The Great Mind Challenge 2006

Q1 - How did you feel being nominated as the esteemed judge for evaluating the Great Mind Challenge contest projects?

It felt good. Thanks to your team for having apprised me on one such competition for students.

Q2 - What was your experience evaluating the projects. Things you expected / not expected/ new learning.

It was a good experience to see students ‘attempt’ to come up with ‘conceptual’ architectures and so on. Some of the entries echoed the students’ aspirations/curiosities.

Q3 - What were the attributes common to the winning entries which others lacked?

The entries I evaluated did not have sufficient documentation. It was just the code. ‘Dedication’ was the difference between the winners and losers.

Q4 - Common mistakes students made ……

Not providing sufficient documentation, misusing the word ‘architecture’ to ‘design’ documents, not providing a ‘usage instruction guide’ for the evaluators.

Q5 - Your suggestions for the future participants of this contest.

Have the confidence, dedication in completing the project to the last piece of doc/code, Enjoy what you do - Do not submit a half-baked project just because you started doing it.

1. How did you feel being nominated as the esteemed judge for evaluating the Great Mind Challenge contest projects?

It felt good since to evaluate one needs to have good knowledge with technologies used in it and the flow of full project life cycle. More than anything felt good to contribute to students from the experience gained all along.

2. What was your experience evaluating the projects. Things you expected / not expected/ new learning.

Evaluation did take time but it was a good experience so that was an expected experience

• Unexpected - The project titled and actual project were different in some cases.
• New learning: Students surpassed expectation in using the latest technologies like AJAX which I had not expected.

3. What were the attributes common to the winning entries which others lacked?

• New Technologies or concepts
• Good Interface
• Good Documentation

4. Common mistakes students made……

• Not using the technologies mentioned.
• Improper documentation

5. Your suggestions for the future participants of this contest.

• They need to come with a new Idea which involves good concepts.
• Good and Simple Documentation on how to setup there Projects( Source files, Database and Data files).
• Make sure they give good importance for the UI and the Presentation.

Q1 - How did you feel being nominated as the esteemed judge for evaluating the Great Mind Challenge contest projects?

Felt Great!

Q2 - What was your experience evaluating the projects. Things you expected/not expected/ new learning.

It was fun evaluating the student projects. As expected there were lot of small bugs, small innovative way using technology which was unexpected. Some teams were able to design an extremely good user interface which was something beyond our expectations and new learning about student capabilities.

Q3- What were the attributes common to the winning entries which others lacked?

It was the perfection & innovation in what ever they have done, whether it is the application, design or documentation.

Q4 - Common mistakes students made ……

Students do not think from the End-users point of view when they are solving the problems using IT! They get more excited with the technology used and miss out on whether what ever they develop is usable by the end user. This needs to be kept in mind.

Q5 - Your suggestions for the future participants of this contest.

Go by the rules of software engineering, do a proper requirement collection, analysis and design and then start with the development. Think from end-users stand point and deliver the application/solution accordingly

Q1 - How did you feel being nominated as the esteemed judge for evaluating the Great Mind Challenge contest projects?

I felt a mix of pride and pleasure being a judge, evaluating projects for TGMC-06.

Q2 - What was your experience evaluating the projects. Things you expected/not expected/ new learning.

Expected - Most of the teams were not aware of software development process, its complicacies and IBM technologies, which they used in their project. It was expected that students would face challenges with scenario domain difficulties, systematic approach discovery and technical obstacles. Project artifacts, deliverables and design documents reflect their dedication, devotion and courage.

Not Expected - The way some teams came out with a systematic, standard, process based and ready-to-deploy solution was really awesome and one never expected this kind of efforts and dedication from students at this level.

New learning - Now I personally believe that students can do miracles if they are committed to their goal, they just need a direction to work and TGMC participants proved it.

Q3- What were the attributes common to the winning entries which others lacked?

According to my assessment the attributes common to winning teams were

1. Refined requirements using usecases
2. Crystal clear design models using UML
3. Adopted best practices of software engineering
4. Full proof concrete functionalities but at the same time user friendly simple interface

Q4 - Common mistakes students made ……

1. Not followed standard way (UML) during documenting requirements, analysis and design time components
2. Improper or no validation checks with input forms and database objects
3. While designing user interface not keeping end-users ease of use in mind.
4. Not followed any design pattern (for ex. MVC) for performance optimisation and flexible architecture of application.

Q5 - Your suggestions for the future participants of this contest.

1. Showing courage of taking a technical challenge is good but putting dedicated efforts constantly and having a positive attitude when things become demanding, is the only way to succeed. If you want the real fruits, commitment is must.
2. It’s not an overnight task but a long journey so plan it properly. Failing to plan is planning to fail. First of all, sit together with your guide and estimate time and efforts for quality software delivery, make a schedule, set mile-stones, fix on individual responsibilities and decide scope of solution.
3. Master requirements. Functional and non-functional both are equally important. Devote at-least 15 days to refine, categorize, prioritise and document them.
4. Always follow best practices of software engineering. Choose standard way of modeling (UML) and documentation. I will strongly suggest the use of Rational Unified Process.
5. Design database, server components and UI objects in such a way they provide flexible architecture for application. Follow appropriate design pattern for it.
6. Put end-user’s hat while designing user interface. Use proper validation and verification.
7. Lastly properly test your application for features provided against requirements. Effective features even less in numbers are always good rather providing too many features with none of them working smoothly.