Team Meeting Notes 05
October 11-13 Team Meetings
Team Meeting Objectives
If your team did not make a decision before your team meeting time, your team will start by picking your top three concepts per team. You may pursue ideas already on the table or new ones based upon what you have learned this far. Remember, your final product depends on what you pursue now!
When deciding what to do, please keep in mind the points mentioned in last week's team meeting notes:
i) pick your best options that are driven by user needs;
ii) pursue products that have a strong value proposition for a broader population of users or an underserved community/individual.
iii) Product development is different than working on a "favorite project";
iv) you want to feel ownership of the direction of your idea.
Once a decision is made, you will need to identify a clear set of tasks for addressing key risks associated with the chosen three concepts. When identifying key risks, develop a list of at least 10 critical questions and then prioritize.
Each team will focus on furthering three design concepts in preparation for the upcoming mockup review on October 20th.
Before team meeting
- Understand the requirements for mockup review
- Read and think about the sketch model review feedback
What is due
- System integrators should prepare an agenda for the team meeting and make sure that the name cards are set up on the table before the start of lab.
- The tool officer should organize a team area cleanup before your team meeting time, so that your workspace is in good shape for continuing work this week.
- Select 3 concepts for mockup. A process for decision making is described in the team meeting activities section below.
- After the team meeting, please designate one person to send an email to the course instructors indicating the three concepts that your team has chosen to pursue.
Comments
Given the limited amount of time, your team may want to decide three concepts before your team meeting. Please be sure to wait for the detailed comments from instructors (should all be in by Tuesday 10/11) before making the decision. Remember, the most important thing is for your entire team to have 3 ideas with good potential, whether they are old or newly generated ideas. Follow a rational decision process as is described in the suggested team meeting activities. If desired, you may coordinate this decision as a complete team and work on different embodiment concepts for the same product idea, but it is very important to maintain quite different options in case unanticipated problems are discovered during the mockup phase.
Activities
- Start by reflecting on your effort in the sketch model review and its outcome/feedback.
- If your team already has decided on its concepts, go straight to identifying risks.
- Discuss which of the team's ideas are to be further pursued, or if a new approach needs to be considered. You may even need to keep more than three ideas temporarily alive for further investigation. Use your sketch models, sketches, etc. to facilitate the discussion.
Decision process
Carefully develop criteria to pick between the alternatives using a Pugh chart.
Don't just ask people what they like.
Consider roughly 6 relevant factors (you may want to considered some success factors that have been observed over several years). The discussion process should be driven by information, prior investment, or opinion. FNAP! (Facts, Not Assertions Please!). Yes, FNAP! When discussing the concepts, carefully ask yourself if you are stating facts that have been learned and validated through research or experiments, or if you are just stating what you believe to be a fact! If it is only a belief it is an assertion!
Identifying risks
- Once you have picked your three concepts, identify key risk factors that must be resolved by the mockup review. Start by make a list of at least 10 critical questions for each concept. Once you have the list, prioritize the critical questions and then decide where you will focus your mockups.
- The goal at this stage is to fully address issues that could potentially prevent the concept from being successful. Some advice from the instructors may be needed in the risk identification process. More formal risk analysis will be covered later in lectures, for now just think about risks relating to execution of your concepts. Remember that you should not be trying to prototype whole products for the mockup review—there is not enough time—concentrate on the most difficult, critical aspects/subsystems and resolve them well.
- Divide your team into task forces to work on refining the concepts and resolving key risks.
- Use the remaining time to work.