Lavina: A Talent Avalanche
Spring brought the much-needed sunshine along with our next team of inspiring young developers. We are very excited to tell you about our newest internship team and how our program contributed to pushing future talents toward mastering their true potential.
Project Scope
The internship team decided to develop an application that aids people in finding a team member for various projects and activities. They built the app requirements from a user viewpoint and collectively acted as the development body meant to produce the solution based on these prerequisites.
During the first week, the team meet-up focused on role assignments. As a college student, most were focusing on improving their code skills. What everyone’s exact responsibilities should be wasn’t immediately apparent. The team needed a leader – the role of the project manager naturally fell to the one person who promptly confirmed that varied challenges are welcome.
A lot of us are still in university, where we are used to completing assignments individually. For this internship project, eleven of us had to make it work together, somehow. That was a big challenge.
The self-organized team assigned two QAs, a lot of back-enders, and even more back end specialist who volunteered to try working with front end technology like Vue.js for the first time. This act of bravery is roughly the equivalent of not being able to swim but courageous enough to be the first diving in the river.
In that initial phase, the students solved another big problem by adopting a microtransaction model for their app. It turned out this was the best approach considering all project goals, including future development, potential scale-up, and requirements for the mobile app version. Impressive.
Most of the team members were comfortable soloing their tasks, while others took the initiative and delegated workload from a big picture perspective.
Some of the strongest values of our team are collectively solving a problem, not giving up, looking for a solution, helping each other.
After the initial breakdown of individual responsibilities and applied technologies, the team carefully distributed and prioritized tasks for the app’s debut version. They managed to separate immediate work from future updates and features. All additional app features not part of the core bundle was carefully documented for later release, attached with an accurate time and resources estimate.
When deciding the future of their product, the team collectively hovered from the mature standpoint of a grizzled IT company. They acknowledged the level of flexibility their app needed to become a trusted tool with a steady and increasing client base. They also realized the importance of this crucial factor during early development stages, which, fortunately, saved them a lot of unnecessary extra work.
A decision with such magnitude and effect comes typically as a result of years of experience and practice. Saving a lot of unnecessary work and money early on is something even top companies are struggling on a daily. Our internships team, although typically busy with class assignments and homework, demonstrated they are ready to tackle problems with real magnitude. We believe these young students already hold the qualities and genuine potential of proven masters in the industry.
About the App
How many football matches, group hikes, or team projects were ruined because few people didn’t show up? And how many would show up, knowing that through this action they solve not only their problem but those of other people with similar intentions and purposes? Too many, we say.
Although the project client is imaginary, from the perspective of planning and execution, the application itself aims to solve a real-life problem. People grouping to achieve a common goal are frequently missing somebody. Lavina’s goal is to link incomplete teams with these much-needed extra mates to fill in a roster gap. A missing team member is a growing problem in our digital and somewhat isolated society, especially locally, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the app eventually makes a mark on the real market.
When it comes to areas or purposes, the app is all-inclusive and even allows for creative input by the users. It aims to connect people with various needs united behind a common team-oriented goal. These goals could be sports team events, parties, hike groups, collabs, custom projects. The creators included the ability to enable users to add new categories themselves. This move is part of the user experience beyond dogma: they created an environment where customers are also contributors to the product’s development and growth.
Working in a team
Although about 7% of people in the world population are not afraid to run with a go-ahead attitude, the rest are comfortable with following someone’s orders. Our small team of 11 people managed to beat the odds and collectively brought the achiever in everyone involved.
Although pretty trivial, one of the most significant challenges for any IT team is the maximizing of output though collaboration. Developers carry the heavy label introverts and are prone to avoid even small talk, unless it’s with other developers, and about the work they do. Most students admitted that in college, they have the option to work in groups but rarely took advantage of it. The more common practice is when everyone tries to solve problems on their own and only rely on a helping hand as a last resort.
This is the first time all of the members worked in such a big team, most cope with issues alone.
Our internship squad, having tasted the bitterness of teamwork-related issues, quickly recognized the adverse effects of lousy communication and adjusted with the grace and farsight of experienced professionals.
As expected with any app development, problems loom around the corner even with strong teamwork. Some students shared the rough feeling from doing something for the first time. Through interchangeable roles they soon recognized that their solo efforts they all learned to trust in university wouldn’t be enough.
We were stoked to find that a young team such as this has has awareness and time management skills akin high-level management. To us, this is a clear indicator for greatness. We are glad to see our internship project provoke such strive for achievement. For these students, making an impact on the industry is not a matter of if, but when.
