The 1st release of the StoryBoard Agile planning and tracking tool is here.
Also, in an Agile fashion, It’ll also make you a cup of tea, and drive your car for you (believe it at your own peril).
License is undecided just now: might swap some GPL components out for a freer license…
This will eventually make it to an online something or other
One thing I’ve been using for a while, but I’ve never really seen blogged about anywhere is an extension of Acceptance Test Driven Dev (ATDD), which I call Question Based Analysis.
The general gist of ATDD is that the right roles (Subject Matter Expert, Dev, Test, Product Owner) sit on a room together asking a bunch of questions around the features to be developed. i.e:
“We need a whizzy widget for the call centre”
“Who in the call centre would use it?”
“The Sales Agent”
“Okay…”
[Writes] The Sales Agent needs a whizzy widget…
“Erm, what does they need this whizzy widget for?”
“Weeeelll, the wazzy widget takes too long to do what we need it to do. We reckon we can get the call handling time down by 30% if we improve it”
“So the whizzy widget will be used in lead closure part of the journey”
[Writes] As a Sales Agent I need to quickly close a lead in order to save 30% FTE. Tech. Assumption: Whizzy Widget
“Ok, but not all Sales Agents are hot on using the system right? The one’s that type and tab are generally quicker than type ‘n’ click”
“True.”
“Well, let’s give one a name. Let’s call her Sally. She’ll be the archetypal fast type and tab agent”
[writes] Acceptance Test: Can Sally the Sales Agent close a lead 30% quicker than today’s time of 1.5 minutes?
“Ooooo, Sorry to interrupt. I just remembered! Guy stopped me in the corridor just before this session to ask about requirements for our Ops folks to link into the sales bit, as there’s now a drive to upsell”
“Do you have any details on that?”
“Erm, nope”
“Okay. The best thing to do is to write up a Question Card, stick a number on it, and we’ll plan it in”
[writes] How do Ops link into lead closure? est: 2 (Timeboxed) Ideal Hours
“So, I can see that’s important to you, so we’ll stick the Question Card in for consideration for this planning. Remember, if its prioritised that analysis may lead to more Stories which we’ll pull into these Acceptance Test sessions”
“Now, do you still need to capture all the same info at the lead closure stage…”
Sometimes the expert is not at hand for the requirements. So, not User Stories, but Question Cards, and the answers to those questions will come back into the next ATDD session with the expert and lead to User Stories and Acceptance Tests…
My submission for XPDay Benelux, Evolutionary Design, was accepted last week.
This submission is basically a game which teaches Evolutionary Design, through Evolution, Darwin style.
The Initial Scene:
It is just after the dawn of life on Earth: a few chemicals thought they’d club together and form life.
You and I are all aliens from another planet, seeking new ventures. Our last venture was so long in planning the planet blew up before we produced anything, which is why we’re going to try something different this time.
You all are geneticists, and I am your customer, and require you to deliver me one of the following, chosen at random:
That’s the scene.
The thing is though, nothing stands still and designing an animal in order qualify against the goal as well as keeping up with the trends of other species evolving seems to be an essential part of the equation…
It’s on the 23 and 24 November 2009 in Mechelen, Belgium (http://www.xpday.net/) and it looks fun. I’d register if I were you.
p.s. I like the nice play on Creationism vs. Evolution b.t.w.
p.p.s. I’m personally a 7 on the Dawkins scale
I’ve *just* found out I’ve had a session accepted for XPDays Benelux – my first large-ish conference.
http://www.xpday.net/
I’ll be posting in the next few days as to the content…