1.7 Updates:
Project Responsibilities
- Project Manager.
- Responsible for the whole project.
- Guarantees that all other responsiblities are met, or will initiate
reassignments.
- Must solve people problems in the group.
- Guarantees that meetings will be held, will be efficient, will have
agendas
- Manages the deadlines
- Manages differing development styles among group members.
- Bottom line for some tough decisions about deadlines, personnel, and group structure.
- Liason to instructor
- Required skills: MUST show up early, leave late;
MUST be organized; Good Cop when necessary and Bad Cop
when necessary; problem solver that finds solutions;
proactively contacts all group members regularly; good communication skills;
genuinely concerned about the desires of others; able to earn the respect of
the group through hard work; tough skin for a sometimes (externally)
thankless job; clever at getting the most out of people; a person you trust to adapt as needed to get the job done.
- Be wary of: Someone who is not on time and not prepared for all
meetings; someone not strong on collaboration tools and good at communication; Dominant social
presence, big talker, but then makes excuses and does not deliver; talks about how
busy and important they are at work, on other projects, in business, and
does not focus on the group; "sales" person that presents an attractive
front but does not understand the
true nature of a technical project (management is good—lack of technical
understanding is bad); does not put in the time needed; lack of strong
organization; poor people skills; seeks to create a group culture that is not inclusive
of ALL people in a professional environment; always seeks to make friends instead
of focusing on getting the job done.
- Implementation Manager
- Responsible that the project will actually run on each of the days that
deliverables are due.
- Manages the development team: assesses the strenghts of members of the
team, guarantees that everyone's code will run, and is compatible with the
work of others.
- Manages the translation of the design into running code.
- Works with the designer on technical issues relating to the running project.
- Responsible for the passing grade of every group member.
- Is the bottom line on whether or not any particular code will make it
into the official final project.
- Stands behind, gurarantees that any code shown in demostration
will run.
- Manages the backup systems such that they are ready to come online on a
moment's notice during demonstrations.
- Communicates with the project manager, the designer, and the planner,
among others, about how the development is proceeding.
- Required skills: MUST have strong technical
knowledge; MUST be able to assess the quality of the code produced by the
team; MUST be able to say "NO!" when code that someone has worked on is not
appropriately robust to make it into the final project; must work well under
pressure and deadlines. MUST DELIVER!
- Be wary of: Any hint of lack of responsibility;
weaker than discussed technical skills; lack of communication with other
group members, especially near deadlines (the loner ); abrasive
personality that interferes with communication; lack of understanding of how
important all aspects of the project are; lack of comments in the code which
may scare away potential future employers of group members.
- Responsible for the basic configuration of the Ubuntu Linux system if
you use one.
- Collaboration Software Manager
- Strong technically
- Available especially during the firs few weeks of the quarter
- Patient with group users not familiar with particular communication packages
- Available by email or other means to help give tech support for
extending the use of the packages—available!
- Willing to explore new packages, install them and give them a try
before making recommendations to the group.
- Able to bootstrap communication in the early weeks of development.
- Video / Media manager
- Can work under stress to deliver demo videos on time and running.
- Absolutely reliable with backups, early running "safety" versions, and deadlines.
- Knowledgeable about video recording and editing packages, and production, or willing to
become so.
- Works well with Presentation Manager and Project Manager
- Good with organization to make sure component pieces are delivered in
time for the full production.
- Able to help others make local videos and stills remotely.
- Has, or can get access to software to produce videos.
- Be wary of: unreliable person. If the video is not done on time, the
group fails the demo.
- Planner
- Responsible for plan that the whole group must follow this quarter.
- Must create, early in the quarter, the formal, online, planning document with dates, hours,
modules, tasks, names of group members responsble for each task, and
dependencies of one task on another in it.
- Works with the project manager.
- Communicates regularly to report on the status of the plan
- Provides positive feedback to group members "good job!" by keeping
everyone informed of the progress of all aspects of the group project
- Prepares the final plan for the project booklet. Works with the
documentation manager.
- Works with the presentation manager to have the plan ready for the RDP
demo.
- Makes updates to the plan as tasks are completed through the quarter.
- Works with the group and the project manager when the plan must be
dynamically altered.
- Required skills: Must be organized; MUST be willing
to insist that group members all report regularly on the status of group
tasks in the plan; must be smart to
figure out how the complex pieces of the plan will fit together; must work hard
early in the quarter to lay out the plan for the next eight weeks; must be
willing to make proactive contact with group members, checking on deadlines; must be
willing to insist on group members reporting their status on group tasks.
- Be wary of: Unwillingness to make group members
uncomfortable when they are not regularly reporting their status on tasks;
inability to manage the plan early in the first two weeks of class; inability
to manage the technical aspects of putting the plan online.
- Webmaster
- Responsible for the central communication hub(s), and the "face" of the project group.
- Works with the implementation manager when web-related services are
needed for the group project.
- Works with the presentation manager when web resources are required for
the demonstrations.
- Works with the documentation manager to translate the web resources
into printed format for the project booklet.
- Required skills: Must have a strong grasp of website
management. Must be able to integrate technical features into the website to
serve the group, and also provide consulting, at least, for the project
itself.
- Be wary of: Someone that will not maintain the group
website on a daily basis. This is the central communication hub of the project!
- Documentation Manager
- Responsible that the time logs of ALL group members are updated, and
available online throughout the quarter.
- Responsible for the final, printed, deliverable of the project group:
the project booklet. THIS BOOKELET MAY BE CRITICAL IN THE JOB MARKET.
- Required skills: Must have a strong enough
personality to demand the raw materials from the group in a timely way. MUST
be organized, good at preparing documents, and able to work under time
pressure. Must be able to insist that group members keep up on their time
logs. Creativity that manifests itself in the written document is important.
- Be wary of: An irresponsible person, or a person who
does not do quality work, which may result in a poor document, and can have a
serious impact on future job interviews of the group members.
- Requirements Manager
- Responsible for the extensive formal Requirements for the
group project.
- See the COL lecture notes
- Manages the wolf and thief groups
- Prepares the formal requirements document
- Prepares the Requirements section of the RDP demo
- Works with the documentation manager to prepare the requirements
document for inclusion in the project booklet
- Required skills: Must already understand, or must be
able to rapidly research and learn, how to construct formal written
requirements for a large project. Must have a strong grasp of technical
writing. Must be able to manage the requirements group, including
the gang of theives and the wolfpack.
- Be wary of: Someone that cannot translate large, fuzzy,
ideas into specific requirements, and specific tests.
- Design Manager
- Responsible for producing the full, technical, design from which the
project code will be written.
- See the COL lecture
- Works with the group to turn the initial ideas into a technical
document that the group can follow.
- Works with the implementation manager to select the hardware, database,
client, server, and implementation platforms.
- Performs the due dilligence research to see what has been done before,
what is available, what can be improved, how the design will solve problems
for which there is a market.
- Produces the formal design document (see class website).
- Works with the presentation manager to prepare the design for the RDP
demo.
- A faulty design, in the worst case, can guarantee failure.
- Required skills: MUST produce a valid, comprehensive
design document.
- Be wary of: Not having the technical know-how to
produce a real design.
- Unix Systems Programmer
- Responsible for managing all aspcts of the unix system, if one is used,
including security, logins and backups.
- Teaches the rest of the group members about unix tools, as needed
-
- Testing Manager
- Responsible for the testing plan for the group project
- Manges the testing group
- Produces formal tests of the project for the project booklet.
- May design, plan, and execute, the testing of requirements.
- Groups may organize around the testing plan: pass the tests, the
project is complete.
- Required skills: MUST produce a robust testing plan
that guarantees the project will run on the day it is due.
- Be wary of: Unclear tests; imprecise testing
techniques; overemphasis on unimportant details.
- Presentation Manager
- Mananges the critical, extensive, demonstrations of the group's work
- Has executive control over the look, and effectiveness, of the group
during the critical minutes of the presentation.
- Guarantees that the running project will be shown at the demo.
- Required skills: Ability to organize and rehearse
the presentations; technical ability to manage the software for
presentations; MUST be able to be say "NO" if one of the presenters is not
effective; MUST be ABSOLUTELY certain that backups can come online if needed
and that the group will not fail any demos.
- Be wary of: Someone who cannot say "No" if a
presenter is not being effective; someone who does not insist on piror
run-throughs; someone who cannot work with the technical team to guarantee
success of the running project.
- Usability Manager (Optional unless HCI/IM majors are
present in the course.)
- Responsible for managing all aspects of the HCI component of the project.
- Works with the design manager and the requirements manager to influence
the design according to valid HCI principles
- Responsible for the formal usability study.
- Required skills: Understanding of how to conduct a
valid usability study.
- Be wary of: Someone who is not able to explain these
ideas to others, and make the case for using science in the approach to usability.
- (Optional) Contingency Manager
- Responsible for guaranteeing backups of the running system are ready to
come online in less than thirty seconds.
- Responsible for contingency plans that may be necessary during the
presentations.
- Responsible for disaster recovery if the code / project documents are
lost to, e.g., a disk crash.
- Required skills: Responsible person that makes timely updates.
- Be wary of: Someone that blows off the backups.
- (Optional) Creative Director
- Responsible for the creative content of the project. Oversees the
development of the graphical content, the design content of the interface,
the design content and quality of any project content.
- Required skills: Understanding of design, and what
appeals to people.
- Be wary of: Someone that is "too artistic" to be
practical, fights with the group over unimportant details.