Team Contract

Guiding Principles

Our key guiding principle is simple: be a team player. This incorporates a wide variety of behaviors which center on the goal of making the College Connect team a comfortable and productive space for everyone involved. We expect each team member to respect and thoughtfully consider other’s ideas and opinions. We additionally expect that all members of the team will make every effort to accommodate their teammates’ schedules and demands. We want to preserve flexibility in our scheduling and planning as much as possible so that we can effectively navigate the hectic lives of each team member, and we can only do this if everyone commits to working collaboratively and respectfully. Our main objective is to design the best product possible, and we know that this can only happen if we work effectively as a team.

Our Purpose

The essential purpose of our team is to work collaboratively and produce a design for College Connect that is both aesthetically and functionally pleasing.

Group Roles

Member roles will be skill-based and determined when tasks are assigned. Depending on the task at hand, members will discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and divide work accordingly to match our division of labor plan.

Division of Labor

Work will be divided equally among us. We plan on dividing work when it is assigned. Our priority will be ensuring that each group member spends roughly the same amount of time outside of class (as a team or individually) working on a particular assignment. We will consider relative ability of group members, the size of an assignment, and any other relevant factors to divide work as evenly as possible. In extenuating circumstances, we will do our best to accommodate our teammates’ needs and assign a reasonable work load.

Team Plan

Between tasks the group will: meet, discuss the ultimate goal, break that goal into milestones into parts and divide work as stated above. For the next particular task (the group proposal and group contract), we will create a repository on GitHub and add team members as collaborators. Then as a team, we will evaluate the index page and revise the group proposal. For the group contract, since we have already discussed the specific components in class, the sections will be evenly divided so that everyone completes a portion. We will then collaboratively design a team logo and submit the page. All communication will either be online or in-person.

Meeting Management

Our weekly meetings will be on Wednesdays, 1:00 to 1:30 pm. Any group member can propose to add meeting times, and the group will vote to decide if the proposal passes. Attendence is required for all members, unless special circumstances arise. All group members are expected to arrive on time. Everyone is expected to have a positive attitude, and should be excited for work. During a meeting, anyone can re-adjust the task focus if we run off-track. Decisions will be made by voting. There will be no ties, since we have three members. If two members have conflicting ideas, the third person will break the tie via voting.

Accountability Process

All work should be fully documented. We will be using GitHub as a sharing tool, and use either in-person or online communication. All changes should be recorded either by informing the group, or recorded as commit descriptions on GitHub. We will inform each other both before and after we make significant changes. For larger assignments, we will establish particular checkpoints during our weekly meetings at which each member should update the team. In the instance that a group member cannot complete their assigned work, we expect that they will communicate this as soon as possible to the rest of the team so that we can make a plan to resolve this issue.

Rewards and Punishments

All members will need to be committed to this project. Thus, our reward for collective effort will be a good product/design. However, if we slack and do not produce good work, our respective punishment will be a poor product/design. Also, one built-in reward/punishment is the individual feedback team members will be given.

Follow-up

We will revisit revisions of our contract every three weeks, or whenever a group member feels appropriate. A team member can call attention to issues that arise that are not covered under the contract by direct communication, either via in-person discussion or online messages. A revision will be made if more than half of the group agree.