Week 16: Planning What’s Next

After week or two off we returned for our final semester. It was time to plan how we were going to proceed through the end of the project. For this we’d need a sprint plan. This summer will be especially packed. We’re only going to have six sprints to get us through to the end of the semester!

From planning out what we’re doing we moved on to the next big benchmarks. First we reevaluated the app, our deliverable from the end of last semester.

We went through each of the screens in our design and their features, marking the positive, the negatives, and any other questions we could think up:

Then we formulated a two pronged plan. We’d continue researching special needs shelters, as well as applications used by people with special needs, and begin validating our designs with caregivers. We began emailing shelters in Florida, agencies that work with shelters, hurricane survivors with special needs, caregivers and anyone else we could think of.

By the end of the week, we already had several interviews lined up. Our first interview was on this Friday. It was with a coordinator for the special needs shelters in Hillsborough County Florida, which includes the city of Tampa. He gave us a bevy of new and valuable information and told us that he’d be more than willing to test our designs.

The weeks ahead are going to be busy, but our two pronged plan of research and validation should move us swiftly into the build phase.