Jake Kimmerer

1003407636
December 8, 2016
Personal Design Practice Checklist

Ask for feedback more often(Team)

Asking for feedback, whether it is from the teaching team or from a stakeholder, will
ensure that the team stays on track and continues to move towards achieving the goal of the
design activity. This is something my team was on the negative end of approaching alpha. We
had not gotten feedback on our brief and not approached the teaching team or stakeholders for
feedback on what we had done, which caused a lot of problems in our alpha presentation, as
shown in the comments.

Seeking feedback is a way of minimizing regret because it ensures that the team does not
drift far from their goals and the goals of the stakeholders.

Create a requirements model that is clearly connected, where each subsequent part builds
off of the last(Team)

Ensuring that every part of the requirements model builds off of the objectives and all the
other subsequent parts build off of each other ensures that all of the requirements are fulfilled by
the teams design concepts. If the metrics, constraints, and criteria are all connected to the
objectives of the stakeholders, then any design that follows the requirements is almost
guaranteed to achieve the goals of the stakeholders. This is something my team struggled with
when writing our original brief, as our requirements were largely disconnected from each other.
This resulted in us needing to rewrite almost all of our brief before crit.
 This is a way to minimize risk as writing a cohesive model the first time will result in less
time being spent on rewriting the model later in the design process, taking away from other
design activities.

Ensure that all requirements are fulfilled by a design concept(Team)

This serves two purposes. The first is that it ensures that only ideas that fulfill the
requirements are actually considered moving forward in the design process. Second, it can reveal
how you may want to refine the requirements in a design brief if a design concept does not fulfill
all of the requirements but still achieves the objectives of the brief. This was an issue my group
encountered before alpha. Our concepts did not fulfill all of our requirements, and based on this
we altered both the design concepts and the requirements within our brief.

This is a way to maximize gain because it ensures that the progress made in the design
process is within the scope of the brief, and can help a team to improve the brief in previously
unseen ways.

Establish when team meetings occur well in advance(Team)

This is important because it allows time to plan when team

meetings will happen in accordance to everyones schedules so that
all team members can attend the entirety of the meeting. It also gives
team members time to prepare for the meeting so that work can be
started immediately at the commencement of the meeting. My team
did not do this, we usually planned meeting times the day of the
meeting. This left us somewhat unorganized and sometimes not
everyone could attend the meetings. Planning ahead is a way to
maximize gain as it allows more work to be done during the meetings as people will have time to
prepare for the meetings beforehand instead of right at the start of the meeting.
 Verification of design concepts through testing(Team)

One of the things I am most proud of from this past semester is the
effort my praxis team put in to verifying our design concepts by creating
physical prototypes of our design concepts in order to test them against our
metrics. We also created tests, specifically the Lux Test and the Dot
Counter Test, in order to test our prototypes. These tests helped us to
decide on which design concept to recommend and acted as background
research justifying why our recommended design was the one we were
recommending.

This is a away to maximize gain as it is a way to better understand how your design
concepts actually fair against each other and helps you to determine the benefits of each one.
Without testing and verification, it is difficult to understand these things.

Begin projects right away, not when a deadline is approaching(Individual)

Starting a project right when it is assigned, instead of procrastinating until the project is
due, allows for more time to actually work on the project and in my opinion reduces the amount
of stress experienced by a person because one is no longer rushing to complete projects. This is
something I unfortunately did not do in a lot of my classes, as I tended to leave assignments to
the last minute. My teams also tended to do this, as can be seen in the time-log of my CIV 102
bridge team.
 Starting well in advance will minimize regret as it will allow more time to finish the
project and can result in better quality than a rushed project that was completed at the last
minute.

Use a collaborative document to complete reports(Team)

Using a document that everyone can edit at the same time allows for another form of
communication between teammates. It allows for teammates to see in real-time what other
teammates are working on and can be used to determine what needs to be done next. All of my
teams this semester used Google Drive documents to work collaboratively.

Having a collaborative document maximizes gain because it ensures teammates see the
progress done on the project at any time and can help complete work in a more timely fashion as
no time needs to be taken to combine separate documents.

Dont be afraid to ask teammates for help(Individual)

When one is struggling to complete their individual contribution to their team the best
thing a teammate can do is to ask their team for help. This is because if a person were to just
struggle to complete a task on their own then the task may not get completed or get completed in
an undesired way. I experienced this when I took on all of the responsibility of formatting and
submitting the design recommendation for my team. I struggled to submit the recommendation
on time and I ended up leaving out a reference because of a lack of time. I should have asked my
team for help formatting so that I could finish the work I had to include in the report. That way,
we could have had everything included in the report the first time while still having it formatted
 and submitted on time.

Asking my teammates for help when I need it would be a way of minimizing regret as it
would help to ensure that work would not suffer from individual lack of understanding or lack of
time. Asking for help would also help to learn by completing a task, but by completing it with
help from others.

Be confident in presentations (Individual)

When it comes to speaking in front of an audience, I dont think there is anything more
important than speaking with confidence. In my personal experience, speaking with confidence
not only helps ones self to feel more comfortable on stage, it actually helps you remember what
you plan on saying. Speaking with confidence also helps you to develop a sense of ethos with
your audience as believing in yourself will make you seem more credible to others. [1]

In my opinion, speaking with confidence is a way to maximize gain. A presentation that

will only be hindered by speaking with a quiet, monotone voice. Speaking with confidence
allows ones self to drive points home. I found success with this in my opportunity pitch and my
CIV 102 bridge pitch, as the comments suggested that my confident speaking helped to
command the attention of my audience.
 Divide group work equally(Team)

One of the best ways a team can work together effectively is by

splitting up work equally. I have learned this from personal experience,
Person 2
particularly over this semester. My praxis team shared the work load
Person 3
fairly equally which lead to few conflicts within the team and a smooth
Person 4
completion of most of our projects. My CIV Team on the other hand had
a very unbalanced distribution of work. This lead to me and one other teammate completing the
majority of the work, including pulling an all-nighter to build the bridge. By sharing work load
equally, a team is maximizing gain because they are able to give each section of the project an
equal amount of time, meaning that all parts of the project can be completed with similar
standards of quality.

Establish project formatting initially(Team)

It is a lot of work to format an entire project once it is

complete. This is what ended up happening to most of my teams
this term, with e being the one volunteering to format the reports.
By having formatting in place from the start, no time will be
needed at the end of the project to complete formatting. This is a
way to minimize risk as less time will be needed to complete
purely aesthetic parts of the project.

Ensure background research is present to justify

claims(Individual)

Any claim that is made must be backed up with evidence to provide an argument as to
why the claim can be made. Without background research, there is no way to argue whether a
claim is valid unless the claim is basic common sense. Having background research makes
claims more credible and allows you to justify your claims with more than just your personal
reasoning. This is something my praxis team struggled with our design brief, particularly with
our metrics. Most of the metrics we developed had no background research, such as information
from handbooks or collected data, meaning that our metrics were completely unjustified and not
justifiable past our words. This was reflected in the comments of our brief.

Having background research to back claims is a way of minimizing risks. By having

justification to back up your claims, it is easier to defend your claims when they come under
attack by a stakeholder or an assessor.

References

[1] G. Ambler and Luke, "Home," 2014. [Online]. Available:

http://www.georgeambler.com/5-ways-persuade-character-ethos/. Accessed: Dec. 8, 2016.