Pitches¶

In pitches, we will simulate presentations of software products made by one group (the contractors) to another (the company board), both groups are 3-4 students. You can also imagine this is a pitch by a startup to investors (even though it wouldn’t be very accurate) - whichever one works better for you, the point is the same. This game teaches you not only to present technical solutions, but also to investigate their flaws in advance and be able to clarify them and suggest ways of improvements; it teaches to be critic to your solution and encourages an iterative view on products (products are not a one-time development, they are developed and improved iteratively).

Preparation¶

The contractors build a toy product: some software that solves a certain task. The information about the required functionality, deliverables etc. is given for each pitch in advance. After completing the project, the contractors make a presentation about it (not more than for 40 min). The presentation should cover the following:

The functionality of the solution (key features)
The architecture of the solution (basically, how it works)
Limitations & scalability
Data protection & deployment options (on-site, cloud etc.)

The board in their turn should prepare questions to the solution that would expose all the strengths and weaknesses of the solution. Just imagine the company is about to spend a ton of money for the product and your task in be make absolutely sure it would be worth it. In course of preparation, it would be useful for the board to search for solutions of contractors’ competitors, study what their capabilities and drawbacks are to have a good impression of what such a product should (and should not) be capable of etc.

Both the contractors and the board have 2 weeks to prepare to the pitch.

Procedure¶

The procedure is fairly straightforward: the contractors give their presentation for up to 40 min after which the board steps in, and the discussion of the solution starts. After the board is out of question, the discussion opens to the classroom, and anyone can ask a question or give their critique about the product. In the ideal case, after the pitch is over, the contractors should have a very good understanding of disadvantages of their solution and - what’s much more important - how to improve the product.

Rules¶

A pitch is an informal presentation, so it doesn’t have any particular rules. The presentation is of a free format as long as the main points (see in preparation) are covered. A video or a live demonstration is highly encouraged yet not required. Other than that, there are only a few rules to stick to:

Each of the contractors should speak more or less the equal amount of time.
Each of the board member should have at least one question, and the board together should have not less than 5.
The questions to the contractors should concern only the product and product-related topics; it is however okay to ask questions about usage / behavior etc. of the product in unexpected settings.
It is totally fine for the contractors to suggest improvised workarounds and improvements.