Chapter 11 - The Grand Finale
As mentioned last week, this week will be the final post. Since I have completed the project, I have really nothing more to add to my previous posts. I do have my presentation this Thursday with Pam to go over the entire project. My plan is to first go over what my initial plans were and what I thought about the project before I began. I will then go over what I did with the folder scheme and the map that pinpointed the devices. I will demonstrate the folder scheme on the computer, showing off the before and then the after. I will then go through an entire downloading session. I will gather all of the data from the devices and put it on the HOBO Shuttle. From there, I will show how to go through the entire downloading procedures and how to get the data into the spreadsheets. I will then demonstrate how to get the out of range results sheet using the macros I created. Finally, I will wrap up by discussing what needs to be looked at in the future and what possible things could be improved. I feel confident about my plan for the presentation and I think it will go very well. With that said, to wrap up this blog, I am going to discuss my experiences with this project. This will include what I learned, what could I have done differently, etc.
I have to say that I am somewhat surprised with how well everything went with this project. For the most part, the project unfolded exactly how I expected it to. When I expected to get something done, I was able to do it and move on. There were some rough parts here and there where I had to wait to download the data, or I had to stop for a day to do other work, but pretty much everything went as planned. The new folder scheme came together just as I had planned. The revival of the two none working devices was actually easier than I expected. I was expecting to have to do some research or price up new ones, but Pam found two more working devices elsewhere and I just put those into commission instead. The downloading procedures came together quite nicely. One of Pam’s staff members assured me that my documentation was very easy to follow. She was able to properly download the data using them, so I had to make very little changes to the documentation.
Now, the out of range macro was a little more up and down. At first, I feared that it was going to take longer than I originally thought. However, as I began working with it, I found out that it was going take me about as long as I had expected. In fact, I was able to make it better than I anticipated. I never expected to make it as automated as I did. However, the more automation brought about other issues to worry about, so I had to spend some extra time making sure that I wasn’t sacrificing ease of use in order to get full automation. Particular parts were just too tricky to automate, so in the end, I had to give up a bit of automation to make it more stable. In the end, I feel that the out of range procedures ended up being very balanced. Most of it was automated, but to make it stable, some basic user involvement was needed. Overall, everything with this project went as planned. However, I need understand that not every project will be like this and that there will be future projects where things will not go as smoothly. When planning for any future projects, I must still take into account unforeseen complications, even though I ran into very few issues with this project.
Even though the project did pretty much go as planned, I still ran into some challenges. My biggest challenge was just managing everything on my plate. With two jobs, other classes and the project, I can easily say stress was high. However, having dealt with this much on my plate for two years now, I have somewhat gotten used to it. So as usual, I buckled down and did what needed to be done. However, it is and will always be a challenge. With all this going on, I had to make sure I still set time away to do this project and complete my tasks for the week. This was sometimes frustrating as I would want to get a part of the project done real quick, but would have to put it aside because I had more pressing issues to attend to. I also ran into that the other way as well and it was just as frustrating. I would be free of other school work and such and would be ready to start working on the project only to have to wait for something else. I overcame both these frustrations but just moving on ahead. When I was waiting to be able to download the data, I worked ahead and began working on the out of range algorithm or started the documentation. When I was busy with other work, I just sacrificed other things to fit in some time for the project, making sure to continually move ahead and keep on schedule.
Throughout the project I realized that I was using many of the skills that I had learned from the classes I have taken. The technical communication skills I learned in my classes were crucial here. Also, assignments that dealt with understanding your users were also helpful. There is not a specific class that helped me out since almost every class dealt heavily with communication and users. However, there is no doubt the skills I gained from these courses aided me in this project. When I began writing the documentation I had to make sure it focused exactly on my audience. I had to make the documentation easy enough to follow for someone with minimal technical knowledge. I assumed that the user going through the procedure had the basic understanding of Windows, navigating folders and using Excel, but I still made sure to note more advanced features or make sure I detailed more complicated steps. I used screen shots to help the user along. The documentation was made better thanks to the skills I had picked up through many of my courses.
I can easily say that this project helped me mostly with time management and planning ahead. With having so much going on around me, I had to quickly learn how to plan and estimate time properly so that I had enough time to get everything completed. I also learned how to communicate with a manager in a more professional environment. Sure I had done projects at school before and I do some projects at work, but this was different as it was truly a full length project. The projects I had done before this one were smaller projects and were done usually in a day or a week. With this project, I had to work with Pam for over three months, keeping her up-to-date, asking her questions, getting feedback, making sure I was on track, and more. Throughout all of this, I learned more then just time management and communication skills. I also learned some new technical skills.
Even though I use Excel at work all the time, I still managed to learn a few things about some macros. I learned that opening up files using macros is tricky and leads to potential folder and file location problems. I also learned how to better code if then and else statements that are more than one level deep. I also learned a lot about the HOBO devices. Coming in, I did not have the first clue about HVAC monitoring systems. I had no knowledge of the devices before, so I had to read up on the devices and I had to learn how to use the software. I learned this mostly from just looking through some web documentation and by just trial and error, trying things here and there seeing what worked and didn’t work. This project taught me a lot about these devices, how they work and how they collect data. I learned how to change the device’s settings and how to use the software and tools to download and store the data. Now I may never run into the HOBO devices again, but should I ever need to implement an HVAC monitoring system, I will have some useful knowledge gained from my experiences with the HOBO devices to help guide me along.
Other than the communication skills, and the understanding of my audience, the many projects I completed for all of the courses definitely prepared me for this larger project. At no point did I get overwhelmed. I had managed several smaller projects before for several other classes. So when I had to gotten to this project, I felt like I had done most of this before. I knew where to start and how to attack it. I can easily say that all of the projects I had to complete for my courses most certainly prepared me for this project and will prove helpful with the projects I will face in the future.
Finally, for this project, I had to learn how to install this blog. I learned how to install WordPress on a server so I could get this blog up and running. It may seem like something trivial, but it was something I had never done before. By following the online installation guide, I was able to install it and set it up. Once again, through reading documentation and through trial and error, I learned how to setup WordPress. In the future, should I ever need blogging software, I know where to turn and the skills I gained from installing WordPress for this project will be helpful.
As mentioned, this project taught me a lot about managing time in regards to long-term projects. For the most part, I felt my time estimation was quite good actually. There were some small miscalculations here and there, and that was mostly due to having to wait to download the data, something I did not originally anticipate. I do think that near the end it got a little more stressful and the crunch time was more than I expected, but that was due to other school work. If I do need to work on one thing, I would say I have to do a better job looking at the larger picture. This is really hard to do since there is always so much going on. I mean I set the final date of March 28th based on how long I felt that project was going to take me. I did not look at my other classes to see what was due that week. So when the week of the 28th came around I was swamped with school work from my other classes and I still had to complete the project. So I think I need to be more cautious next time and prepare projects with everything considered, not just how long it will take to complete all the parts. For the most part though, the project took about as long as I expected it to. I think this was because I set a good plan early on and followed through. I also had pretty good luck with the project as nothing major happened that delayed my work. In the end, I feel really good about my work on estimating the time and planning out the project.
In the end there was a lot to take away from this project. I took away how to write project plans and how to manage tasks with so many other things going on around me. I also took away how to communicate with management during long term projects. What I have learned here will help me out when it comes time for me to do my first real long-term project. I will definitely make sure to plan with everything in mind, leaving nothing out. I will need to look at all schedules to see what else could be due then, or what else could conflict with that completion date. I need to continue to work on my time management skills, making sure to plan everything and include backup plans and more. I am confident that the soft and technical skills I have learned in this project have certainly helped prepare me for a career in the ever changing and the ever demanding IT field.
Well that is it. Those are my reflections on the project. In the end, I am very pleased with my work on the project and I hope my efforts will help the library avoid any future mold problems. I would like to thank everyone for reading my blog for the past few months. Many of my posts were detailed and long, so thanks to everyone who read them all. I really appreciate it. For one last time, thanks for reading.