2020 conference paper
Board 59: Work in Progress: Industry-based Team Program Reviews for Capstone Design Teams
Gupta, R., & Dunko, G. (2019, June).
open access via peer.asee.org (publisher PDF)
Source: ORCID
Added: December 11, 2020
Abstract This paper presents methods, formats, schedules and grading rubrics for industry based project status review (called the Team Program Review) for engineering capstone design teams. These reviews are devised by the authors from their industry experience but are modified to particularly suit student capstone design teams in project management still keeping the industry flavor. The Reviews mainly address two challenges: (1) Teaching capstone design teams several necessary project management aspects which are needed to be regularly monitored throughout the project execution, and (2) defining a fair, accurate grading rubric to regularly and efficiently evaluate individual student’s and team's performance throughout the project. The Program Reviews are comprised of 10-12 minute presentations of specific materials on a biweekly basis. The methods and contents described in this paper help all of the student teams (irrespective of the project topic and requirements) in efficiently managing their project within the team and in reporting the true status of the project to relevant project stakeholders regularly. In addition, these reviews expose team members to “real world” business approaches that they will experience in their engineering/management career. The format and rubrics presented in the paper are comprehensive, in-line with ABET student outcomes and help instructors correctly evaluate all different aspects of the team project on a regular basis. This includes a quantitative evaluation of especially intangible aspects, which are otherwise difficult to evaluate without in-person team meetings, such as individual and team project monitoring and managing skills, effective teamwork, professionalism, and also individual technical contributions, presentation skills, etc. These program reviews have helped the authors successfully and efficiently manage and grade on average 10 to 20 projects a semester in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Senior Design program at authors' institute. These program review formats have evolved based on continuous industry sponsor feedback and is a living rubric/method/process. The paper presents the latest methods and rubrics and the preliminary results from the past 3 years of authors' program's Senior Design teams (Approximately 100 teams) showing an increase in team’s overall performance and project management skills during the project execution process. The paper also presents the results showing an increase in the number of successful projects and quality achieved due to these regular Team Program Reviews. Results from a brief feedback survey from industry sponsors and evaluators about these Team Program Review format and methods are also included. Authors have no particular preference for the session. Authors’ main goal is to receive feedback on their work in progress.