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Teams

Teams will be announced on Thursday, September 12, 2024. Once you've broken into teams, it can be difficult to get going, considering how many decisions to make early on. It will be wise to remove as many of the unknowns as possible as soon as possible.

This will give you an idea of how to stay on track but not get overwhelmed:

Set up a time and place to meet for your First Meeting. Don't view this as the time you will meet for recurring meetings, just this one. In this meeting it is a good idea to get as many of the low-hanging fruit unknowns out of the way:

  1. Team Communication: Where will you handle it? Create a new Discord server/slack? Via email/text? You will be given a category in the Pan Out Discord server, but you may want to handle it elsewhere. Assign one person to set it up.
  2. When to meet: Find a time & place to meet (likely will be the same as your First Meeting, but who knows?) as well as a frequency that works for most people (monthly, bi-monthly, weekly). Assign 1 person to send out the invites.
  3. Codebase: Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab are generally the standard. If you don't know, assign someone to look into it and make a decision. If you do know, assign someone to set it up.
  4. Tracking: Jira, Github Projects, Trello, Notion are all good options but find something your team likes. Assign 1 person to research and decide or just plain set it up.

It's a good idea to get to know each other. Some good talking points to cover for each member would be:

  1. What attracted you to this idea.
  2. Skill levels, depth in the program, outside experience prior to joining this program.
  3. What you hope to accomplish with this idea.
  4. What you'd like to work on or your role on the project

Ongoing Advice​

This will be a project of lots and ups and downs with team members coming in and out depending on the phases of their lives. It's best to have a flexible mindset to ensure you stay on track to accomplish your goals. Here's some thoughts to consider:

  1. Think Terminally: Focus on the success of the project and orient your decisions around that. Don't get caught in bike-shedding debates.
  2. Be flexible: Try a bunch of different things. The Computer Science program is great at showing you a granular look at topics in CS, but most of the day-in-day-out of the job you get from your degree won't look like this. Find the things you love doing with a background in CS.
  3. Solve the problems when needed: Have an idea of where the bridges are, but don't plan on crossing them until it's time.
  4. Leadership ebbs and flows: At some times or for some topics, one person can take the lead. At other times or other topics, someone else may take lead. Work well with each other's strengths.
  5. Be compassionate: Progress will stall, so have patience & understanding for your teammates who haven't made any. Remember, Pan Out is just one more thing on top of all of our already busy lives.
  6. A.B.C. = Always Be C... showing up!: Show up to the meetings, even if you haven't made progress in places you said you would. See the above point. They will understand.
  7. Ask questions when stuck: Ask your teammates first, and if you can't figure it out, ask the #help-and-advice channel in the Pan Out Discord. People love helping out.
  8. Learn to like each other: Get to know your teammates. Plan a meetup if possible, or stay 15 minutes past the weekly meetings just to chat and goof off.
  9. Pivot!: The pitch was perhaps too optimistic about the capabilities, or maybe there is a budget and fundraising needed to reach a milestone. Whatever the case may be, be willing to change courses if it looks like you are heading toward a dead end. If anything, pivoting will prove to be a great story to tell in interviews.