Class Agenda

Key to your success this semester is working together as a group and being effective when you are together. Today we are going to practice conducting meetings.

Class Agenda

(20 minutes) Tower Building Exercise
(10 minutes) Team Organization - Roles and Goals
(40 minutes) Team “working” Meeting

0. Sit with your teams

Make sure you sit with your team. Make sure you have a “team name tag”. You will be expected to do this each class without reminders. Remember your team name tag should include:

Team Name
Team Logo
Names of team members

1. Tower Building Exersize

Instructor has slides for this (with surprises)

2. Team Organization - Roles

As a class we will discuss ways that you can organize your teams. Often it is helpful to assign permanent or temporary team roles to help divide the responsibility and help keep people on track.

How you ultimately decide to organize your team is up to you but you will be expected to communicate your organizational structure to your instructors for feedback. It is recommended that you try to keep things simple to start.

Use your Team Charter assignment to write down how you would like to self govern. Individuals should have more than one Role and it may be helpful to identify a Primary and Secondary person for each role. An example set of roles you could include in your team charter include:

Suggested Capstone Team Roles (Collaborative Leadership Model)

Each team member is expected to contribute to all aspects of the project. The following is a list of suggested leadership roles your team could use to help ensure leadership and coordination in key aspects of the project. Each member of the team can have more than one role. During meetings you can have a report from each roles o make sure you are covering all of your needs. Your team should decide what roles make the most sense for your project.

For each role it is recommended that you assign a primary and secondary person to work as a team (in case someone is absent or needs help). For the following a team of five students would need four roles. It may be helpful to consolidate or change the roles to better match the team size and project. Also be flexible and willing to adjust throughout the semester based on lessons learned.

Role	Responsibilities	Primary	Secondary
Project Lead	Coordinates project planning, timelines, and task delegation. Helps the team stay organized and ensures assignments and milestones are met.	Person1	Person2
Git Coordinator	Leads version control practices by guiding the team on Git workflows, managing the repository structure, and supporting code integration.	Person3	Person4
Communication Coordinator	Facilitates communication through Microsoft Teams and email. Ensures updates, meeting notes, and announcements are shared consistently.	Person2	Person5
Community Partner Liaison	Serves as the primary contact for the community partner. Coordinates meetings, gathers feedback, and ensures the team aligns with partner expectations.	Person1	Person3
Data Lead	Guides the team in acquiring, cleaning, and managing datasets. Helps ensure ethical and effective data use.	Person4	Person3
Modeling Lead	Supports the team in developing and evaluating models. Encourages best practices in experimentation and reproducibility.	Person3	Person5
Visualization & Reporting Lead	Helps the team design effective visualizations and reports. Ensures insights are communicated clearly and professionally.	Person5	Person4
Documentation & QA Lead	Encourages thorough documentation and quality assurance across all deliverables. Supports peer reviews and consistency checks.	Person4	Person1
Media & Video Coordinator	Leads the planning and production of the three video assignments. Coordinates scripting, recording, and editing efforts.	Person5	Person2
Outreach & Media Lead	Coordinates the media outreach assignment. Supports the creation of public-facing content such as blog posts, posters, or social media updates.	Person2	Person5

Successful teams will divide the work into roles and goals for the team. How y

3. First Team “Working” Meeting

Throughout the semester you will be expected to conduct regular team meetings (weekly). For every team meeting you will identify a facilitator, time keeper and note taker (rotate these roles).

Your instructors will expect to be able to go to your team drives at any time during the semester and be able to review your up-to-date meeting notes. If they are not there your entire team will receive a zero and will not be able to make it up.

Today we will be practicing for the first official meeting. To help you out we have provided a draft agenda:

Meeting Agenda

(5 minutes) Identify and record meeting roles (Note taker, Timekeeper, Facilitator).
(5 minutes) Review this agenda (make changes as needed).
(10 minutes) Create and share team git repository. (ensure your instructors are able to clone).
(10 minutes) Review Milestone Assignments, finish up team charter and hand out “Next Actions” to everyone on the team. Next Actions should be clearly recorded in your meeting notes with who what and when information.

Understanding Git

It is assumed that you have been introduced to git in previous classes. We will be using it a lot in this class. Students that are uncomfortable with git may want to review the following tutorials. It is the entire teams responsibility to help your fellow members learn and use git properly:

Git Tutorials

Another fun resource is the following game which tries to teach you git:

Git Game

Getting Credit for this assignment

To get credit for this assignment submit your meeting notes to your teams drive. More information can be found here. Before you leave you must make sure that everyone on the team (including the instructors) are able to clone your repository.

Rubric: First Team Meeting & Git Setup Assignment

Criteria	Excellent (Full Credit)	Satisfactory (Partial Credit)	Needs Improvement (No Credit)	Points
Meeting Agenda Coverage	All agenda items were clearly discussed and documented. Notes reflect thoughtful discussion and planning.	Most agenda items were addressed, but some details are missing or unclear.	Few or no agenda items were addressed. Notes are vague or incomplete.	5
Team Collaboration	Notes reflect active participation from all team members. Roles and responsibilities are clearly assigned.	Some team members participated. Roles are mentioned but not clearly defined.	Little evidence of collaboration. Roles are missing or unclear.	5
Git Repository Setup	Repository is properly initialized. All team members and instructors have access and can clone it.	Repository is set up, but access is incomplete or not verified for all members/instructors.	Repository is missing or inaccessible.	5
Clarity & Organization of Notes	Notes are well-organized, easy to read, and free of grammar/spelling issues.	Notes are somewhat organized but may contain minor errors or unclear sections.	Notes are disorganized, hard to follow, or poorly written.	5
Submission & Accessibility	Notes are submitted to the team drive on time and accessible to all team members and instructors.	Notes are submitted but access is limited or submission is late.	Notes are not submitted or not accessible.	5
Total			25 points

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