description of each level.

1. Little or no expertise/knowledge of the particular skill
2. Some expertise/knowledge but needs to learn more within that area to be sure of himself
3. Has a good understanding of key areas, but requires more learning to know all areas
4. Understands all areas within the the skill
5. Has a great understanding of all areas within the skill

Table 1.2 Skill Level

Analysis of Todays Aims

Today I was to efficiently and quickly gather an idea on the skills i would need for each particular pathway. I was then able to analyse my level of these skills and plan some brief next steps to get myself to the desired level that will allow me to gain the mark i wish to achieve. I feel that by using a tables in a clever way i was able to easily and efficiently show my thought pattern and show enough information in a detailed manor.

Although I have done a lot of analysis today, there was still more i could have done, i could have looked further down each pathway and discovered more skills that could be needed, but i chose a horizontal approach and covered all bases within each pathway, I did this because ultimately i will only choose 1 pathway and i want to remain focused on all pathways for the moment and not get to deeply involved in any of them.

AIMs for 04/02/2014

1. To reach the desired level of 2 or more of my skills (starting with the lowest current level)
2. Create a plan for the Lit review
3. Start looking at literature, read a minimum of 10 pieces

Thank you for reading, stayed tuned for more.