Week 3 — Building Something from Scratch Phase: Learning from Mistakes
We just finished week number three of this phase. We got another week to go. A highlight of this week is that we had our first demo with the client. I will explain my experience here. The triple I.
Insights of the Demo
On Monday we scheduled our first demo with the client. In this meeting, we went through what was promised for this first demo. Later on, we proceeded to the demo, where we explained the principal functionalities of the system. A little of surprises we encounter on the demo, but I think they were handled with respect and professionalism. Although we did leave with some lessons, for example, what is the best way to perform the demo in the sense that the questions don't shift the main focus.
Inner conflicts
This week and the last one, as a team we encounter some conflicts. Mainly on choosing what stack we were going to use, defining the roles and tasks for each one of use. The way we resolved them I think shaped the way of the entire project. The main way to resolve this was with democracy, mainly we voted when deciding important technological decisions. Taking into count what everyone knows and master.
Another relevant point that helps us making through these hard decisions was being tolerant. Everyone has a different point of view, so keeping an open mind is crucial when working in a team (not only development teams).
There also would be times where the work might seem as too much, so knowing when to take breaks is important. Avoid burn out at all costs in situations like this is very important, taking care of your mental health always comes first!
Identifying opportunities
By this title I mean, identifying opportunities for learning. For me, was learning a lot about QR generators and scanners. It was really scary for me to jump on this kind of thing. But in the end, everything went really smoothly and the tickets were successfully made!
The other we encounter is how we can learn a lot from git. Git offers us a lot of possibilities for us to work on, and one thing I was scared to use was git revert or git reset. But in the past week, we needed to use it, so we jump on that as well. And actually, it was pretty easy that I could have imagined it.
!!!
We are almost done with this phase, the next we are going to have two demos with the client. Friday would be the final demo of this first version. Hopefully, we can survive to tell it!
