Client and project introduced

Hi again,

I know it's been a while since the last blog. Anyhow, here's the 411 on what's been happening so far with Velocitec. We have met our client (REHAB Tech) which is a research organisation located inside the Biomedical Engineering department at Monash Uni's Clayton Campus. They have asked us to modify their existing Medical Asset Management System. The main modifications being that it needs web access and various security access controls depending on authorisation levels of different users and so on.

The three client representatives that we met that day seemed to know a fair bit about the database (they knew more than we anticipated they would know....and yes, this was a bit scary at first, because we knew instantly that they were not dumb and we couldn't fool them!!!...NOT THAT WE WERE PLANNING TO :)). Andrew Smale (who we will mostly be communicating with) seemed to have the most technical knowledge behind the system.

The system is currently fully written in Microsoft Access. However, we feel that it would be a good idea to use a language like MySQL, because (after consulting with Jacob), we felt that it would make the database more streamlined and efficient to use (specially when simultaneous users will be accessing it from the web). We will be discussing this matter with the client at our next meeting tomorrow.

The clients also commented on our dress (which was formal business attire at the last meeting). They said "please feel free to wear normal casual clothing next time we meet. You can save the suit for the final presentation". Therefore, we will be going in smart casual dress tomorrow. I guess here, the client wanted us to feel more comfortable with them and was probably trying to create an open and friendly atmosphere. Overall, they seem like 'OK' clients. Not the best as we expected, but I'm sure that over time we will get along (hopefully...we will need to!!!).

At the end of the meeting, we exchanged phone numbers as well, just in case there were any urgent issues. However, email was the most preferred way of communication.

In relation to team, we have finished making a team governance document. In relation to the project, standards for documentation and design were completed. Yet, we still need time to come up with coding and GUI standards. This will occur as the project progresses a bit more, because it was really difficult to stipulate these standards at this very preliminary stage of the project.

As the project manager, I have kept team meeting and client meeting minutes, where I basically outline who was present, what happened, what was discussed, what conclusions were reached and so on.

So far, I feel that all of Velocitec's team members are working hard, co-operating with each other and have really made a significant contribution to our two major documents to date. This is only the beginning, so I hope this will continue through to the end of the year.

Blog setup

Hi,

Welcome to Charuka's blog for the IE project for 2007. So far, the project team has been put together and roles allocated. We also brainstormed our skills (technical and personal) and recorded them. Our organisation is called 'Velocitec'. This name originated as follows: Veloci is the Spanish word for 'fast' or 'speedy' and 'tec' is for 'technology', hence putting the two words together gives a meaning of 'fast-technology'. I'm the project manager for Velocitec. Tarindra and Aaron are our main developers. We believe they will serve best in this role, based on their previous experiences of programming in Java, asp.net, php and a few other languages. Ishara and Thusiyanthi will be involved in documentation, testing and quality management. Exact roles will most likely be allocated by next week. But for now, we have a fair idea of what to expect from each of the team members.

We have not been allocated a project yet. However, it seems like it's going to be exciting and interesting to see how we all work together as a team to tackle the problem and come up with a good solution. Our ultimate aim is to make the client happy and hopefully maintain good contacts even after the project is completed.

Thanks for visiting my blog for this week. That's all for now.

Charuka Fernando