This semester of ICS 414 has been a valuable experience that could not have been predicted. On top of the pandemic conditions due to COVID, the departure of two members of the team was certainly one of the big moments to reflect upon. The interaction with a real customer was a new and definitely welcomed experience that was not present in this class’s predecessor, ICS 314. The meetings with the customer littered throughout the semester helped guide the project in the right direction, especially as more and more of the app was developed and more specifics could be discussed with the customer.
In regards to the team dynamic, the frequent milestones made meeting together essential. The larger team size of eight people was definitely new for me. The idea of ensuring all eight people, who may or may not know each other, were doing alright with their tasks definitely did seem daunting at first. Admittedly, there was a small hiccup in the team communication near the beginning of the project, but the hiccup helped strengthen the team bond, as well as show how important it is to have clear communication across all members of the team. I would say the end result of the project was good.
There are still some bugs hidden throughout the application, and there are features that I wish were added, but time constraints on both a personal and semester level definitely held back the potential quality of the end result. This class has been a unique and interesting experience. The lessons learned and the experiences experienced during this class have been helpful. The weekly to bi-weekly code reviews of files was definitely a new experience for me. However, they were helpful in helping me not only recognize code that goes against the team’s current code style standard easier, but also helped me think about the code I currently write to make backtracking to revise code less often and necessary.