In TechLauncher you are a practising professional

Everything you do in your project must be professional - respecting the stakeholder, your team, your peers and yourself.

If you find yourselves doing something that does not appear to be a good use of time, or seems unnecessary, then STOP and REFLECT - do you really need what you are doing, have you missed something, can you use your time better?

TechLauncher Bottom Line

  • Invest in, understand, and collaborate with your teammates and stakeholder.
  • Exhibit and record your teamwork.
  • Research and learn – learn about your project domain, technologies you will need to deliver your project, and learn with and about your teammates.
  • Exhibit and be recognised for the quality and value of your contributions to your team.
  • Understand and discover your limits and those of your peers, communicate those effectively with stakeholders, and collaboratively plan and execute as a team

In TechLauncher we do not talk about ‘marks’. If you are using language such as ‘marks’, ‘grades’, ‘scores’, or ‘points’, you are missing the point. Instead, focus on how your work will be ‘evaluated’, described, and recognised - the value you are generating for your stakeholder and teammates through the project outcomes and processes.

Guiding Ethical Principles

As a professional operating in the context of a project in the technology space, you should be aware of the ACMs guiding ethical principles.

  • Contribute to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing.
  • Avoid harm.
  • Be honest and trustworthy.
  • Be fair and take action not to discriminate.
  • Respect the work required to produce new ideas, inventions, creative works, and computing artifacts.
  • Respect privacy.
  • Honor confidentiality.

You may face a personal or team decision that requires you deliberate on ethics. In Australia, the ethi-call service exists to assist you at such times.

You are also reminded of your professional responsibilities. Refer to the Engineers Australia Code of Ethics Section 1.3, and/or the Australian Computer Society Code of Professional Conduct Section 1.2.6.

Finally on this topic, at the Australian National University you are additionally operating under the Academic Integrity Rule 2021. If you are not already familiar with the points about collusion and plagiarism (self or otherwise), please review these rules. Ensure your team has a robust process for ensuring materials and claimed work in your repository is unambiguously attributed correctly.

Presenting your work

Tips for presenting your work in TechLauncher

Professionalism in the Hive

The aim of sprint reviews and tutor meetings is for you and your team to develop and practise the ability to succinctly present teamwork, and to then address comments and questions. Exposing your team processes at meetings is encouraged. Meetings are an opportunity to get feedback from your tutor, stakeholder, and other participants.

  • You are jointly responsible for the meeting running well and being useful.
  • Always attend meetings with an agenda, circulated in advance.
  • Before you say something, make sure you have asked yourself the question: How can we help each other?
  • Introduce stakeholders and other participants who are present.
  • To remain silent is not allowed. You must engage respectfully, thoughtfully, and usefully in the process and discussion.
  • Giving and receiving feedback is HARD and practise makes perfect. Radical candour is acceptable, but professionalism and respectfulness is required.
  • Any representation you make is a representation made generally, including to your examiner. Be professional, be quality conscious, be original, and represent your best effort.

Presentation tips

  • Be honest and open, and help everyone else help you.
  • Be enthusiastic about your teamwork, and proud of what you and your peers have achieved collaboratively together.
  • Present consistently and as a team, and have clear lines of responsibility and reporting.
  • Everyone should take a turn at pitching over the course of the project.
  • When discussing things that did not work, discuss what your team learnt from that.
  • Always have concrete work products to show, discuss, and/or demonstrate.

Repository tips

  • Make sure all reviewers (tutor, convenor, stakeholder) have access to your repositories.
  • If a reviewer cannot find an artifact, then for assessment purposes it does not exist.
  • Work with input from stakeholders to ensure your repository structure is intuitive and navigable.
  • Make sure your repository is structured according to the Sprint Checklist criteria.
  • Make sure you refer to evidence and rationale for decisions made by your team.
  • Members should keep an ‘engineering logbook’ and teams should have a ‘decision log’ and ‘risk register’ that is revisited weekly.
  • A contract is not a living document. Do NOT modify/update/revise an executed contract with your stakeholder. A change of scope, deliverables, etc., is to be negotiated with, and agreed to by your stakeholders in a new agreement.
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