Capstone project
Capstone Project is where academic knowledge meets industry reality. The goal of capstone is to apply knowledge acquired in school and turn them into skills that meet the industry needs. Capstone project is how students demonstrate that they have met this goal. Basically, Capstone project is a academic project in which students have approximately six months to complete in their last year of school. It is the final step in the degree process where students work in team in a project given by a customer, usually a software company. The results of the Capstone Project must be presented in the form of a detailed written report in front of both the customer and the faculty.
Last week a student came to me and complained about his capstone project. His team is developing a website for a customer and he had worked hard to make the website looks nice. He put in a lot of artistic works with beautiful pictures and animation but his customer and his teammates did not care too much. He said: “I worked hard and put in a lot of times but the team did not appreciate my effort at all. The customer paid no attention to my work and never praised me in the review so I am very disappointed”.
I asked: “What are customer's requirements for that website? Is beautiful picture a requirement? Is artistic animation a need? Did the customer tell you to put them in? Did the team assign that task to you?
He seemed surprised: “No it is not a requirement, the team did not ask me to do it but I decided to do it anyway. It will make the website more beautiful”
I explained: “There are other requirements that the team is working on but you are spending time on something else. Something not even on the requirements specification. You are doing something extra and in the eyes of your team members, you are wasting a lot of time because you could do something more useful for the team. You should discuss with your team on your assignment rather do something because you like to do. The key of teamwork is a shared vision, share responsibility and schedule. The team leader decides which tasks go to which members and each must execute their tasks according to the schedule. In your case, you are doing something on your own and not follow the assigned tasks. You do not talk to your team but inventing your own tasks, you want to claim your own credit, you want to be a hero. Basically you are not part of the team and wasting the team resources on unnecessary tasks. By considering yourself special, you want to work alone. That is unacceptable in a teamwork environment.”
He said: “But I think it will make the capstone a success. Without my pictures, the website looks ugly and not attractive at all”.
I explained: “That is something for the customer to judge. Not yours. For software project, the focus is on meeting the needs of the customer. The capstone project is designed for students to learn about the real working environment. In capstone project, the first thing you learn is teamwork so the thought that by working alone, create something great does not work here. What you do maybe nice for you but not for the customer, he may not care if it is beautiful or not. He only care if it works, if it meets his needs. That is why in the review, he never pay attention to your artistic pictures. You have only few months left before graduation, you must learn more about teamwork because in the real work, especially in the software industry, no one works alone. A team is always working by consensus, by sharing workloads, by sharing responsibilities. In teamwork there is no individual, there is no hero, only the team. Either the team succeed or the team fail. Since you are still in school, you can make mistake and I rather have you make mistake in school than in your job. That is why we have the Capstone.
He thought for a moment but asked:”If I believe that my pictures and graphics could help the website looks better. How do I convince the team that I do something good for them?
I explained: “In that case, you should talk to the customer about your view of the website, what it represents, the image it show of the company and see what they think. The customer will decide whether your artistic pictures are necessary. It is the customer to make the final decision. If he agree then it is a new requirements. If he does not care, you must stop and do your assigned tasks. In teamwork, it would be best to discuss with the team and ask for permission rather than just do something without the team consensus”.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
