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Collaborative project 2

Overview: In teams of three or four, you work now to produce three sets of instructions—designed, developed, tested, and edited collaboratively—accompanied by the same sorts of planning documents used in the first project and with the addition of an informal report noting your progress. In the interest of efficient communication processes, we will keep the team assignments from last week but with rotation of project leaders as indicated below.

The deliverables: separate sets of professional-grade instructions on 8.5 x 11 inch paper (4-6 pages each) for each of the following:

  • changing a flat tire on a model of car owned by one member of the team

  • burning a music CD on a PC (Windows computer)

  • programming a DVR to record every Atlanta Braves baseball game, including the addition of 60 minutes beyond the scheduled air time (whatever DVR system your group agrees upon is fine—DirecTV, Dish, Cox, Comcast, Xfinity, whatever).

Team  assignments:

Sandy Callaway, team leader
Beth Dokolasa
David Brown
Liz Riley, team leader
Katie Roberts
Dana McGonagill

Laurie Hudson, team leader
Karissa Jones
Soudea Forbes

Laura Terrell, team leader
Taiquanda Winbush
Amy Winfrey
Matthew Smith

Deadline: Tuesday, November 12th at 9:00 p.m.

Meetings: Again each team must have two video-conference meetings. Have your first meeting either Thursday, November 7th or Friday November 8th.

Collaborative workspace: As with the first collaborative project, too, share drafts, revisions, feedback, ancillary documents, etc. in an online collaborative workspace such as Google Docs or Dropbox.com (using Dropbox Paper, e.g.). Please grant me access to the workspace you set up so I can check in. You may use the same workspace from the first team project—no need to send me a new invitation, if so. You would of course need to clean up files (perhaps creating an archive of the first project docs).

Division of labor among teams: It is up to you how you divide the work among yourselves (you may want to capitalize on a team-member's document design or graphics skill-sets, for instance or divide the work by some other system of specialization), but all of you should pull your full weight and all team members should be heavily involved in revising and editing. All team members are ultimately, equally responsible for the final product.

Usability testing: In some fashion, include usability testing in your process. Obviously, you probably can't all get together to change a tire on a teammate's car, and you may not all have the same TV provider, but in whatever way you can figure, do your best actually to test each set of instructions after they are drafted. You may need to be creative or to call on a friend or family member or two to help. . . .

Formatting/document design: Assume that your group is an actual business and you are being contracted to create these sets of instructions: give yourselves a company name (ABC Documents, e.g.), create some kind of simple logo, and aim for consistency in the page design across documents. Include appropriate visuals.

Project planning sheet: Early in the process, each team should complete a project planning sheet such at the one in Figure 5.1 of our Technical Communication text (it's fine to modify the one created for the last project). Share the planning document in your collaborative workspace online (Google docs, e.g.) and keep it updated as your work progresses.

Audience profile sheets: As part of the planning process, too, each team should complete an Audience and Use Profile for each set of instructions as well (as in Figure 2.7 of our text). Here, too, it's fine to adapt the one created for the first collaborative project. Share this document in your collaborative workspace as well. Think hard about who would want each of the sets of instructions you are creating.

Progress report: One member of each team is to email me a two-page progress report by noon Sunday (see Technical Communication chapter 20).

Submission format and method: Each of you, individually, submit the three final documents to the Collaborative project 2 dropbox in PDF form; one member of each team should also submit the group's project planning sheet and the three Audience and Use Profiles. No need to share design format this time.