Day One
Yikes! Five weeks to get your first project done. And your first demo is next week! Thank goodness for agile methods!
Task 1: Sign up on Campuswire
Campuswire is where I post most announcements, task updates, and interesting links, and students post requests for help, answers to requests for help, and whatever else seems relevant.
I expect everyone to see any posting within 6 hours.
Task 2: Github data
Immediately, if not sooner, enter your github user name in the appropriate cell of the Team Data spreadsheet. The link is on the Canvas assignment page. I need that to form teams on Github under the CS 394 github organization.
The team spreadsheet is where you will find the Northwestern email addresses of the other members of your team.
If there are errors on the spreadsheet, contact me. The data came directly from Caesar.
For access to all shared Google documents, see these notes. Do not request access from a non-Northwestern Google account.
Task 3: Three Pitches
Your team's first task is to come up with three distinct ideas for a mobile web app. Each idea should be simple, useful (or fun) and new. Put these three ideas on the slide for your team in the Three Pitches Google Presentation. The link is on the Canvas assignment page. This is due an hour before class.
All the obvious apps have been built. Don't do yet another site to borrow books and tools. You're going to need to focus on some subgroup of users--that you can get for testers--with some unmet need. This calls for serious brainstorming as your first team effort.
Contact your team mates and arrange a group meeting, physical or virtual. Everyone's u.northwestern.edu email addresses are on the Team Data spreadsheet.
On Day One of class, you will
- present your Three Pitches
- pick your product and get to work!
Brainstorm:
- Come to the meeting with ideas and areas of need. The more ideas, the better.
- Construct ideas that the whole team believes in.
- It's no fun when most team members don't care about the idea.
Prepare for the presentation:
- Read Elevator pitches -- for your purposes, skip the company part. Just product name, what it does for whom.
- Put your three ideas on the team's single slide of the shared Three Pitches presentation in the class Google Drive Team Projects folder.
- Decide who will present those ideas on Day One.
Questions? Ask your team mates. Still unclear? Post questions on Campuswire.
Want to know what comes next? See How to Release in a Week for clues.