Collective Task Planning
EASE assumes that teams of ten to forty students work together on a system. In a weekly meeting the students collectively plan and control the project work. A meeting consists of five activities, i.e. evaluating tasks, finding tasks, sorting tasks, discussing tasks and assigning tasks. The activities can be done in parallel, however if desired in order to trigger the work the activities can be completed as steps in a workflow.
- Evaluate Tasks. Students discuss the results of the tasks that have been completed in the previous week. Problems that occurred are discussed and it is decided, which tasks can be considered as finished. Each student indicates how much time she has spent on a task.
- Find Tasks. Students discuss which work has to be done in order to contribute best to quality and quantity of all artifacts. The result from this discussion is a set of new tasks, each with a name and a short description.
- Sort Tasks. There are some old tasks of the last week that could not be finished. There are some old tasks that have been found in previous meetings but could not be assigned to students. All the new and old tasks must be discussed due to importance. The result is an ordered task list.
- Discuss Tasks. The students estimate time required for each task on the ordered list. The team decides which tasks have to be completed during the next week. Alternative possible solutions are discussed and described for each task.
- Assign Tasks. The tasks are assigned to small groups, typically consisting of two to five students. A student can work in more than one group. Every group reestimates the time required for the respective task and each group member commits to work a certain number of hours on the task.
Collective task planning is crucial. Students learn moderation, motivation and decision-making.