In TechLauncher you are a practising professional

Everything you do in your project must be professional - respecting the client, your team, your peers and yourself.

If you find yourselves doing something that does not appear to be a good use of time, or seems unnecessary, then STOP and REFLECT - do you really need what you are doing, have you missed something, can you use your time better?

TechLauncher Bottom Line

  • Invest in, understand, and collaborate with your teammates, shadows, and client.
  • Exhibit and record your teamwork.
  • Research and learn – I.e., learn about your project domain, technologies you will need to deliver your project, and learn with and about your teammates.
  • Exhibit and be recognised for the quality and value of your contributions to your team and shadows.
  • Understand and discover your limits and those of your peers, communicate those effectively with stakeholders, and collaboratively plan and execute as a team

In TechLauncher we do not talk about ‘marks’. If you are using language such as ‘marks’, ‘grades’, ‘scores’, or ‘points’, you are missing the point. Instead, focus on how your work will be ‘evaluated’, described, and recognised - the value you are generating for your client, teammates and shadows through the project outcomes and processes.*

Guiding Ethical Principles

As a professional operating in the context of a project in the technology space—e.g., computing or engineering project—you should be aware of the ACMs guiding ethical principles.

  • Contribute to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing.
  • Avoid harm.
  • Be honest and trustworthy.
  • Be fair and take action not to discriminate.
  • Respect the work required to produce new ideas, inventions, creative works, and computing artfacts.
  • Respect privacy.
  • Honor confidentiality.

You may face a personal or team decision that requires you deliberate on ethics. In Australia, the ethi-call service exists to assist you at such times.

You are also reminded of your professional responsibilities. Refer to the Engineers Australia Code of Ethics Section 1.3, and/or the Australian Computer Society Code of Professional Conduct Section 1.2.6.

Finally on this topic, at the Australian National University your are additionally operating under the Academic Integrity Rule 2021. If you are not already familiar with the points about collusion and plagiarism (self or otherwise), please review these rules. Ensure your team has a robust process for ensuring materials and claimed work in your repository is unambiguously attributed correctly.

Presenting your work

This is a list of tips for presenting your work compiled over many years of TechLauncher project work

Professionalism at Tutorials

The aim of the Review Tutorials is for you and your team to develop and practise the ability to succinctly present teamwork, and to then address comments and questions. Exposing your team processes at tutorial meetings is encouraged, as is “Red Teaming” - i.e., ask your shadows to deliberate on and help resolve a conflict/discussion/decision/dilema your team has encountered. Tutorials are an opportunity to get feedback from your peers, tutors, mentors, and other stakeholders. Finally, tutorial meetings are an opportunity for you to develop your ability to understand and critique the work of others, and to ask well formed questions that improve your understanding.

  • You are jointly responsible for the meeting running well and being useful.
  • Always attend tutorials with an agenda, circulated in advance and revised as per requests from your stakeholders.
  • Before you say something, make sure you have asked yourself the question: How can we help each other?
  • Introduce clients and other stakeholders who are present.
  • To remain silent is not allowed. You must engage respectfully, thoughtfully, and usefully in the process and discussion.
  • Giving and receiving feedback is HARD and practise makes perfect. Radical candour is acceptable, but some investment in your peers, precursory norming, professionalism and a respectfulness is required.
  • Any representation you make, to the moderator, teammates, or shadows, is a representation made generally, including to your examiner. Be professional, be quality conscious, be original, and represent your best effort.

Presentation tips

  • Be honest and open, and help everyone else help you.
  • Be enthusiastic about your teamwork, and proud of what you and your peers have achieved collaboratively together.
  • Present consistently and as a team, and have clear lines of responsibility and reporting.
  • Everyone should take a turn at pitching over the course of the project.
  • When discussing things that did not work, discuss what your team learnt from that.
  • Always have concrete work products to show, discuss, and/or demonstrate.

Repository tips

  • Make sure all reviewers have access rights to read your repositories from 9am Monday of the audit week.
  • Revisit your Audit Landing Page with stakeholders weekly.
  • If an auditor cannot review/find an arfact, then for auditing purposes it does not exist.
  • We suggest using your Audit Landing Page as the basis to give your weekly project status reports.
  • Work with input from stakeholders to ensure your Audit Landing Page and your team repository structure is intuitive and navigable.
  • Know the audit evaluation criteria and make sure your repository is structured for evaluation.
  • Make sure you refer to evidence and rationale for decisions made by your team.
  • Members should keep an ‘engineering logbook’ and teams should have a ‘decision log’ and ‘risk register’ that is revisited weekly.
  • A contract is not a living document. Do NOT modify/update/revise an executed contract with your client, irrespective of how the project is actually tracking. A change of scope, deliverables, etc., is to be negotiated with, and agreed to by your stakeholders in a new contract.

Evaluation tips

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