Let the Genie Out!

The last 2 weeks were quite eventful. Andre and I went into the city to test the Genie design idea. It was quite difficult to get anyone to speak to us at first; especially when we went to the banks and law firms around. We then decided to change our strategy by just waiting on the sidewalk and apporaching people we felt fit into our target group. Two I.T recruiters actually liked our drive and wanted us to add them on LinkedIn.

We also shot the promo video for the app that same day.

Come the day of our preliminary presentation, Ali who wasnt feeling too well did quite well, Andre was nervous but scaled through, Atabak took laws into his own hands (yet again!) to demo the app outside of the presentation and Richard didnt like that, The feedback from someone for my part was that my back was towards the audience while trying to point to the table in the presentation and Rajeev didnt have enough time to say anything.

I'm hoping we are more disciplined this week and that nerves dont get the best of anyone.

The New Guy

Just as we were trying to settle down as a team after Ronja left, Richard asked if we could have someone else join the team. Instinctively because we were 3 weeks into the unit, it naturally would have been a reluctant thing to do. Suprisingly the rest of the guys in the team agreed.

Rajeev, the new guys seems quite cool and i think we will all work well. We insisted Richard help us conclude with an app choice and he finally did. Hopefully Ata and Andre will deliver on a nice prototype and presentation with the story board/narration i gave.

Ali is finally behaving himself by posting his ideas on google docs. We are yet to see what rajeev is capable of

Frustrations...

This week was a bit eventful, we finally put out a medium fidelity prototype and a storyboard. Some team members are however more frustating than others in this whole process. I thought Ali was bad but i think Atabak has moved up the list with Rajeev in second place. Ata sometimes feels too important with himself because he worked on the prototype. He changes the designs without telling anyone or dictates how we should communicate with him in terms of feedback. He also did something extremely annoying in the last workshop by asking the tutor to tell the team he should be excused from interviewing anyone (in my mind i punched him...by the  way im not a violent person). I found this highly unecessary and ungentlemanly like.

Andre and i should work on a video today. I 'm hoping its fun. Ali will edit the video. Rajeev is almost non-existent at this point but we'll see what happens in the coming weeks.

Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing

It is now quite apparent that effective communication is key in order for us to achieve results as a team. Clarity of direction has also helped in two ways. First, there is no longer confusion as to what tasks need to be carried out and what results we need. Secondly, it is now easier to know those hiding under the guise of confusion not to do anything or take direction. A major culprit is Ali. Even though we clearly set aside tasks that we need to do we are all yet to feel his impact in any way. Ata on the other hand is an exchange student from Germany and his English is not so good so now that we understand that, we try to spend a bit more time explaining and clariying things with him and he's really doing quite better.

I feel we are just getting out of the storming stage (casualty=Ronja) and gradually into the Norming stage of team development. Lets see what will happen next week.

If You Can't Stand The Heat Get Out of The Kitchen!

The team had a bit of trouble over the weekend regarding when and where to meet. It was however concluded that we should try to collaborate more online. Amidst all the confusion and try to figure out the next steps, Ronja has opted out of the team and unit as a whole. It was quite a big blow but everyone took it well. Ata and i have created a structure for the app on google docs so Ali and Andre can contribute. We will however need a structured feedback as well from potential users which will help the testing of our assumptions and eventually aid our design and prototyping. I prepared some test questions which we will use and i have shared them with the team. Hopefully we should get results this week.

Good bye Ronja! You will be missed!

Engine Power Loss

In the last meeting, the team agreed to further design/develop 2 apps (QUT Connect-A and Moments), but there still seems to be a lot of work to be done especially on Moments app which was Ata's idea. It doesnt seem to have the required structure that summarises what the app is and this became more apparent from Erez's mail to all of us.

Ata wanted the team to meet in order to help solve this problem but its been difficult getting every one to meet. There are atleast 2 team members still nursing their hang overs from the Toga party on thursday. I suggested Ata try to put some structure to the app on his own for now to enable us have an easier starting point if and when we meet on Monday.

With regards to the Design thinking theory approach, one thing we havent largely done with our ideas and is a common mistake with design is to test the ideas with potential customers or "painstorm" according to Furr & Dyer (2014) in the innovators method. This will help us identify potential flaws in design or other processes  that frustrate users when using similar/competing apps.

On a final note, i think that we would be more effective when we start assigning tasks and deadlines for those tasks, This would make me and everyone else in the team accountable and responsible. We need to keep the energy up as i fear its begining to wane.

Week 1 Project Team Meet

App Idea Fest

We had all agreed to meet up at QUT's food court at 3 pm but because Andre and I had finished up earlier we were there 30 mins before hand. Andre grabbed his usual stir fry noodles and i dug into the rice i had brought from home. We also discussed in minor detail the ideas we both had. Ronja came in at 2.55pm all sun tanned up and we thought we would start at 3pm but Ali and Atabak were no where to be found. Ronja opted we started without them but i explained in detail why that wouldnt make sense as we would have to start all over again if they eventually came. Ali later showed up around 7mins past, he had overslept in the library and Ata came in (litrarily running and sweating) at about 3.15pm, he had to move houses and as a result ran late.

We all agreed to each pitch our best 2 app ideas, the team would then pick which was best. A rating on a scale of 1-10 for the 5 app ideas that made the cut was then done, you are however not allowed to rate your own app idea. The best 2 ideas based on cummulative scores will be pitched to Richard in the next workshop. These were the best ideas that made the cut:

Ali: MicroMap for Gardens Point campus              21 points
Andre: Geolocation-Reminder                                21 points
Ronja: Medical Therapy/Treament Recommender 18 points
Atabak: Moments..Events/social media app            30 points
Me: QUT Connect-a...networking/social media app 32 points

Based on the weightings, Connecta and Moments will be further developed by the team. The meeting lasted 45mins which wasnt too bad in relation to what we covered.

The first day!

Today was the first day of classes at QUT and locating the lecture room at E block was something else . Richard, the lecturer seemed like a fun guy so were other members of his Team. Although i had read the prescribed book for the unit till chapter 5 not much featured today.

Marshmallow challenge!

We attended a workshop right after the Design thinking lecture  and unintentionally a 'dream team' was born as i was seating at a desk with Ronja, Ali, Ata and Andre whom i'd previously met and was friends with. Now we are all stuck with each other for the rest of the semester for unit. We were given a marshmallow, some string, paper tape and some spaghetti sticks and each team at the workshop was challenged to build to tallest free standing structure....We tried our best but were were runners up by fractions of a centimeter. We worked quite well and effectively as a team, if we had however listened more carefully to Ronja who suggested we use a piece of string to hold the structure down on the table in order to counter balance the weight, we would have been able to go further up.

App Challenge!

We also have to come up with ideas for a new app before the next workshop. For now, the idea i have is to come up with a social media/ networking app for QUT students. I think Ali has the same idea but we'll see when we meet tomorrow to decide which ideas will go through