Week Two - Getting Started

At this point, my Facebook app group is still starting on coding. I'm not sure if we are lagging behind, although I get the feeling that we are. We spent quite a bit of time this week finalising our idea, figuring out the requirements, as well as setting up the frameworks we were going to use. We had more than a few discussions on whether to include a given feature, and on my part I struggled a bit with installing Laravel. Because it had less support for Windows. D:

Features-wise, I'm not sure if we are on the right track. At times, we try to keep to our "purpose" of the app, and at others we think of whether it would be desirable to the user (UI/UX or otherwise). I personally believe that even if we make a product for a given purpose, the users are free to use them for whatever they want - even if it was not our original intention (as long as they don't break anything in the process). I feel that we should not purposely restrict the functionality of our app just to fit our desired use case, and try to steer the discussion that direction at times, but being a "non-designer" I can't be sure if my perspective is right, so most of the time I just hold my tongue and hope it works out.

The lesson this week was about software engineering principles as well as the SCRUM methodology, while the workshop was about presentation skills, HTML/CSS/Javascript and UI/UX.

For the lesson, it was a helpful refresher of what I learnt in CS2103 two semesters ago, It reminded our group to use user stories to list our (most important) features, and helped us identify our roles more clearly. Although we did not adopt the full SCRUM methodology, we now have a semblance of a project owner and a scrum master, who help identify features and push the team to get things done.

For the workshop, I only attended the session for presentation skills, but I daresay that was an excellent use of time. Prof. Damith spoke extremely well on his 6 tips for making impactful presentations, and I really admire how he has actually read (or at least owns) so many books on giving presentations. My main takeaways from his presentation are (1) think of what you want the audience to know, believe and do after your speech, (2) don't speak about topics - make points, and (3) introductions aren't important, an impactful punch is. I am personally not good at presentations, because I tend to lose track of what I "need" to say. I hope to learn from his method of thinking and speaking, which I found is very clear and focused, especially with regards to defining the desired impact. He identifies the condition for success (the desired impact or takeaways for the speech), and works towards it. I think keeping this desired impact in mind will help me to focus on what I want to tell my audience, instead of the script that I need to say.