Geovani Culloton
GPS Campus Map Application:
Course | Agile Project Management
For this course, we were tasked with creating our own project in hopes of learning the steps of Agile Project management. Amongst a team of 6 students, we decided to create GPS application solely for the purpose of navigating around campus as our own campus students as the primary user. In total we practiced over a 7 sprints over the course of 8 weeks.
Summary | GPS Campus Map Application
Course | Agile Product Management
Role | Engineer
Our team was composed of a scrum master, a product owner as well as four engineers of whom I was one of.
Time Frame | 8 Weeks
Proposed solution | In order to understand Agile workflow, we will use the creation of a GPS campus map application. We used Trello as a Digital Kanban Board. We met three times a week in class, each beginning with a daily scrum. We met one day for Sprint planning, Working through our Sprint, and Sprint review/presenting to the class.
Problem solved | We not only learned what it means to conduct Agile workflow correctly, we had designed a solid mockup of a Campus Navigation Map according to our interviewees and meeting review sessions of our class.
Challenges | As a team, we found it difficult to start designing the application with the minimum viable product in mind. Once we started to understand the point of agile design, we started designing with the core intention of the app as our focus. Eventually we started steering away from the initial design so one of our engineers conducted user testing by gathering Interview responses from a Google survey in order for us to gain ideas as to how to further our focus of designing an app solely for the purpose of navigating.
User impacts | Our users were able to help maneuver us into designing with the focus of the core use of our app in mind which was navigation. We were able to think outside the box, back into the box. Looking at the bigger picture and creating a smaller picture with an app can lead students from campus building to campus building, then classroom to classroom.
Lessons learned | During this project, I learned a lot of new things. I not only learned what it meant to be agile but how to practice agile management within our groups, with clear roles and deadlines for each of our appointed tasks. I also learned how to use Adobe XD more efficiently and I learned how to use the widget library. It also occurred to me that in our group we took on what seemed to be very daunting tasks, but our communication amongst each other as well as equal work division, really aided in completing our goals. Overall, we worked well as a team and started really thriving in our Agile management environment once we fully grasped the concept.
Sprint Zero
Week One
This sprint was dedicated solely to coming up with an idea for our project, assigning roles, creating our Kanban board as well as scheduling the future of this project.
What I did this week: I came up and pitched the idea of potentially creating an application to guide students through a fictional tunnel system that was new to MSOE Campus. The thought behind this was to create something entirely new. This idea then got refined into created a GPS Application solely for the purpose of MSOE campus Navigation, thus scrapping the underground tunnel idea, but I glad to say I did kick start the developmental thought process.
Sprint One
Week Two
This was our first sprint with an official demo. We thought way too far ahead and created more then we needed, meaning this sprint did not reach the project requirement of understanding and utilizing agile workflow.
The feedback regarding our demo from our class and professor forced us to go back and rethink what to do for our next sprint. We decided moving forward we would just develop an app solely for MSOE and not implement the idea of a complete sky walkway.
What I did this week | I was responsible for brainstorming and designing the entire layout of the emergency hotline page.
Sprint Two
Week Three
This sprint went better than the last sprint, in which we decided to focus mainly on the map navigation aspect of the app in order to be more agile in our project development. We decided this is the main feature and core of the app itself that will present value in the demo and to the users themselves. We demoed a very minimal basis for how a user will open the app and choose their navigation route.
What I did this week | I created a few buildings and streets for the map structure including its layout.
Sprint Three
Week Four
In this sprint we finally felt very solid in our design choices as well as what it meant to have an agile workflow, we continued to work on the process of how students would navigate around campus. We added labels as well as a loading screen to the navigation process. We added a done pop up screen for when users arrived at their destination.
What I did this week | Each engineers was tasked with each designing three different logo designs each. Although my designs were not chosen as a logo, I still helped in the overall logo selection and iteration. I designed, "Done" page.
Sprint 3 Logo Creation
week 4
These were the logos that I had designed based on the MSOE style guide, although they were not picked, they are not too different from our final logo design choice.
Sprint Four
week five
In sprint 4 we added to our labeling system by allowing users to know which building and roads are present in the map, we also added descriptions to buildings incase users are unfamiliar with MSOE campus and need more information on campus buildings.
I worked on refining our map layout/structure, our logo placement as well as color scheme.
Sprint Five
week Six
For sprint five, we decided to survey the MSOE campus body to find out what other details would be most desirable in the core goal of our application, from those findings we created to map the campus even further by creating more color coordination for easier navigation. The navigation route has an indicator to show the user where they are as well as leading them to the classroom they desire. Once the user arrives at their location, the app will have a confetti indicator and the route will end automatically.
What I did this week | This week I worked on the navigation structure and color palette. I also worked on designing the interior map of the Campus Center building as well as the navigation showing a student attending a classroom rather than just a building.
Sprint Six
Week Seven
For sprint 6, we color coded the building and logos, as well as the map to indicate when the student is indoors vs outdoors. We also changed the indicator to a triangle rather than a dot to indicate where the user is and refined the color palettes.
What I did this week | I started adding color to our application. I chose colors based off the MSOE Style guide keep with the MSOE theme.
Sprint Seven
Week Eight
Although we did not have a sprint 7 we did set a sprint 7 for ourselves in expanding the map further out into a five mile radius of campus since students who live on campus use the local resources such as bus stops, restaurants, streetcar, grocery stores etc.
What I did this week | This week we presented our entire Agile project as a whole, including our story point estimations as well as our Sprint reviews. I presented a couple Sprint reviews as well as our story point estimations.