I loved eavesdropping on your first team meetings in class yesterday—I heard so many good ideas for potential collaborative projects. Over the next few days, keep thinking about your options and stay in touch with your teammates as new ideas come to mind. This weekend is the time to check with potential clients to see if they would be interested in having your team help them. As you do so, be careful not to commit to a project until your entire team agrees on its topic.
By next Tuesday, your team should have a draft of its memorandum of understanding, which should follow the template I shared with you on Google Docs (linked on the Assignments page). Come to class on Tuesday ready to have me review that document; when we agree on the scope of work and the evaluation criteria for this assignment, your team and I will sign the final MOU. At that point, the MOU becomes the governing document for your team’s work over the next month. In order to accommodate differences between the various teams, Unit #3 will be much less structured than our previous units. If you and your teammates thrive on structure (or struggle to find motivation without external deadlines), be sure to build some checkpoints into your MOU—these will hold you accountable to one another throughout the course of the project.
On Thursday, we will consider the similarities and differences between proposals and reports, then discuss how to align the documents you are creating for Unit #3 with your client’s needs and expectations. Please read Chapter 9 in the textbook before you come to class.
If your team has any questions about potential clients or the scope of your project, please let me know before class on Tuesday.