The BYTE® Hackz

A 2.5-day Hackathon for students in PFD, in their Agile
teams, to rapidly create a prototype, in response to a
pre-selected challenge statement. Teams are to give a
15-min pitch on the final day.

~15 - 17 November 2022

Overall the Hackathon was an enjoyable experience as I got together with my group mates to create a solution. It was frustrating when we encountered when encountered. However it was satisfying when we were able to collectively overcome the bugs.

It was also a unique opportunity to get everyone to work on the product together despite conflicting schedules & priorities.

The Good

Supportive Teammates

The team was very supportive of one another's decision and differences were resolved through non-confrontational discussions and debates

Due Diligence

. Team members made an effort to improve the quality of the product and communicate with one another often throughout the Sprint and hackathon.

Collective Effort

Collaboration was encouraged as everyone in the class wanted to create a product that would benefit the client and therefore, there was a lot of sharing of valuable information between the development teams.

Finished The Job

We were able to solve all the technical problems encountered along the way and were able to finish all the items on the Spring Backlog and fulfil the Sprint Goal.

Area for Improvement

Misunderstood Requirements

There was confusion in the use of SkillJar (A Learning Management System) and the various pain points during meetings with the stakeholder (Workato) which led to an unclear Sprint Goal. We made a considerable number of assumptions about the problems that Workato had.

Inefficient work delegation

There was an over deployment of team members as there too many people working on the same issue which resulted in some team members (including myself) being unable to meaningfully contribute any work throughout the course of the project.

Tension

I also had several fits of anger due to frustration when solving difficult problems after a long period of time and negative body language caused a number of misunderstandings to happen within the group. However, they were resolved quickly.

Inadequate Innovation

Our solution was very similar to the first draft that Workato had. Thus it lacked the innovation the stakeholder was were looking for as they already have a very similar solution

Chua Jie Ren

While he does not communicate often with the group due to his commitments, he is very capable and proficient in creating the flow of Recipes, integration and connections on the Workato Platform.

"Workato Wizard"

~ Ming Feng Lee, 2022

ASSIGNMENT 1 INCEPTION DECK

Post Hackathon Thoughts

A Great Experience

It was a fun and exciting experience to be developing together with my group mates to answer a solution.

A good opportunity to learn how others think and do to complete the work.

Improve the solution

Having received an overwhelmingly negative feedback from Workato, We would have to significantly improve our solution by increasing the scope, complexity and design.

Be Grateful

Appreciate each and every teammates' effort, no matter how small or large it is.

Strike a balance between optimism and cynicism

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