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INFO 424Team Project Practicum
Week 2 - Launch report, Project tracking, Review report
Glenn BookerNotes largely from Prof. Hislop
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Agenda• Team launch
• Team roles
• Project launch report
• Project discussion
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Hints for Team Success
• Take responsibility– Self motivating– Self disciplined
• Work as a team– Everyone needs to contribute– Integration of work
• Engage your problem– In detail
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Hints for Team Success
• Two ideas based on the Team Software Process (Watts S. Humphrey. (2000) Introduction to the Team Software Process, ISBN 0-20147-719-X, Addison Wesley Longman.)
– Team launch– Team roles
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Team Launch – What and Why
• Initial and repeated formation and organization of your team– Discussion of issues– Definition of roles– Goal setting– Establishment of common understanding
• Teams don’t just happen– Need to be conscious of what you are doing– Need to avoid just starting to “do the job”
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Team Launch Suggestions
• Set overall goals
• Discuss roles (and assign them)
• Determine schedule and available meeting times
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Team Roles – Why?
• Need to specialize
• Need to value all parts of the work
• Need to have a common understanding of how the work is being organized and partitioned
• Things that aren’t assigned don’t get done
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Team Roles – What?
• Team leader
• Development manager
• Planning manager
• Quality & process manager
• Support manager
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Team Leader Goals
• Motivate team members
• Resolve team issues
• Keep instructor informed
• Facilitate team meetings
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Development Manager Goals
• Produce a superior product
• Use team members skills to best effect
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Planning Manager Goals
• Produce a workable plan for the team and for each team member
• Report team status– Submit activity logs
• Keep an up-to-date project schedule– Submit revised versions as needed using the
Schedule Update form
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Quality & Process Manager Goals
• Ensure that the team follows its process – What is your process?
• Ensure that the work is really getting done as it should
• Ensure that individual work is integrated– Requires time and effort by the team
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Support Manager Goals
• Ensure that needed tools are available to team members– Development, documentation, presentation
• Enforce configuration control– Manage master copy of work products– Ensure that work is properly packaged and
submitted• Single integrated deliverable• Softcopy and hardcopy
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Team Roles for the Term
• Must have – Team leader– Planning manager
• Optional– Development manager– Quality manager– Support manager
• Consider rotating roles each cycle
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Project Launch Report
• Template is on the course site– Use the Cycle 1 Template
• Use– Not cumulative
• Different template for cycle 2-N
– Structure required, use as is– Don’t make this huge
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Project Launch Report
• Contents – Cycle 1– Product– Team– Plan
• Contents – Cycle 2-N– Post mortem
• Cycle just ended
– Plan• Cycle starting
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Launch report - The Product
• The Product section describes the system or product you’re developing– Give it a good name; acronyms are optional
• Don’t be too flippant with the name, you might be presenting it to your Mom some day
• Use that name or acronym consistently
– Describe briefly what it does, and its audience– List key categories of features of the product
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Launch report - The Product
– Identify the sponsor of the project, or who will be the main source of requirements for it
– Identify key issues affecting development of the product, and what you’re doing to manage those issues
• This is your first hint at risk management for your project
• Don’t include issues after product release, such as its long term success
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Launch report - The Team
• The next section describes your team, and the roles of each team member– Identify each team member by initials, to
make your Table of Contributions concise
• Discuss the means your team will use for communication, exchange of draft documents, etc.
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Launch report - The Team
– Identify and discuss possible team issues• Could include team technical skills, logistical or
scheduling issues for meeting, language and writing skills, etc.
• This is risk management for your team
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Launch report – The Plan
• Describe the objectives for this cycle in developing your product– What documents will you be preparing?– What types of features do you expect to
implement?– What goals do you have for your team?– What goals do you have for understanding
and using this development process?
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Launch report – The Plan
• The rest of The Plan is the project plan and activity summary from the Project Tracking spreadsheet– For printed copies, paste them in the template
• May want to use a section break, and turn the page Landscape
• Make sure the result is legible
– For electronic copies, just include the Project Tracking file with the Launch file
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Project tracking spreadsheet
• The project tracking spreadsheet manages your project plan
• There are two main worksheets, Activity Summary and Project Plan, plus two worksheets with instructions for each
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Project tracking - Activity Summary
• The Activity Summary describes what each person on your team did during each week– One entry per task, not per person– Tasks can be for the whole team – then
leave the Person column blank
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Project tracking - Activity Summary
• Entries for completed tasks should correspond to evidence in the Project Portfolio– Consistency between Activity Summary and
the portfolio is critical
• Can also describe tasks that were started but not completed
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Project tracking – Project Plan
• This worksheet keeps track of your plans for the project– Tasks can be individual, or for the whole team
• Notice that the Project Plan has a Plan section, and an Actual section
• The Plan part should be filled out from the start of the term– Major deadlines are from the syllabus
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Project tracking – Project Plan
• You need to work backward in time to figure out when parts of assignments will be completed, put into drafts for team review, reconciled, etc. to produce those assignments
• The Project Plan and Activity Summary should be updated throughout the term to reflect current project status, and turned in with each assignment
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Review report
• The Review report is used to capture the results of reviewing a document written by someone else in your team
• It can be prepared by an individual, or a group
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Review report
• It has two sections, an Introduction, and Requirements Issues
• The Introduction describes what is being reviewed (Purpose) and gives a summary recommendation– Based on this review, what level of changes
are needed to this document? None, minor, major, or complete rewrite are the choices
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Review report
• Whoever wrote the review signs off on the recommendation
• The Requirements Issues section describes detailed feedback on the document– Designed for review of a requirements
document, this section can be adapted to other kinds of documents
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Review report
• The main concept for the Requirements Issues section is to provide a summary of what’s wrong with the document– Can replace the given table with columns to
indicate the page number, section number, and a description of the issue
– Add a fourth column to describe the disposition of the issue – was it accepted or rejected by the document author?
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Review report
• The last section is for more general issues, such as those affecting a large portion of the document (tone, consistency, etc.)
• See Document Review Notes on the course web site for additional issues to consider
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