Lessons Learned

During our stay in the Silicon Valley we had a challenging and demanding time working on our project for Transifex. While eliminating the challenges, we gained several experiences which we would like to share below:

· Working with a US client: For our team, this project was the first experience working with a US client. There are several cultural differences like the reduction of formalities (i.e. not shaking hands) or the increased amount of small talk compared to Switzerland. We learned to accept this differences rather than misunderstanding them.

· Fast moving projects: During our first week in the Valley we worked on project which has been canceled after several days. This fast movement among projects was at first inexplicable for us. Then, slowly we realized that project always exist in order to meet the demand of several people. When requirements change the scope of a project may also have to change. Sometimes, this leads to the cancellation of projects.

· Conductions of software tests: At the university in Lucerne we learned about the importance of software testing. However, we never conducted software tests on our own. After struggling at the start, Professor Mohr gave us a hint about personas. Personas are a market analysis instrument which enables software testing out of different user perspectives like translators, developers or content managers. This offers a differentiated view on the tested software which allows the software developer to understand different user considerations.

· Splitting a task into smaller subtasks: For this project our team had to familiarize with a new technology we have never heard of before. In order to getting started as fast as possible, we separated the familiarization phase into smaller tasks which were assigned to a team member. Each member then informed himself about the assigned subject (i.e. market situation, functionalities, mode of operation etc.) before presenting it to the other team members.

· Data visualization: During our work we created several ratings which at the end were merged into one vast Excel- file. In order to make the data more understandable we created several graphics including spider- and quadrant graphics. As none of us has worked in a marketing department before, we had to learn basic rules on how to properly visualize data. Therefore, we realigned at marketing-familiar approaches like the Gardner quadrants or spider graphs.