Category Archives: Sprint-1

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1# Retrospective

 Hello!

 

This week marks the first week of sprint 2 proper, and as such I’ve been tasked with writing about my experiences with sprint 1.

First of all, I implemented RabbitMQ on the inventory backend, which took a while for me to accomplish simply because most of what we are doing in this class is so new to me. I’ll have a link to the merge request at the bottom of the page.

I think our group functioned pretty well during our class meetings, there isn’t that much I would change really. We were productive, everyone was super open to helping each other solve problems, and we laid out the plans for the sprint pretty effectively. 

I think in terms of things that didn’t go very well, I was having a ridiculous amount of problems setting up Visual Studio, and making the backend work. I should be through most of the problems now, (in theory), but during most of the setup process I was unable to build any of the frontends or the backends, which completely halted any progress I could have made early on, though it did give me a chance to read some documentation, and familiarize myself with the backend, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad.

Some things I need to work on going forward is my time management skills, as near the end of the sprint I was rushing to make all of my code work, which was very stressful. Had I managed my time better, this wouldn’t have happened, and going forward I am going to work on improving how I spend my time this sprint. 

Some things that we could work on as a group though, and even now I’m still seeing parts of this problem at the outset of sprint 2, is the fact that not everyone is checking the discord consistently, myself included. Part of the reason why I was so hesitant to join in on discussions in the discord chat was because I was everyone seemed like they already knew what they were doing, and I felt a little silly with some of the problems I was having. I am actively trying to do better, and I am regularly checking the discord and trying to vocalize my questions, but not everyone is online all the time, which makes getting them answered in a timely fashion difficult.

As for which apprenticeship pattern most aligned with this sprint, I would have to say the white belt is pretty spot on. While the context isn’t super relevant (I don’t think anyone called on my expertise), I was pretty consistently facing the problem on educating myself about RabbitMQ and Javascript, both of which I have no prior experience with. Not to mention I was almost in denial about my lack of learning, and for any trouble I was having, the blame was placed on the course load, not me, which isn’t very true. The white belt apprenticeship pattern centers around being willing to unlearn old skills if they are stopping you from effectively learning new ones, which I think was pretty relevant during this sprint. While I don’t think I would have unlearned all of my experience in Java had I read this pattern during the sprint, I think it would have tempered my expectations as to how quickly and easily I would be learning new skills. Learning Java was fairly pain free, but being under a time crunch and being forced to learn a bunch of new skills, it certainly would have been nice to have some idea of how the learning process was going to go.

 

As promised, here is the merge request I generated for this sprint:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-weight-based/inventorybackend/-/merge_requests/58

 

 

From the blog Camille's Cluttered Closet by Camille and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint One Retrospective

Retro

This first sprint was a deep dive into new territory. Our team focused on understanding our project, setting up the proper tools and environment, and managing challenges as they arose. We have created a working agreement, completed multiple issues on GitLab as individuals and as a team, and we have ensured collaboration was a priority throughout each task.

GitLab Activity:

  • README.md – Updated the README document for our GitLab group to detail the major goals of our project.
  • Docker Compose Watch Documentation – Drafted documentation for Docker Compose Watch for possible use for CI/CD later on

Our team dynamic has been great from the beginning with a strong working agreement in place from day one being we were able to focus on the work getting done without worrying about team cohesion. We were able to complete a lot of research during this sprint to gather information about Docker and its many variants, NGINX, and CI/CD options. This research was turned into details documentation within our GitLab group. We worked successfully toward solving problems like issues with debugging Docker Containers, using SSL certificates properly, and scheduling our tasks based on priority. Overall, flexibility in our team has been vital and we have adapted to any challenges that we have faced.

I believe we have already learned a lot through our research and time spent of digging around in the server for answers, but we can still work toward improving our outcome by approaching our research differently and ensuring we have a clear focus on what we want to accomplish. Personally, I plan to improve my work by improving my time management regarding troubleshooting/research because sometimes I can find myself down a rabbit hole and working to ensure that all of my teammates and I are on the same page through clear communications.

Apprenticeship Pattern: Retreat into Confidence

“Retreat into Competence” is a strategy for regaining confidence when feeling overwhelmed by complex challenges. It involves stepping back into an area of expertise before pushing forward again. The key is to avoid staying in the comfort zone for too long and instead use the retreat as a way to launch forward with renewed energy. During this sprint, there were moments of troubleshooting that felt a bit discouraging, particularly with Docker and SSL certificates, where progress seemed a little slow and confusing. The feeling of being stuck highlighted the need to step back into something familiar—whether it was revisiting basic Docker configurations or focusing on smaller, more manageable tasks like completing documentation on GitLab—before tackling the larger issues again. Had I known about this pattern sooner, I would have structured my work differently to maximize results. Moving forward, I plan to:

  • Time box troubleshooting sessions to avoid going down the rabbit hole
  • Focus in my research to ensure that the resulting information is useful to our project
  • Seek help from teammates during moments of need
  • Ensure that I am still completing the smaller tasks that can be completed while working on larger issues

This sprint was a valuable learning experience in both technical and team collaboration aspects. While challenges arose, the team adapted, and I gained insight into how to manage difficult situations more effectively. By refining research strategies, improving troubleshooting workflows, and applying patterns like “Retreat into Competence,” I can optimize future sprints for even greater success.

From the blog cameronbaron.wordpress.com by cameronbaron and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1 – Retrospective Blog Post

Evidence of Activity on GitLab

Reflection on What Worked Well

We planned some meetings outside of class, both of which went decently smooth. Our in class meetings were very productive and helped to set the goals for the week and keep expectations at a reasonable level. I believe that the way we split the work allowed me to focus wholly on my parts and succeed.

Reflection on What Didn’t Work Well

We didn’t end up tracking our work on this project correctly. There is work done that didn’t make it to the gitlab. Also there wasn’t a lot of using gitlab’s tools for tracking projects the way it was intended. Also some communication is getting lost between teammates.

Reflection on Improvements as a Team

I think the issues I addressed with gitlab are not too hard to fix, we just need to meet up and talk out our vision for the project. The communication issue is probably going to be harder as one group member has so many new ideas that sometimes the plan they have has changed from what was last discussed and that leads to some confusion.

Reflection on Improvements as an Individual

I personally have issues confronting people directly when it comes to ideas that I have issue with. For example, I have said before that our group should not make promises about features that aren’t explicitly in our project’s goal. I believe that the time for extra pieces that aren’t mission critical is after a viable product is finished. During a meeting with the client a teammate made a promise on a feature that wasn’t in the specifications originally. I had previously told this teammate this fact and that it was going to add more work to a project that we were already a bit behind on. Despite this communication happening, with no heads-up to the rest of the team this teammate promised to the customer that feature would be there. This upset me a bit but I can’t seem to find the courage to step up, say how I feel, and put my foot down on this issue.

Apprenticeship Pattern: Practice, Practice, Practice

Summary: If all the work you are doing requires 100% best work then find the time to practice on your own, in an environment you can make mistakes in.

Why I Selected This Pattern: I have rather high levels of anxiety when it comes to my work that others see. Instead of just the main branch being the stage where everything needs to be perfect, I saw everywhere I put any code to be a place requiring my maximum effort and best possible work.

How This Pattern Changed My Behavior: I read this chapter and because of it I made a personal repo and, from scratch, mirrored the work I was going to do in the team repo in that private repo first. It took me hours, but once I had a grasp of things I went into the team repo and it was much easier to crank out my work because I had a much more stable foundation to work from.

From the blog Coder's First Steps by amoulton2 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1 Retrospective

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-category-based/frontend/-/blob/WEB-APP-FRONTEND/src/frontend/src/components/UPCScanner.vue?ref_type=heads

This is a link to the UPC scanner component that I recently implemented.

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem-category-based/frontend/-/blob/WEB-APP-FRONTEND/src/frontend/src/layouts/MainLayout.vue?ref_type=heads

This is a link to the Main Layout for the Web App, this is essentially the homepage.

Reflection on What Worked Well

One of the biggest strengths of our team has been our ability to delegate and handle specific tasks effectively. Each team member has taken ownership of different aspects of the project, whether it’s the frontend, backend, or database. This clear division of work has helped ensure that progress is made across all areas of the application. Since I am working on the frontend, I have been able to focus on designing and implementing the UI while relying on my teammates to manage the backend and database.

Reflection on What Didn’t Work Well

Despite our strong ability to divide tasks, one area that has posed challenges is communication. There have been instances where misunderstandings or lack of updates led to delays in task completion. Additionally, not all tasks have been finished in a timely manner, which has put extra pressure on certain aspects of the project. This lack of synchronization has occasionally resulted in blockers, where one team member is waiting on another’s progress to move forward.

Changes to Improve as a Team

To enhance team efficiency, we need to establish better communication channels. This could include:

  • Holding short daily stand-up meetings to discuss progress and blockers.
  • Setting more reasonable due dates that account for individual workloads and unexpected obstacles. By implementing these changes, we can reduce miscommunication and ensure that tasks are completed within a reasonable timeframe.

Changes to Improve as an Individual

On a personal level, I recognize that I can make improvements by:

  • Checking in with my teammates more frequently to see if they need help with their tasks.
  • Setting personal deadlines to ensure I complete my work on time.
  • Being more open to suggestions and feedback from my team, as collaboration often leads to better solutions. By making these adjustments, I can contribute more effectively to the team and help ensure the overall success of our project.

Apprenticeship Pattern: “Be the Worst”

Summary: This pattern emphasizes surrounding yourself with more skilled individuals so that you can learn and improve at a faster rate. By putting yourself in challenging situations where you are not the most knowledgeable person in the room, you can grow and develop your skills through observation and experience.

Why I Chose This Pattern: During this sprint, I have noticed that I can learn a lot from my teammates, especially in areas I am less experienced in, such as backend development and database management. Rather than just focusing on my own tasks, I want to take the opportunity to learn from their expertise and improve my overall skill set.

How This Pattern Would Have Helped: If I had adopted this mindset earlier in the sprint, I would have been more proactive in asking questions and seeking guidance from my teammates. This could have helped me avoid certain mistakes and speed up my development process. Moving forward, I will embrace this approach to accelerate my learning and become a more well-rounded developer.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Software Dev Capstone by Jaylon Brodie and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.