Organization
Table of Contents
Overview
Organization is critical in ensuring all work gets completed. This guide is for getting organized for your event. This is not intended however for formal chapter leadership though there may be parts that are helpful anyways. This is just a starting point; you should adjust to what works best.
Organizing Files
Nearly all events will require you to save files for documentation and other files used for your event.
Google Drive is a cloud storage solution which is most ubiquitous and has plenty of free storage space. Alternatives are DropBox and Microsoft OneDrive.
Create a folder where you’ll put all your files for the specific event you’re competing in. If you’re in a team, make sure to share it with all your team members.
Organize your folder as such:
- Event Name YYYY-YYYY
- Assets - Store all files used for your project. Ex. for video game design, you’d store all sprites and music there
- Documentation - Store all your documentation for your portfolio
- Meetings - Keep notes for all your meetings. Applies to teams only for obvious reasons
- Planning - All files where you brainstorm ideas for your project.
- Submissions - Backups of submissions to track how your project has progressed from regionals to states and on
For all events that require a work log, make sure to have a document to save the information as you go so you don’t have to backfill.
Each document you create for the meetings folder should be formatted as such:
Name: Meeting Agenda & Notes (MM/DD)
Contents:
Date: MM/DD/YYYY
Attendees: JD, SB, LA
Agenda:
- Some thing we need to discuss
- Another thing we need to discuss
Notes:
- Some note from the meeting
- Another one
Communication
Chatting:
- Discord
- Slack
- Texting
- Email (very slow, not recommended)
- Google Hangouts
- Microsoft Teams
Meetings:
- Discord (voice call)
- Slack (voice call)
- Google Hangouts (voice call)
- Zoom
- Microsoft Teams (voice call)
Management
The easiest solution is simply making a document to record upcoming tasks, who is assigned to the task, and the deadline. Further levels of organization are iffy – in being more organized, they may bog down the team from doing actual work.
The next level up is a kanban board. A kanban board uses a sticky note for each task which is placed in a column based on the progress. Trello is a commonly used digital kanban board solution.
A Gantt chart is another way to track progress by using bars for each item along a timeline.
Code Collaboration
Git and Github are good for managing code for a wide range of large projects. Git is a source code management solution allowing you to track changes and collaborate. A project is called a repository or “repo”. Each change you make is called a “commit” which can be tracked and undone. Each team member can work on a separate branch so their changes don’t interfere until they want to merge the code. Each member has a copy of the code but there is a main server that will store the repository which they can push their changes to and fetch new changes from. Github is just a platform for storing and sharing your repositories. Here is some more information.
You’ll notice the article above uses the command line which may be overcomplicated for some. Github Desktop is a git client that works with Github which streamlines everything so you don’t have to use the command line.
For smaller projects that don’t require special programs like Unity, Repl.it is easier to use. Just make a new project and add whomever you’re working with as a collaborator. It allows for live editing.