This is an open-source project that I am involved in. It is TEAMMATES. TEAMMATES, led by Dr. Damith, is an online peer evaluation and feedback system for students. Being a contributor of the project, I have gained first-hand experience on how tough it is to handle a large scale project. Apart from gaining knowledge in terms of coding experiences and the academics, it is crucial that we have to be united and work towards a common goal. I believe with much hardwork of everyone, TEAMMATES will be a great success!
Saturday, 9 February 2013
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Blog 3: Reflection on software demo preparation or project development
It has been a long journey and we are coming to the final stretch to complete our project which lasted for a whole semester. Looking back from day 1 when we just started our first discussion on our project, I realised that all of us have grown and picked up many skills. We have made mistakes, stumbled on various unforeseen circumstances, and yet we braced ourselves up and moved on. It is amazing to see how time flies and now we are preparing for our software demonstration. Reflecting on the path through our journey, I have learnt much and would like to share my thoughts.
Being handicapped in the field of computing, I have always seen past programming assignments a torture, and now I am working on an extensive software development project. It is definitely a painful task for me. I am glad that I am so fortunate to be in a team of elites, who share their knowledge willingly. I noticed that realising each individual’s strengths and potential is crucial in the development of a large-scale project. As each portion will be dependent on one another, it is important that all of us deliver our work on time. However, I have always been struggling with programming and hindering the team’s progress. Knowing the strength of individuals, we will split the jobs according to each abilities and this would improve the quality and efficiency of work. In our project, we have adopted this strategy as we need to do both the coding and documentation simultaneously.
Planning is vital in software development. Apart from the functionalities and requirements that need to be met, we must plan ahead how we want our journey of the development to be like. Definitely, planning alone is not enough, we must be able to stick to our plans. Procrastination will lead to last minute work and having our final product to suffer. Initially, we have taken this project lightly and neglected some factors which may affect our development. Along this project, we fumbled a bit due to holidays like Chinese new year, when we need to spend time with our families, our midterms to study for, and various assignments from the other modules. Failing to put these into considerations, we tend to delay our work and having to burn midnight oil to finish up our tasks. Therefore, we need to do proper planning before we start and be able to be on the ball as planned.
In the preparation of our software demo, I have viewed examples of famous speakers who market their products in a captivating manner. They are able to capture the attention of the audiences and maintain this level of attention throughout the demonstration. It is important that we understand the expectation of the audience and know clearly how our product can satisfy their needs. Putting these together we will be able to keep the audience begging for more to be delivered, instead of dreading to sit on for the boring talk. Having this in mind, we will rehearse within ourselves to obtain the responses we desire.
All in all, going through this course has been tough and we learnt through mistakes made from us as well as others. There will be more projects that we will need to develop in future, be it as projects before graduation or in the working society. I will be more careful in planning the schedule and setting our priorities right. Furthermore, listening to presentations made by others has been effective as we can reflect and improve ourselves.
Friday, 17 February 2012
Blog #2: Reflections on CS2103T project
In any organisation, the human factor is crucial to success. Similarly, managing people within a team could be a challenge that my team faces. Recognising this fact, it is important that we are careful with team management, so as to prevent conflicts arising within the team, and to achieve optimum performance of the team.
In view of many tight deadlines to meet, it is important that the job is evenly split. Juggling with the numerous assignments in the other modules, everyone is pressed for time. Despite such heavy workload, we still have to each do our part to get the job done. As a leader, I have set date and time for our project meetings and work allocation. I am glad that my team mates are very cooperative and we do not face the problem of starting our discussions late as everyone is punctual. However, I failed to take the advantage to transform this time into good use, ending up having a lot of last minute work to be completed.
Personally, I think that I am greatly at fault for the late rushing of work. This problem could be easily solved by planning meetings well, sending out proper agenda with sufficient time for my teammates to be well-prepared for meeting. Being diffident of the requirements, I tend to send out low quality agenda which caused the meeting to be less productive. To make things worse, my agenda are usually sent out late, having my teammates to rush their research and preparations.
In addition, I see that we have each of our own strengths. Allocating the right amount and right field to each member is important. Given a certain strength and skill set, each member will be allowed to contribute their best in their specialised field. Furthermore, advice could be sought from them, to facilitate team learning and catalysing the rate of work done. For instance, Xiangyun is very experienced in programming. He clearly knows which specific portion of the project is feasible, thus hearing from his advices, I have learnt a lot. Realising his strength, it would definitely be an honour to have him to lead us in the implementation of the project.
Apart from proper work allocation, to sustain a strong and committed team, we have to give recognition to each member for their efforts. Our feedback is essential to keep the team going. We should never be stingy on our compliments, and when there is any improvement to be made, our feedback has to be constructive, stating clearly the areas required for improvement.
I believe that team management is not easy. When it is not handled properly, major conflicts and unhappiness is inevitable. This in turn would lead to the downfall of the project. On the other hand, once team management is done well, an enthusiastic team will be built and everyone will be motivated to contribute their best, unleashing the team’s maximum potential.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Blog #1: Communication and Team Behaviour
It has been three weeks since I started this course of effective communication for business professionals. It is a vital course that equip us with the appropriate skills of communication in preparation for the future when we step into the working society.
A certain form of communication has been done by all of us, knowingly or unknowingly, and we can see that communication is the lifeblood of all organisations. Without consistent effective communications, any organisation will suffer their repercussions painfully, like missing deadlines, increased stress and tension, incomplete tasks and unachieved goals. In addition, with constant changes faced in life, much trainings are required to build up communication skills in order to iron things out and move on with challenges.
As communcation fails, organisations suffer due to lost time and thus reducing efficiency. Having to redo work due to weak communication and misunderstood directions would cost us time and effort. In addition, it increases tension between colleagues when understanding between parties have been flawed. As people work better in a harmonious environment, it is crucial that we maintain healthy relationships with everyone in the organisation. However, usually miscommunications are detected late in business transactions. Thereafter, much stress and effort is required to tidy things up. This could be easily avoided with effective communications.
Through this few weeks of the course, we have picked up a few key principles of effective communication. Apart from lecture learning, we have read up on various portions of communication skills for our first presentation. Our learning has been extended by sharing of findings when presentations to the class is made. Undergoing the entire process of the project, as we are well-informed of the importance of effective communication, we have tasted the sweet and the bitter of working in a team.
We are divided into groups to work on the projects fired to us over this semester and from here, we have realised the importance of teamwork. Building up a cohesive team is critical as teamwork creates the backbone of the success of a team. To succeed in any given tasks, everyone needs to combine their efforts. When everyone does their part well, it increases what the team can accomplish. This teamwork has to be recognised by everyone and know that great things can happen if individuals master the fundamentals and work together as one unit. Everyone has their own unique roles and strengths, but each person's individual role must be recognised and well appreciated.
Moving thus far, I can confidently say that my team has been working well together, demonstrating the positive behaviours of a team player. Though we hardly know each other, we are challenged with tight deadlines but we fought our way together to accomplish optimum results. I am sure that my fellow teammates share a common goal and we will be moving on strong together. This made me feel more comfortable in the team, and we are ready for greater challenges.
All in all, understanding that effective communication and proper team behaviours are key essentials when we move on the to society. Being faced with these challenges now in our learning phases will train us up well as individuals, giving us experiences that we will face in future. Whatever obstacles we face now, is only the tip of the iceberg, there will definitely be greater challenges ahead of us. Hence, we have we start equipping ourselves with these skills.
A certain form of communication has been done by all of us, knowingly or unknowingly, and we can see that communication is the lifeblood of all organisations. Without consistent effective communications, any organisation will suffer their repercussions painfully, like missing deadlines, increased stress and tension, incomplete tasks and unachieved goals. In addition, with constant changes faced in life, much trainings are required to build up communication skills in order to iron things out and move on with challenges.
As communcation fails, organisations suffer due to lost time and thus reducing efficiency. Having to redo work due to weak communication and misunderstood directions would cost us time and effort. In addition, it increases tension between colleagues when understanding between parties have been flawed. As people work better in a harmonious environment, it is crucial that we maintain healthy relationships with everyone in the organisation. However, usually miscommunications are detected late in business transactions. Thereafter, much stress and effort is required to tidy things up. This could be easily avoided with effective communications.
Through this few weeks of the course, we have picked up a few key principles of effective communication. Apart from lecture learning, we have read up on various portions of communication skills for our first presentation. Our learning has been extended by sharing of findings when presentations to the class is made. Undergoing the entire process of the project, as we are well-informed of the importance of effective communication, we have tasted the sweet and the bitter of working in a team.
We are divided into groups to work on the projects fired to us over this semester and from here, we have realised the importance of teamwork. Building up a cohesive team is critical as teamwork creates the backbone of the success of a team. To succeed in any given tasks, everyone needs to combine their efforts. When everyone does their part well, it increases what the team can accomplish. This teamwork has to be recognised by everyone and know that great things can happen if individuals master the fundamentals and work together as one unit. Everyone has their own unique roles and strengths, but each person's individual role must be recognised and well appreciated.
Moving thus far, I can confidently say that my team has been working well together, demonstrating the positive behaviours of a team player. Though we hardly know each other, we are challenged with tight deadlines but we fought our way together to accomplish optimum results. I am sure that my fellow teammates share a common goal and we will be moving on strong together. This made me feel more comfortable in the team, and we are ready for greater challenges.
All in all, understanding that effective communication and proper team behaviours are key essentials when we move on the to society. Being faced with these challenges now in our learning phases will train us up well as individuals, giving us experiences that we will face in future. Whatever obstacles we face now, is only the tip of the iceberg, there will definitely be greater challenges ahead of us. Hence, we have we start equipping ourselves with these skills.
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