When given any cool new project, it can be hard to resist the urge to dive in and get to work. Most people understand that for a team, some design is needed but the temptation to rush through it is still there. However, this can be disastrous for the project. The most important lesson I am taking from this course is the importance of the design phase in software engineering. 

The Problem Statement and Requirements Document were about defining the problem to be solved. While working on the Requirements Document, we found that despite working from the sponsor’s description, we had different understandings about the problem. Working on these documents allowed us to reach the same understanding of the problem.

The Individual Design and Design Document helped us to plan out our project. Because we had done our own independent research for the previous documents, we all had different knowledge about Unity and how our project must work. The multiple versions of the Design Document gave us the chance to share our knowledge and iterate on our designs. For me, prototyping a feature was incredibly helpful as it showed me some problems with my design that needed to be fixed.

While doing so many documents can feel repetitive, going through all the steps helped me figure out what I didn’t know and even discover what I didn’t realize I didn’t know. This saved me from having to rewrite large amounts of code in the future and I now feel more confident moving forwards with the project.