Project Introductions

Agenda (80 Minutes)

(10 minutes) Project Review
(70 minute) First contact

Project Review

Today we will split everyone into temporary groups of 4-5 people. Each group will be assigned a project. Identify a scribe for the group (someone to make and share the report). Have someone else read the project out loud while the group follows along. Each person take notes on the following:

Which project description is being reviewed?
Who is on this project review team (names and email addresses).
Provide a short 2-line summary of the project.
Initial Project breakdown (what seem to be the key components?)
What are the biggest problems that need to be understood and solved for this project to move forward (open loops)?
What will be the most time consuming task for this project (given what you know).
What would be this groups first task if they were assigned the project?
How would you measure success?
What questions do you have?
List any Anticipated Challenges your team identified while discussing the project:

Link to Project Description Folder

NOTE the above link may not work until the first day of class.

Project Review Terms

Initial Project Breakdown: Split the main projects into major components that need to be completed. Think of components as a hierarchy with multiple levels. The top level is “the entire project”. Below that are the major components (ex. the four categories outlined in the project description). What are the best way to break down the project for 4-5 teammates such that each member of the team has an equal contribution to the project? It is important to not think of a project as linear (from inputs to outputs). Instead, think about what parts will take the most time and assign members to those tasks early. With good planning you can research and build a software components even if the prior steps are not complete.

Open Loops: A component of the project with an unclear solution. An example of an open loop includes “Review data and identify sources of error”. This loop is open because the team does not know what the sources of error are and thus can’t plan how this error will be solved. A closed loop is something like “use beautiful soup to scrape website”. Although this task may not be done there is a clear path to a solution and no obvious unknowns that will inhibit progress. Early on there may be many open loops that are easy to close. They are still open loops for example, “Pick a programming language”.

Next Steps: A task which that can be conducted right now with no known blocks or prerequisites. The best next tasks have clear criteria for completion. For example, a poor next step would be something like “write the project proposal”. A better next step may be “Write the outline for the project proposal” An even better next step would be “Spend 20 minutes writing an outline for the project proposal and then share with the team”. What is nice about the last next step is that it has a clear goal, clear finish and how to move forward.

Anticipated Challenges Often related to an Open Loop an Anticipated Challenge is something about the project that could cause it to fail. Each anticipated challenge should include suggestions for what to do avoid or get around the problem. For example, “What if there is not enough data to train the Neural Network, if so, maybe research pre-trained models and transfer learning?” Another example would be “It could take a long time to determine the best visualization for this project, make sure preliminary results of the model are obtained early in the project (within the first four weeks) so there is enough time to iterate over different visualizations.”

DO THIS: Type up the answers to the above questions by copying the Google template and sharing it with your teammates and the instructor(s) (colbrydi@msu.edu, brugnone@msu.edu).

You are encouraged to work on this document outside of class. Your team will be given 3-5 minutes on Friday to give an overview of the project to the entire class.

NOTE: You still need to individually review ALL the projects and fill out the project selection form which is due on Sunday. The teams formed today are only temporary and the project is not necessarily the one you will be assigned for the semester.

First Contact

Link to First Contact slides

Written by Dr. Dirk Colbry, Michigan State University
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.