Working as a Team
Software Engineering Project provides students with the experience of working in a team and dealing with the associated problems
of communication and team management. Teams have five members but occasionally teams of four are necessary due to class size. Students are
allowed to form their own teams. Each student in the team has a management role.
Project manager: A project manager manages the team, controls the meetings and ensures that someone is responsible for each task.
Technical manager: This person is in charge of locating useful tools and software needed for the project.
They also maintain program directories, source code, and handle the duties of configuration management (project files, make files, etc).
Documentation manager: This person collates all the design documents and also collates the user manual and reference manual.
Testing manager: This person ensures the analysis documents, prototypes and software are adequately tested.
Marketing manager: This person ensures that the web page and presentation and demonstration are prepared.
| "I developed many new skills throughout the semester as project is unlike any experience I have had before.
The most valuable skill I attained was an improvement in my communication ability. Professional interaction with other members of the team,
the client, and others involved in this process has given me increased confidence in working with others. In the past I had always looked at
team work negatively because of my lack of confidence in this area. The course put me to be in situations I would have normally avoided and
from this I realised that they were not as daunting as I first imagined. Working closely with people you do not necessarily know to begin with,
is a common situation in the work place. Due to this, these new skills learned throughout project will be of great benefit to me in the future." |
| Melissa Williams, Video Team 2004, Reflection Report |
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| "A generic skill I have developed is understanding how to work with other people effectively. Although previously having
experience in team situations, increasing the scale of the work required has assisted me in developing interpersonal communication skills efficiently,
and understanding and integrating others suggestions into my own contributions." |
| Leigh Docking, Image Team 2005, Reflection Report |
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| "The skill I have most developed during the semester is People management. As Project Manager I have learnt both the good and
the bad of this difficult skill, from the satisfaction and sense of achievement when things go right, to the frustration experienced when things don’t turn
out how you hoped or someone doesn’t live up to expectations. Most importantly, I think, I have learnt to deal exceptionally well when things don’t go quite
right, and have been able to deal with and overcome situations where the project was going backwards rather than forwards. This experience has prepared me
for a professional position where people will be depending on you, and you will be depending on other people to get the job done." |
| Thomas Hiscutt, SMSM Team 2005, Reflection Report |
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| "During my time as technical manager in semester 2, the generic skill I've most enhanced is my ability to research new topics.
The position of technical manager obviously involves a lot of researching of new materials or techniques, such as researching which fading method would be
best for the CLS, or which timer would be best to use to update the progress indicator on the graph interface. I think that researching things like this is
a skill that takes practice, and I know I've become a lot better at it since I started the Software Engineering Project course." |
| Alex Fraser, Aquarium Team 2005, Reflection Report |
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