2019-11-08: Hack day – Trainee UI (now called TIS Self-Service)

Trainee UI hack day 2019-11-05. Evaluating a number of ranges of tech tools that we feel could be deployed to enable the build of this new App. Desired outcomes for the day: lots of good team-working, better appreciation of the pros and cons of two different tech stacks, the rejection of any tech we know would not be appropriate for Trainee UI, and ideally a 1-page progressive web app from each team demonstrating the success of blending a range of tech together.

(Poor Ade fell victim to unreliable public transport and could not attend, so Ash swapped teams for balance)

This wasn’t an exercise about building a Trainee UI prototype. That will follow. First up is to decide the tech to use - our current tech for the TIS app is not appropriate for a brand new ‘greenfield’ application. Trainee UI and TIS have different audiences, likely to be using different devices (mobile vs desktop), with security requirements that require them to be separate apps sharing some information.

So: 2 teams. 2 tech stacks to use. 6 hours. Go!

No direction, just two self-organising teams working out how to begin, how to progress, how to learn and how to deliver to an aggressive timescale!

With barely even an acknowledgement of lunch for some, they ploughed on, unconstrained by the inherited TIS codebase, able to use tools the way they were meant to be used out of the box, before they naturally ‘evolve’ tangentially to their original purpose as the product they help build matures.

From this

To this

Finally, to this

After 6 hours, both teams finished up their conversations and efforts and prepared to demo to each other.

Firstly what they’d achieved. Then what they learned. And finally what tech they liked/disliked, what they liked/disliked about the way the teams worked and finally what they liked/disliked about the day itself.

So, the result…

2 one page apps as requested! Lots learned. And more clarity on what could and couldn’t work for building Trainee UI.