COL Documentation - Team Project Getting Started Guide

Team Project Getting Started Guide

Successful teams articulate and negotiate what will be expected of their members, early in the group formation phase. Things will change over the quarter. You are not bound by what you enter into the team site—this is for planning purposes only.

If possible, enter the information into the site as a group. If you disagree with parts of the plan, tell your group now. Better your team members be aware of potential problems now, so they can react later.

1. Establish a Team Charter

Click the Team Charter link under the documents section of your team site. Click Edit in the upper right hand corner to modify the template.
Team Name (make it catchy, based on something you all have in common)
A short description of the project including the problem to be solved and the desired results.
Group conduct / rules governing behavior
o   Meeting Dates, Times, Frequency

o   Meeting Place

o   Modes of communication (discussion forum, email, phone, etc.)

o   Any software that will be used to support the project
Each member of the team should access the charter and type their names at the bottom to acknowledge that they support the charter.

2. Establish Team Roles

Enter contact information for all of all relevant participants for the project, including your instructor. Do this by clicking "add new item" under the Contact Information Web Part
For each member of the team, populate their primary role under Job Title on their Contact Infomation
o Project Role Examples
Database design
Programming
User interface design
Training
Documentation / technical writing
Network design
Project management
Business analysis

3. Begin Scheduling the Project

Use the Project Calendar to enter important dates related to your project and course.

Example Calendar Entries

Important Milestones
Deliverable due dates
Team Meetings
Days a member may be out of town or unavailable
Midterms and Finals Week (team members may be extremely busy during this time and should plan around this)

Use the Project Tasks web part to begin assigning tasks to different members of the team. You don't need to enter all of the tasks in right away. This part of the site will grow over time and tasks may change frequently.

4. Start Collaborating!

Use the Wiki to begin formulating your documents, notes or general ideas in a centralized fashion.
Enter references to useful web resources under Useful Links
Publish any documents relevant to the project to Working Documents
Instead of using email, centralize your thoughts using the discussion forum by clicking Team Discussion

5. Register for Notifications

The collaboration site offers a number of tools to notify you when changes are made to the site. To register for notifications, click your name at the top right of the site, click My Settings and Manage Alerts.

You are welcome to include other information if you like. This information is just a guide to kickstart the project and help you manage expectations for the project.

You can add or remove any of the parts that are part of the default template. To create a new list or library simply click Site Actions, Create.