TEAM 18

Project Planet Seafood

Project OverviewClient Background

15 years old fresh family owned seafood business called "Planet Seafood".

Initial core business was specialized in selling lobsters.

5 years ago the client began expanding the business

Provides seafood report and recipes for ABC radio

Project Background

It's a single page website

Website contains no business contact information.

Allows subscription to weekly newsletter

WebsiteCurrent PlanetSeafood websiteCreated by a “professional company”

Project ObjectivesDevelop a fully functional website

Offering customers the ability to shop online

Contains company background history

Contains a backend for client maintenance of website

Includes recipes/ video cooking presentation

Team Processes

Democratic and open process of organisation of work and activities

Work/ idea is proposed openly

Discussion of the work/ idea

Tested and trial idea/work

Feedback from work/ idea

Refine and improve

Aim for constant improvement of team work

Methods of CommunicationEmails

Mobile phones for immediate or urgent needs

Weekly Skype meeting on Wednesday 7 PM

Weekly contact on Monday meeting at 9 AM

Additional meetings to be decided by project leader

Friday meeting to overlook and discuss project deliverable

Reflection on CommunicationNo confusion with communication because

ALL members are included in ALL emails.

Status update one day before initial draft deadline allows project team leader to react to possible problems

Constant communication ensures everyone is constantly in the loop

Allocation of ActivitiesWork is discussed on Friday tutorial

Group discussion to decide which part would best suit individual member’s skill and expertise

Work is allocated evenly

Assign deadline for work to be completed on Monday 9 AM

Initial Draft compiled on Monday night

Each team member revise draft and send team leader revision of draft in highlighted colour

Reflection on Allocation of ActivitiesWhat didn’t work?

Setting work to be done on a day without a firm deadline

Group review of work over Skype was time consuming and inefficient

Reflection on Allocation of Activities

What worked?Set deadline for work to be completed

Revision to be done separately and in own time.

Amended work to be highlighted in a different colour

Reliant on team members being able to work independently and effectively

Where We StandProject is in its early stages

Our problems have been primarily team member issues

No project issues or client issues to report as yet

First Major ProblemMissed a deadline by several days

Insufficient time to review the product

During this review time, some team members had classes

Led to desperate last minute review

Our SolutionIncreased communication, particularly with

deadlines approaching

Review of deadlines, discussion of the importance of each deadline

Refinement of work practises focusing on document review

The OutcomeMet every deadline during next deliverable

Overcame many new challenges while still meeting these deadlines

Second Major ProblemWeek 5, one of our team members dropped

the subject

We’d already had several team and client meetings, and a social outing

Significantly impacted the morale of the group

Issues This CausedThe member’s work had to be completed

within our deadlines

Team was unmotivated, working on a project that may be cancelled

This made committing to team communication more difficult

Our SolutionsLessons learnt earlier helped us overcome

this

When the member left we were ahead of deadlines

Our schedule was lenient, allowed small over-runs without effecting further deadlines

Good communication practise helped us, though communication did fall a bit

Third Major ProblemReceived a new team member

Sent team back to “forming” phase

Required social integration within team

Introduction of work practises, software tools, etc

Introduction to client and the project

Our SolutionOrganise a second social outing, doubling as

a work break for our current team members

Regular communication and with our new member to aid integration

Introduction to software and work practises as early as possible