Week 2- CST-300 Module 2

OLI – Module 2

This week’s module focused on collective intelligence, reading the mind in the eyes, behavior of good teams, and why team skills will help after graduation.

Collective intelligence illustrated how teams that have better collaboration skills were more successful. Meaning that everyone participated and contributed to complete the task or project. Some key features of successful teams were equal participation, higher number of women, and social sensitivity.

I enjoyed the reading the mind in the eyes activity. It is difficult to tell a person’s emotions by examining just their eyes and not the entire face or body language. I scored about average. I will continue to participate and share my thoughts and ideas on topics being discussed in my team.

Behaviors of good teams was a research article done at google looking for the perfect team. They found that teams promote better job satisfaction, better problem solutions and faster innovation.

Lastly, the section on why team skills will help after graduation has two videos, one with Jesse Schell, the owner of Schell games, and Jenny Liao, a software engineer at Google. They both share the importance of working in teams. You must be able to collaborate and be socially sensitive to the rest of the members in your group in order to build trust.

 

The Future is Faster Than You Think – Video Summary

This video with Peter Diamandis, discussed the rate at which the future is accelerating. He examines seven forces that are contributing to this acceleration. Computational abundance is accelerating exponentially as stated by Moore’s Law in speed, rate, and power. Time abundance has increased, and technology has allowed us to spend more time innovating instead of surviving day to day. We have more capital available than any other time in history for venture investments. Diamandis mentioned that in 2017, global crowd funding was $34 billion. Another aspect of the acceleration is the demonetization of technology. Your dollars go 10-100 times longer than before because bandwidth, computing performance and storage cost have all gone down. Communication has also facilitated the connection of people and their ideas around the world. People connecting all around the world help increase geniuses because the knowledge of previous geniuses can be passed down. The last force is increasing lifespan. He notes that for every year you’re alive, technology increases your life for more than a year. The video encourages people to start their own startup to solve the world’s biggest problems which happen to be the world’s biggest business opportunities.

 

Trends in Computing and Software Development – Article Summary

This article is from December 2022, and it touches on how the industry will develop in 2023. It predicts that AI will only continue to get better. They mention how AI is already helping programmers who use Copilot from GitHub which generates variable and function names. Also, a survey from StackOverflow shows that JavaScript is the most popular programming language which suggests that the need for front end developers will be increasing. Python, which is preferred by people without a CS degree is also mentioned. The cloud is the preferred choice for data storage and will continue to grow as well. Lastly, they predicted that tech business will grow around 10% - 20% annually.

 

Introduction to Project Management – Video Summary

The video breaks down project management. It defines a project as a temporary endeavor to create a unique product or result. A project has a predetermine start and end date. A goal also must be established. It is an output like a new building or improve an existing business process. Finally, cost determines resources specifically dedicated to accomplishing the goal in mind.

A project must relate to a business strategy. There must be a market need like software, security, or privacy. A business need is another option, like reducing cost, optimizing processes, and increase revenues. Technological advancement can also create a demand for a project like automation.

Another aspect of project management is prioritization. Management must select projects which bring the most value to the company first. At this point, they must create a portfolio of projects which is referred to project portfolio management.

The project managers are the CEO of the project. They are accountable for the entire project, for their tasks, and everyone else’s tasks. They are responsible to assess, discuss, negotiate, and adjust the goal itself if needed. This amount of responsibility requires profound knowledge. They have extensive experience in project management and business, people and workflow management, and strategy and leadership skills. Aside from these attributes, they must stay positive, and goal oriented to maintain a good project image. As a business professional, a project manager must have great morale, ethics, and credibility.

The Project Management Office (PMO) is the department responsible for managing, coordinating, and consulting project-related work. They are made up of project teams of experts responsible for the execution of the work like HR, AE engineers, web designer, and construction worker. Joint teams are often created from different companies for greater expertise amongst its members. All individuals and organizations who participate in a project can influence the project work and results. They are considered the stakeholders. The video ends by introducing Program Management, which is the management of projects with similar goals and resources, and Project Portfolio Management which is the management of multiple programs and projects.

 

Part 1: Review and Reflect Learning Strategy

The Effective Study Skills document by Dr. Bob Kizlik has extensive practical knowledge on how to improve studying. I enjoyed how he broke it down into sections like scheduling, process of study, reading, note taking, and examinations.

The three items I am good at are picking a place to study, scheduling my study time, and taking multiple choice exams. I always think of multiple-choice questions as groups of true or false, which helps eliminate the obviously false answers. 

The three items I am weak in and need to improve are taking notes, reading to acquire information, and studying until I need to go to sleep. I tend to write down everything the professor says instead of concentrating on the main point of the lecture. When I read, I tend to read too fast and miss the links between details and ideas. The paper does not go into detail of why you should never study within 30 minutes of going to sleep. I imagen that you are less likely to remember something you studied within 30 minutes of going to sleep.

 

Part 2: Preview Time Management Skills

Part 3: Project Management Basics

The three videos were “Introduction to Project Management,” “Project Management: What is a Work Breakdown Structure?” and “Project Management: What is a Gantt Chart?”

Introduction to project management explains the difference between projects and operations. A project is temporary, unique, and closed after attaining objectives. Operations are on-going, repetitive, and the objective is to sustain business. It also lists the phases of project management which include initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and control process, and closing. The reason projects need to be managed properly is because there is a high probability of failure. Projects can fail due to bad time management, cost management, scope management, and quality management.

            A work breakdown structure is typically a top-down structure depicting the work that needs to be done in a project. It starts with the project on top and you break the project down into phases which are also broken down into more manageable deliverables.

            A Gantt chart is a bar chart that shows the timeline of a project. They include all the components of a breakdown structure with the percentage of completion. It also allows for time estimates by using the formula (O + 4M + P)/6 to calculate the expected time T_E.

 

Part 4: Check Out Previous Capstones

The first capstone project that jumped at me was Mirrored Fantasy. The game looked interesting and something I would definitely play. The presentation was very informative and he showed every feature from the game. As mentioned in the video, Andrew decided to implement his own game engine. Using an existing game engine would probably improve the project but I think it would have been a missed opportunity for Andrew to create something on his own.

The second capstone project that caught my attention is Project Lia. This project takes a picture, dowering, or any image and converts it into a painting style picked by the user. This idea is great, I currently use an app called PugMug that uses AI to generate stylized images of your dog and I really enjoy it. Daniel ran into many problems in this project, but he managed to show a sample of how the program would work in an ideal environment other than Heroku and the result was fantastic.

The last capstone project I enjoyed was Date and Be Safe. It is an app that helps real users, who use dating apps for their intendent purposes, from scammers who want to take advantage of those users. This app asks users to allow access to their location and access to their camera to take a profile picture. You must accept both conditions to create a profile. This ensures other users that it is really you. The app appearance is very basic so it could benefit from customizable profiles, like they mentioned in their presentation.

 

Part 5: Week 2 Summary

Lecture Module 2

            The lecture introduced us to current trends in software engineering. AI will continue to improve, JavaScript is currently the most popular programming language, and Cloud storage will continue to dominate the data storage. The lecture also gave a realistic view of how fast technology is progressing. In my lifetime, I have seen several life changing innovations like cellphones, the internet, and the dawn of commercial space exploration. It is logical for me to believe that, in the future, it might be possible that technology will extend your life by 5 or 10 years for every year you live. The other part of the lecture talked about projects, project management, and the many responsibilities project managers must undertake.

 

Writing Lab Module 2       

This week kept me extremely busy. Up until now, I never had to write a 6-8 page essay in under a week. It was definitely a learning experience, but it is not over yet. Reviewing my teammate’s papers will allow me to improve my own writing by giving me other things to look at in my own writing. Also, that assignment will give me a look into other industries that might interest me. The writing lab also taught us about knowing your audience. The lay audience has no special or expert knowledge, the managerial audience may or may not have more knowledge than the lay audience, and the experts are the most demanding audience in terms of knowledge. It is important to keep these terms in mind when writing an essay.