31.4 Teamwork

"There is no I in TEAM"

In this project, CS 61B really pushes you to work together just like in our last project 2B. We are doing teams of 2 this semester so that there is more creativity in the open-endedness of this Software Engineering Project.

Ancillary reason: Also reduces programming workload per person, but the project is small enough that a single person can handle it. So please work well together and coordinate how you would like to work together through the small time you have in finishing this project.

Typically, we have done another project, Gitlet, which is a solo software engineering project in the year 2015. In 2016, the software engineering project was to make an Editor which was again, solo. In 2017, we had an amazing project called Databases which was a partner-project! And since 2018 to now, 2022, we have now been doing BYOW with a partner. I personallu, actually had Professor Hilfinger in Spring 2022 where I did Gitlet, but we are now back to BYOW. A majority of partnerships have gone well, but some have not unfortunately. In the real world, some tasks are much too large to be handled by a single person. When faced with the same task, some teams succeed, where others may fail. We ask that you do your best to partner up. Remember to take turns in coding and communicate efficiently and effectively. Please treat each other with respect and be open and honest with each other. Make sure to set clear expectations and please start early on. If these expectations are not met, confront this fact head on.

Reflexivity

• “A group’s ability to collectively reflect upon team objectives, strategies, and processes, and to adapt to them accordingly.”

• Recommended that you “cultivate a collaborative environment in which giving and receiving feedback on an ongoing basis is seen as a mechanism for reflection and learning.”

  • It’s OK and even expected for you and your partner to be a bit unevenly matched in terms of programming ability

Feedback (especially negative)

Sometimes we recieve feedback that makes our day and cheers us up. Sometimes we recieve criticism which feel judgemental or in bad faith. Thus we personally sometimes fear giving feedback in fear that our feedback is misconstrued as an attack or taken offensively. Please do not take negative feedback to heart. Please always remember feedback is about listening actively and being patient and then responding by improving what can be fixed. All of you are amazing students and I know all of you are capable of making good decisions. So please make sure to be responsible and respectful of your peers and always feel free to talk to a member of course staff if you are not feeling okay about something. We are always here to help.

Team Reflection

We ask that you please reflect on this software engineering project and the teamwork that was present in this project.

• This partnership has worked well for me.

• This partnership has worked well for my partner.

• Estimate the balance of work between you and your partner, briefly explain.

  • 50/50 means you estimate you each contributed about equally.

  • Note, contributing does not mean lines of code. We mean contribution in a more general sense.

• If applicable, give a particularly great moment from your partnership.

• What’s something you could do better?

• What’s something your partner could do better?

Note: Except in extreme cases, we will not be penalizing partners who contributed less!

Everyone on course staff hopes you use this advice to only benefit you in your final and memorable software engineering project and hopefully the software engineering projects that are yet to come in your lives! Happy coding everyone!