Post Road Foundation capstone team: Addressing coding errors (2/3)

Capstone in real-time: Following the journey of the 2020-21 Post Road Foundation team and how they addressed coding errors in a timely manner

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Second challenge: Figuring out coding errors in a timely manner

The communication standards the team established earlier on in the capstone experience (see Part 1) paid dividends in promoting rapport and effective teamwork. Despite the team working in different timezones, being in constant communication helped move the project forward.

At the time of our second check-in, the Post Road team was in the “norming” stage of team development and had worked together for a couple of months already.

The team expressed their main worry at this point was not having enough time to work out the coding errors for the optimization of their energy model. At this midpoint stage, the team tackled this technical challenge with…

Key decisions in *not getting stuck* for too long:

1. Identify the technical skills and strengths of each team member and lean on each other when needed. For example, a team member who is more well-versed in Python can help other team members align on the coding and data analysis.
2. Prioritize time to identify and address coding errors. The team acknowledged that there was no easy solution around this problem aside from allocating a lot of time to figure things out. The team also utilized “Collaboratory” to document all their code and make it readily accessible for review, edits, and audits.
3. Develop a base model and work from there. The team was able to iterate on this model freely and test out variables that were more reflective of the real world.

Downstream effect:

Since time was of the essence, these decisions helped the team not get stuck on a “pain point” or “rate-limiting step” for too long. By pairing up to figure out certain errors, the team was able to conquer more problems in the same amount of time while also maintaining oversight from fellow team members. Despite these efforts in optimizing efficiency, it was the team’s dedication and intention in making time for troubleshooting errors that was critical for overcoming this challenge.

Next: Read about how the Post Road Foundation team achieved stakeholder alignment→

Connect with the 2020–21 Post Road Foundation team: Bogdan Cristei (IEOR), Elliot Suen (CEE ), Sarah Gunasekera (ME), Sydney Holgado (CEE)

Compiled and edited by the Fung Institute team.