It is very common for a project to have many problems to be solved. No matter it is a small or big problems, it is crucial for us to solve it by analyzing what cause them to appear. By then, we can figure out the best solution.
In CT project, one of the biggest problems that I think I should mention here is, “What kind of TDM are we suppose to create?”. Before the 5th lecture of CT module, we already have a great vision what kind of TDM we want to build. We have been using a few existing popular TDM and discovered their strengths and weaknesses. Then, we planned to implement their strengths without their weaknesses into our own TDM. We have even thought of a few possibly implementable special features. After having so many meetings and making so many struggling decisions, we finally have the idea of our own TDM. But after the 5th lecture, we are confused. In the lecture, Dr. D implied that most of us have been off tracked. He showed us a demo of what he wanted for the TDM. The demo TDM is very different from our ideal TDM.
The major cause of this problem is the lack of understanding on Dr. D’s vision. We thought that what he wanted is a very special TDM with special features that distinguishes itself from the others. We thought that the TDM should be for both general users and power users. However, it turns out that Dr. D only wanted a simple TDM for power users.
Another minor cause is that many of us are just perfectionists. We wanted to build the best TDM. It will be much better than all the existing ones, and more popular than the other teams’ TDM. Thus, it is inevitable for us to think of so many great ideas to be implemented into our TDM. Besides, by seeing the OP from other groups in C1 module, I can personally deduced that most of us have been off tracked due to this minor cause.
Another cause is that “Dreaming is free of charge.”. No matter how big our dreams are, it will not cost us anything. So why not think bigger? We thought that we should first think of a magnificent TDM. If we failed to implement it, then we shall try to implement a slightly less magnificent TDM. This process continues until we can build a TDM which implemented most of our big ideas. In our case, we thought too much.
The best solution for this problem is to consult Dr. D or our project tutor, and make sure we understand fully what kind of TDM we should build. This should be done as soon as possible since a lot of time has been wasted to plan for the “magnificent TDM”.
In a nutshell, we have misunderstood Dr. D’s instructions. Therefore, I think it is crucial for us to consult him or our project tutor to confirm again the instructions before we start building the TDM.
Agree. After the 5th lecture, i also realized that what the lecturer want is very different from what we want.I think the biggest mistake we made is that we were not targeting the geeks when planning our Todo manager. But i think it doesn't matter. Just like what you said, "Dreaming is free of charge".So far I still feel very excited about the ideal Todo manager we came up with.Moreover, actually our effort is not useless,because if we have enough time we can add our fancy features in our Todo manager after finishing the features required by the lecture.
ReplyDeleteAfter the 5th lecture, all of us got stunned by what Dr. Damith said. It is quite true that all the group members are perfectionists. It is actually a double-sided sword. On the one hand, we have the determination to do the best, and we want to have as many good features as possible. During the meeting, we modified features in other existing ToDo managers and also came up with new features. On the other hand, it costs a lot of time and sometimes the endless dreaming may lead us to a wrong direction. Therefore, we should use this “sword” wisely. To achieve this, we may drop some time-costly features and focus more on the ones which may bring the best interests.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we have spent lots of time just to making decisions. Hence, I think we should strictly follow what Dr. Damith wrote in module handbook from now on in order not to off the road again. The biggest mistake was that we somehow shift the main targeting users from geeks to normal users. Moreover, we should consult our project tutor frequently to make sure we are on track. It is our responsibility and benefits to contact him and we should utilise all resources we have. Furthermore, as Dr.Damith said in lecture, we should try to make a working version before improve it as “premature optimization is the root of all evil”.
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