Teams and Roles for 2015

REGIONAL TEAMS

Current teams are Greenfield, Northampton, and Springfield.  Each team has a “Team Organizer” who pulls meetings together and keeps everyone abreast of requirements, and multiple “Project Managers” who prepare challenges for consideration, gather data for approved Challenges for the Hackathon, and bring Challenge work back to their nonprofit organizers for implementation.  On the day of the Hackathon, many people will be looking for Challenges to join, and will make their decisions based on slideshow presentations by Project Managers.

FIRST MEETINGS (March – April)

Team Organizers organize and facilitate first meeting, perhaps using Doodle, by early April.

  1. Members are tasked to find challenges, and to register on https://hackforwesternmass.org.
  2. Members who find challenges will act as project managers, and create slide decks to pitch their challenges to their team (and later, the Hackathon). A Gmail or Google Apps account makes this template easy to copy and adapt: http://goo.gl/NsYQu0. For Non-Google users, a PPT Template is attached.
  3. IMPORTANT: Project Managers should not also be Product Owners (the nonprofit representative who accepts the work).  If a Product Owners is part of the team, a different Project Manager needs to be identified.

SECOND MEETINGS (April-May)

Team Organizers organize second meeting by early May.  A projector and screen will be useful if the team is larger than 3 people.

  1. Team Organizers create Team Pages
    1. Team Members can only be added if they have registered, so everyone attending the Hackathon needs to register.
    2. The Team Page can only be created by a Team Organizer: https://hackforwesternmass.org/node/add/team-page
    3. Choose Team Members by beginning to type their user names.
  2. Project Organizers pitch their Challenges
    1. Presentations should last no more than 5 minutes.  This is practice for the Hackathon.
    2. Team members ask hard questions: the whether challenges are clear enough to address, and small enough to handle during a two-day Hackathon.  If 80% of the work can be handled, good; if 50%, the project manager will have a lot to do after, and needs to understand that. During this conversation, the slide decks are updated.
  3. Teams finalize their choices of Challenges.
    1. Project Managers enter challenges: https://hackforwesternmass.org/node/add/challenge.
    2. Team Organizers add the challenges to their Team Pages.
    3. Team Organizers make sure Project Managers understand their role going forward.
    4. Team Organizers notify the H4WM Team Coordinator that challenges have been submitted.

PRE-HACKATHON PREP (May-June)

The Organizing Committee finalizes Challenges, or ask project managers for clarification.  During this period, Project managers will meet face-to-face with product owners (from the nonprofit organizations) to get all required data and refine the project specifications so that the Hackathon can be a fruitful success for everyone.  For more on this process:

HACKATHON

On the day of the Hackathon, project teams will be encouraged to use GitHub.org, not only to version code, but also to manage project tasks.  Use this page for guidance. During the Hackathon, you may choose to play one or more of roles.  NOTE: The traditional “Project Manager” role is not encouraged during the Hackathon, as it can block inclusiveness and creativity.

  • Regional Team Organizer: If you have been playing this role, continue to check in on each of your team’s projects.
  • Product Owner: If you have been playing the project manager role, please represent that project as owner when the actual product owner from the nonprofit organization cannot be present.
  • Sprint Manager: Helping facilitate everyone’s collaboration and input, without exercising the authority of traditional project management.
  • Team Member: You have joined a project and are finding ways to contribute.
  • Hackathon Reporter: Help document the weekend hackathon, write about the challenge projects, and spread the word!
  • Free Agent:  Free agents are hackathon attendees willing to volunteer their skills wherever they’re needed the most. From last year: Hack for Western Mass 2014 Free Agents

More guidance as we get closer!