There should be a clear section entitled Action Items that arise
from the meeting. If you want, you can assign the action items
to already existing task ids in your project plan, or if they are
different enough give them their own ids. The reason I think this
is important is that then you will be able to set some of your
status meetings to address open action items. Defining an action
item should also have a clear exit criteria, so you'll know when
to close the action item.
In a recent message you wrote:
> Meeting minutes for Status Meeting 1/29/97
>
> * Discussed Newton prototyping with respect to Communication. We have
> decided to work on developing some code that will allow a Newton to
> dial up a "server" application and transmit and receive small pieces of
> information. This will simulate a Cyberguide unit dialing in to update
> his position on a shared resource ( the server ) and also get the
> positions
> of the other Cyberguide units. This will be prototyped using standard
> modems
> and then later tested will cellular modems. Erin will be working on
> this.
>
That's an action item.
> * Jason has come across a Mac/Newton program that will allow us
> to create a soup from a formatted ASCII file. This program will be used
> in
> creating a soup from the Tiger Line data ( formatted ASCII data ). Jason
> is going to adapt the algorithms that were used in the Evaluation model
> and use them to render the data on the Newton.
>
What is this program? Slurpee, or something else? Where would I expect
to find these details. And if it is Slurpee, then recall from the project
history that Slurpee was used a year ago to do exactly this task for
putting project descriptions into soups. The work was done mainly by
Dan Bassett and Chris Goodrum and you should be able to locate sample
code (somewhere, he prays to the CM gods :) in the Cyberguide repository.
> * Some GPS prototyping code for the Newton has been developed and needs
> to be tested.
>
By whom and how?
> * We have received a new GPS unit from Kirk, the Eagle unit. According to
> Kirk, this unit has a much shorter "warm up" time ( time to acquire
> satellites )
> and it can also receive a signal inside of some structures ( as long as
> they
> are not made of materials that will block the signal - such as concrete
> ).
> The only problem is that the cable that is needed to hook it up to the
> Newton
> or to the PC doesn't exist ( according to Kirk) and it will have to be
> made by hand.
>
Again, by whom? You might be able to convince Kirk to do this for you.
Pinkerton used the Trimble unit before and that is sitting in the black
FCE cabinet in a white paper bag ready for you to use while you wait on
the Explorer to be functional (no use waiting).
> * Discussed training and have come up with some objective criteria that
> any team doing training must follow. If the team member is training from
> a book,
This is a very good point. Next quarter, we are likely to have a
number of rookies that will need training. Sue Long and Mike Pinkerton
also developed some training material. The team should also figure
out how long is the average expected training time so that scheduling
next quarter can take that into account.
>
> * Discussed configuration management. We are going to place all of the
> code for
> the evaluation model as well as prototyping code under CM. We will break
> the code
Does this include PC software (evaluation model) as well as Newton. You
use the terms "Demo" and "Development" but it's not clear to me if
that refers to both platforms. With the possibility that the MessagePad
2000 goes the way of the dodo (see the announcement from Apple I sent
yesterday), keeping the Fujitsu version viable is even more critical.
Might not be a bad idea for someone to find out if there is a portable
pen-based PC that has better outdoor visibility and a better camera
than the Connectix.
>
> * The requirements document has been updated with the changes suggested by
> Kirk.
>
So it's now complete? Good job!
What's the status on the camera/Newton? That seems to be one of the
riskiest features at this point.
Take care,
Gregory