Evaluation ‐ Milestone 1 (24.03.2024)

Evaluation - Milestone 1 (24.03.2024)

24 March 2024 marked the initial milestone of Community Information Management System project. The deliverables were the repository, the requirements, the designs and the plan.

In the beginning of this project, I approached each task individually, separate from the big picture. Initially, I started working on the requirements based on the audio recording provided, covering what the customer wanted. Covering only the visible parts was partly due to the assumption that I would get back and work on the requirements in a much detailed manner, when a fitting time period is available.

Looking back, I see two problems with this way of thinking:

• Available time period is not something to assume, but something to plan and create
• As one task gets left behind, what enables an efficient revisit to it is the time and effort initially put into it

Initially, I wrote some of the requirements as user stories, and then wanted to make a switch to shall statements and ended up with a mixed document, which was in my to do, to fix these.

As I progressed to make the mockups of the software, I noticed that there are untold things in the requirements which unveiled as I imagined the way the application would actually work, partly due to the visual aspect of mockups. Then, I decided to make the mockups "sketchy" for the moment being, as apparently I will need to revisit the mockups after I revisit the requirements and understand more about the project.

After this build up, in preparation of the milestone, there were things to fix (requirements, user scenarios, mockups) and things to create (design, planning). In proportion with the time availability I had:

• I fixed the requirements format and made some additions
• I created user scenarios and mockups; however, I spend unproportionate amount of time
• I created the use case diagram based on my requirements

In the end, I was supposed to move on to the planning phase; however, I started noticing missing elements of my work. I noticed that not concentrating on understanding the big picture, along with the assumption of available time periods to complete half-baked materials put me under stress and also distanced me from the project.

Thanks to this experience so far, I realize that I will benefit from investing in the understanding and creation of the big picture for my project first. This is why, instead of creating a half-baked plan for the milestone deadline, I chose to delay planning of the assignment for the moment. I will make sure that the existing parts of the project will fit with the project plan, and then take one step at a time in a mindful manner.