Week 2

 This week's post is broken up into five parts:

Part 1: Review and Reflect Learning Strategy 

 The "Effective Study Skills" document by Dr. Bob Kizlik identified a number of studying skills, several of which I can improve upon myself. These are a few that I would like to focus on improving:

1. The value of a schedule: I like having a schedule, and find that when I can stick to it, I am much more productive and feel more accomplished. I fail at adhering to it when anything unexpected arises, and I usually don't recover, and end up going with the flow until I snap out of it and make an effort to rebuild my schedule. By then, who knows how much productivity slipped away.
2. When to Study: The document suggests doing so when well-rested, alert, and have planned for it. Unfortunately, I always make studying my last task after assignments are due, chores, additional work, and mental health activities. This coincides with the first skill I need to improve. I need to plan ahead so I'm not studying at the last minute, and instead studying for several pockets of time over the course of my class rather than cramming before an exam.
3. Test Taking: The memory dump technique sounds interesting. I haven't tried that before, but have toyed around with doing it on a question-to-question basis to front-load formulas and such, but making my own "cheat-sheet" right off the bat isn't a bad idea.
   

Part 2: Preview Time Management Skills

 Part 3: Project Management Basics 

This section involves identifying the key points of several videos discussing project management. 

Introduction to project management:

• Discusses the project management triple constraint: scope, time, and cost. Changing any one will change the others.
• Discusses the different needs of a project: market needs, business needs, from technological advancement, customer requests, or legal requirements.
• Shows steps from project proposal from the project owner, to the management, and their decision of which projects that want to approve based on the needs of the business.
• Project managers are accountable to their commitments, and have to determine if it is possible given their constraints and everyone that is required for the project to succeed. They rely on their knowledge, people and workflow management skills, and their strategy and leadership skills.
• Historically, project management principles can be applied to several great accomplishments of mankind. The field of project management came in the 20th century, starting with WW1 to help build ships for the navy. Now project management is essential to keeping the world running, and the minimal steps for success often requirement project management execution in one way or another.

How to Create a Work Breakdown Structure

• Break down the projects into deliverables to determine what the tasks need to be.
• Level 0: The project we're going to create.
• Level 1: The Keyline, the organizing principle for the delivery structure. The workflow.
• Level 2:  Major deliverables that sit with each workstream of a keyline.
• Level 3: Interim deliverables. Requires experts to deliver on the steps that make the major deliverables possible.
• Level 4: Sub-deliverables. Breaks down interim and major deliverables into smaller and smaller deliverables to make the tasks more digestible.
  
•  Document breakdown work structure.
• Can choose to present as a hierarchical list or tree diagram, with each new heading tied to an item on the work breakdown structure (WBS); or create a WBS dictionary table
•  Make sure your WBS is mutually exclusive: Does not have overlap with other deliverables at the same level, and is resolved once all sub-deliverables are complete.
• Overall Process: Determine work packages > Assign individual Activities > Determine logical sequences > Create estimates > Create schedule > Build a budget

What is a Gantt Chart? 

• Invented by Karol Adamiecki, created the Harmonograph, created before Henry Gantt wrote this model in English.
• XY axis showing an activities/time relation with key markers to indicate important steps in a project.
• Always provide a key for what the different shades and symbols mean in the chart

Part 4: Check Out Previous Capstones

 Reflections on previous capstones:

• Open Energy Dashboard:
• The presentation itself seemed very simple. 
• The UI also seemed very simple, but seemed to function very well, which is the important part.
• Their use of Agile shows the project was well planned and executed.
• A Bird's Song
• A game with a purpose, how wonderful! A video game designed to highlight environmental destruction in the Hawaii islands.
• Choice of tools points to decisive utilization of their members' skills.
• Funny but not entirely professional narration.
• The short and simple game had a narrative that was easy enough to follow with the industrialization of their habitat.
• Out of Mana
• An ambitious project for a solo developer.
• The game seems heavily inspired by Enter the Gungeon, and it is very impressive how many of the features he was able to implement into his own version of the game.
• Game suffered from an ambitious scope in a narrow amount of time, but still impressive how much he was able to accomplish, and can serve as a great foundation for a project he can continue after the CS Online program.
  

Part 5: Summarize Your Week on Your Learning Journal 

This week most of my time in CST300 was spent working on my industry analysis essay. I chose to write my essay on the industry I'm currently working in, the semiconductor testing industry, or Automated Test Equipment (ATE) industry. I've been working at Teradyne, the world's leader in semiconductor testing, as a technical writer.

I found the assignment very enjoyable, and it gave me an opportunity to research Teradyne's place in the industry--and the world. I knew the ATE industry was rather private in its nature. Most of our clients are very private about their technology they'll be coming out with, so the products that Teradyne creates and the purposes for them are typically released in subtle ways, or long after development is complete to not expose what their clients are working on.

Additionally, the ATE industry is fairly niche, in that the general public probably doesn't think about the testing industry that much, or assume that the major product manufacturers do the testing entirely by themselves.

As a technical writer, I'm curious to see what type of feedback I receive from my peers. I haven't written a scholarly article in 10 years, when I was last in school. I wonder if they will have insights into shortcomings in my writings that I overlooked.