Team Building Exercise

Here is a selection of notes from the Team Building Exercise (last performed Tuesday 5th October 2010). Please feel free to expand on these as you feel fit for the benefit of your colleagues.

• Implicit in Russell's statement was the real need for a project manager and for the person taking on that role to actually manage the project.
• He also mentioned a need to identify early the content that will be required for your group's web site, and to ensure that content is uploaded regularly. He emphasised the acceptability of scanned “rough diagrams” and notes.
• He stated that the identification of skills was very important, but also the need for flexibility should skills identified at the start turn out to be different from those first identified.
• Time outside the lab is very important: remember that there is a notional 200 person hours for EG-252 and only around 80 of these will be in the lab! It is also important to be productive: three people waiting in the lab for one team member to complete a soldering task is not productive use of time. There will always be opportunities for additional testing, research, reflection or documentation during idle moments. It is acceptible to have coffee breaks.
• Communication is vital: ensure that each member of your team is aware of the project plan and has signed up on their tasks. Use the communication tools: instant messager, Blackboard, this wiki, blogs, etc to keep your finger on the pulse. If you are struggling – seek help!

Requirements – what the customer says s/he wants¹⁾

Here is an initial list:

1. Micromouse (MM) must follow a white line
2. MM must avoid obstacles
3. MM must be able to engage in combat
4. MM must be autonomous
5. MM must have an extra feature
6. MM must be programmable and able to switch modes
7. Project team must have a web site
8. Team members may need training

Interrogate the “customer(s)”: there may be more! Expect the customer to change his mind!

Deliverable – a product or products that are produced on the way to meeting the requirements. May be a milestone on the route to delivery of the final product, or may be the product itself.

(in no particular order)

• Micromouse
• Web site
• MM program
• Demonstration
• UML Diagrams
• Software Documentation
• Report
• User manual
• Tests
• Specifications
• Project plan
• Test results
• Chassis design
• Chassis
• Micro-controller assembly
• Sensor circuits
• Motor assembly
• Design documents
• Progress reports

Resources – are equipment, people or time that you have at your disposal to make the product. If equipment or people, resources are often shared and hence contended.

Some resources identified where:

• Lab technicians and demonstrators
• The lecturers (particularly Dr Davies )
• Internet/Books/Library
• Equipment: note limited access to lab!
• Components and consumables
• Interactive Development Environment (IDE) for software.
• Yourselves(!)
• Time
• Experience and skills within your team
• Notes from other modules.

Others previously identified:

• Computers
• Software: CAD/IDE/EWB/Office etc.
• Existing mice
• Web server (and existing web sites)

Deadlines –- the dates by which you must deliver the product or other deliverable to the customer. The most important of these are set by the lecturers (a list is mantained on the Blackboard site) but there may be others that you wish to impose on yourselves. Note some deadlines are fixed in concrete and others are moveable. Make sure that you have agreed which is which with the customer!

Some examples are:

• An agreed “skills matrix” and project plan must be agreed and signed off by the end of October.
• You must have completed “Microcontroller training” by end of December.
• The chassis design has to be submitted to mecahnical workshop before Christmas.
• Sensors must be prototyped before Christmas.
• There must be a web site of some from by beginning of second semester.
• All documentation must be complete and on the web site by the date of the demonstration.
• The mouse must be ready for inspection by the end of teaching in the summer term.
• There must be at least two reflective blog postings from each team member each semester. These should be relate to an aspect of the project that you have been responsible for.

There may be others!

Think about:

• What skills will you need to complete the micro-mouse?
• What skills you have?

Over the next week or so, within your groups, think about:

• What skills does your team actually have.
• If there are any gaps, how will you fill them?
• When will those skills be required?
• If you need to buy in skills –- when will they be available?

You will be required to complete and sign off on a “skills matrix” for your team as part of the project planning stage.

A project plan specifies how a complex project will be broken down into tasks, the sequence of the tasks that must take place in order to complete the project, and an assignment of tasks to shared limited resources. One of the simplest and most widely understood representations of a project plan is the Gantt chart. Once a Gantt chart has been devised for a project, it can be used by the team and its manager to monitor progress, cope with unanticipated delays, budget for the resources used and as a control mechanism.

A key feature of a Gantt chart is the identification of the critical path: that is that sequence of tasks for which a delay in completion of a task will cause a delay in the completion of the project. We shall have more to say on Project Planning in EG-244 and in later lab sessions.

See also: Project Planning and Team Building (Actions), Architectural Model

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