Above and Beyond Points: Special Roles and Opportunities

To achieve the highest grades in the course, you will need to go above and beyond the call of duty; thus, your individual productivity grade also accounts for Above and Beyond productivity. You may earn A&B points in the following ways.

1. Play a Special Role

Each iteration, you will have an opportunity to play a special role. The team should assign these roles democratically, since the roles serve key functions on the team.

1.1. Project Coordinator

This role is concerned with making sure the team follows procedures correctly, with leading the creation of reporting documents, and with communicating with the customer and instructor(s). Ideal candidates for this role are highly reliable (e.g., rarely miss class), organized and detail oriented (esp. with regard to following instructions and producing documents), and good about keeping up with what everyone on the team is doing and what their statuses are.

Key responsibilities include the following:

• Lead the creation of the task reports.
• Lead the creation of the milestone release.
• Ensure that any email sent to the team from the customer or instructor(s) is responded to within 24 hours of receipt.
• Ensure that all reporting documents and submissions follow instructions to the letter.

Compensation: 1 A&B point per iteration. Only one person plays this role per iteration. This compensation may be reduced in the event of significant failures to meet responsibilities.

1.2. Quality Assurance Czar(s)

This role is concerned with ensuring that the milestone code and design artifacts are of high quality.

Key responsibilities include the following:

• Review each pull request. Each pull request must have one QA Czar review it. You may not review your own pull request. If issues are discovered, appropriate comments should be made to the PR author. Once all issues have been resolved, the reviewing QA Czar must accept and merge the PR.
• Make sure that the code follows good design and coding standards, and that the test plan is being followed to ensure stability.
• Ensure that the repo stays well organized.
• Make sure that the designs (often in the form of diagrams) are of good quality, and that the code is consistent with the designs.

Compensation: 1 A&B point per QA Czar per iteration. Two people play this role each iteration. This compensation may be reduced in the event of significant failures to meet responsibilities.

1.3. Video-Demo Creator(s)

The team member(s) who create the video demo will receive special compensation for their extra effort. Only certain iterations will offer this role.

Compensation: 2 A&B points per team per relevant iteration, to be divided based on contribution (multiples of .25 or .33) to whoever worked on the video.

1.4. Demo-Booth Operator

The team member who operates the demo booth will receive special compensation for his/her extra effort. Only certain iterations will offer this role.

Compensation: 1 A&B point for the booth operator (1 person only) per interactive demo session.

2. Be a Top Contributor

Each iteration, I may identify one or two members of each team who have made exceptional contributions in the past iteration. These “10Xers” will receive an A&B bonus for their exceptional work.

3. Negotiate Additional Work

In addition to your planned work in a given iteration, you may take on additional work for A&B points. You must negotiate the work and compensation with me, and I must approve it. Such work often involves adding bonus features to the project; however, I am open to your ideas.