The stages of progression

One of the most satisfying realizations that one could make is to find out how one interfaces with different facets of the developmental process. The parts of the development that made the most impressions on me are at the beginning and implementation step. The reason why the initial part of the project made the most impression on me was due to the process of identifying the needs of the project requester. One would assume that it will be easy to convey what one needs, but I was quite surprised as to how nuanced the process is. To me, the process itself appears to be a hybrid between science and art because it details the programs capability and at the same time describing how it will couple with the needs of the customers, respectively. Furthermore, the identifying the needs sets the tone of the project and having it clearly defined makes dividing the steps towards completion easier. The implementation step is the other part that made the most impression on me this quarter mainly because programmatic tasks can be accomplished in many different ways ranging from market available solutions such as open access modules to custom solutions that are very specific to the requirement at hand. Having many choices for a programmer is akin to being a kid again at a candy store specially when your parents tell you to only choose a few amongst the many choices available. One’s childhood memory would certainly be filled with the pros and cons of choosing a specific candy over the other. That is exactly what happened during the development process where we explored the different tools that were available and some that are new to us. However, the final choices boiled down to what is best for the objective of the program being developed. Now that we are starting to fine tune the algorithms and starting to wrap up the project, it is fun to see what choices we made and why as we write our report for the project.

Personal growth

The biggest breakthrough for me during the development process is learning more about how I operate in a team environment. It was not until this course that I have come to realize how much I had been isolated from the social aspects of developing software solutions with a team. Up until this course, many of the projects are focused on individual performance on course curated programming problems, which serves their purpose well. The simple descriptor I will use to working with a team with highly motivated members is infectious, and I mean that in positive light. I have come to realize that my best is brought out by the motivated environment of the development team, and this is important because I know this is something I can develop in the right environment which will inform some of my decisions for future employment. The other biggest breakthrough for me is making best use of my time in looking into details of generative AI and how it can be incorporated into SaaS implementations.

Course SWOT analysis

Strengths of the course are definitely its heart, which is the programmatic capstone project, and having an industry sponsor with a specific real-world problem to be solved. The combination of the two above is a good way to get experience in a controlled setting allowing the students flexibility to reflect how they match with the software development process.

Weakness for the course, as I see it, is the amount of time to set up the project to get it rolling. After everything was said and done, the amount of time that was left for the development was at least a week less than what I had anticipated.

Opportunity to improve the course is to make sure that the project description is on point with what the project proposer needs. Some of the project description was a bit lackluster and thus has eaten into the development time. Although, there is an argument to be made that communicating with the customer and creating user stories to identify what the project needs is valuable experience in itself.

Threats I could see that could affect the quality of the course is increasing the amount of ‘busy’ work that detracts from its main objective. As it stands, the course has the right balance between reporting and meetings, which are close to what one would experience in a professional setting.