4-constraints assessment worksheet

7/30/2019 4-Constraints Assessment Worksheet

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Constraints Assessment Worksheet

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Project Assignment 4: Concept Diagnostic Worksheet (Individual Assignment)

Start by making sure that all members of the team have been able to review ALL feedback from the

Concept Definition peer assessments from last week. Next, choose the one (1) concept that you

personally think will be the best solution.

Now complete the Concept Assessment Worksheet for that one concept by typing your answers into

the boxes below. The worksheet will allow you to evaluating this concept relative to each of the

innovation constraints, identify the two most critical constraints, and to propose a strategy for

addressing each critical constraint. Allow for approximately 100-200 words for each constraint

evaluation and 200-400 words for the proposed strategies.

After you have entered your answers into this form, please print it as a PDF for upload into the

submission link for this assignment.

Part 1: Basic InformationYour Project Name:AGENDERA: a Coursera Schedule Organizer

Your Top Concept Name: AGENDERA calendar in Coursera profile

Part 2: Constraint Discussion (6 Questions)

Instructions: For each of the six constraint categories below, please describe the most

problematic constraint your concept will face in that category. Please use the formal

framework and language weve developed in the class. (Approx. 100 120 words each.)

Most Critical IndividualConstraint:

Individual constraints can occur at the level of perception,intellection, or expression. Being a person with openness andconsciousness, in my personal case, the area where I have more problemsis the expression area. I tend to have lots of ideas and I am able toelaborate and process them together with the input of my group.

However, I know I am lacking of good marketing or promotional qualitiesneeded for the project. Anyway, we do have in our group people that areskilled on this and I count on overcoming this problem thanks to theirabilities and contributions.I may also in any case improve in the intellection constraint, bytrying not to prematurely converge on a solution by thinking morebroadly to other solutions or extensions.


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Most Critical Group Constraint:

Group constraints covers emotions, culture, environment, and process.Within the group I am working with, I havent seen many emotionalconstraints: we do not fear to submit ideas, we do not fear to becriticized, or doing mistakes.We all have different background, age, and we are of mix gender.We do use a lot of brainstorming using online tools for communicating

which allow a lot of freedom.As a group, we have chosen the concept to work on together so we havean idea in which we all make sense!We have some environmental constraints, due to the fact that we do meetonly online... We all have access to our media online, working viaSkype and using sharing tools, however face-to-face would be morebeneficial.Finally, we do have a process we follow and we do build in top of it byassigning tasks, split activities while meeting again all together tofocus on the final goal.

Most Critical OrganizationalConstraint:

Our project focus on working with the Coursera platform and implementan agenda to facilitate students with deadlines and coursesassignments. We therefore consider Coursera as the Organization wefocus on.The major constraint in this area can be: organizational strategy,organizational structure, and organizational resources.I do not see constraints on the second category (organizationalstructure), as I do not see the mechanism for controlling andcoordinating the Coursera Organization impacting our project.However, the Coursera strategy may represent a limitation on ourproject because based on the obligation that this organization has,where they want to go or what they plan to do, may actually go well ornot with our proposals.In order to find this out in the group we have already assigned

activities to contact the Coursera development team to investigate withour idea.Organizational resources may be also an area for risk because we haveimpact on the resources of the organization.

Most Critical Industry Constraint:

These constraints should consider competitions, suppliers and markets.Coursera has been nominated one of the best spin off company for 2012,based on our investigations one of the leaders has presented a speechin TED Talks (a leading web site for leaders speeches): this imply thatthe industry market is actually in favor of Coursera growth with ourproject proposal. There may be other competitors entering the marketbut Coursera is well position till today.The major constraint I see in this area is actually at the level ofsuppliers: Coursera is quite new, and the experience of the group isthat many functionalities still need to be adjusted or finalized. Ourproject impact on the resources of Coursera web development, because itimply to develop a new web functionality in the users profile page.As a mean for overcoming this, we may actually propose to Coursera toprocure external additional developers, because this project can bedivided in phases and the costs can be adjusted accordingly.


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Most Critical SocietalConstraint:

At the level of Societal Constraints we have to focus on Values andidentity, Social control, History.I do not see any constraints at the level of Values and Identity forour project: the society cannot have impact on a new functionality inthe Coursera platform. As this platform has already win the battle tobe accepted by students (we can count around 80.000 students percourse, for around 300 courses, covered by 62 universities) littleimpact can be done at the AGENDERA project.Same for Social Control: there are little ways in which society guidebehavior of students using AGENDERA.Where I do see a (in any case minor impacting) problem, is in thehistory area: people are used to a traditional way of working, withpaper copy of an agenda, written deadlines on physical support. It willbe possible to print the calendar out, but this may not be feasible tokeep the physical support updated every day.

Most Critical TechnicalConstraint:

In this category we have to consider Physical constraints, Timeconstraints, and Ecology constraints.Considering these categories the most problematic area I see is timeThe Coursera development teams may have their own schedule anddeadlines, and our project may impact on this.Also, we do have the constraints of this course and we would prefer torealize AGENDERA within the time frame set by the professor, butnothing stop us from push Coursera to develop this idea also in a laterstage.We indeed are thinking to proceed in phases which may imply differenttime commitments.

Part 3: Constraint Ranking

Instructions: Rank-order the constraints you identified above in terms of their show-

stopper power, i.e., their likelihood of derailing, stopping or otherwise causing your

implementation to fail.

1=Most Likely To Stop Innovation, 6=Least Likely to Stop Innovation

Constraint Rank Constraint Rank

Individual: 4 Industry: 5

Group: 3 Societal: 6

Organizational: 2 Technological: 1


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Part 4: Innovation Strategy

Given Instructions: Develop and describe your strategy and plan for overcoming

the top two most critical constraints you just identified. You can also include in your

description below, any implementation planning, testing, prototyping work that youve

done to date.

(Approx. 200300 words each)

Strategy / Plan for Overcoming Constraint Ranked #1: Technological - Time constraint

We are aware of time constraints for this project since the beginningof the course: partly because this has been set by the professor: thisis a project that make sense for the group while taking this course andhe expressly mention that we do have 8 weeks for the project. In casewe do not realize it, it is also acceptable, but I have the impressionthat individual and group motivations will fade out once the course is

completed.Secondly, the Coursera platform is improving day and by day, and I havethe impression that while more and more people subscribe and take morecourses, the problem we intend to solve will appear more and more clearand therefore Coursera itself my propose some similar or alternativesolutions.

We have already started some activities in order to mitigate this: wealready divided actions among group members in order to advance theprocess: somebody will work on promotional aspects, somebody will be incharge of drafting material, somebody will act as a revisor/editor andwill start to contact the Coursera development teams.Also, each of us in the group will also start to contact students inforums of different courses, to get ideas on the proposal and to getthe I like appraisal measure which, in one way, push us on theprogress (as well as all the encouraging comments from peers reviews)and in the other way will demonstrate to coursera the validity of ourproposal.

Strategy and Plan for Constraint Ranked #2: Organizational - organizational strategy

and Resources

As mentioned above, Coursera already existing planning, strategies andassigned resources may be a problem for the project to progress. Inorder to overcome this we thought a couple of ideas:

1) show to Coursera the validity by using students voting system in theforum. We will also collect all encouraging comments get during peerreviews and show this as supporting cases. This will have an impact tomitigate organizational strategy constraints: Coursera may realize thevalidity of the proposal and incorporate this project in their plans.Based on a preliminary analysis of the required resources, it appearsthat the use of labor and expertise by coursera developers is much lessthan the acquired advantages.2) to overcome resources problems, which may translate in charge ofwork and costs, we have thought to 2 different measures:


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a) divide the project in phases. The initial phase is very simple andcan be feasible with limited amount of resources. In order to keep theproject innovative, other phases can also be accomplished in a moresocial and collaborative way, by involving the efforts of professorsand students offering or taking the courses. This will allow lessresources needs.b) finally, we may propose to Coursera to hire external consultants forthe realization of this project by allowing students to contribute

financially with a minimal offer.

4-constraints assessment worksheet

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