Case study on agile planning sessions

[Allison Bloodworth]

Hi there,

As I mentioned at the Fluid UX team meeting today, I found a few  
interesting ideas in this paper from XP 2007: http:// 
www.springerlink.com/index/y635315rm1038005.pdf

For instance:
* http://www.cardmeeting.com
* http://www.danube.com/scrumworks/basic
* http://www.rallydev.com/products.jsp
* http://www.versionone.com/products.asp
* http://www.xplanner.org/

CardMeeting is free, and though it doesn't seem to work in Mac/ 
Firefox, it does work in Mac/Safari and seems well-suited to help our  
distributed team collaboratively re-arrange story cards. The main  
disadvantage I see is that I don't think there is a way to print out  
the cards when you are done ordering them. If that is a requirement  
for us, we may want to investigate some of the other solutions.

I created a group, Fluid UX, ID C1691, and a meeting, Fluid UX  
planning, ID M2884. Please contact me for the password if you'd like  
to log in and create a test meeting in our group area to play with.  
Alternatively, you can play with one of the meetings they have  
already set up or check out the screenshots here: http:// 
www.cardmeeting.com/screenshot.jsp.

Allison

On Oct 11, 2007, at 1:48 PM, Daphne Ogle wrote:

>
> On Oct 11, 2007, at 1:23 PM, Michelle D'Souza wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Some questions to ponder before next week's meeting:
>>>
>>> -  Are there applications that can help us replicate the  
>>> interactive moving around of story cards in our distributed world?
>>>
>>
>> I think Breeze has a whiteboard feature but I haven't played with  
>> it. Could that be used?
> It could.  What would be really good is an application that allows  
> us to drag the virtual story cards (like post-its or index cards)  
> to see in real time how moving activities around affects the  
> schedule.  Then we can do things like move a card up an iteration  
> and see that we'll have to move something out to allow the new one  
> to fit in the allotted time for an iteration.  I'm not sure this is  
> doable on-line.  We used to have all the cards spread out on a  
> table (as shown in the pics in the case study).
>>
>>>
>>> -  What's the best way to do estimating?  My experience has been  
>>> that each team member gives an estimate for a particular activity  
>>> based on that individual doing the work and then an average is  
>>> used for planning.  In that case, we didn't know who would be  
>>> assigned to each activity at the point of estimating so it made  
>>> sense to take an average.  We may have more information about who  
>>> will be working on particular activities.  How does Toronto  
>>> handle estimates?
>>>
>>
>> Generally, we estimate our tasks together deferring to the person  
>> with the most knowledge or experience with the specific work. We  
>> sit down together, go through a stack of features and quickly put  
>> times on them. It's easier and quicker to estimate when we can  
>> think in ideal time - meaning uninterrupted time to spend on the  
>> task - so we don't worry about how long in real time it will take.  
>> We've been tracking how many ideal work days worth of work we  
>> accomplish in an iteration and we use that history to schedule  
>> work for iterations.
> Makes sense -- thanks!
>>
>> Michelle
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------
>> Michelle D'Souza
>> Software Developer, Fluid Project
>> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
>> University of Toronto
>>
>>
>>
>
> Daphne Ogle
> Senior Interaction Designer
> University of California, Berkeley
> Educational Technology Services
> daphne at media.berkeley.edu
> cell (510)847-0308
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> fluid-work mailing list
> fluid-work at fluidproject.org
> http://fluidproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-work

Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
abloodworth at berkeley.edu




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