At today’s meeting, we discussed the spreadsheet that we will start using to track hours. I informed the BAs  that they should track the hours that they work on each deliverable.  The PMs are also responsible for tracking the hours they worked on deliverables. The spreadsheet  is really simple, but will help us a lot when it comes to the budget.  For example, we will be able to see whether or not we allocated enough funds for the amount of hours everyone is working. I’ll be the one that reminds everyone to input their weekly hours.  We also went over the BAs prototypes. I didn’t get a chance to see it, but I heard they are impressive. I’m glad the BAs put the effort in creating great prototype, not only are they on track, but if they continue at this pace they should not run into any issues. We also encouraged them to continue to play around with JustinMind. I’m really proud of how far we have all come in a matter of weeks.  There is more communication and trust amongst our team (the conversations that take place aren’t just about the project). Furthermore, the weekly meetings are a big contributor to our progress.

There is nothing new since we didn’t get a chance to meet last Friday, October 17th.  At our meeting today, we discussed the team’s prototype ideas. We established what they want to work on over the weekend (the front end of the app).  All the BAs are working on their own prototype. They will eventually pick what they like from all three prototypes to combine into one team prototype. There wasn’t much talk about the scope, but they received great feedback on the scope from professor Flanagan. They mentioned that he liked their idea of content management system that only the marketing department,  IT department and manager would have access to.  In addition, professor Flanagan also mentioned that the BAs should assume there isn’t an e-commerce store when they present. We are right on track.  The only thing that needs some work is the budget.  We created it in MS Excel and are in the process of switching over into MS Project. I am also in the process of creating a spreadsheet to track the amount of hours per week each person is working on a certain deliverable.

Our meeting today with our BAs was pretty successful.We reviewed the scope document and the PMs provided some comments for them.  We also gave them advice/recommendations as to how to update the scope based off their professor’s comments.  We asked them to upload the scope with the comments from their professor  onto the Google drive. We also started discussing the prototype plan, and urged them to start working with JustinMind.  In addition, we shared with them our former teams’ prototypes to give them an idea of  what we did and JustinMind. We are also posting our old documents and prototypes to the Google drive to help them with their future deliverables.  As for trust, I can definitely see that it is growing amongst all team members and we are starting to bond.  The PMs are more helpful than before and I can tell that the BAs are starting to see that. We are definitely on track with the project and I have confidence in our team that we will remain on track.

Not much has changed since the last time I posted.  At the last meeting, I printed off agendas for the group and it definitely helped us stay on topic.  I also feel that our trust within the team greatly increased.  For example, our BAs are coming to us with more questions.  We are trying to meet on weekly basis and met again today. We were planning to go over their scope, but the BAs haven’t received their scope. Hopefully, they will get their scope next week. Once they receive their scope, we will definitely try and meet up or at least discuss what he said.  We definitely want to go over their feedback and give feedback.

So far my team and I have been off to a slow start, but we are starting to pick up the pace. There is great communication amongst everyone. The GroupMe app is one of the biggest factor that contributes to our communication plan.  The GroupMe app allows us to stay on the same page. In addition to our successful communication plan, we’ve also managed to establish and maintain an organized google drive in which we (BAs and PMs) all can share different documents and deliverables related to our project. Furthermore, the PMs have a good system for dividing up our assignments. There are still certain areas that need improvement.  For example, there is a lack of urgency and lack of engagement. We also need to build trust between the BAs and PMs to help the project run smoothly. I know that after we start meeting on a weekly basis this will change.  I have noticed that when we reach out to our BAs they are more responsive and is something we need to continue.

Personally, I’ve contributed to the communication plan. I also sent out a Doodle poll to determine the best time for everyone to meet.  Despite everyone’s busy schedules, I found that the most convenient times for almost everyone to meet are on Fridays after class. Lastly, I think that a weekly email update or a short virtual meeting like we talked in class would be a great idea.