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..