There are many tools to help distrusted teams. The ones used by people doing remote agile project management are particularly interesting. I gathered the ones I know about and grouped them together.

1. Range – from familiar to 2d to ultra programmable
2. 3d – Spatial environments that are created before the simulation runs
3. OpenSim – Environments where you can create content at runtime

Let me know if you have some more virtual agile places of business, and we’ll list them in the table.

Click the Atlas of Worlds for details.

Safe teleports!!…AgileBill

The purpose of the Distributed Team Index is to show the context of how disbursed the team is. This is not a statement of good or bad. It can be used to correlate other metrics with how much a team is co-located. A low number of 5 or less indicates co-location. The scale is designed to have 100 represent the most distributed possible (12 hours apart, 12 or more locations in 12 or more time zones). The number of people is useful to note but does not affect the score. (You can problems with large meetings even if face to face!).

• Taking the maximum of 12 or the spread of timezones. Multiply 50% by N / 12.
• Taking the maximum of 12 or the Number of timezones. Multiply 30% by N / 12.
• Taking the maximum of 12 or the number of locations. Multiply 20% by N / 12. A location refers to a building.
• Sum the results to get the DTI.

Immersive web environments help. This picture shows the online Rockcliffe meeting. The DTI was a 70 but felt like a 5. Rockcliffe’s mission is Service, Education and Research in Virtual Environments. They have been doing this for 5 years, so distributed teaming is a natural habit for them.

Examples

• Pair programming at my desk. DTI = 1
• I walked down the hall but didn’t have to take the stairs. DTI = 4
• A Conference call from New York to Chicago. DTI = 13
• Pairing using google docs and voice in Los Angles and New York. DTI = 20
• An online meeting in each of the four continental US timezones. DTI = 30
  (spread .4*3/12 + number .4*4/12 + buildings .2*4/12)
• Texas and Virginia and New York working with India. DTI = 55
• VWBPE online conference main stage talks (Australia, Europe, US). DTI = 86

Shades of Co-Location

The minimum of 5 assumes at least one meeting participant had to walk to a common location. Lower numbers are reserved to indicate special situations such as sharing an office, open work area, etc.

Privacy Guideline

Reporting any location is optional. People may choose to report timezone, state, or city depending on their comfort level. State is usually fine.

(version 1204a)

(c) 2012 Agile Dimensions LLC

The goal of the Distributed Agile Congress is to connect Agilistas from around the world. This can be done with many tools, but we are uncovering new ways of working by pushing ourselves to try new platforms and concepts. It can be a new tool like Cisco’s Telepresence, or a concept like osmotic communication in Sococo. Often, it is not just the tool that needs to change to give a boost in productivity, but the work habits of the team members.

I remember slowly moving from the pulse telephone dialing to the tone system. Pulse dialing was a hassle because it took a long time to dial a nine. Lots of little beep sounds. Tones were so much better, but the move was not over night. The same is true for deciding between getting my news on a paper newspaper or website, or to use a land line or cell phone. In the context of our work, I find that tools for distributed teams do offer a leap above the telephone, but adoption is not immediate.

1. I takes time for people to learn to use Voice over IP
2. The spatial context is powerful, but bewildering at first until people are used to the visual cues it can provide, and builders do not clutter a scene with more detail than needed.
3. Work patterns for ‘always on’ virtually co-located teams can meet or exceed what we can do face to face, but not if people are untrained and unused to the new approaches
4. Per Metcalfe’s Law – the value of a communications network is grows with the number of connected members. If you have a small subset of your team in the media, the effects are diminished.

The venues do not have to be huge for the needs of the Distributed Agile Congress. We can’t get all 880 people from the Atlanta USA user group and 750 from the Raleigh user group together, nor would it be productive if we could. But we can invite two people from each city to share the best of their local presentations. By using spatial tools we can create a better illusion of ‘co-presence’. If you are on a webcam, I know you are far away in your office. If your digital image is standing next to me as we click on shared screens and objects, my mind forgets we are 5,200 miles away.

So what are good size limits for spatial environments? Let’s look at 3 cases.

1. VenueGen is designed for realistic meetings with mixed media such as slides, screen sharing, stereo sound, chat, and video. Pre-build rooms vary in size from a two person office to a 50 person hall.
   
2. OpenSim configurations allow people to set the number of people on each server. This is often set to 40. But by placing four islands together it is possible to use a ‘four corner’ layout that transports sound to all four locations. Chat bridge tools can be programmed to distribute text beyond the default 20 meters. This was used at the VWBPE conference so the main auditorium build can host 120 people. That was combined with satellite spaces an Rockcliffe University’s quad rotunda build to host many tracks at once.
   
3. Sococo can give optimal performance for 24 people in a room, and 50 in a space. Since many spaces can be linked together via the teleport system, this again offers space for events of various sizes.
   

Putting it all together we have

• 5 Years of conferences on distance education
• 89 Presenters
• 1,260 attendees (and still counting)
• 5,240 miles between Distributed Agile Conference participants
• 1 room

From: (a VP)
To: AgileBill
Subject: Second life as a collaboration tool?

“Hello Bill, Our department is in the midst of discussions around collaboration tools to facilitate better function of Agile teams where resources are split between geographic regions.

We looked through a presentation you made on a tool with 2D rooms, and I was just curious if you’d ever seen anything done with a 3D space like Second Life for instance.”

(AgileBill responds)

The short answer:  there are many good tools, but also many hazards.  I like Sococo to start, but also use VenueGen, Web.Alive, Unity3d/Jibe, and OpenSim.

The long answer follows!!

First, a couple videos are helpful: (about 7 mins each)

• My talk with Grady Booch – IEEE Fellow and IBM Chief Scientist: http://www.bit.ly/BillGrady1
• What the US Gov is doing:  http://vimeo.com/20448330  (I’m the dude in the yellow hard hat)
• Also, see our global agile user group:  http://www.meetup.com/agile3d – 150 members, 41 meetups, 5 time zones.

People from the cities in the picture on the left feel “co-present” in the picture on the right.

Today I use Sococo at work and for my global Agile user group.  I have developed

• The Distributed Agile Congress
• The Agile3d Factory (including Agile Hopscotch, and the Scrunchboard)
• Used the medium for panel interviews and conferences.
• Presented to the Agile20xx conference on using virtual platforms for distributed agile teams
• Had some successes and some instructional epic failures (/me groans)

But it has not been easy.
When I worked at a huge company we used Second Life in 2007 to help with travel costs.   I didn’t get it, flew around a “sandbox” for a while, then left for 2 years.  In 2009 I parted ways from big blue and thought OMGosh, how am I going to teach my Agile stuff now?

I went back to Second Life, and landed right in the middle of the VWBPE conference – Best Practices in Education.  This annual event draws over 2,000 educators.  I was hooked.

I got my certification in virtual worlds from the University of Washington (our Cyber Security build was demoed at the White House), Joined the Board of Directors of Rockcliffe University (who hosts the VWBPE conference), designed and taught Agile courses in this environment, and run a global Agile user group in this space with 150 members from 4 timezones (http://www.meetup.com/agile3d)   I hosted a conference for 200 people in Second Life in January 2010 with big names like Alan Atlas, Janet Gregory, and Dawn Cannan.  I have interviewed Grady Booch in this space.  I attended the Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds conference as the Fed are huge into this space.

Most importantly, I support the Virtual Ability community.  This group of 600 people with MS, Deafness, and their caregivers uses these platforms for health related seminars and a way to stay engaged with the world.   I adopt that as my community service cause, and spoke to their group in December (and had the President of the group speak at my conference in 2010).

But SL is hard for many.  So I am a slum lord of virtual worlds.  I have a foothold in all of them – including  OpenSim, VenueGen, Unity3d/Jibe, Second Life, Web.Alive, Twinity, Sococo, 3dXplorer, and ReactionGrid.    In fact, the first trimester of our UW cert program was  on how to select a platform.     I am active in our U Washington Alumni group, where I chair the “Gridhopper’s Guild” to visit other platforms.

I think to start, that Sococo is a sweet spot.  It is simple, easier to use, yet still has the “Spatial Context”. I have a custom layout for my Agile teams that implements the Agile3d Factory workflow pattern.  We have bought Sococo for some of my teams, and are piloting it with many others.  I am batting .500.  Half the people don’t get it, some hate it, and some love it.  However, I’m in the top 10% of companies using Sococo, in part because of our North Carolina to Ukraine collaborative teams.

I have also seen use in the medical industry of virtual worlds.  For example, I went to a heart murmur  training simulation, and training spot for Emergency Responders.  Most Universities have played with the idea, and large companies such as Siemens and IBM’s Green Data Center have as well.

Bottom line: such tools are the next big thing.  Like Agile in 2001, people don’t know it yet.  When they hear about it they hate it.  10 years later it is the default way we do business.

Best Regards…
….AgileBill

I made a block diagram of agile.  I include business analysis, planning, lean execution, and feedback.  What is cool is to have people work in this space.  Spatial Context.  You can see who is working on what.

I have four (so far) implementations of the Agile3d Factory I use for both  training and distributed team operation. The one I show above is built on a tool called Sococo.  At first glance, it looks like an instant message / voice over IP client.  But it offers a ‘Spatial context’, so I capture some body language by seeing where people are working.  Are they having a 1:1 meeting with the project manager?  Are they watching a presentation to the team of business analysts?  Is a breakout team working on an epic story?

Designing a space to show all steps of an Agile process helps reinforce these concepts.  Not only that, but by limiting ourselves to 3 feature rooms, we encourage the lean Kanban concept of ‘Limit Work in Progress’.  Finish a few things, then get more.  Don’t start everything at once and finish nothing.

I have 3 dimensional versions of this factory on 3 other platforms.  Sococo is easier to approach for begninners, and offers

• Backchat via text, and remembers the last 100 lines
• Voice over IP (save your cell phone minutes)
• Share your desktop with one click
• Share control of an application
• Persistence: Leave your application up on the space
• Phone bridge (for team mates taking a call from their cellphone in their car)
• Custom designs, and colorable avatars
• Doors to mask interrupts
• Virtual conference room (mine hold up to 32).  It’s not always easy to find and book a room with a projector.

With the telephone, we can’t tell who is speaking.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Physical conference rooms are great, but sometimes hard reserve one that is big enough.  With the Agile space, you can work in rooms that are custom designed for the agile process.  Leave AgileZen and PlanningPoker.com in planning room, for example.  And you don’t have to give up your existing instant message or collaboration tools.  Add the Agile space in Sococo to complement them by providing always on ‘osmotic’ communication.

No tool is perfect.  I have things I hate about them all.  But the Agile space in Sococo appears to be the simplest thing that could possibly work.

The Agile3d Factory is (c) 2011, Agile Dimensions LLC

“Putting a Project Manager in a Wheelchair – working with differing abilities”
Dec 28, 2011 – Sojorner Auditorium – online.

22 people attended.

Agenda

1. Differing Abilities
2. Pairing
3. Agile Project Management
4. Flavors of Agile
5. Daily Agile Scrum Meetings with Agile Hopscotch
6. Alternate tools for Distributed Teams

Credits:
Gentle Heron, the leader of the Virtual Ability Community for organizing and transcribing.  Gentle is a Linden Prize winner.  The Virtual Ability Community hosts 600 people interested in assisting people with disabilities and their care givers and proponents.

Thanks also go to the rest of the Virtual Ability, Inc. team for orienting attendees (Ladyslipper), scheduling work fo the event (iSkye), and Gentle (for real time transcription).

We also had good participation from the Audience ranging on comments on Scrum, Lean, Myers-Briggs, and also live demonstrations.

Format:
This is a transcript of a 3d web online event.  Participants were able to visually interact with each other, the venue, and shared models.   Because we deal with health issues, we protect them by showing part of their chosen pseudonym.  They are free to reveal more if desired.   I did need to give them credit for their comments.   I’ll show you some excerpts from the transcript, mixed with my paragraph summaries.

The talk began at 6:30 pm Pacific.   Gentle Heron spoke first.

(Gentle Heron)
Good evening, and welcome to Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island. It’s nice to see everyone here tonight for this topic.

This is part of an ongoing series of events during December and January about the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We call this series Waiting for the World to Change.

The next presentation in this series will be December 29, The topic will be “Redefining Disability: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.” ALiesel & Alzimarie, Thomas Jefferson University, Occupational Therapy graduate students will present on this topic over on Healthinfo Island
[18:34] Gentle Heron: Tonight AgileBill Firehawk will speak with us about “Putting a project manager in a wheelchair – working with differing abilities.”

His credentials for presenting tonight include working as a developer, teacher, and consultant for over 20 years. He has worked at IBM and now works in the health care industry.  After coming to Virtual Worlds in 2009, he updated his career to teach project management using imersive 3d concepts and to promote people with differing abilities. Bill has served on the Board of Directors of Rockcliffe University Consortium, and is a graduate of the University of Washington certificate program on virtual worlds.

[18:35] Gentle Heron: Bill is willing to take clarification questions during his presentation, but please keep them short.  He will be presenting in voice and typing some of what he says, and I will be transcribing to text the other material for those who need that mode of input.

(AgileBill begins speaking)
I will put a project manager in a wheelchair.: Or the other way around, put someone in a wheelchair in a project manager job.  If you are in a W/C you have skills that you could use with distributed teams.

So many teams now are global.  I’ve spent years working with distributed teams, at IBM, Rockcliffe University Consortium, and in the health care industry.  As part of the Virtual Ability Community, you work remotely every day.  That gives you mad skills for today’s distributed teams.  You know the challenges.  But you are ahead in some skills – out of force of necessity..

Topic 1 – “Differing Abilities.”
((Bill begins class sitting in a wheelchair, then stands)).
I am lucky I can stand up and get out of the wheelchair.   But not everyone can. I hope we can train people to take advantage of your skills.  I wanted to share what I learned in 2 years of pushing distributed tools.   I want to give you practical knowledge on how to do project management with distributed teams.

Let’s start with project management (PM).  I specialize in the Agile style of project management and software development.  But it goes beyond software.  It works well for many kinds of projects.

(The audience commented here that so many project failed we needed to come up with new way to manage projects – thanks Any1).

Topic 2 – “Pairing”
There are three ways to product work.  By yourself, or “Solo”,  Inspect it after it is initially done, or work together at most times with a partner.  We call this last method “Pair Programming”.    That name is a misnomer because it is so useful beyond just programming.

Old way – working Solo with inspections
We are trained in school that working together is cheating.  Actually, in industry it is teamwork and has many benefits.   The old way to work is to work on your own, perhaps being confused and making mistakes.  You go to an inspection meeting, find a list of defects, then go off on your own to fix them, being nearly as lost.   This assumes people actually hold inspections.

[18:45] any1: any individual developer is too productive… in a bad way… pair development provides quality assurance and it works like a charm

I will show you the other way.  We take turns.

[18:44] AgileBill Firehawk: come with me Ahroun
[18:44] Gentle Heron: Now Bill and Ahroun are sitting together.
[18:45] Gentle Heron: Two people work on one computer.

Ahroun might be thinking big picture strategy.  I might think of details.  Then we help each other if we make mistakes.  We fix mistakes before going on.  It’s self pacing.  It’s tiring, so we’ll switch roles.  I will think big picture, and Ahroun will do the details.

It’s effective.   It helps you invent things.   It helps you removed defects right away.  It helps make sure everything is inspected.   It increases quality.

[18:46] any1: communication is inherently creative… because it’s imperfect
[18:46] AgileBill: That’s our demo of Pair Programming.
[18:46] AgileBill Firehawk: Thanks Ahroun!
[18:46] Ahroun Maelstrom: No problem.

Sub Topic –  “Pairing Beyond Software Development.”
It’s been effective for building together in 3d models. Together we change and add to the build.  Always 2 pairs of eyes looking and improving.  That is an Agile concept that works well in 3d building.  I recommend the book “Pair Programming Illuminated” by Robert Kessler and Laurie Williams to learn how.

http://www.amazon.com/Pair-Programming-Illuminated-Laurie-Williams/dp/0201745763/ref=sr_1_1

Topic 3 – “Agile Project Management”
In Agile, we work in 2 week cycles.  These are usually called iterations or sprints.  The purpose of an iteration is to force ourselves to confess if we are really done or note.  It is also easier to plan details two weeks at a time and adjust.  We still have a bigger picture plan saying how much stuff we will do during the project, and perhaps some stretch goals.  But planning *details* farther than two weeks out is not only a waste, but can slow your ability to fresh realities.  “Planning is Essential, the Plan is Worthless.”

Some people use shorter or longer sprints, but 2 weeks is recommended and now the most common length.  Here is a summary of what happens in the 10 working days of an iteration.

Day 1        - plan the next two weeks worth of work.
Day 2 – 8   - “Do” your test, code, build.  Note that we don’t put off the testing to the end!
Day 10       - Demonstrate your work to get feedback on the product, then hold a lessons learned or “Retrospective” to improve the process.  Make the process smoother.

[18:49] any1: risk driven development… test incrementally as you develop… don’t go to far … without verifying quality –  improve the processes… constantly….
[18:50] any1: it’s like a Japanese car factory (Toyota Production System)
[18:51] any1 : interact with ur customer… check in often.. rather than creating in a vacuum

The reason we do this style of PM is we can improve risks and satisfy customers, improve quality, go faster.  It is a way to manage work to absorb change.  It makes change a competitive advantage.
[18:51] Candice smiles at that

Sidebar – “Sustainable Pace”
[18:51] Pamala- if you do this at a sustainable pace, your employees will benefit.

Sometimes with long time frames, people are lackadaisical, and the work is done all at the end. Nothing was paced out, nothing distributed through time.  With Agile, it’s not 80 hours one week and 4 the next.   If you “over-stuff” your iterations, you cannot keep up with the pace.

[18:52] Joel: and then in the last two weeks, everyone realizes it’s only half done
[18:52] Candice: You haven’t worked in the ad business where everything is like that
[18:52] Trion: A schedule needs to be in place that gets work done in stages
[18:52] AgileBill Firehawk: lol, so true Candice
[18:52] any1: facilitate productivity.. rather than rush development at the end for the deadline

Topic 4 – “Flavors of Agile”
I use the “A word”, or  Agile. But there is no such thing. You have to do specific methods. There are several agile methods.  Agile is an umbrella term for Scrum, XP, and Kanban.

Scrum focuses only on Project Management.  Like all Agile methods, it features short time-boxed iterations.  You may take 4 months to create a product your customers will install, but you demo to them every 2 weeks.  That helps you make sure you are building what they want.

Pamala and Bill both hold certifications in Scrum, which is one of the most popular Agile methods. Lots of people are hiring this style of management now.

Extreme Programming, or XP, also does this, but adds some technical practices, such as Pair Programming, Continuous Integration, Refactoring, and Test Driven Development.

Kanban does not have the two week deadline.  Instead it focuses on how long tasks take, and watches that you don’t start too many things at once.  It focuses on ‘pulling’ work through the system.

(At this point in the talk we went into a bit of a tangent and we started to discuss Lean and Six Sigma, I think that i would like to take the time here to explain a bit more fully what each of those are.)

Lean is a set of project management techniques.  They evolved from work by the Toyota Motor Corporation, W. Edwards Deming, and have been adapted to software in the books by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.   Lean can optimize what you do.  You can use Lean with everything.  For example, it teaches how to reduce 7 forms of waste, like wait time and extra features.  It’s a good compliment to Agile.  Six Sigma is about statistical quality control.

Pamala- How close is Lean and SixSigma?
[18:55] Trion: Lean is a way of thinking
[18:55] Gentle Heron: SixSigma is statistical quality control.
[18:56] Trion Ormenthal: Kanban is a lean tool

Kanban is also cool. It focuses on flow.  You don’t have a 2 week deadline.
[18:56] AgileBill asks “How many of you have a To Do List?”
[18:56] Bathsheba: I have a to do list of to do lists
[18:56] Aiyana: raises her hand
[18:56] Gentle does! it’s a ToDo Encyclopedia though.
[18:56] Aiyana: lol
[18:57] iSkye: raises both hands
[18:57] Pamala- Like the Franklin Day Planner.
[18:57] NANA: I have list to don’t.
[18:57] Gentle Heron likes that Nana!
[18:58] Ti has 8.67 billion items on her to do list

(Bill chuckles, and continues)
The idea is to prioritize.  Some people use MoSCoW methods. This stands for “Must Should Could Won’t”.  But it really turns out to be Must , Must, Must, Must..  Don’t bother.  Rank your requirements with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 499th, etc.   In Agile, we *pull* the from the list.  We take the top priority ones first.

[18:58] any1: Kepner Tregoe … Situation Analysis… can prioritize any messy situation

For Agile, you need them prioritized. Top to bottom. You can pick the good stuff off the top, and do them in order.

Let’s pretend a 6 month project.  That’s 12 two week “sprints”, or iterations.
Some people like to focus on architecture first.  Either way, our focus is to build high quality stuff every two weeks.  It is done, Done, DONE!   That means we can’t say ‘I’m done, but have a few things to finish up next week’ (like I usually do, lol).   It means no repair later.  If you can’t get it done without bugs, put it back on the To Do pile, to be re prioritized into a future iteration..  Our sprints are Done! in terms of quality, but we will still add function to the release later.

[18:59] any1: what about Kaizan events? are they magic or what?
[19:00] Abal: 3 week development 1 week test
// Bill *coughs*, and says “Note- that is a mini waterfall, and is not what we are really hoping for.  We want 1 day of planning, 8 days of similar tech days, then one day of demo/retro”

Subtopic – “Planning Your Team’s Hours”
I like to plan 54 hours of work every 2 weeks, per person.  54 hours is a sweet spot because it leaves time for important work beyond the scheduled tasks.  It’s not possible or worth it to plan for that extra work.   Ironically, it will slow you down if you stuff too much on your schedule.  That is because you lose 20% of productivity for each task you juggle.
(http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/costs-of-multitasking.htm)
That means it is optimal to divide your day into some focused ‘on task’ time, but also admit we need time to handle phone calls, requests for help from team mates, mandatory company meetings, and unexpected repair work (*gasps*).

Two weeks times forty hours per week
That leaves 30% of time for email or meetings.   There is some math Let’s look at that in a bit more detail.
Two weeks at 40 hours a week  = 80 hours.   70% of that is 56.   Or you could look at it this way
- 4 hours for a planning meeting on day 1
- 2 hours for 8 15 minutes one day for planning (4 hours + 2 hours for 8 15 minute stand up meetings).
- 2 hours for a demo on day 10
- 2 hours for a retrospective on day 10
The rest of the time is for e-mail,

Or you can say the scrum will require meetings and a review at the end.
Successful teams do 54 hours of work every 2 weeks.
The trick is you will burn out if you do more.

Here is a task board.  In each 2 week period, we look at the Task board- yellow stickies and a white board.  One eletronic aid for this is a tool called AgileZen (http://www.agilezen.com).  I like it because it is free for an individual, and very inexpensive for groups.  It shows columns for work, such as not started, in progress, and done.  You can customize these.   You can drag boxes representing work from column to column.

One agile concept is the team swarms on the tasks when needed.  That gives you a benefit from collaboration that you may not see if individual heroism is the focus.

In the old management styles, the busy boss assigned work to individuals. and at the end of the year you are rated on how much you got done.  The top folks get bonuses, and the bottom folks get fired each year.

How does over rewarding individuals promote teamwork?
[19:04] Joel: Darwinian management
(we had a visit from a gamer at this point who plays a vampire game, so we joked and made an analogy about people turning off their minds and feeding their vampire overlords.  Then our event host team ushered the visitor to the appropriate place – Thanks team!)

Let’s get back to our task-board.  At the end of the day look at how much work Remains.  In our example, let’s use 54 hours per person per two weeks times a 6 people.  That’s a total of 324 hours of work before our demo.   We don’t care how much work was done.  We don’t care about partial credit.  We only care how much is left now.   That reflects the reality that our estimates are approximate, and focuses our time on the current situation.  We graph the remaining work each day to get a picture of the trend.  The end of our graph should land on zero work left by our deadline!

[19:05] Iso: you know, this sounds like it would be a good work strategy for ANY work situation

Topic 5 – “Daily Agile/Scrum Meetings with Agile Hopscotch”

Let me show you a tool called  Agile Hopscotch  (Agile Hopscotch is © 2011 by Agile Dimensions LLC).  Bill and Pamala invented it.

Let’s have a demo!

[19:06] Iso: more fun too
[19:06] Gentle: Bill is making room for a demo.
[19:06] Gentle Heron: Pamala invented Agile Hopscotch for Agile Dimensions LLC.

Both Extreme Programming and Scrum use daily 15 minute meetings.  Agile Hopscotch makes the meetings more effective.

Let’s say we have a team of 8 people, who are spread across the globe.  In Scrum, the most popular Agile method, we have daily 15 minute meetings.

1)  You state two things you finished yesterday
2)  Then the two things you want to get done today.
// important correction – it’s not what you ‘want’ to do, it is what you *commit* to do for your team mates, TODAY.
3)  The next step is any difficulties, or ‘blockers’. When I stand on this hopscotch square and state my problem, the team should give me some quick solutions, or set a time to talk after the short meeting.

*Demonstration*  We walk on the Agile Hopscotch map.
Here Pamala and I had some role play demonstrating a quick meeting on the Agile Hopscotch floor mat

Example:
[19:09] Bill- Yesterday I prepped my talk and worked on a build.
[19:09] Today (tomorrow I will finish) a blog post and will work on a build.
[19:09] The blocker is how to export a build in Unity
[19:09] Does anyone know Unity 3D?
[19:09] Pamala- I have a Unity tip for you.  I’ll pass it to you after the meeting

Bill- using Agile Hopscotch is cool because helps people focus.
If you say you have a daily 15 minute meeting, they babble.
This structure focuses people.  It makes meetings high energy.  It keeps people focused on the tasks at hand..

They won’t try to do 8 things at once.  You lose 20% productivity for each thing you juggle.
[19:11] any1: that’s a big deal imho

Topic 6 – “Alternate tools for distributed teams”

[19:11] Gentle Heron: Bill- I want to show you something else.
I will show you a block diagram of the agile process.  But it is actually a living space where you can do Agile in a spatial context.  I am showing a custom space I designed for Agile teams using a tool called Sococo.  The layout of the space is useful, and also reminds you of the Agile process.

I would like to *do* project management in 3d.  But many people percieve 3d platforms as a game.  Platforms like Second Life that mix gaming and education further confuse business minded audiences. But tools such as Sococo are very clearly for efficient work.

There is a range of tools.  Other 3d environments include Web.alive, VenueGen, SpotOn3d, OpenSim, ReactionGrid, InWorldz, Habo, and Twinity.  But a flat 2d yet simple view offered

Digression – Correlation of Myers-Briggs preference with appetite for 3d
[19:12] Candice: Bill . how does MBTI work within this .. not everyone can focus …
[19:12] AgileBill: MBTI stands for Myers Briggs Type Indicator, and is a psychological test to show your preferences.  If you create too fancy a build, it’s not good because some people may be over stimulated.
[19:14] Candice: Yep
[19:12] AgileBill: But if it’s too simple, it’s boring.

(Showing picture of the Sococo tool)

I showed prospective users the 3D avatars, but some were uncomfortable.  Sococo is a mix of the instant communication we expect with tools like Skype, and a spatial context we get from tools like OpenSim and VenueGen.  (http://www.sococo.com), I have piloted it’s use with 200 people.  It can work well when timezones are overlapped enough.  For example, I work with people from the US and the Ukraine.   With team mates from India it’s a bit harder since for me there is over a 10 hour time difference (vs 7 for the Ukraine).  But within a few hours distance, it works great to form a vitual ‘bullpen’.  This can approach the feel of a team working toghether without cube walls, without the cost of refitting a physical space.  This allows for the “Osmotic Communication” very helpful for agile teams.

But it is hard to get people to use even a simpler tool such as Sococo.  They are very used to face to face, telephones, and even webcams.   In Sococo, you are represented as dot rather than a 3d avatar.  But even this more simplistic version is a stretch for some people.

Some people like 3d avatars.  You can see an example of me interviewing Grady Booch at http://www.agiledimensions.com  and http://bit.ly/BillGrady1.   Compare that with the simple dot ‘avatar’ offered in Sococo.  Yet the dot works for more people, at least in these beginning days of the 3d web frontier.

If you do project management from your home, if you are a good organizer…… that is project management.    Look how Virtual Ability pulls off events. You can do that from office or house.  But many people you would work with do not “get” 3d.  For those cases, Sococo is useful because it combines a ‘spatial context’ with simplicity.

It also has headsets, text, video, screen sharing.  Users can share control of applications.  And with my custom floor plan for agile teams, you can *do* agile in a spatial context designed for agile.

[19:17] Candice: Wouldn’t part of it be “marketing” the skills .. phrasing it so people understand what you’ve done .. kind of like a resume based on skillset?
[19:17] AgileBill – yes, explaining the differences is the key,

Let’s look at the picture of Sococo.
In this room I can tell I have 4 programmers.  I can see the manager in the corner office.  If you want to talk to him, click on his office.  The metaphor is simple enough to use, and also delivers the spatial context needed.

Let me give you more context.  20% of our population at work is in our biggest office, the rest is spread around the world in smaller pockets.   So I introduced them to virtual worlds. They didn’t like it.  They felt it was a game.  Then I introduced them to simpler tools, such as Sococo.  That one stuck, and we are one of the top users of the tool as we discussed.

I suspect it may be correlated with people’s mental preferences, which can be shown with the Myers-Briggs type indicator.  For example, some people gather information about their world with numbers, and decide based on logic.  Some gather information based on models and intuition, and may be more likely to “get” more complicated virtual environments.  This is being researched in SL’s Science Circle.   But it is good to have people on your team with diverse tastes.

[19:20] Bathsheba: they also perhaps fear human resource problems from working in an environment that is less protected?

Okay, so let’s summarize.  The message of this talk is that there are tools beyond virtual worlds.

I hope to be able to continue to teach you more about project management in upcoming classes.

[19:20] Candice applauds
[19:20] Dabici: TY Bill
[19:20] Bathsheba: thanks!
[19:21] Iso: applauuuuuuusssse
[19:21] Dabici: great talk
[19:21] Treasure: Great Presentation
[19:21] AgileBill: thanks!!!
[19:21] Ahroun: INTP ftw. *claps warmly*
[19:21] Iso: thank you Bill and Gentle..

Bill- I will do more talks until we get a project manager in a wheelchair.
[19:21] Ladyslipper: Thank you!!!
[19:21] Iso Huet: excellent
[19:21] Iso Huet: !
[19:21] AgileBill: .-’`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-’`'-.

Read more!
http://www.virtualability.org
http://www.agiledimensions.com
http://www.sococo.com
http://www.agilezen.com
http://bit.ly/BillGrady1

A Distributed Meeting

Since July 2009 I have organized a monthly business forum. Since it is a distributed event, it is useful to see what is different about how it works.

Our November Business Forum focused on “Compassionate Communication” This technique allows you to better work with people by understanding their feelings and needs. We brought in two guest speakers, one who has taken over 7 workshops, and the lead speaker has more than two years of study in this field, completed a year long immersion program as well as many workshops.

This covered at least 5 states, from shore to shore.

If you look at the picture, does it seem that disbursed? Once you get over the hassle of learning the tool, and your mind begins to focus on content, you forget you are all the people in the meeting are in different cities, some as far as 3,000 miles apart. We have the “Four Pillars of Presence”

1. Sense of Place
2. Sense of Self
3. Sense of Others
4. Collaborative Object

The invisible dimension is the flow of the meeting and timing considerations.

For fun – Can you find these

There are a lot of elements that make up a good event. In particular, staff contributed including our Immersion specialist, Executive Admin, Security lead, event host, and two speakers.

Look for the following items

• Slides statically placed in ‘Gallery’ mode
• Slides dynamically placed in a projector programmed by an educator. I supports pre-caching of images for performance, screen reset, advance, retreat, and screen locking.
• Someone from a Northern city that is so cold you can see their breath on their avatar
• Our chief of cyber security, who appears as a wolf and turned his seat upside down.
• Our executive admin
• AgileBill with his yellow helmet
• Our Two speakers
• A programmed talking stick – which turns green when the floor is available for questions
• Circular seating to facilitate small group communication
• Low resource seating (optimized for best use of server resources)
• A wheelchair to show we support
• A banner for theconference
• Rockcliffe’s tip jar
• Formal Conference hall

The Agile Journey Index by AgileBill Krebs helps teams learn, adopt, and asses their methodology. The concept is to give you a framework you can modify with your own questions, but to give you a standard or solid start.

Click here for more details

Wide
The wide scale of one to 10 avoids data clumping together that may hide nuances. Like wide-band delphi, we want to spread the responses out.

Ordered
Each score has specific criteria, and is given in a certain order. You have to do the basics before getting credit for advanced scores.

Social
To get the top score, you have to have both a peer and a coach agree on your adoption of a given practice. Think of it as a thesis defense. This also promotes cross team sharing of process knowledge.

For an introductory slide deck and a spreadsheet you can use, see our premium content area.

The questions are grouped into three categories. Plan, Do, and Wrap (such as demos and retrospectives). See the premium page for a spreadsheet you can use as well as the intro slide deck.

Sign up at the ‘Reader’ level for future updates and content.

I remember my first taste of Agile 10 years ago. Dr. Max Maximilien gave a brown bag at IBM about JUnit. He said it was part of this thing called Agile, and by the way, there was a conference in my city that year. I went and felt Agile was great because it gave details on what programers do during each day. So many other methods talk in depth about planning, but not doing.

10 years later I saw 15 signatories of the Agile manifest sit on stage and take questions from the audience. What was interesting is they agreed that they “nailed” it 10 years ago. Some meeting magic happened, and there is no way to improve upon it today.

I wandered the halls from session to session, but was particularly interested in topics related to distributed teams. Lots of folks use webcams, webex, phones, and Skype. Very few knew about spatial tools like Sococo (http://www.sococo.com). (yes, I am inventing the term Spatial UI for the conference). Some folks feel the avatars are information overload. but judging by the lines at the Sococo booth, they may be onto a good mix of simplicity and function.

Thursday your pain with distributed teams will soften, as you will see new tools for your teams. We can help you choose and succeed with the right tool for you.

Slides and event info

What struck me is how nice he is. Although he is IBM Research’s chief Scientist, IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow,and IBM Fellow, he said having a 9 year old call him a role model was more important than the titles. I was impressed by how much leadership and human factors he feels applies to the role of an architect. We also discussed a bit about scaling Agile for large projects.

The beauty of this was I felt like I was sitting right next to him, even though he was at his home in Colorado and I was on the East Coast. We were 1,700 miles away. Thanks to virtual worlds, it didn’t feel like it.

Grady and Bill