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  • Author Author: tariq.ahmad
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Project14 | Which Past Themes Would You Like to Work On as a Team?

We are discussing doing something different that involves more advanced projects and engineers working collaboratively as part of a team.  If we were to do project competitions around past themes which of the following contests would you like to revisit to work on a collaboratively with other members?  You can use this as a forum to pitch your ideas to other members to help you finish a project in 4 month period of time.  Or,  you could take an existing project from a past contest and work together as a team to build that project into a finished prototype.

 

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  • I am interested in this type of project, but there are significant issues to address such as:

    How to form  a team.

    • How big should the team be?
    • How to find synergy.

    How does a team decide what project to do?

    • One way to handle this is for individual members to publish proposals and see who else is interested in contributing and then form a team.
    • Another way is for a pre-formed team to brainstorm a bunch of ideas then vote on which is preferred.

    How to decide who does what.

    • Tasks need to be defined and assigned.
    • Interfaces between each contribution need to be defined.

    How to ensure the project gets done.

    • weekly meetings with action items and deliverables
    • a schedule with milestone dates

    How to transfer hardware between team members

    • Does each member duplicate the build?
    • Does it all get put together in one place?
    • Does it get shipped from member to member?

    How to deal with expenses

    • How to decide on a budget? Everyone has a different tolerance.
    • Who pays?
  • in reply to dougw

    Doug,

     

    These are good questions.  I know that you have some experience in working on some contests in a small group (a group of two), can you share any of your experiences as they relate to these points?

     

    Thanks,

    Gene

  • in reply to genebren

    Hi here are some notes on my past attempts:

    Forming a team.

    • I wanted to start small to see how it would work so both times it was just 2 team members
    • Both times I knew the teammate, so synergy was already solved
    • Both times the teammates were local, so we could get together and discuss the project or hand off material. However hand-off didn't happen very often - just a few times

    How does a team decide what project to do?

    • Both times I chose the project and architected the design
    • One time my teammate was interested in collaborating on a project, but didn't have alternate ideas of what it would be.
    • The other time my teammate's interest was more about the money than the specific project (sponsors had agreed to pay for the project although  that did not pan out)

    How to decide who does what.

    • Both times we had a general division - I would do the hardware and my partner would do the software. However in both cases we both ended up doing some of the work in the other's area.

    How to ensure the project gets done.

    • This was a problematic area - I was blogging about progress each week, so updates were regular, but the work didn't dovetail very well and there were lots of delays in getting material transferred.

    How to transfer hardware between team members

    • In one case we had partial duplication (the main computer bits) and the rest of the machine had to be transported back and forth for each of us to work on our parts
    • In the other case I completed the hardware and handed it off to be programmed.

    How to deal with expenses

    • In both cases I bought enough material to do the complete job, My partner bought some material to allow work to proceed in parallel. We each kept the material we bought.

    Dividing the spoils

    • In one case we weren't sponsored and didn't win, but we each received finisher prizes. We had an agreement that my partner would get the prize if we won first or third, I would get the prize if we finished second.
    • In the other case we were supposed to be paid on completion, but there was a personnel change at element14 and the project died during the final software development phase.

     

    The interview is here:

    https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-89484#comment-130152

     

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  • in reply to genebren

    Hi here are some notes on my past attempts:

    Forming a team.

    • I wanted to start small to see how it would work so both times it was just 2 team members
    • Both times I knew the teammate, so synergy was already solved
    • Both times the teammates were local, so we could get together and discuss the project or hand off material. However hand-off didn't happen very often - just a few times

    How does a team decide what project to do?

    • Both times I chose the project and architected the design
    • One time my teammate was interested in collaborating on a project, but didn't have alternate ideas of what it would be.
    • The other time my teammate's interest was more about the money than the specific project (sponsors had agreed to pay for the project although  that did not pan out)

    How to decide who does what.

    • Both times we had a general division - I would do the hardware and my partner would do the software. However in both cases we both ended up doing some of the work in the other's area.

    How to ensure the project gets done.

    • This was a problematic area - I was blogging about progress each week, so updates were regular, but the work didn't dovetail very well and there were lots of delays in getting material transferred.

    How to transfer hardware between team members

    • In one case we had partial duplication (the main computer bits) and the rest of the machine had to be transported back and forth for each of us to work on our parts
    • In the other case I completed the hardware and handed it off to be programmed.

    How to deal with expenses

    • In both cases I bought enough material to do the complete job, My partner bought some material to allow work to proceed in parallel. We each kept the material we bought.

    Dividing the spoils

    • In one case we weren't sponsored and didn't win, but we each received finisher prizes. We had an agreement that my partner would get the prize if we won first or third, I would get the prize if we finished second.
    • In the other case we were supposed to be paid on completion, but there was a personnel change at element14 and the project died during the final software development phase.

     

    The interview is here:

    https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-89484#comment-130152

     

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