Lessons Learned From an Inspiring AI Project
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Peter Tarhanidis, Conrado Morlan, Jen Skrabak, Mario Trentim, Christian Bisson, Yasmina Khelifi, Sree Rao, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, David Wakeman, Ramiro Rodrigues, Wanda Curlee, Lenka Pincot, cyndee miller, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, Marat Oyvetsky
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Date
By Christian Bisson
When I was asked to write about a project that inspired me in the last 50 years, I didn’t have to look back further than last year. That’s when I had the chance to act as scrum master for a newly formed team.
The Challenge
We had seven weeks to build software from scratch that would be demonstrated at a conference and used by hundreds of people. Since the conference was centered on artificial intelligence, it was mandatory that our demo used AI. Our idea was a game where the player spelled words using real sign language. The game was displayed on a television hooked up to a camera, which filmed the player’s hand.
The hand’s position was then recognized and matched to a letter of the alphabet. The player received points based on the speed at which he was spelling the words displayed on the screen.
The Team
We had a great team composed of two developers, a designer, two AI researchers, a product owner and me (scrum master). Our small, dedicated team would empower us to deliver the software we needed to build from A to Z.
Although concerned about the short time available, everyone was motivated and excited to build this amazing software, knowing the visibility it would get.
How We Would Work
Since the scope wasn’t fully defined and the user experience was key, we needed to deliver usable increments to test. We needed a framework that would allow us to deliver quickly and adjust to the requirements as they were refined. Scrum was the obvious choice, even though most of the team was completely new to it. The majority of the team came from a software background, so they knew what it was on paper. However, for the AI researchers, it was completely unknown.
Where it All Came Together
Many start off with the team they need, but then obstacles come their way and prevent them from moving forward. These could be anything from unavailable stakeholders to people being pulled off the team to poor requirements.
However, in this case, it was everything you would want from agility/scrum:
- A team collaborating together without anyone coordinating them
- Busy stakeholders making themselves available for us to collaborate
- Everyone following scrum, even though it was new to them
- The team working at a sustainable pace
- A usable increment of the game delivered every sprint
- Continuous improvement through the retrospectives
- A healthy backlog that was properly refined by the team
It was amazing to see the collaboration when we needed users to test; after a quick Slack message to everyone in the company, we would suddenly have a lineup of people available to play the game.
What Inspired Me
When I think back on our success, all I remember are the people working together to create something great. It wasn’t even about being “agile.” For the team it was, “Let’s get this done!” and for everyone who supported us, it was “Let’s help our colleagues!” There was nothing more, nothing less—exactly how it should be.
I’d love to hear about the most inspiring project you’ve worked on in your career. Please share below!
Posted
by
Christian Bisson
on: November 13, 2019 03:13 PM |
Permalink
Comments (7)
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Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Christian
Interesting your post
Thank you for sharing your experience.
To be your project of the year, it must have been awesome
Congratulations
As a matter of curiosity.
What happened to the developed software?
I would say the most inspiring project was my first. It wasn't an award winner; just a rollout of 5,000 systems across Australia's largest retailer, and Y2K compliance. But it inspired me to remain and build upon the project management discipline. Now I am doing a PhD on project management frameworks, so the results of this research may be beneficial enough to "inspire" others.
Inspiring!....Thanks for sharing
Rohit Sambhwani
Project Manager| Qentelli Solutions
Secunderabad, Telangana, India
Very interesting and inspiring. Thank you for sharing.
Cameron Ahmad
Capital Planner and Special Projects' Coordinator| Government of Nunavut, Canada
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Hi,
AI based systems are being used today and in years to come they will be used as a common tool. Their biggest handicap in my limited understanding is the huge system requirement in terms of memory and speed to carry out data searches. It is this which in coming days need to be addressed from technological point of view. Nevertheless, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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