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Project Management

Team D: FireFly

Arjun Chauhan, Kevin Gmelin, Sabrina Shen, Manuj Trehan, Akshay Venkatesh

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Methodology

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Methodology - (Approximately) Agile

WBS work packages treated similarly to product backlog
Gantt chart centered around achieving different milestones each sprint
Kanban board in Asana for Sprint Backlog
Biweekly stand-up/backlog grooming meetings
Weekly meeting with main stakeholder
Single project manager - serves roles similar to both scrum master and product owner

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WBS and Gantt Chart

Simple tools

Gantt chart - google sheets
WBS - bullet points in google doc

Gantt Chart focused on progress review milestones
Unlike traditional agile user stories, our work packages are not very customer-centric

User stories don’t make as much sense for our project - they make more sense for software where marginal updates are useful for customer

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Asana

Contains type of Kanban board / Sprint Backlog

To Do
Doing
Done

Each task can only have one assignee
Divide work into projects

Wildfire Monitoring
Project Class
Business Class

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Bi-weekly Meetings (To be discussed in more detail in second half of presentation)

15 minutes - Status Updates (standup)
15 minutes - Backlog Grooming, Task Allocation, planning
Remainder - swarming
Running google slides doc

Agenda
Status updates
Discussions

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Other Tools Used (Should be familiar to everyone)

Slack Workspace (Better than just a channel
Shared Drive on Google Drive
Diagrams.net
GitHub
GrabCad Workbench - GitHub for CAD

Overall, we have found simplicity and flexibility to be better than complicated, fancy tools

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Manuj

Apart from Asana, some other tools that we use in order to help with monitoring progress include:

A separate Slack workspace. We were initially using just a channel, but shifting to a separate workspace allowed us to create multiple channels and segregate discussions

A shared drive on Google Drive, which contains all documents and files related to the project. This has subfolders for meeting documents, project management, literature research, field tests, project course related documents and systems related documents including conceptual design review, reports and presentations

We have been creating and maintaining flow charts on diagrams.net. This links to our shared google drive so that all diagrams are stored there

A GitHub organization containing multiple repositories for different tasks and assignments

A GrabCAD team workbench for all things CAD. It is basically version control for CAD models and helps us in keeping track of and reviewing changes to any models

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Experimental Procedures - Something we found useful that’s related to PM

Flight Test Experimental Procedure

we obtained this format from our project point of contact

Contains:

Experiment Summary and Goals
Staging Location
Environment Conditions
Agenda
Roles
Packing Checklist
Experiments

Equipment
Procedure
Success Metrics

Experiment Logs

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Manuj

We would like to highlight one thing that helped us in preparing for and keeping track of our field tests. It is a document for Flight Test Experimental Procedure. We obtained this document format from Andrew, our point of contact in the AirLab

The document basically helps us to prepare for every flight test, and ensures that we do not leave anything behind, which would render the flight test useless. This includes information related to the experiment to be performed during that test, the location of the test, what agenda are we aiming for, in the test, the roles for each team-member during the flight test

We also have a packing checklist which includes basically everything we might need for the test, including equipment and tools.

We create a detailed experimental procedure for the test to be performed and define success metrics as well, which help us gauge the performance during the test

We also log down the results of our tests to keep a track of our progress

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Why we chose these methods (Benefits)

Progress reviews are spaced close enough that they can serve as sprint demos
Issues come up often and in unpredictable ways

Standup/backlog grooming twice a week helps to be flexible

Standup twice a week makes more sense than daily for our work patterns

Project is not a 9-5 job - we work more sporadically and in spurts - might not always complete any work between daily standup meetings
Sending updates and talking on slack works well between standup meetings

Using slides for agenda and status updates serves as documentation

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Sabrina

The structure of the MRSD project course includes progress reviews which are spaced closely enough such that they can serve as sprint demos. During these reviews, we will be able to get valuable feedback from our instructors, and we plan to share these presentations with Andrew, who we have mentioned to be our point of contact with the airlab as well as one of our main stakeholders
Issues come up often and in unpredictable ways. By conducting standups and grooming the backlog twice a week we are able to be afford more flexibility to accommodate unforeseen changes
This twice a week schedule also makes more sense than daily meetings for our team’s work patterns. Project is not a 9-5 job and we all other commitments both within and outside of the the project, this means that individuals will often have period of high and low work productivity. Thus, work may not be complete on a daily basis, but meaningful contributions are usually done every few day. Rather than updating one another in person on a daily basis, we have found that quick updates through slack suffice for communication between standup meetings
Our ever expanding slides, used to keep track of agenda and status, help the team communicate efficiently during meetings and serves as a good method for bookkeeping past work.

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Challenges

As we’re all working together for the project, project course team assignments and the business course project, meetings/ sprint task allocations devolve into an amalgamation of all of these.
This sometimes makes it hard to keep track of each of the individual projects.
We fight the nearest fires first instead of following a higher level plan.
Till recently we were also trying to align our sprint meetings with our stakeholders at the AirLab

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Moving Forward

More formally define duration of sprints
Have formal sprint planning and sprint retrospective meetings
Formalize 3 question status updates - we naturally end up doing something similar, but it has been informal

What did you do?
What do you plan on doing?
Any impediments?

Manage risk in a more structured way

Perhaps have project manager have slide on updates for risk management during meetings

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Stand-Up Meetings

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Stand-Up Meetings - Logistics

Two stand-up meetings per week - Tuesdays and Fridays
Held over zoom or in the robo-lounge, depending on agenda and if class is in-person
Meetings are about one hour long
Meeting Docket:

Review Agenda
Status updates
Backlog grooming, planning, task allocation
Address any other business items requiring entire team

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Stand-Up Meetings - Status Updates

Everyone shows up, speaks, and answers questions
Have not formally been asking three questions, but moving forward:

What have you done since the last meeting?
What do you plan on doing next meeting?
Do you need any help?

Issues brought up and how we handled them:

Managing scope between the interests of our stakeholder and interests of the team

We handled this by bringing this up with our stakeholder and setting more clear boundaries and project scope

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Stand-Up Meetings - Value (Or lack thereof)

Arjun

Meetings help the team keep track of individual progress or lack thereof
Helps in adjusting and fine tuning tasks assigned
Ensures that there is frequent communication and correction in tasks assigned
Also allows for people to help each other if need be
Holds people accountable for their work and contribution to the team

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Stand-Up Meetings - Value (Or lack thereof)

Kevin

Serve as a motivator to keep everyone working steadily on the project throughout the week
Allow for documentation of progress
Allow for greater collaboration

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Stand-Up Meetings - Value (Or lack thereof)

Sabrina

Good for tracking and motivating individual progress

setting short term goals which are more approachable while keeping the bigger picture in mind

Keeps track of blockers and addresses them in an effective manner

Take notice of bottlenecks and arrange priorities
Get teammate’s feedback and help

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Stand-Up Meetings - Value (Or lack thereof)

Manuj

A review of everybody’s progress and a plan for what to do next
Meetings help in keeping everyone on the same page regarding current/future work
Acts as a discussion/brainstorming session. Share ideas with each other
Discuss and help with problems

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Stand-Up Meetings - Value (Or lack thereof)

Akshay

What is the value of these meetings?

Gives a picture everyone’s workload and progress
Helps lay down context for planning for the next sprint
Nice time to bounce off ideas and ask for suggestions

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Questions?

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