Frictions / creations
What’s at stake with Incremental Design

Organizers: Emmanuel Gaillot & Bernard Notarianni

Objectives:

This session proposes two different approaches of collaborative creation process in software making, through simulation games.  It gives attendees the opportunity to figure out the forces in presence in each approach.

Contents:

Software development projects generate frictions with “the other side” – whatever side it is we’re in, customer’s or developers’. The project turns into a Huis Clos – alienating, oppressing.  If only “the others” understood…

“Never this again!”  This time, you’ve made sure “it will work out well.”  Absence of friction as a good resolution.  Is it working?

Do XP’s recommendations like “Onsite Customer,” “Emergent Design,” “System Metaphor” help reducing frictions between customers and developers?  Does that even matter?

Process & Timetable:
Participants divide in teams. Each team divides in two groups : “customers” and “developers”.  Each group pair work together as a team at implementing a simple information system in a context involving functional and technical constraints. In a first phase, participants work in a traditional fashion (requirements gathering, then implementation).  In a second phase, everyone works according to the “Onsite Customer” XP principle.

A debriefing session follows each phase.

The session schedule is as follows:

• Introductions (10 minutes)
  • Participants are dispatched in severals teams of equal size. Each team separates then in two groups: developers and customers.
• In parallel (20 minutes)
  • Requirements gathering and writing (customers). One of the organizer stays with the customers. He plays the role of the end client/sponsor, expressing needs for a simple application.
  • Learning to use the technical framework (developers). The second organizer stays with the developers to present them a technical framework -- real technical stuff, with a twist. Developers practice with the framework, building a vanilla application.

• Debrief for each group (15 minutes)
• In parallel (20 minutes):
  • “User’s stories” preparation and prioritization (customers) Customers split the requirements in stories and build a backlog.
  • Implementation of expressed requirements (developers). Developers implement the application based on the requirements the customers produced during the first phase.

• Demonstration and collective debrief (15 minutes)
• Collocated work: customers and developers sit together (20 minutes). They collaborate and implement the backlog based on agile practices.
• Debrief (15 minutes)
• Conclusion (5 minutes)

Session Format:

Simulation game and discussion

Intended Audience:

This session is more specifically intended for

• Beginners willing to better apprehend XP practices such as “Onsite Customer” and “Metaphor”, as well as impacts of customers / developers’ collaboration in an agile team.
• Managers and coaches interested in ways of promoting such practices.

No specific technical knowledge is required.

Although this session may function with an audience as small as 4 persons, it is really intended for an audience of 6 persons minimum. The session scales up to 30 persons maximum.

Benefits of participating:

Participants will have the opportunity:

• to experiment with two approaches to collaborative creation process in software making
• to discuss pros and cons of these two approaches, reasons to switch from one to the other… or not
• to design an information system with non conventional weapons
• to draw mindmaps
• to go beyond shallow differences and understand deeper stakes connected to customers / developers’ frictions.
• to have fun

Benefits of organizing:

Presenters will have the opportunity:

• to exchange experience with participants
• to practice facilitating this session and to improve its format
• to have fun