Agile is about transparency and communication

[Charles Wiecha]

Hi all -- Mark mentioned in our last discussion the idea of adapting the daily "stand-up" meeting from agile processes by having a daily email check-in.  I think this would be really good for folks to do...perhaps we could do something like the following which I've seen at http://www.think-box.co.uk/blog/2006/05/daily-stand-up-scrum-meeting.html

"As a forum for communication and feedback, the team members co-ordinate their work and make a commitment to the team about what they aim to achieve in the day. They also identify any difficulties and obstacles to progress. The meeting is not intended to generate solutions nor remove obstacles. Making obstacles visible in this meeting raises awareness early, and allows team members to provide assistance and work collectively from the beginning. However, the meeting should not prevent issues and obstacles being raised at any other time."

"In turn, each team member answers the following 3 (unspoken) questions:

1. What have you done since yesterday's meeting?
2. What are you going to get done today?
3. What obstacles do you need to be removed?

Any other useful information should also be shared with the team."

Would it make sense to try this by email as we each come in???  Charlie

[Mark Birbeck]

Hi Charlie,

I think it's worth a try. :)

I do think the scrum approach might be a little too formal, though.

In 'real life' it involves more than just a 'heads-up', but I think a
'heads-up' is actually all we need.

Also, because they have this emphasis on the "three (unspoken)
questions", I think we risk having proforma emails, because it's
difficult to leave those three questions 'unspoken' when you are
writing an email.

But if we could get it to be slightly less rigid, and allow people to
provide one or two sentences that answer one or more of those
questions , I think it might work.

For example, if Merle said:

I've started work on context() but there are some tricky design issues.
It's going to be difficult to make further progress unless people take a
look at the discussion and comment on it.

then he has answered two of the three questions. That's fine, I think.

And if I wrote:

I'm talking to a potential user of Ubiquity and they are quite excited,
but they can't show their current prototype form to their boss because
xf:banana isn't yet implemented; can anyone spare a couple of hours
today to get that done, so that we can help them out?

I've probably only really answered one of them. But I think that's ok, too.

Similarly, a 'heads-up' from you Charlie, might be nothing more than
that you need some widgets doing in time for a demo at the tech
plenary.

Anyway, I'm happy to give anything a try. :)

The only thing I'd request is that people use a consistent subject
line label, such as [StandUp], or whatever, so that we can find these
messages again.

Actually...I've another idea...why not create a wiki page called
"StandUp" and put a table in it with a row for each team member? That
way the messages won't last longer than 24 hours, which is good
because the point of a stand-up is not to hold people to account for
what they promised yesterday. So 'overwriting' yesterday's stand-up
comments might be a good way to send the right message about what it
is that we're trying to achieve.

What do you think?

Mark

--
Mark Birbeck, webBackplane

mark.b...@webBackplane.com

http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck

webBackplane is a trading name of Backplane Ltd. (company number
05972288, registered office: 2nd Floor, 69/85 Tabernacle Street,
London, EC2A 4RR)

[Rahul Akolkar]

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:30 PM, Mark Birbeck
<mark.b...@webbackplane.com> wrote:
<big-snip/>

> Anyway, I'm happy to give anything a try. :)

:-)

> The only thing I'd request is that people use a consistent subject
> line label, such as [StandUp], or whatever, so that we can find these
> messages again.
>
> Actually...I've another idea...why not create a wiki page called
> "StandUp" and put a table in it with a row for each team member? That
> way the messages won't last longer than 24 hours, which is good
> because the point of a stand-up is not to hold people to account for
> what they promised yesterday. So 'overwriting' yesterday's stand-up
> comments might be a good way to send the right message about what it
> is that we're trying to achieve.
>
> What do you think?
>

<snap/>

I like the wiki page idea.

-Rahul

[Charles Wiecha]

OK...I created a wiki page UbiquityXFormsStandup and put a simple table where we can each create a row talking about our goals and issues for the day...

Let's see how this goes and we can iterate/change if folks don't like it!

Thanks, Charlie