Holly Butler
Project Focus: Create website for a local company (The Shirt 4 U)
Role: Website Developer
Technology/Skills: Notepad++, HTML5, CSS3, team programming
Description: Our client is a mobile T-shirt company who attends large events and sporting events. As a team of two programmers, Alex B. and I, created a website that gives back ground information on the company, a description of the product, live feeds of the clients social media, and contact information.
Challenges: Also our client had a non-traditional business in the beginning stages and did not have many formal processes or an inventory of products. It was a challenge that the client did not have much information to provide us. The client wanted some functionality on the website that was not in our scope. We did not have the resources or time to complete some of her request. We had to work with the client on still providing a good product that was within our scope.
Reflections:It was a great experience working on a project that could benefit a local business. It was necessary to keep an open mind on the project. It would have helped if the owner’s business plan was further in the development process. With the information provided from the owner we created the best site possible and completed on time.
Project Focus: Write a project proposal to upper management about Collaborative Technology
Role: Project Manager
Team Members: Neil Abegg, Holly Butler, Shane Witsman
Description: The report covers a brief explanation of collaborative technology. Then the proposal highlights the benefits, limitations and risk of this technology. Benefits covered are effective teams, cutting cost and global resources. Risk included are employee acceptance and security. The report then goes on to cover examples of collaborative technology vendors (ex. Cisco) and two real companies (NASA and Boeing) who use collaborative technology in their daily processes.
Challenges: Since the report was to upper management, the report needed to be brief, but still contain a convincing enough proposal. I believe it was tough to support my argument with relevant sources in a brief, simplistic manner.
Reflections: This team was one of the best teams I have worked with. All members were interactive and diligent throughout the project. We took responsibility for our work and our team exceeded the requirements of the report. When working on other team projects I refer back to this project for best practices when working in a team.
Project Focus: Create a user-friendly database to assist the owner with tracking inventory, tracking customers and reporting cost vs. revenue.
Role:Designer/Developer
Technology/Skills: Excel, Microsoft Access, team programming, Visio
Team Members:Kayla B., Holly Butler, Mary Jane B., Gabe K.
Description: Our team analyzed the needs of the business owner and designed a system around her requirements and business rules. In the planning and design phases we defined the entities and attributes of the system, created an ERD, and documented the team’s assumptions. Our goal was to create a database within Microsoft Access that the owner could uses to update and input data about her inventory and her customers.
Challenges: This project consisted of a large amount of files of all different types. When working in a large group it is essential to keep a dedicated location for all of the most up to date files. In the beginning of the project or team had the issue that everyone did not have access to the most updated files. To fix this problem the team spoke about the best practices of keeping up to date documents. We then used the Blackboard file exchange to make sure everyone could access the files.
Reflections: The experience of creating a database to help solve a business problem really helped me understand the power data can have to a business. The database helps create a centralized system to organize the information and allow for the analysis of the data.
