In interviews, you'll be asked about how you approach working in projects, and being able to describe how you utilize agile processes is a great way to help you stand out as a junior developer candidate. This reflection is meant to help you develop this skill.
With that in mind, please answer the following questions in your own gist about your group project:
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What have you learned about the use of agile vs. waterfall in software projects? It is a better idea in the long run to use an agile approach to development to get feedback from users and to avoid wasting money. It also gives ample opportunities to refactor, which I thoroughly enjoy.
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How did you and your group approach project management in this project (what tools did you use, how did you hold each other accountable, etc.)? Set up a GitHub project, but I think I was the only one that actually used it after day one. We would try to do check-ins at the beginning and end of every day, but that most definitely did not happen consistently. We re-DTR'd a few times and didn't fully stick to the decisions we made, which was extremely frustrating for me, hence why I took on more of a project manager role.
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What role did you take on in the project? Project Manager, dev.
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What changes would you make to your approach in future team projects? Speak up more for compromise between working styles and sticking to the decisions we made in our DTR. Consistency is key, and we ultimately were more productive when we worked together instead of separately.
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How does retro function in a team project? Retro is beneficial to teams to highlight the progress and victories of the week, while also allowing for conversations about honest emotions, and not strictly limiting work conversations to what needs to be completed. Honesty about feelings can lead to more meaningful conversations and breakthroughs amongst team members. It increases empathy, reminds team members that everyone is human, and not simply a working machine.
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In your team retro, how did you engage in the feedback process? What principles of feedback did you use in these conversations? We talked about how we were not okay with asking for help before actually struggling through a problem, and when to draw the line on receiving feedback; sometimes there is such a thing as too much feedback. I tried to lead our retro, the other members of my group weren't contributing as much as I would've liked them to, but everyone has bad days, especially during highly stressful times.
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How would you describe your ability to communicate feedback? How has this experience affected your communication skills? How do you want to improve in your ability to communicate feedback? I think I still have plenty of room to grow in terms of communicating feedback, but I have always been a positive person, so that is helpful. Constructive criticism is the most difficult to give without fearing being offensive or saying things the wrong way.
Great details here and takeaways on the project, especially about how to balance struggle and asking for help. Nice work!