Review of the First Month of Launch Pad (2019)

UBC Launch Pad
Nov 3 · 5 min read

Going into November 2019, we have arrived at the mid-way of the term. This year, we made a series of internal changes to enhance members’ experiences at Launch Pad, and everything seems to be going well, so here’s a quick update of the changes we’ve made and the results we’ve obtained so far!

Before the start of the term, we reviewed the feedback from last year and concluded that there were three core issues:

  1. The team silo problem

Launch Pad is heavily team-based. While this structure creates strong bonds between the teams, members rarely interact with the remainder of the club. (During our leads meeting, everyone had to introduce themselves even though we spent the past 32 weekends in the same room…) That’s a really big problem!

2. The project management problem

Many teams have experienced the need to constantly adjust the scale of their projects, and this has made it more difficult to accomplish their project goals. As such, there were a few unfinished projects last year.

3. The accountability problem

Although it’s undeniably difficult to juggle between school and extracurriculars, members’ accountability becomes a huge issue for the progress of the project. While this is a common issue for all student clubs, we felt that we could make changes to directly impact this issue.

After realizing these issues, the leads went through hours of discussion on how can we solve these problems, and decided to implement a few initiatives to improve our members’ experiences at Launch Pad.

Team leads meeting up to review 140+ applications during recruitment season
  1. Cross-functional team structure

Instead of having separate design and strategy teams, we incorporated them into the development teams to foster an agile team culture while embracing the diversity of our members’ skills. Under this structure, we hope our members will be able to develop cross-functional communication skills and teamwork being exposed to new perspectives.

2. Adopting Design Thinking (UX Design process)

After discussing with the tech-leads, we believe that planning is one of the most important stages of long-term development projects. Therefore, we restructured our first meeting, the kick-off event, as a day of ideation, research, and planning. Having amassed a lot of industry experience between all the leads, we understand the value of design thinking and following an UX-first approach.

Team pitching their ideas during kick-off

Members were split into groups to come up with project ideas for the year. We provided them with prompts ranging from creating games to helping solve a genuine social issue. They were asked to write every single idea onto a sticky note, no matter how crazy or impossible it seemed. Everyone was given the chance to look over the ideas and vote for their favorites over some pizza.

After forming into groups, each team present their problem statement, technical solution, tech stack, responsibilities, MVP of the project and basic prototypes. This encouraged the teams to plan ahead before jumping into coding.

In our second meeting, we invited UX Hub to give a workshop on design thinking by covering topics such as customer journey mapping, user research, and the design stages (BIG THANK YOU to Yuki, Jack, and Josh!!). We hoped that by dedicating two sessions for fully understanding the projects and their scopes, each team would have a more concrete and realistic timeline to follow for the rest of the term!

Partial project spec from the CMD Fam team after UX Hub’s workshop on design thinking

3. Showcase in March

For the first time ever, Launch Pad has decided to host a showcase in March and invite industry professionals to see and judge the projects we built over the year. What we hope to achieve with this showcase is not only to incentivize and push our members to complete their projects, but also to provide an opportunity for people who are interested in Launch Pad to learn more about us, see all the cool things that are happening in this community, and even network!

The 2020 Launch Pad team!

It has been a month since our kick-off, and it was very rewarding to see people engaging in their teams, taking initiatives in developing projects, learning new skills, and connecting with each other. There is never a dull moment, and we have watched new friendships bloom already.

This is a brief update on Launch Pad’s new structure; we will be having more posts regarding the projects and our members throughout the term, so make sure you follow us on medium or our social media!

ubclaunchpad.com — UBC’s leading software engineering club.
Stay in touch: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

UBC Launch Pad Software Engineering

Launch Pad is student-run software engineering club at the University of British Columbia.

UBC Launch Pad

Written by

UBC’s student-run software engineering club 🚀 https://www.ubclaunchpad.com/

UBC Launch Pad Software Engineering

Launch Pad is student-run software engineering club at the University of British Columbia.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade