Assessment 3 - Group Work Assessment
- Class schedule in ICTPRG Announcements
- Groups have been assigned
- I'm part of the _Compiler group
- Project manager responsible for organising team
- Need some sort of share drive
- Everyone is responsible for the quality
Assessment Task 3
- "Getting your groups going"
- Assessment task 2 is about advising a client on an issue
- 3 documents
- Project Plan
- Project Logbook
- Meeting Agenda and Minutes
- Free online version is different to the paid version
- Use the free version?
- State it in the documentation
Requirements
- Well-structured
- Comprehensive (for the 3 tasks each)
- Collaboration and teamwork among group members
- Potentially distribute the manual
Project Plan
- Team Members
- From announcements (lecturer provided)
- Allocate teams to jobs
- Goals
- Plan and prioritise tasks and timeframes
- Setting dates for things due
- Team workspace
- Onedrive/ google drive etc
Content Creation
- Going to document parts of office 365
- Not creating comprehensive office 365 documentation
- Only 4 components:
- Excel
- Word
- Powerpoint
- OneNote/OneDrive
- 3 functions for each component
- Open/Create file
- Save file
- Do one task
Project Manager
- Doesn't need to be anything fancy, only needs to look comprehensive
- No errors, easy to read, easy to follow
Review and Editing
- Ensure what's written actually works.
Testing
- Part of Review and Editing
Project Logbook
- Done by each member
- This is a personal journal about how you contributed to the team
- List team members
- How you contributed to the team
- What skills you brought to the group
- What you contributed to meetings
- How you collaborated
- Email, whatsapp, google drive etc.
- How you assisted other team members
Meeting Agenda an minutes
- The lecturer would like to see at least 3 separate minutes
- Minutes follow a particular format
- Not just for keeping notes on what happened
- Used for keeping a legal account of fulfilling duties
- Includes
- Date/Time
- Chair (Usually project manager)
- Minute taker
- Chair and minute taker should be different people
- Chair runs the meetings
- Minute taker should be independent (not self-serving)
- However doesn't matter if the chair + minute taker since groups are so small
- Responsibilities for minutues
- Review minutes from last meeting
- Refreshes everybody on what was said last time
- Allows people to acknowledge that things in the prev meeting are "True and Fair"
- Review Actions from previous Meetings
- Shows that you're following on up on things from the previous meeting
- Allocates accountability
- Updates
- Actions
- Things that need to get done
- Feedback
- Extra information/talk about updates, actions and review
Goin Over Alexanders Version of Final AT3:
- Basic design
- Automatic template for creating table of contents
- Whenever created, just update automatically
- Right click -> Update all
- Headings
- Correct level of headings for each section
- Screenshots
- Help show what the documentation is about
- Include some graphics such as arrows to help highlight things
- Alexander did more than required in his project
- Expecting to see about 10 - 20 pages total
Summary for AT3: What's required
- Get groups together
- How we want to interact
- Project manager find out inactives
- Have at least 3 formal meetings with 3 minutes
- Project manager does project plan
- Other 2/3 people do the work
- Check work is good
- Give to a person who isn't great at computer to verify it works
- Everybody responsible for the whole document
Alexanders Stereotypes of People in the IT field + Tips to Being Successful
- Seen a lot of technically good people
- Not good at their social skills
- Didn't play the business game well
- Business Definition:
- Group of people get together to make money
- IT is a cost center
- We may help save money, sometimes make them money
- We don't make money directly for them
- We make their jobs more efficient + easier
- Who is the Customer?
- Everyone is your customer
- Anybody who needs your work to be successful
- Could be:
- Your manager (They're a customer)
- Need to do work well and efficiently since they pay you
- Business person submitting a help desk ticket
- Although internal, they're requesting something from you
- External customer
- You're directly doing something for somebody who's paying for your services
- Rules for success (effective communication and respect):
- Don't make people feel inadequate
- Try not to use technical language so they know how to speak
- Even if an issue is clearly their fault/from negligence
- You have power in talks
- You understand things that most people can't understand
- Speak in plain English
- Communicating using technical language to a non-technical business customer != communication
- The business has a right to know what is going on with their equipment, systems,
software, and communications
- Business people have feeling like they're dependent on you
- This will lead to you likely getting sacked
- Frontline IT Staff are often the focus of frustration and hostility. They get blamed for
IT issues.
- Don't take it personally
- Learn to diffuse and redirect
- Convert frustration from "business vs IT" -> "us vs the problem"
- Don't promise something unless you are 100% you can do that
- Always allocate more time than necessary e.g. "I'll probably get this done in a
couple days"
- Only promise if you know you can deliver
- Let them know you're on their side and you're going to try and help them
- Leave the customer feeling good after interacting with them
- Don't do little white lies just to make them feel good
- Trades long term trust for immediate diffusal
- Always thank them
- Especially for communication about problems and issues
- "Thanks for the phone call so I can fix this"
- "Thanks for letting me know about this"
- Find a reason to praise them for something, anything. Make it sincere.
- Treat them as a human first, business person second
- Can work even on most senior/difficult/stressed people
- More communication -> more information to help solve issues
- Human elements of jobs are a large part of the job
- Reduce risk of assumption
- Only fix the issues that they communicate, not what you think is the problem
- More enjoyment at work & less isolation
- Especially in small businesses
- Need to find excuses to talk to the business people
- You'll need to find out what's actually going on with the business
- Try to find ways to create relationships with people
- Find experienced mentors
- Can be inside the IT department or outside of it
- Can talk well about you at senior level
- Can help create relationships/contacts
- May help you find a better job (for better pay etc.)
- Professionalism
- Act dress and talk appropriately for the business
- If there's a dress code (or unspoken one), dress like the business
- Understand the culture of the business you're in
- Become part of it
- These aren't friends or family, they're customers
- Be absolutely reliable & have integrity
- Attend social functions and meetings
- Go to them anyway
- Have some goals in each of these
- Find out who the people are in the business
- Who they are
- What they know
- What they do
- They have a purpose in a business
- Don't fight the culture/try to change it
- If it's toxic, ask why you're working there
- If you're senior, do it gradually and respectfully
- Be reliable and on time
- Will pay off in the long term
- At some point you'll make a mistake (and it may be a big one)
- It'll happen to you
- Real test is how you deal/react to it
- There hasn't been a single networking engineer who hasn't brought down a network
- Apologise immediately to anybody you may have hurt
- Show accountability and tell them why it's down
- Doesn't allow people to fester as you show integrity
- Doesn't give the opportunity to remember or focus on your mistake
- Don't bring the issue up again
- You already apologised and need to just move on
- Make sure it's your mistake first
- Summary
- You are in a reputation building phase
- It's more than just your technical skill
- Without the technical skill, you can't do your job
- You need to also have work for your customers