Hunger Bowls: Teamwork, User Stories, and Stakeholder Report

The Hunger Bowls report analyzes a food donation application designed to reduce food waste and hunger. The report examines the project's teamwork dynamics, including strengths, weaknesses, and alternate approaches to enhance collaboration. It delves into user stories for restaurant and charity managers, discussing their advantages, disadvantages, and role in the agile methodology. Furthermore, the report identifies and classifies stakeholders into primary, secondary, tertiary, and facilitating groups, evaluating their roles and communication strategies. The analysis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the stakeholder communication plan, suggesting improvements to enhance stakeholder involvement. The report emphasizes the importance of agile methodologies, user stories, and effective stakeholder management for the success of the Hunger Bowls application. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and suggesting areas for improvement in teamwork, user stories, and stakeholder engagement.

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Hunger Bowls
Report
3/19/2019

Hunger Bowls
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Team Work............................................................................................................................................2
Strengths & Weaknesses....................................................................................................................2
Alternate Approaches........................................................................................................................2
User Stories...........................................................................................................................................3
Advantages & Disadvantages............................................................................................................3
Stakeholders & Communication Plan....................................................................................................4
Strengths & Weaknesses....................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Hunger Bowls is a food donation application that aims at eliminating the wastage of food and
food hunger. It is a location-based application and shows the food donors on the basis of the
location entered by the users.
Team Work
Strengths & Weaknesses
There are a total of seven members in the project team and each of these members is assigned
with specific tasks and responsibilities for the project. The team’s approach to team work
includes the incorporation of self-organizing teams that are aware of their roles and
responsibilities. The approach makes sure that all of the members in the project team are
aware of their roles and there are no ambiguities in terms of tasks and activities to be
performed. The project activities and progress are discussed in the daily stand up meetings in
the morning which is mandatory for all the members to attend. The sharing and recording of
these meeting notes provides the ability to make decisions as per the project requirements and
the interests of the team members. These notes can also be used as references for further
project tasks. In this manner, the chances of project issues and conflicts come down. There is
also a communication plan developed for communicating with the stakeholders and the team
members that will interact with the respective stakeholders are specified in this plan. Thus,
the team has an understanding of the groups and members that they need to interact with
(Walthall, 2015).
There are also certain weaknesses in the team plan being used in the project. There are
resources that do not attend the project meetings resulting in the inability to keep a track of
the project updates. There is also no conflict resolution techniques specifically stated for the
project. These are some of the weaknesses that may come up as major hurdles in the project.
Alternate Approaches
There are certain alternate approaches that can be used to make sure that team work and team
collaboration is enhanced in the project. The primary approach is the specification of the
meeting rules and guidelines. The attendance in the project and team meetings shall be made
mandatory and the resources shall be asked to inform about their absence to the meeting
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facilitator. Also, this communication shall be done in advance. This will make sure that all
the team members have the project updates and are aware of the actions to perform.
There shall also be conflict resolution technique that shall be explicitly stated so that the team
work and team collaboration levels are enhanced. It is certain that there will be certain
conflicts that may come up in the projects. The resolution to these conflicts will be resolved
as per the guidelines specified in this strategy. The presence of lesser project and team
conflicts along with the resolution of the existing conflicts in a timely manner will make sure
that the project goals and objectives are achieved and the team cohesion levels are also
maintained at all times.
It is necessary that the management and the members of the operational teams get in to
discussion at frequent intervals so that each of these parties gets to know the performance
details and concerns of each other. It has a positive influence on team work and collaboration
levels as well.
User Stories
Advantages & Disadvantages
Agile is a system development methodology in which the requirements are specified in the
form of user stories and these stories are explored only in the sprints in which these stories
are targeted. In the case of the application for Hunger Bowls, there are user stories specified
for the Restaurant Manager and the Charity Manager. There are pros and cons associated
with these user stories and their exploration in specific sprints.
The primary benefit that these user stories provide is the highest value that they provide to the
project. These user stories make sure that the highest value is delivered as there are short-
term goals that are set up and the immediate customer needs are targeted. The user stories are
also prioritised as per the customer demands (Hudda, Mahajan & Chopra, 2016). Such a
practice makes sure that earlier returns are achieved on the projects. The user stories follow
the approach of minimalist characteristics. As a result they lead to the development of
enhanced collaboration among the product owner, project development team members and
the customer groups. There is a collaboration of business and technical perspectives to make
sure that the customer needs and demands are fulfilled.
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Collaboration with the users is one of the characteristics of the agile projects and it is fulfilled
with the involvement of the user stories and their prioritization. The user stories deliver the
requirements with highest value and customer interests in the initial sprints of the project.
Also, the users are collaborated with during the development of the user stories. It leads to the
enhancement of the user engagement and satisfaction levels.
Scalability and flexibility are the two agile features and properties that are reflected in the
end-results. The user stories also facilitate these properties as the addition or removal of these
user stories can be easily done. There may be certain changes that may be requested by the
end-users and the product owner during the project lifecycle. The change in the user stories
can be accordingly done. The end-product may be scaled up or scaled down as per the
requirement. The transparency among the various project entities, such as the product owner,
project development team members, and the user groups also increase with the involvement
of user stories in the project. The higher level of understanding is also achieved in the project
as the collaboration levels are also high.
There are also certain disadvantages that may get associated with these user stories. The
information that is covered in the form of user stories does not include the description of the
design or development methods that shall be used. This may lead to certain confusions
among the project developers and unwanted differences may also come up. There are errors
that the developers and analysts may perform while writing these user stories which may
result in improper coverage of the requirements and information. There may be too much
detail included in a user story and the main points may go missing (Ghai & Kaur, 2012). In
such a case, there may be deterioration of customer engagement and expectation levels that
may come up. It is also witnessed that the user stories usually give primacy to the business
perspective and the technical aspect is put secondary. In some cases, it may lead to the
technical difficulties and discrepancies in the advanced project stages. The entire project
vision and control may get impacted due to the user stories and the ambiguities that may be
involved in it.
It is therefore, required that the description of the user stories is tactfully done and the
preparation is done with collaboration from all the project entities and stakeholders.
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Stakeholders & Communication Plan
Strengths & Weaknesses
The stakeholder list of the project team classifies the stakeholders in four categories as
primary stakeholders, secondary stakeholders, tertiary stakeholders, and facilitating
stakeholders. The primary stakeholder list includes the restaurant manager and technical staff
members along with the charity manager. These stakeholders are the primary users that will
use the product. The secondary stakeholder list includes the stakeholders that will provide
input and use the output, such as restaurants or local food joints. The tertiary list includes the
stakeholders that may not be directly affected by the project but may be impacted. These may
include the restaurant shareholders or charity shareholders. The facilitator stakeholder group
includes the stakeholders included in the project team. The primary strength of classifying the
stakeholder groups in this form is the ease of interaction with each of these groups. The
stakeholders need to be kept involved throughout the project so that the contribution levels
are high. For instance, in the case of Hunger Bowls, the stakeholders in the primary group
will provide the information on the user stories and specific project requirements. The design
and development of the application will be required to be done as per the demands of these
stakeholders (Aakhus & Bzdak, 2015).
There are also a few weaknesses in the stakeholder list that is developed. The stakeholder
map is not prepared. The stakeholders also have specific role and responsibilities in the
project and they need to be informed about their roles and contribution. The stakeholder map
includes the name of all the stakeholders along with their role and responsibility, influence
level, contribution level, and interest levels. The members of the project team and project
management get to know about the actions that they shall perform to gain enhanced
stakeholder contribution (Heath, 2010).
The stakeholder communication plan includes the strategies that shall be followed to
communicate with the stakeholders. The plan is also developed as per the stakeholder list that
is prepared. The communication channels that are specified in the stakeholder communication
plan include the face to face communications, emails, and Skype. The communication
channel that shall be used for each of these stakeholder groups is also specified in the
communication plan. This will provide clarity to the stakeholders and will also make sure that
the communication processes are effectively conducted in the project. The rate of project
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conflicts among the internal and external stakeholders of the project and among the members
of the project team will also come down as a result (Legacy, 2010).
There are certain weaknesses and areas of improvement that are also associated with the
stakeholder communication plan. The communication channels that are being used to interact
with the stakeholders are limited. There are newer communication channels that may be used,
such as the use of SharePoint location to upload the documents and share files with the
stakeholders. There are tele-communication channels that can also be used during the
interactions with the stakeholders. The description of such channels and communication
mechanisms is currently missing from the stakeholder communication plan and shall be
added.
The meetings rules and guidelines along with the ethical and professional code of conduct are
not specified in the stakeholder communication plan. The inclusion of these rules and codes
must be included in the communication plan so that the participation during the meetings is
high and the stakeholder expectations are also fulfilled.
Conclusion
The team work, user stories, and stakeholder list & communication plan that is prepared for
the project has its own share of strengths and weaknesses. It is necessary that the strengths
are adequately used and the weaknesses are worked upon for further improvement. The use
of agile methodology will benefit the project.
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References
Aakhus, M., & Bzdak, M. (2015). Stakeholder engagement as communication design
practice. Journal Of Public Affairs, 15(2), 188-200. doi: 10.1002/pa.1569
Ghai, S., & Kaur, J. (2012). Analysis of User Requirements Gathering Practices in Agile and
Non-Agile Software Development Team. International Journal Of Computer
Applications, 58(8), 13-18. doi: 10.5120/9301-3519
Heath, R. (2010). The Community Collaboration Stakeholder Project. Communication
Teacher, 24(4), 215-220. doi: 10.1080/17404622.2010.513001
Hudda, S., Mahajan, R., & Chopra, S. (2016). Prioritization of User-Stories in Agile
Environment. Indian Journal Of Science And Technology, 9(45). doi:
10.17485/ijst/2016/v9i45/105069
Legacy, C. (2010). Investigating the Knowledge interface between Stakeholder Engagement
and Plan-Making. Environment And Planning A: Economy And Space, 42(11), 2705-
2720. doi: 10.1068/a43164
Walthall, M. (2015). Trust, Cohesion, & the Globally Distributed Team: The Effect of Team
Proximity on Collaboration. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2676717
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