Communication Plan

This document defines the communication protocols and tools used by the project team to ensure efficient collaboration, transparency, and timely delivery of the Neighborhood Accessibility Mapper.

1. Internal Communication Channels

The team utilizes a mix of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools depending on the urgency and nature of the information.

• WhatsApp (Daily/Instant): Used for rapid, informal communication, urgent updates, and quick decision-making. It serves as the primary channel for addressing immediate blockers.
• Google Meet (Weekly Sync): Regular weekly meetings are held virtually to review the progress of the past week, plan upcoming tasks, and align on project goals.
• Physical Meetings (CMPE Lounge): For critical phases such as the MVP Milestone, the team meets physically at the Boğaziçi University CMPE Lounge. These sessions focus on intensive collaborative coding, system integration, and final rehearsals.

2. Project Management and Progress Tracking

To maintain a clear audit trail and organized workflow, all project management is centralized on GitHub.

• GitHub Issues: Every task, feature, and bug is documented as an issue. No development starts without an associated issue number.
• GitHub Projects: Used to visualize the project roadmap and track the status of tasks (e.g., To Do, In Progress, Done).
• GitHub Wiki: Serves as the single source of truth for all project documentation, including requirements, design diagrams, and this communication plan.

3. Technical and Development Communication

Technical alignment is achieved through structured feedback loops within the version control system.

• Pull Requests (PRs): All code changes are proposed via PRs. Each PR contains a description of the changes and references the related Issue.
• Asynchronous Code Reviews: Team members use GitHub's commenting feature on PRs to provide feedback, suggest improvements, and approve code.
• Hybrid Feedback Loop: When a complex technical issue arises, the team initiates a quick discussion on WhatsApp followed by a summary comment in the relevant GitHub Issue/PR to ensure documentation.

4. Stakeholder (Customer) Communication

• Lab Sessions & Demos: Formal feedback is gathered during course lab hours and scheduled demo sessions with the customer/assistant.
• Moodle: Used for official deliverable submissions and receiving formal grades and feedback from the instructional staff.

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5. Communication Matrix

Meeting / Tool	Frequency	Purpose	Participants
WhatsApp	Continuous	Urgent updates & quick sync	Full Team
Google Meet	Weekly	Sprint planning & status review	Full Team
Physical (CMPE Lounge)	Milestone-based	Integration & MVP preparation	Full Team
GitHub PRs/Issues	As-needed	Technical feedback & task tracking	Developers