When developing a project, critical feedback is one of the most valuable things a team can hope for. This is the intention of a quality review board (QRB), to identify what elements of a project need work before it’s too late to make corrections. Pythax had already participated in one QRB and made changes to their project’s plans based on the feedback received. Recently, Pythax participated in a second QRB with a new panel of UF faculty-judges, and was hoping to receive new feedback to improve the project plan even further.
Some of the feedback received was expected; during QRB1 a weakness was identified with the metrics being applied to measure user experience and satisfaction of the platform, and with a lack of new CTFs there had not been much development in that area. Unfortunately, this flaw which had already been identified and noted by the team ended up being the focal point of the feedback from the judging panel on QRB2. This was a bit disheartening for Pythax, as the team members believed the known issue to be properly addressed in the presentation, and the time spent talking about it was time not spent talking about new feedback and criticisms. However, it is still valuable feedback to the team, as it has been made very clear what needs to be focused on for the next few checkpoints.
Other feedback was not expected; the team was grilled a bit on the basis that this presentation did not include any demo of the product in its current stage. Instead of showing what has been added, the team talked about what has been added, and the judging panel wanted to be able to see what changes had been made. Ultimately a demo was given to the judges, but it was done on the fly and cut into the time for feedback. This surprised the team a bit, since there was no qualm with the lack of a demo during QRB1, and it was believed that the charts and documentation were supposed to be the main focus of the presentation. Still, this feedback is valuable as it will help to improve Pythax’s future presentations and demos of the product.