Human-Centered Computing (CS 260)

This course was mostly reading and discussion in-class. Interesting readings, provided on the course website. I was involved with presenting two of the topics: Activity Theory and Ethnomethodology. The final project in this class was a precursor to my Master’s thesis, about creating a collaborative game on mobile phones for unschooled children in rural India. You can compare the two versions of the document as they were prepared for different audiences:

• Final Paper and Presentation
• Master’s Thesis

Effective Project Management (INFO 290-11)

The work I did in this course was mostly involved with an organization on campus known as RSSP-IT. My work for them involved confidential information about their customers (students living in the dormitories) as well as insider knowledge about their internal systems that could be used to compromise them, so I felt that it was best that I didn’t share the details.

Essentially, my work for them was to aid in adoption and planning for a centralized account management system for employees and residents alike.

Interface Aesthetics (INFO 290-6)

Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming load of my research project and the other coursework I had this semester, I was unable to commit to completing assignments for this course and decided to drop it from my schedule this semester. My work up until that point is still something I’m proud of, and I did learn a lot of neat things and insights that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I use these new insights to critique and analyze interfaces and visual displays around me all the time now.

One of the factors of my deciding not to continue in the course was my novice-level skill with Photoshop/Illustrator/similar tools. It took me about three times as long to do something as most of the others in the course, and I knew I couldn’t dedicate the necessary time to surmount the learning curve. Perhaps in the future, I will try again.

So that wraps things up for this semester… And because I have now fulfilled my requirements for the Masters degree in Computer Science, this wraps up things forever! I am leaving the iSchool, a wonderful place with some of the sharpest people I’ve ever met.

Congratulations to those iSchool students who graduate as Masters this year as well! And good luck to the rest of you in your year(s) to come.

Follow me on sybak.com from now on.

–Simon Tan
Ambassador of Computer Science for the School of Information

The key concept is that there are ‘vital’ elements (20% of something that has an 80% -huge- impact) and ‘trivial’ elements (the remaining 80%, which due to symmetry cause merely 20% of the effects). The main take-away, then, is to invest limited resources in the vital elements and not the trivial ones.

When applied to project management, quite a few phenomena can be explained: 80% of the value in a meeting will come from 20% of its time, 80% of managerial problems/stress come from 20% of employees, and 80% of the time and resources spent on a project will be from 20% of the stated work. If we then focus our limited resources on the vital 20% of each situation, we should see a greater return on our investment and reduce the amount of wasted resources (i.e. the resources spent on trivial, low-return activities).

Taking the example of meetings further: If you can identify the vital 20% of your meeting that will provide 80% of the meeting’s value (and/or take 80% of the meeting’s time), you should put that part of the meeting FIRST in the agenda. Focus on the part of the meeting that is truly important, and ensure that you obtain the 80% of value from it instead of having your meeting cut short due to lack of time.

This write-up was based on the following research:
* management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Pareto081202.htm
* www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Pareto_Principle.html
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

From your favorite art, design, movies, etc, identify a palette of 3-5 colors that expresses your sense of color harmony. Post your color palette here (with one image or multiple images) with a brief description.

My current wallpaper is a nighttime shot of the pier in Vancouver, BC.

Vancouver Dock at Night

It has the liveliness of an urban environment mixed with the relative calm of the water at a dock at night. I wanted a palette that captured both, so (using Adobe’s Kuler for assistance) I made this custom palette:

Vancouver Palette

The WBS is built from the top down. The project is broken up into the various deliverables, which are in turn broken down into the particular tasks needed to produce those deliverables. Only the lowest-level tasks are called “work packages” – anything in the chart that contains subordinate tasks is called a “summary task“. Summary tasks are never actually executed – they become complete through the progress of their work packages. Each work package (lowest-level task) should follow these rules of thumb:

• The 8/80 rule – No task should be smaller than 8 labor hours or larger than 80.
• The reporting period rule – No task should take longer than the distance between two status points (i.e. if you have status meetings every week, no task should last longer than one week).
• The “if it’s useful rule” – Only break a task down further if it makes the task easier to estimate, easier to assign, or easier to track. If it won’t do any of these, don’t break it down further.

Here are the major steps needed to build a WBS:

1. Begin at the top – List the major deliverables or high-level tasks from the scope statement.
2. Name all the tasks required to produce those deliverables – Turn the deliverables into tasks by adding a strong verb in front of them (e.g. “Shrubs” -> “Plant the Shrubs”) and then break them down into lower-level tasks.  This is harder than most people think. If there is trouble doing this, it is a sign that a small meeting of top-tier people is needed to help break it down. It might also be a good idea to give a task to an expert in the subject and have him/her break it down for you. Even if this process takes a long time, it is worth it in the long run. Projects often run into “blind alleys” if a clear WBS is not made early on.
3. Organize the WBS – It is possible to rearrange the work packages in different formations, which could emphasize different aspects of the project. Move the tasks around and group them under different summary tasks until the WBS is meaningful to the people involved.

Three more guidelines:

• The WBS must be broken down from the top. It is crucial to ensure than work packages are subsets of their summary tasks.
• Work packages must add up to the summary task. Don’t omit tasks; it becomes much harder to estimate costs and time if the WBS is not complete.
• Each summary task and work package must result in a concrete product. Don’t be vague or unclear. “Do research” is weak and is open-ended. “List candidate vendors” is more concrete.

Line Poster: Using a copy of the original piece, create a new composition by adding the parts of the inverse copy to the original piece.

Shape Poster: Create compositions that embody your sense of visual accord with energy and harmony. While giving the page a sense of liveliness and poise, don’t forget to give the reader a sense of direction.

Line Poster

Continuing work on my posters for Grouptalk, I tried inserting some lines and bringing parts from an inverse color version. I chose to use the inverse as a tool to highlight the most important element (the title) even more…

Shape Poster

Then, for shape, I drew more lines that attempted to guide the reader from the center (title) outwards toward the other critical elements. I also wanted to accent the balance I had demonstrated in the previous assignment, without throwing it off.

In the end, I feel that my changes were perhaps more conservative than necessary, but I was working with the boldest version of my poster (the diagonal version) so I was hesitant of overdoing it.

• Project Charter – An announcement that a new project has begun. This could take the form of a memo, a letter, or an e-mail. The charter contains the name and purpose of the project, the project manager’s name, and a statement of support (typically from the sponsor, who really should sign this document). The charter is sent to as wide an audience as practical; it establishes the project and the project manager’s right to make decisions and lead the project.
• Statement of Work – This contains the goals, constraints, and success criteria for the project. It includes a purpose statement (why are we doing this project?), scope statement (boundaries), deliverables (both intermediate and final), cost and schedule estimates, objectives (criteria for success), the list of stakeholders, and a chain of command (organization structure). Many of these components are expanded upon in later documents (e.g. a requirements document), so the statement of work should defer to those documents as necessary. This is more of an overview of the project at a glance.
• Responsibility Matrix – A table that details the responsibilities of each group (of stakeholders) involved in a project. It lists the major activities of the project (tasks) crossed with groups/people (e.g. HR director, VP of operations, etc.). In each cell, fill in these tags: “E” = responsible for execution, “A” = final approval authority, “C” = must be consulted, and “I” = must be informed. This lets everyone know at a glance who should receive what amount of information and work.
• Communication Plan – A table that describes (1) who needs information? and (2) what information do they need? It may also detail how often status reports will be made, escalation procedures, how often information dissemination happens, the schedule of regular meetings, etc.

Other tips from class:

Who do you invite to your kick-off meetings? Not everyone. It’s impossible to get all your stakeholders in a room – consider having multiple kick-off meetings with different subgroups instead.

Right as the project begins, start two lists right away:

1. Project issues – a list of the problems that come up and how they are resolved
2. Lessons Learned / Best Practices – things that you’d like to improve on next time

Keep updating them throughout the project.

In this layout assignment, you will explore horizontal, vertical, and diagonal compositions by creating 3 different designs of a possible “project poster”.

I decided to make posters for Grouptalk, a student-run forum that I am helping to organize this semester. These posters were designed to attract interest in this recurring meeting.

Horizontal Composition

Probably the most straightforward and cleanest of the three posters. I felt there was good balance between the major elements (the title and the image) and that I kept the significant portions free of distraction. I was worried about which way people would read the poster first, so I made the main paragraph bigger than the rest and designed the other pieces of text to make sense whichever way the reader wandered from the first paragraph.

Vertical Composition

I had to have the title on the left in order to maintain a coherent reading direction. My biggest problem with this one is the jaggedness of the “Stop by if you want to…” text; it sticks out into the space of the main paragraph, which I feel is being encroached on. The picture surrounded by topics seems to fill the bottom space well.

Diagonal Composition

I really like the center of this piece, especially how the text to the top and bottom of the title seem perfectly balanced. The right side of the “U” in Grouptalk is acting as some sort of invisible border. However, the rest of the elements on the page were difficult to provision for. The topic cloud around the image helps balance the poster, but the text in the lower-left does seem a little awkward.

Here are some sets of five that I’ve pulled from The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management and a reading from Making Things Happen. They should provide an easy-to-use reference for better project management skills.

The five factors essential to the success of a project

1. Agreement among the project team, customer, and management on the goals of the project
2. A plan that shows an overall path and clear responsibilities and will be used to measure progress during the project
3. Constant, effective communication among everyone involved in the project
4. A controlled scope
5. Management support

#5 is obtained with a signed charter, #1/4/5 are bolstered by a detailed statement of work, responsibility matrix, and communication plan.

Some reasons projects fail

1. Incomplete specifications
2. Insufficient labor
3. Unstable funding
4. Lack of sponsorship
5. An impossible business case

Five rules for effective meetings

1. Pass out an agenda in advance (at least one full working day)
2. Begin and end on time
3. Ensure each agenda topic has one of these three goals: to pass on information, to come to a decision, or to gather information
4. Draw people out; don’t assume silence is consent
5. Record decisions and action assignments and check the action list for completion at the next meeting

Five ways to annoy someone with project management activities

1. Assume they are an idiot (over-define their work)
2. Don’t trust them (require lots of check-ins)
3. Waste their time (send ambiguous messages and force tedious tasks)
4. Manage them without respect (don’t look out for them)
5. Make them listen to or read stupid things (force content that has no bearing on the work they are doing)

The effects of good processes (not bad bureaucracy)

1. They accelerate progress
2. They prevent problems
3. They make important actions visible and measurable
4. They include a process for changing or eliminating the process
5. The people impacted by them are in favor of them

Five pointers for better meeting facilitation

1. Establish a host position
2. Listen and reflect on what people say
3. Direct the conversation with the agenda and manage the floor so everyone is involved
4. Know when to end the conversation if an issue should be resolved elsewhere
5. Make history with documentation and recordings

In this typography assignment, you will integrate positive and negative form by creating a single element out of multiple letters. Preserve the integrity of all letters while creating a single unique form.

This is what I have come up with:

New Form

My original idea was to combine my first and last initials (the letters S & T) into something resembling a dollar sign. I had an urge to do this because I have been “signing” my initials on documents for the latter half of my life by printing the letters directly on top of each other, noticing that they almost resembled a dollar sign; I wanted to play with fonts at a level of precision where I might be able to realize my envisioned form, or at least create an equally clever/elegant one.

I started with the letter “T” from the Bodoni font. I thought that the highly curved serifs on the top of the character could be meshed with the curves of an “S” in some way, and I liked the thick, clean base (with no curves at the bottom).

When looking for an “S”, I realized that it was very difficult to choose one from the sans-serif fonts; the combination of such a heavily serif-ed “T” with a super-slick “S” did not look right, so I went back to the serif fonts. I noticed that all the “S” characters had a “head” and “tail”, as if they were snakes. I thought that might create an interesting effect, but most of the “S” serifs were so jarring compared to the body of the character that they created a kind of “serif-overload” when merged with the “T”. I went with the “S” from the Garamond font, as it had the calmest serifs while still having that animal-like personality.

When I overlaid the two characters, the “S” was not nearly wide enough to connect to the serifs of the “T”. At the same time, I noticed that the “S” did indeed look like a snake, perhaps slithering around a pole that was the base of the “T”. I decided to use the curved serifs of the “T” in a different way; I flipped the “T” upside-down and created something of a bowl for the “S” and the base of the “T” to sit in.

I cleaned the form up by removing the non-curved serif from the “T” (as it was interfering with the top of the “S” snake at this point) and was satisfied with the result. There may be a slight excess of serifs on the left side of the image, but I believe there is enough whitespace between them that the image is clear.

The five dysfunctions as detailed by the book are:

1. Inattention to Results (status and ego become priorities)
2. Avoidance of Accountability (letting low standards slide)
3. Lack of Commitment (allowing ambiguity)
4. Fear of Conflict (promoting artificial harmony)
5. Absence of Trust (maintaining a sense of invulnerability)

The model works in reverse; the idea is that a perfectly non-dysfunctional team is built from a base of trust upwards, like so:

1. Members of the group learn to trust each other in the sense that they believe everyone’s actions are solely for the benefit of the team. This reduces the likelihood of office politics (”when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think”).
2. When the members of a team trust each other, they are more willing and able to engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas. Not personal conflict, just open debate about decisions that need to be made.
3. When everyone feels that they are free and encouraged to raise their issues and air their grievances, they are more likely to go along with a team decision even if it is not their preference. They are more willing to “disagree and commit” as they say. The key is that even if they aren’t fully in agreement with the decision, they are willing to back it with their efforts because they had the chance to raise and work out all their issues already.
4. Once each team member is publicly committed to their work towards the goal, they can be held accountable by their team members. No one on the team should be afraid to call another team member out on an issue of accountability because they all trust that they hold each other to high standards.
5. The knowledge that the team is enforcing accountability on each other creates a natural tendency for every member to live up to their commitments. They will pay attention to their results because they know the team is depending on them and will call them out if they fall short of their commitments. Personal egos are put aside and the team works efficiently towards their goal.

A good manager fixes dysfunctional teams by identifying where the problem lies and working up or down the model from there.

In class, we also learned the basic three reasons why someone might not have followed through with their commitments:

1. Their assignment was vague, unclear, ambiguous, etc. Or they misunderstood their assignment. The solution is to ensure that the goal is clear and that person does not have any lingering issues or confusion about their task.
2. They simply did not have the resources or ability to perform the assignment. The solution is to provide the resources for them, or find a way to train them to a point where they can perform the assignment.
3. They ran out of time. Clearly, there was a problem in the schedule and it should be reviewed.

An important point here is that one should never simply ask the failed person, “WHY?” – a better way to figure out what went wrong is, “How can I help you meet that goal we set?” or “What can I do to facilitate your meeting your requirements?”