GRAND FINALE - SEP project Season 1

2nd Iteration which is the final iteration of our project is now over! It was a very happy ending for our SCRUM team at the end! Yep! You herd correct. We were a good SCRUM team. Everybody worked hard and cleverly to achieve our target! Each one of us performed very confidently at the final presentation as we knew that we have done the required workload with great level of accuracy!  Each one of us have handled all errors carefully and logged each exception in a well defined way. So when we went to presentation, we had no worries!

From the expressions of the panel members it was clear that they are highly satisfied with our work. After presenting their parts, they asked some questions from Janitha and Poorna to clarify some points. I and sankalpa just presented our parts and the panel was not bother to ask questions from us at all..! In the middle of the presentation we took a selfie too! ;)

Finally our hard working and the dedication was awarded with a "CHEERS BOYS" moment for us!

Here are some screen shots from our final product.

Scrum Meeting over IP

Its was long time since last blog post about the project. It was due to the end semester exams. Exam came to its end on 2nd of May. Now it time to work on the rest of the project. All the members of the team are now busy with the project work. Shiran Janitha and Me(Sankalpa) are in Galle while Poorna is in Athurugiriya. As the team is in two different place Galle and Athurugiriya it is very difficult to have Scrum meeting at one place. Solutions is over IP. The skype was a handy software to conduct scrum meetings. 

Skype provided a place conduct scrum meetings. Then there was the problem that we could not meet the client as he was busy with his business. He was unable to meet us frequently. Again skype was a good solution and we are planing to have the client meet up over IP.  

හඳුනා ගත්තොත් ඇඩෝරා.. (The 1st Sprint presentation)

Hello everyone, After a small break isn't it? Time has moved on surpassing us as always it does. We have reached to the end of the semester. Like all the previous semesters we are feeling like " අඩෝ සෙමෙස්ටර් එක ඉවරද බන්! Don't know why SLIIT semesters are always feels shorter and shorter. May be because of the high intensity of the work load ;)

Turning on to the project, we are sleep less and working very hard on it to make it a success these days.  Since we couldn't post an update after the sprint one presentation, I will tell you what happened in it.

              Our presentation was scheduled to have at 10.50AM. Janitha and I came to SLIIT around 8.30 PM. Since the all parts which were intended to complete in the first Sprint were almost finished I did the integration of them on the night before. So we were bit relaxed and started to complete other documents which should be presented at the presentation. After finishing them we had to move the project from my laptop to Janitha's one because in my lap there is no VGA port so it cannot be connected to the Projector. After moving the project to Janitha's computer every thing was fine except the parts of Poorna and mine! Even though we were sticked to the designing standards and followed a common layout, designs of Poorna and me were bit stretched and messed up in the Janitha's display. Therefore we quickly just drag the things here and there and fixed it up very soon.

After finished correcting the design issues I tried to run the project on the Janitha's lap and I ended up with an strange error! I was confused and after a little workout of observing I found what happened . As always he do Janitha had changed a name of a folder in the project to "හඳුනා ගත්තොත් ඇඩෝරාරාරා...". That was the first time I saw a error message in Visual Studio contains a sinhala phrase. Meanwhile Sankalpa came in to the scene and things got bit complicated as always ;) 

There were some modification to be done to the Poorna's part so we were waiting and blaming for him :p because he never comes at time! However before 10 minutes to the presentation time he landed up and adjusted some things in his part, so our system for Sprint 1 is ready to go! Several other groups were bit busier and looks a bit scared. But we were laughing and joking all the time because before the presentations our state is "එන විදියකට බට කරමු බන් "! After the presentation the state can be changed to either "ජී ජී " or " ගොඩ ඒ ". But what to do state are meant to be changed and cannot predict to what. ;)

That was bit late when we called in to the presentation. We went in and plugged the laptop to the projector. The projector was focused very nicely. It was a bit neat than a "කරත්තෙට අහු වුන කජු ලෙල්ලක් ". When we try to make it correct, a panel member said "It's okay you can continue". So Janitha started with the presentation and at the end of his part a panel member called questioned him (We call him target process for love :D ) Then that was my part. Then Poorna and Sankalpa presented accordingly. From each member they asked questioned and pointed out some problems in the code. We accepted them and said that we will fix them in the next sprint. The main thing the panel members was going after was the coding standards and the architecture. Actually we have not used an architecture as our supervisor told us it is not a must to use an architecture. However we though of refactoring the code to enhance understandability in future.

The group who presented before us was inside the hall for around 45 mins. But it took only around 15mins for our presentation.  According to our assumption "එක්කෝ අපි හොඳයි . නැත්තම් කෙලවිලා අපෙන් අහන්න දෙයක් නෑ  කියල හිතෙන්න ඇති". How ever as we found out later we have performed well according to our supervisor's comment.

Thats the story of first sprint presentation. Now we are nearing the deadline of the project and this is an extremely busy time period because we have several assignments to do on other subjects and Final examination is coming up. The story till now after the 1st iteration presentation will be posted very soon. Till then we pray "Oh! Lord, Have mercy on us!".

It is the time to start the journey. The first iteration for desktop application

February 23rd 2015 was a special day for JSPS team members. On 23rd we made the 1st step for the journey of life. This special day was the first day of first iteration on JSPS. Although it is jest the start of 3rd year project but it marked the beginning of the carrier as a software engineer. Up to second year in the degree we were undergraduate with least experience on software industry. 3rd year project is with a real client and we are to perform what the client need; that is what happens in the industry. As we have to move to the industry in next year getting ready to work on the industry is really important. Also it is important to give the best effort to make this project a success because it will bring us with good result on our degree and also it will be a good model to show our abilities and talents to the people in the industry.

23rd was the day allocated for the Curtin batch for the proposal presentation and we were given the time arround 11.45 AM. It was bit late when we were called to do the presentation. There was a panel with 4 lectures. So we explained the proposed system to the panel along with the iteration plan for the first iteration. Shiran  started the presentation with a little bit different start. It is unusually to have quotes in business presentation but our first slide was with a quote.

It made all panel members to take a look specially on our presentation. I think it made all the panel members to listen to our presentation with a high interest than we expected.Also he explained the background of the client and some impotent things related to the presentation. Going on with that I was the next person to come up in the presentation. After I giving a description about the presentation along with the explanation of the high level architecture I handed over the presentation to  Janitha. He explained requirements of the client along with the user stories and the plan of the project. Then it was the Poorna's turn to explain what we are planing to do in first iteration. With end of presenting the first iteration plan he winded up the presentation marking the start of first iteration which expected to complete on or before 16th of March.

I thought this quote will show how we should work...

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

Client Meet Up

It was Friday 6th February we went to meet up the supervisor Mrs. Dimanthinie De Silva. The story was told in the previous post. This is about what happened next. After we went there we were given  a excel sheet with forms containing many equations. After we studied those a little, we tried to contact the client with the given e mail address. But it wasn't working so on Sunday (8th) I sent our supervisor an e mail asking her to let us know of a way to contact the client. She was so supportive and has sent it that day itself.

I thought it's best if we could talk to the client with everyone's presence and in a way that went well for us. Anyway. next day we all went to SLIIT and got to know that the SEP lectures were off that day. So we all gathered to take the phone call. Sankalpa said some important stuff that had to be asked from the client to have a good "first impression". I thought a little and gave my mobile to him, 

"සංකල්ප, උඹම අහපං බං. නැත්තං ඕක ලාල් වෙනවා"

(Talking of “ලාල්“, there's a term "LOL" and after a while people started calling "LEL" and me and my DOTA folks thought “ලාල්“ would be a good Sinhala version.)

Anyway Sankalpa took my phone and vanished. We heard some stuff he uttered and we were wondering, "Is that Really Sankalpa??" because the voice was so soothing and slow and basically a non-Sankalpa version. Anyway he came with a news that was comforting. 

"අඩෝ, අපේ ක්ලයන්ට් කොළඹ ඇවිත් බං. අද හවස හම්බවෙන්න පුලුවං ද ඇහුවා. මං බෑ කිවුවා"

And we were like, 

"පොඩ්ඩක් ඉන්න තිබ්බා නෙ බොල.. උඹේ ඔක්කොම ක්ෂණික.."

And we were like thinking it's ok to go if the other groups can join us because it's not good to make client frustrated to tell the requirements again and again to every other group . This same project was given to 2 other groups including ours. So I contacted the group leader of one group and told the matter. And he was like,

“හරි මචං අපි එන්නං..“

And the other group was another Curtin batch. We met them and asked them and they said okay so we again contacted the client. We let sankalpa do the talking with my mobile and the client said to meet him around 6.00 near the parliament ground. 

However the other curtin group changed their mind to meet the client in another time. Anyway all of us were not dressed up to meet a client up. So we decided to go to our places and get dressed up. It was a day of heavy rain and we went home all wet. (We let poorna go home because he wasn't well that day.) Me, Sankalpa and Shiran went to our places of stay in cats and dogs. When I went to my boarding all wet, the door was closed. They had gone somewhere and you all know what I felt. So I was all wet with a pair of slippers, The wet denim and the SLIIT T-shirt.

Anyway we all of us went to the destination after a few hours. Client came and soon the other group was also present at the very spot. And they were familiar with Sankalpa because he did all the talking via phone. So his hand was shook and me and Shiran were like, 

"Man, what are we? potatoes?"

Anyway then started the discussion and as usual we let Sankalpa do the talking. I was involved in clarifications and the other group were also talking a little. Basically it was Sankalpa's day. Anyway we were told that it was a "Web Application" they wanted at first. But as we carried out the discussion, what they really wanted was a Stand Alone Application as their priority and a simple website for promotional purposes. And when we came, we were told the client had a lesser knowledge about the technical aspects. But he had a really good understanding about explaining what he wanted. The excel sheets he provided had all the things that we needed to carry the project forward.

And to say about the client, there were 3 people present. All of them were young businessmen and had a good knowledge of what they were doing. To be honest, I personally think it's a fortune that we didn't get the 1st choice of the projects. And I explained a little bit about how we are going to do the project, our rolls, what Agile is and most of all, how important to do this project right in order to get a good grade. 

So after everything we all shook hands with the clients and one asked,

"එතකොට මට කතා කරේ කොහොමද?"

and I said,,

"මගේ මොබයිල් එක.. මේ යකාට පොඩ්ඩක් දුන්නා ඉතිං කතාබහ කරන්න.."

And everyone smiled and the client was very supportive and even called us "මල්ලි" even before starting the discussion.

So basically that was the first meet up with the client and it really went well. It was around 9.00 pm when everything concluded and we then took off to our places. 

Got the TARGET

It was around 3 O' clock in the evening. I was explaining about the Yii framework structure to Poorna. Suddenly sankalpa and Janitha came and said "ඒ ඉවරයි ඒ project list එක දාල ඒ ". I was wondered and was very keen to know whether we have got our first selection approved. We were thinking that there will be no chance of not getting the project which we bid 1st. But what a shame..! They have assigned the 2nd choice of ours; not the 1st selection. Sankalpa was bit angry and shouted at us and said that we should go and talk to the lecturers. But I and Janitha was on a completely different idea. We two said that we should do what they have allocated for us, it is not our duty complaining about the allocations. At that moment poorna was scared like always and was silent :p

However we got to know that two other groups too have been given our project title. We were thinking that why they have done that. After having a small discussion with the group members, we decided to go and meet the allocated supervisor for our team. After meeting her, she told that our client is not technically educated enough so that we have to question him and gather the requirements. And she gave us some excel sheets and a word document which has been sent by the client. She said that we will have to complete the website in the 1st semester and they are expecting something like mobile app in the 2nd semester. And more importantly she told that they recommend PHP as the technology. It was our expectation too to do the project using PHP. (But unfortunately we cannot use PHP to develop stand alone apps ;) ) Yes...! Later we came to know that the client is not expecting a website..! It is just a desktop application. You can know further details about the client and the 1st meeting with the client in future posts.

After all, that day we came home and studied the documents which has been sent by the client. At the first moment we were scared to death as it was filled with hard calculations, formulas and accounting ( which I hate the most!).

We thought that this project has allocated for three teams as It is a hard one. Anyway we made up our minds to accept the challenge and went to sleep with the intention of meeting the client as soon as possible..! And we did that. Next post will tell you that story. It may be the funniest part of all... ;) See you soon..

The Interview Day

Today was an important day in our journey ahead. That's because we had the interview of deciding the projects that we requested to do. So this was quite a big day for this subject because the project that we have to do throughout an year will be decided on this day. It should have been a big pressure and a stress as we were the 2nd of all the groups in the schedule. 

Other groups were memorizing of the technical aspects, OOP concepts and stuff for their interview. But we had no intention at all to do such a thing. We believed that interview might not be a thing that is stressful and the panel will not ask questions about technical stuff, but the things we have done and what are our intentions of the projects ahead. So actually we didn't prepare much for the interview. We just got the printouts of the CV's and got some files, put those in and went there.

"එන විහිදයකට BAT කරමු"
was our motto for the day! 

When all the members in the panel came, we were asked to come after the 1st group. So we went and sat down. I don't think it's appropriate to tell what we were asked. But it went well. But I'd like to quote a conversation there when we were asked to tell about the previous year project.

"

Me : I was the group leader in our project.. ... .... ......

Shiran : I was also the group leader in our group.. ... .... ......

Sankalpa : I too was the group leader of the group.

A panel member : Woh what a group.. 

"

So finally we came out and I guess we did pretty OK. So we hope that we would get one of the projects we were keen on getting. Anyway as the Scrum Master of this Leaders' group I really am satisfied about the stuff my friends did out there today. This was a day to remember.