Are you tired of attending or leading the same old boring requirements gathering sessions? Would you like to find a way to get stakeholders excited about requirements gathering? Then this session is for you!
Find out how to use collaborative play to build better solution requirements for SharePoint projects (or any other project for that matter). In this session I will introduce you to seriously fun ways to do work – Seriously! Learn how to tap into true innovation and uncover hidden business requirements. What are you waiting for come to my session and learn how to put these tools into action!
Science of Teams - a glimpse into some of the science of teams. These slides are only useful with the Game itself and a paper that supports the science. All of which are at agilepainrelief.com
The intersection of Agile/Scrum and the Behavioural Psychology of Teams. There is a science behind building teams. This presentation outlines **some** of it.
Immersive 3D Environment Using Kinect and Voice Commands Kinda Altarbouch
Implement an editor for 3D environment using Unity3D, Kinect and voice commands. The system enables the designer/gamer to design her own 3D world with own hands and own voice.
Utilizing Kinect Control for a More Immersive Interaction with 3D EnvironmentMohammad Shaker
Utilizing Kinect Control for a More Immersive Interaction with 3D Environment. Implemented by Saed Haj Ali, Kinda Tarboush and Marah Halawah and Supervised by me, Dr. Noor Shaker and Dr. Ammar Joukhadar.
A short lecture I gave at the GameIS 2014 convention - about lessons learned from designing several VR games, including a launch title for Samsung Gear VR
Science of Teams - a glimpse into some of the science of teams. These slides are only useful with the Game itself and a paper that supports the science. All of which are at agilepainrelief.com
The intersection of Agile/Scrum and the Behavioural Psychology of Teams. There is a science behind building teams. This presentation outlines **some** of it.
Immersive 3D Environment Using Kinect and Voice Commands Kinda Altarbouch
Implement an editor for 3D environment using Unity3D, Kinect and voice commands. The system enables the designer/gamer to design her own 3D world with own hands and own voice.
Utilizing Kinect Control for a More Immersive Interaction with 3D EnvironmentMohammad Shaker
Utilizing Kinect Control for a More Immersive Interaction with 3D Environment. Implemented by Saed Haj Ali, Kinda Tarboush and Marah Halawah and Supervised by me, Dr. Noor Shaker and Dr. Ammar Joukhadar.
A short lecture I gave at the GameIS 2014 convention - about lessons learned from designing several VR games, including a launch title for Samsung Gear VR
Combining the presentations of Amy Jo Kim, Any Beio, and my own insights, this shows a perspective on how social networks, systems, and even TV ads use game mechanics to create flow state and bring people through even the most complex processes, like the microsoft office suite.
Plenty of practical examples to ground the higher-level thinking, including xbox avatars, progressive insurance, Twitter, sims, slot machines, legos, doll houses, blackjack, and more.
This presentation gives basic idea about what gamification is and how do some well known web applications like Twitter, Farmville, etc. utilise it to enhance user engagement on their product.
How to manage remote teams 101 (keynote at Conector Barcelona)MarsBased
Introduction to manage remote working teams. Discover the tools that we use at MarsBased, tips to increase productivity, best practices, recommended reads and much more thanks to this keynote that was done at Conector on July 21st 2015 by our CMO Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit
All the Families: The Making of Animation Throwdown (GDC 2018)Kongregate
Ever wonder what it would be like to create a AAA game with a skeleton crew, split between two developers, one publisher, one IP owner, and five individual IPs? Join two producers from Kongregate (Peter Eykemans and Katrina Wolfe) to hear how "Animation Throwdown" was created in an unusual way, and how they turned an incredible production problem into a major success.
Designing Games That Stand Out | David ReicheltJessica Tams
Delivered at Casual Connect Asia 2017. In the beginning it wasn't too difficult to make a profitable business making games on the appstore. In recent years appstores have become flooded with games. The market now demands that game designers fine tune their design skills to a high level. In this session we'll discuss what it takes to make it in this industry as a game designer and what every designer should focus on in order to make games that stand out in the market.
Understand the benefits of Scrum. Remember what support you have in the framework. Be wary of the pitfalls. Apply change facilitators to your practice to get out of scrum-but.
Link to download worksheets:
https://goo.gl/id73Pu
A Producer's Tale: Using Data-Driven Decisions to Impact the Production of Your Game
(White Nights Conference Prague 2017)
The official conference website — http://wnconf.com
Are you tired of attending or leading the same old boring requirements gathering sessions? Would you like to find a way to get stakeholders excited about requirements gathering? Then this session is for you!
Find out how to use collaborative play to build better solution requirements for SharePoint projects (or any other project for that matter). In this session I will introduce you to seriously fun ways to do work – Seriously! Learn how to tap into true innovation and uncover hidden business requirements. What are you waiting for come to my session and learn how to put these tools into action!
Are you tired of attending or leading the same old boring requirements-gathering sessions? Would you like to find a way to get stakeholders excited about requirements gathering? Then this class is for you!
Find out how to use collaborative play to build better solution requirements for SharePoint projects (or any other project for that matter). In this class, you will learn seriously fun ways to do work-seriously! Learn how to tap into true innovation and uncover hidden business requirements. What are you waiting for? Come to this class and learn how to put these tools into action!
By attending this class, you will be able to:
Introduce new and field-tested concepts for creating a clear and compelling vision for SharePoint
Facilitate more effective requirements-gathering sessions
Identify and avoid five problem patterns that plague many project teams
Hit the ground running with new templates that you can use to facilitate your own Innovation Games
Combining the presentations of Amy Jo Kim, Any Beio, and my own insights, this shows a perspective on how social networks, systems, and even TV ads use game mechanics to create flow state and bring people through even the most complex processes, like the microsoft office suite.
Plenty of practical examples to ground the higher-level thinking, including xbox avatars, progressive insurance, Twitter, sims, slot machines, legos, doll houses, blackjack, and more.
This presentation gives basic idea about what gamification is and how do some well known web applications like Twitter, Farmville, etc. utilise it to enhance user engagement on their product.
How to manage remote teams 101 (keynote at Conector Barcelona)MarsBased
Introduction to manage remote working teams. Discover the tools that we use at MarsBased, tips to increase productivity, best practices, recommended reads and much more thanks to this keynote that was done at Conector on July 21st 2015 by our CMO Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit
All the Families: The Making of Animation Throwdown (GDC 2018)Kongregate
Ever wonder what it would be like to create a AAA game with a skeleton crew, split between two developers, one publisher, one IP owner, and five individual IPs? Join two producers from Kongregate (Peter Eykemans and Katrina Wolfe) to hear how "Animation Throwdown" was created in an unusual way, and how they turned an incredible production problem into a major success.
Designing Games That Stand Out | David ReicheltJessica Tams
Delivered at Casual Connect Asia 2017. In the beginning it wasn't too difficult to make a profitable business making games on the appstore. In recent years appstores have become flooded with games. The market now demands that game designers fine tune their design skills to a high level. In this session we'll discuss what it takes to make it in this industry as a game designer and what every designer should focus on in order to make games that stand out in the market.
Understand the benefits of Scrum. Remember what support you have in the framework. Be wary of the pitfalls. Apply change facilitators to your practice to get out of scrum-but.
Link to download worksheets:
https://goo.gl/id73Pu
A Producer's Tale: Using Data-Driven Decisions to Impact the Production of Your Game
(White Nights Conference Prague 2017)
The official conference website — http://wnconf.com
Are you tired of attending or leading the same old boring requirements gathering sessions? Would you like to find a way to get stakeholders excited about requirements gathering? Then this session is for you!
Find out how to use collaborative play to build better solution requirements for SharePoint projects (or any other project for that matter). In this session I will introduce you to seriously fun ways to do work – Seriously! Learn how to tap into true innovation and uncover hidden business requirements. What are you waiting for come to my session and learn how to put these tools into action!
Are you tired of attending or leading the same old boring requirements-gathering sessions? Would you like to find a way to get stakeholders excited about requirements gathering? Then this class is for you!
Find out how to use collaborative play to build better solution requirements for SharePoint projects (or any other project for that matter). In this class, you will learn seriously fun ways to do work-seriously! Learn how to tap into true innovation and uncover hidden business requirements. What are you waiting for? Come to this class and learn how to put these tools into action!
By attending this class, you will be able to:
Introduce new and field-tested concepts for creating a clear and compelling vision for SharePoint
Facilitate more effective requirements-gathering sessions
Identify and avoid five problem patterns that plague many project teams
Hit the ground running with new templates that you can use to facilitate your own Innovation Games
Do you want to get your SharePoint project right the first time? It has been our experience that there is no way for a project to succeed if the stakeholders and solution designers are not in alignment, no matter how good the solution. If your technical team and business stakeholders are not on the same page then the project will fail. The problem is that getting the business stakeholders to tell you their vision and understand what success looks like to them is very difficult.
Over the past decade of delivering successful SharePoint projects, we have discovered methods that work very well at eliciting the stakeholders' desires and then ensuring that we have clarified our own understanding with them. These methods involve the use of visual and tactile tools that open the lines of communication and rapidly expose misunderstandings.
We will demonstrate tools such as mind mapping, card sorting, gamestorming, tree-testing and other methods, and we will have you participate in exercises that will give you the confidence to apply these tools in your own practice. Many of these methods are very easy to learn and apply, and this workshop will give you the confidence to do so.
The application of these visual tools has directly influenced the success of the many projects we've worked on over the years. We won't be giving you theory, but rather stories and examples from our real-life experience. We hope you'll join us for a practical, useful, fun and enlightening experience.
SharePoint projects are wickedly complex. Among the reasons: You are dealing with loosely defined big-picture issues like collaboration, information sharing, portal navigation and information organization; and you are trying to define these solutions within the context of the social complexity that exists in all organizations. The result is that you end up with solutions that may satisfy some of your stakeholders, but which leave others disengaged, disenfranchised and disappointed. Getting to success is dependent on reaching a shared understanding, followed by a shared commitment from all of the participants and stakeholders.
We have discovered that visual tools can very quickly allow groups of people to get to shared understanding and commitment. We will share our techniques with you and teach you how to use free or very inexpensive tools that allow you elicit your clients' goals. We then show you to prioritize, map and construct the solution.
We will cover the use of Gamestorming and Innovation Games, which use the concepts of games to get to serious results in a much less painless way than the usual planning and requirements workshops. We will demonstrate the use of mind mapping for navigational design, taxonomy design, prioritization and capturing the thought process of a team via an interactive process.
SharePoint projects are wickedly complex. Among the reasons: You are dealing with loosely defined big-picture issues like collaboration, information sharing, portal navigation and information organization; and you are trying to define these solutions within the context of the social complexity that exists in all organizations. The result is that you end up with solutions that may satisfy some of your stakeholders, but which leave others disengaged, disenfranchised and disappointed. Getting to success is dependent on reaching a shared understanding, followed by a shared commitment from all of the participants and stakeholders.
We have discovered that visual tools can very quickly allow groups of people to get to shared understanding and commitment. We will share our techniques with you and teach you how to use free or very inexpensive tools that allow you elicit your clients' goals. We then show you to prioritize, map and construct the solution.
We will cover the use of Gamestorming and Innovation Games, which use the concepts of games to get to serious results in a much less painless way than the usual planning and requirements workshops. We will demonstrate the use of mind mapping for navigational design, taxonomy design, prioritization and capturing the thought process of a team via an interactive process.
Visual tools and innovation games workshop - spscbus - aug 2014Ruven Gotz
A 'meta' presentation about metadata - tools you can use to explain metadata, taxonomy and content types to your stakeholders. Presented at SharePoint Saturday Columbus (SPSCBUS), Aug 23, 2014 [DOWNLOAD THE FULL DECK TO GET SPEAKER'S NOTES]
Visual tools and innovation games workshop - SPTechCon - Apr 2014Ruven Gotz
Half-day workshop presented by Michelle Caldwell and Ruven Gotz on getting to shared understand and better requirements for your SharePoint projects through the use of Visual Tools (such as mind mapping, wireframing, and card sorting) and Gamestorming (also called Innovation Games)
SharePoint projects are wickedly complex. Among the reasons: You are dealing with loosely defined big-picture issues like collaboration, information sharing, portal navigation and information organization; and you are trying to define these solutions within the context of the social complexity that exists in all organizations. The result is that you end up with solutions that may satisfy some of your stakeholders, but which leave others disengaged, disenfranchised and disappointed. Getting to success is dependent on reaching a shared understanding, followed by a shared commitment from all of the participants and stakeholders.
We have discovered that visual tools can very quickly allow groups of people to get to shared understanding and commitment. We will share our techniques with you and teach you how to use free or very inexpensive tools that allow you elicit your clients' goals. We then show you to prioritize, map and construct the solution.
We will cover the use of Gamestorming and Innovation Games, which use the concepts of games to get to serious results in a much less painless way than the usual planning and requirements workshops. We will demonstrate the use of mind mapping for navigational design, taxonomy design, prioritization and capturing the thought process of a team via an interactive process.
Find out how to use simple innovation games to build better solution requirements for SharePoint projects. You will learn seriously fun ways to do work – Seriously! Learn how to tap into true innovation and discover new ideas. Come learn how to put your ideas into action.
16 million downloads and 300.000 da us later when those numbers can't keep ...Mary Chan
Some of the biggest causes of a game studio to fail include: a demotivated and/or burned out team, lack of funds, legal trouble, not seeing the problems ahead, a neglected game and/or audience, internal arguments and publishing problems. At the start of January 2014, Critical Force Entertainment based of Kajaani, Finland had every single one of those challenges one way or another. This talk is intended to share the insights, learned lessons and best practices of how we succeeded through failing endlessly, even with a game that had a huge audience which we sadly never managed to properly monetize and the stigma of being a 'cloner'. Regardless of that, being creative and coming up with solutions to our problems on a step-by-step basis got us to become strong than we ever thought we could be. The main focus of this talk is on sharing our story of performing a complete startup turnaround regardless of the relative success we've had with our games. Topics include:
Team Culture
- we were lacking a defined team culture, so we decided to completely fix that Product management
- we never had anybody focus on this, now we do Legal Concerns
- we were facing 300+ websites that iframed our game from Kongregate, we show how we turned this into profit Funding
- we were making money, but didn't properly manage our budget.
Titanic Effect
- we were focusing too much on growing quantity instead of improving quality Community
- we had neglected our audience, now we're going to leverage them Partnerships
- finding the right partners to work with has saved us a lot of hassle for a worth-while share of our revenues.
We will be sharing concrete examples of how we tackled the above topics and will provide various forms of data, references, tips, best practices and learned lessons. Part of these can be found in the attached presentation draft.
Intended audience & prerequisites: Mostly intended for small-medium sized independent developers or developers intending to start their own company.
Session takeaways: We want developers to walk away with a new toolkit that allows them to see opportunity in every bit of adversity that might cross their path. Our story is but one of many, but will illustrate some of the most fundamentally necessary mindsets, perspectives and attitudes that developers can adopt to turn the biggest failure into something useful.
Do you want to get your SharePoint project right the first time? It has been our experience that there is no way for a project to succeed if the stakeholders and solution designers are not in alignment, no matter how good the solution. If your technical team and business stakeholders are not on the same page then the project will fail. The problem is that getting the business stakeholders to tell you their vision and understand what success looks like to them is very difficult:
Over the past decade of delivering successful SharePoint projects, we have discovered methods that work very well at eliciting the stakeholders' desires and then ensuring that we have clarified our own understanding with them. These methods involve the use of visual and tactile tools that open the lines of communication and rapidly expose misunderstandings.
We will demonstrate tools such as mind mapping, card sorting, gamestorming, tree-testing and other methods, and we will have you participate in exercises that will give you the confidence to apply these tools in your own practice. Many of these methods are very easy to learn and apply, and this workshop will give you the confidence to do so.
The application of these visual tools has directly influenced the success of the many projects we've worked on over the years. We won't be giving you theory, but rather stories and examples from our real-life experience. We hope you'll join us for a practical, useful, fun and enlightening experience.
Visual tools and innovation games - Half-day workshop - SPFest DC - April 2015Ruven Gotz
Getting all stakeholders on the same page is a crucial element to a successful project. In this workshop we cover techniques for eliciting stakeholder goals and pain points, and how to capture and share requirements in visual ways that short circuit and accelerate the usual process.
Do you want to get your SharePoint project right the first time? It has been our experience that there is no way for a project to succeed if the stakeholders and solution designers are not in alignment, no matter how good the solution. If your technical team and business stakeholders are not on the same page then the project will fail. The problem is that getting the business stakeholders to tell you their vision and understand what success looks like to them is very difficult.
Over the past decade of delivering successful SharePoint projects, we have discovered methods that work very well at eliciting the stakeholders' desires and then ensuring that we have clarified our own understanding with them. These methods involve the use of visual and tactile tools that open the lines of communication and rapidly expose misunderstandings.
We will demonstrate tools such as mind mapping, card sorting, gamestorming, tree-testing and other methods, and we will have you participate in exercises that will give you the confidence to apply these tools in your own practice. Many of these methods are very easy to learn and apply, and this tutorial will give you the confidence to do so.
The application of these visual tools has directly influenced the success of the many projects we've worked on over the years. We won't be giving you theory, but rather stories and examples from our real-life experience. We hope you'll join us for a practical, useful, fun and enlightening experience.
GAMIFIN 2019 Conference Keynote: How to fail at #gamification researchLennart Nacke
Lennart Nacke describes the many ways that failure is important and necessary for iterative design and development of gamification research. He outlines several ways that current gamification research can improve on experiments, execution, and publication of gamification studies. He touches on areas of game thinking, user experience, and design to tie all the examples of failure together into a call for honest design and research in gamification.
Visual Tools and Innovation Games - Workshop - SPS Chicago Suburbs - May 2014Ruven Gotz
Presented at SharePoint Saturday Chicago Suburbs, May 2014 by Ruven Gotz and Michelle Caldwell.
Learn and experience new tools and techniques that help you get shared understanding with your stakeholders. Without shared understanding, your chances of a successful delivery are very low.
Similar to Shifting the Paradigm of Requirements Gathering - SP Summit 2013 (20)
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
SAP Sapphire 2024 - ASUG301 building better apps with SAP Fiori.pdfPeter Spielvogel
Building better applications for business users with SAP Fiori.
• What is SAP Fiori and why it matters to you
• How a better user experience drives measurable business benefits
• How to get started with SAP Fiori today
• How SAP Fiori elements accelerates application development
• How SAP Build Code includes SAP Fiori tools and other generative artificial intelligence capabilities
• How SAP Fiori paves the way for using AI in SAP apps
2. www.sharepointsummit.org
2
Housekeeping
Please turn off all electronic devices or set them
to vibrate.
If you must take a phone call, please do so
in the hall so as not to disturb others.
Spreading the word via the twitter hash tag:
#SP_Summit and our official twitter account:
65. Game Setup
•A Tree !
•Post-its from Sailboat
& Product Box
•Post-its (empty)
•Pens
•tape
•Facilitator (# depends
on size of group
•At least 3 participants
•A Scribe
•Camera (optional)
69. Sample Observations
•Is your tree growing in a balanced
manner?
•Does one branch get the bulk of the
growth?
•Do the roots of the tree extend as
far as the canopy?
79. Game Setup
•A Rainbow !
•Post-its from
Product Tree
•Post-its
•Pens
•Tape
•Facilitator
•At least 3
participants
•A Scribe
•Camera
(optional)
80.
81.
82. Sample List of Games
•Speed Boat –
Sail Boat
•Product Box
•Prune the
Product Tree
•Requirements
Rainbow
•Cover Story
• Spider Web
• Start Your Day
• The Apprentice
• Low Tech Social
Network
• Remember the Future
• Show and Tell
• 20/20 Vision
• Buy a Feature
• Give Them a Hot Tub
• Me and My Shadow
91. Please rate this session!
Fill out the survey and get a chance to
win a Surface
Editor's Notes
What is a paradigm anyway?A paradigm is a “model”, a way of observing the world that allows people to understand it and draw conclusions.The ancient Greeks modeled our solar system with the Earth at the center, and the Sun and planets orbiting it. This paradigm lasted for thousands of years – until scientists discovered that it just didn’t work… Because the paradigm was so entrenched, astronomers made up all sorts of crazy theories to explain planetary motion…http://www.nataleni.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Claudius-Ptolemy-1-1024x854.jpg
But then, in the 17th century, Copernicus put the Sun at the center, with the Earth orbiting. This was a scientific revolution and a huge paradigm shift – it broke the previous model (and religious law): But it was a simpler model that worked better and so it has stuck.http://www.kirksville.k12.mo.us/khs/teacher_web/alternative/Planisphere_of_Copernicus_jk.jpg
What is our paradigm for requirements gathering?The meeting: People sitting around a table, being asked for input, while someone takes notes.
Approximately 11 million meetings occur in the US every day
Most professionals attend 61.8 meetings a month
Of which 50% of them are unproductive
If each meeting is approx. 1 hour long then professionals loose on average 31 hours per month to ineffective meetings
How are most requirements gathered?[THIS SLIDE IS NOW ANIMATED – watch it in presentation mode]In meetings right? Let’s look at how productive the average meetings isLETS EXPLODE THIS with a new paradigm
How are most requirements gathered?[THIS SLIDE IS NOW ANIMATED – watch it in presentation mode]In meetings right? Let’s look at how productive the average meetings isLETS EXPLODE THIS with a new paradigm
Before I explain the details of the new paradigm, I’m going to keep you all in suspense while I show you some patterns connected with the current paradigm
But not just any patterns – bad patterns that lead to poor results.
Platitudes for requirements“We want better collaboration” “We want to share better” “We want to find information faster”Why is this requirement problematic?This type of high-level and abstract narrative can be a useful motivational tool because the lack of detail invites us to form our own ideas as to how this vision might be realized. But although we might all intuitively agree with the vision at first, we soon need more detail. If you can’t answer the questions “What are we trying to achieve?” and “How will we know when we’ve done it?” then you’re not ready to start.Many organizations struggle to define a clear business case or to measure the success of SharePoint initiatives.Result:Solution doesn’t meet the need (s) of the stakeholder and is thus viewed as a failureDesired business outcomes are not capturedAnd the list goes on and on……..
Stakeholder(s) don’t have time to be engaged on the project so they send a representative in their placeThis doesn’t really workWhy? – ever play telephone?Result:Solution doesn’t meet the need (s) of the stakeholder and is thus viewed as a failureDesired business outcomes are not capturedAnd the list goes on and on……..
Silver Bullet - Do you have a Solution Looking for a Problem to solve?Pursuing a solution looking for a problem is obviously monetarily costly but, even more dire, can cost thousands of hours of scarce time. Going too deeply down a technical rabbit hole can literally waste years of IT hours that could have been more wisely invested. Furthermore, technical solutions looking for problems make IT appear out of touch. Luckily, the answer to technical solutions looking for a problem is fairly simple: continually ask yourself what problem the technology is solving, and if the cure is better than the disease.It’s nearly always better to pull the plug on an immature or unusable technology than throw good money after badThere’s no such thing as a SharePoint project — there are only organizational change projects; and executives are in a unique position to be able to drive change in an organization. Visibly active and participatory executive support gives credibility to a program or initiative. Without such support,Result: SharePoint-based initiatives can fail either because the proposed projects don’t gain approval and funding, or projects deliver solutions that are then not adopted and used by the business.
Using a demo to gather requirementsLet me show you what SharePoint can do and we can use the demo to define your requirements.This doesn’t really workWhy? – you are focused on technology features instead of gaining insight into the business challenge that needs to be solved – furthermore SharePoint is not the solution for every issueResult – Poor requirements analysis – understanding is based on features instead of organizational goals and potential cultural barriers/benefits
Requirements gathering meetings using only questionnairesThis doesn’t really work?Why? –Most stakeholders will only give you a very small % of what their requirements are on paper. It takes human interaction and a skilled facilitator to draw out and refine the “unknown requirements” Stakeholders may respond superficially because the questionnaire takes too much time to fill out, Stakeholders may not respond at all, Result – requirements that are not captured/discovered because they were not articulated in the responses. This results in the constant evolution of requirements. Potentially information can be collected from a large portion of a group. This potential is not often realised, as returns from questionnaires are usually low
STOP - Instead seek to understand and solve business problems
For the rest of the presentation, I will show you a new paradigm for requirements gathering that may seem strange to you (just as the model with the sun at the center of the solar system seemed strange in the 17th century).BUT: I have put these into practice myself, and they have turned out to be VERY effective.
“A clear, compelling vision for SharePoint is a must if want to have the best chances of success. However simply asking a bunch of stakeholders the question “So what is the vision for SharePoint?” is probably not going to get you the results that you are hoping for. What if – you approached each problem as if it "involves redesigning the organization on the assumption that it was destroyed last night... The most effective way of creating the future is by closing or reducing the gap between the current state and the idealized design". – Russell Ackoff
Cover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine. The players must pretend as though this future has already taken place and has been reported by the mainstream media. This game is worth playing because it not only encourages people to “think big,” but also actually plants the seeds for a future that perhaps wasn’t possible before the game was playedThe reason that this works particularly well for SharePoint is that there are a number of possible visions that an organization may have for the platform. The Cover Story game gives you enough structure to ensure that you get tangible examples without constraining users from being able to really explore the many possible end states.At the end of the time period, usually an hour, get the groups to present their cover story, essentially their vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the groups and then discuss.
Cover: Tells the story of their big successHeadline: The substance of the cover storySidebars: Interesting facts about the storyQuotes: Quotes from potential end users of the solutionBrainstorm: documenting initial ideas (this is important!)Images: Supporting the content with illustrationsCover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine. The players must pretend as though this future has already taken place and has been reported by the mainstream media. This game is worth playing because it not only encourages people to “think big,” but also actually plants the seeds for a future that perhaps wasn’t possible before the game was playedThe reason that this works particularly well for SharePoint is that there are a number of possible visions that an organization may have for the platform. The Cover Story game gives you enough structure to ensure that you get tangible examples without constraining users from being able to really explore the many possible end states.At the end of the time period, usually an hour, get the groups to present their cover story, essentially their vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the groups and then discuss.
Cover: Tells the story of their big successHeadline: The substance of the cover storySidebars: Interesting facts about the storyQuotes: Quotes from potential end users of the solutionBrainstorm: documenting initial ideas (this is important!)Images: Supporting the content with illustrationsCover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine. The players must pretend as though this future has already taken place and has been reported by the mainstream media. This game is worth playing because it not only encourages people to “think big,” but also actually plants the seeds for a future that perhaps wasn’t possible before the game was playedThe reason that this works particularly well for SharePoint is that there are a number of possible visions that an organization may have for the platform. The Cover Story game gives you enough structure to ensure that you get tangible examples without constraining users from being able to really explore the many possible end states.At the end of the time period, usually an hour, get the groups to present their cover story, essentially their vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the groups and then discuss.
Cover: Tells the story of their big successHeadline: The substance of the cover storySidebars: Interesting facts about the storyQuotes: Quotes from potential end users of the solutionBrainstorm: documenting initial ideas (this is important!)Images: Supporting the content with illustrationsCover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine. The players must pretend as though this future has already taken place and has been reported by the mainstream media. This game is worth playing because it not only encourages people to “think big,” but also actually plants the seeds for a future that perhaps wasn’t possible before the game was playedThe reason that this works particularly well for SharePoint is that there are a number of possible visions that an organization may have for the platform. The Cover Story game gives you enough structure to ensure that you get tangible examples without constraining users from being able to really explore the many possible end states.At the end of the time period, usually an hour, get the groups to present their cover story, essentially their vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the groups and then discuss.
Cover: Tells the story of their big successHeadline: The substance of the cover storySidebars: Interesting facts about the storyQuotes: Quotes from potential end users of the solutionBrainstorm: documenting initial ideas (this is important!)Images: Supporting the content with illustrationsCover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine. The players must pretend as though this future has already taken place and has been reported by the mainstream media. This game is worth playing because it not only encourages people to “think big,” but also actually plants the seeds for a future that perhaps wasn’t possible before the game was playedThe reason that this works particularly well for SharePoint is that there are a number of possible visions that an organization may have for the platform. The Cover Story game gives you enough structure to ensure that you get tangible examples without constraining users from being able to really explore the many possible end states.At the end of the time period, usually an hour, get the groups to present their cover story, essentially their vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the groups and then discuss.
Cover: Tells the story of their big successHeadline: The substance of the cover storySidebars: Interesting facts about the storyQuotes: Quotes from potential end users of the solutionBrainstorm: documenting initial ideas (this is important!)Images: Supporting the content with illustrationsCover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine. The players must pretend as though this future has already taken place and has been reported by the mainstream media. This game is worth playing because it not only encourages people to “think big,” but also actually plants the seeds for a future that perhaps wasn’t possible before the game was playedThe reason that this works particularly well for SharePoint is that there are a number of possible visions that an organization may have for the platform. The Cover Story game gives you enough structure to ensure that you get tangible examples without constraining users from being able to really explore the many possible end states.At the end of the time period, usually an hour, get the groups to present their cover story, essentially their vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the groups and then discuss.
Here is an example of a completed coverstory
Basically we want to find out what hurts and how bad…….I have found the most profound success using workshops (like the ones RuvenGotz speaks about and writes about) and my personal favorite is Collaborative Play (Innovation Games specifically for this activity) The game Speedboat is a quick and painless way to gain insight and understanding into the current state of the situation –
Ask team members to write what is slowing down the boat (one idea per card/post-it) and to pin the card to anchor or below water level
Let team members to write ideas what can speed up the boat and pin cards to an engine (if you have a speedboat) or above the boat (if you have a sailboat) to represent “wind in the sails”.
Here is a sample template I threw together for a customer a while back in paint in a couple of minutesIf you are interested in using any of these templates I will tweet the link to these in my skydrive – you can also find template for this game online at the innovations game website
The principle of the game is to draw a boat with couple of anchors and engines. (in this example we simply used post-its) The boat should be named to represent a focus area (especially if you are going to examine large group of problems).After that you can apply grouping, sorting and/or voting the same way as you know in retrospective in agile/scrum.Result: a lot of ideas get presented without any hassles and participants freely promote possible/expected solutions that can be immediately changed into action items Speed Boat game allows not just open minds, but efficiently provides a strategy how to solve your problems. Additionally, trust and expectations are more clear.
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Collect materials for making product boxes: Example list-plain cardboard boxes (cereal box size is good – you can buy them in a number of places I order mine from Staples)-Markers-Scissors-Glue-Magazines-pompoms-foam shapes-stickers (stars, happy faces, etc.)-pipe cleaners
Here’s how to setup and facilitate the product box gameCollect materials for making product boxes: Example list-plain cardboard boxes (cereal box size is good – you can buy them in a number of places I order mine from Staples)-Markers-Scissors-Glue-Magazines-pompoms-foam shapes-stickers (stars, happy faces, etc.)-pipe cleanersAsk your customers/stakeholders to imagine that they’re selling their product at a tradeshow, infomercial, or public market. Give them a few cardboard boxes and ask them to literally design a product box that represents the solution they want to use. The box should have the key marketing slogans that they find interesting. – 40 minutesWhen finished, each participant takes turns selling their box to the rest of the group – max 2-3 minutesSometimes at the end of the selling you can setup the boxes and have anonymous votes for the groups top three or you can use the data collected in this session to prepare a list of features you can later prioritize with the group leveraging a different exercise
Here are some finished examples of Product box
Here are some finished examples of Product box
Here are some finished examples of Product box
Here are some finished examples of Product box
Here are some finished examples of Product box
Gardner's prune trees to control their growthSimilarly when collecting requirements we need to control the requirements sprawlPruning is designed to build a balanced tree that yields high quality fruitThe process isn’t about cutting it is about SHAPINGIf we want project that in essence yield high value return then we need to prune/shape the requirements to maximize the value of the investment being put forth by the project resourcesBy facilitating this activity you put the customers/stakeholders in the copilot seat to help you shape what requirements/features will shape the end result
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Product Box lets you leverage your customer’s/stakeholders collective experiences by asking them to design a product box for the solution/project.Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to use. Benefits:In the process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given solution/project.
Here’s how to setup and facilitate the Pruning the Product Tree GameStart by drawing a very large tree on a whiteboard or printing a tree as a poster.Thick limbs represent major areas of functionality within your system. The edge of the tree – its outermost branches – represents the features available in the current release. Write potential new features on several index cards, ideally shaped as leaves. Ask your customers to place desired features around the tree, defining the next phase of its growth. Questions/ObservationsDo they structure a tree that is growing in a balanced manner? Does one branch – perhaps a core feature of the product – get the bulk of the growth? (for example Collaboration)Does an underutilized aspect of the tree become stronger? (for example Social)We know that the roots of a tree (your support and customer care infrastructure) need to extend at least as far as your canopy
Questions/ObservationsDo they structure a tree that is growing in a balanced manner? Does one branch – perhaps a core feature of the product – get the bulk of the growth? (for example Collaboration)Does an underutilized aspect of the tree become stronger? (for example Social)We know that the roots of a tree (your support and customer care infrastructure) need to extend at least as far as your canopyProduct tree can not only help you understand what the next phase looks like but it can also be used to help you build out your SharePoint/Solution Roadmap
Now that we know what the overall scope of which requirements we will be targeting to implement in our next release of our solution/project We need to understand the details of each elementSimilar to building a house – you have decided you need walls, floors, windows and furniture (hopefully a roof too) but we haven’t defined yet what type of walls – (how tall, what will be the finish on the wall’s etc.) what kind of floors/ how many floors – you get the idea
This is where The SharePoint Requirements Rainbow game comes inThis collaborative game originated by the ‘21apps’ team is a game to help teams clarify the requirements and user stories they create. It provides a way to help teams ensure the requirements that are defined add value, have some way of measuring this and importantly aligning them to the vision with a clear Why?The facilitator lists all the finalized requirements on the outermost requirements rainbow.Once the customer agrees to the listed requirements, project team and the customer move the in-scope requirements into the scope rainbow. This helps in clarifying the scope of the project or the product.How to measure the success?The customer define the success criteria of the in-scope project requirements to the project team.The customer brainstorms on how to measure the benefit to the organization for the in-scope requirements.Eventually in long run, the customer’s executive management needs to know the value addition the project is bringing to the organization in order to get a continuation or further funding.
This is where The SharePoint Requirements Rainbow game comes inThis collaborative game originated by the ‘21apps’ team is a game to help teams clarify the requirements and user stories they create. It provides a way to help teams ensure the requirements that are defined add value, have some way of measuring this and importantly aligning them to the vision with a clear Why?The facilitator lists all the finalized requirements on the outermost requirements rainbow.Once the customer agrees to the listed requirements, project team and the customer move the in-scope requirements into the scope rainbow. This helps in clarifying the scope of the project or the product.How to measure the success?The customer define the success criteria of the in-scope project requirements to the project team.The customer brainstorms on how to measure the benefit to the organization for the in-scope requirements.Eventually in long run, the customer’s executive management needs to know the value addition the project is bringing to the organization in order to get a continuation or further funding.
This is where The SharePoint Requirements Rainbow game comes inThis collaborative game originated by the ‘21apps’ team is a game to help teams clarify the requirements and user stories they create. It provides a way to help teams ensure the requirements that are defined add value, have some way of measuring this and importantly aligning them to the vision with a clear Why?The facilitator lists all the finalized requirements on the outermost requirements rainbow.Once the customer agrees to the listed requirements, project team and the customer move the in-scope requirements into the scope rainbow. This helps in clarifying the scope of the project or the product.How to measure the success?The customer define the success criteria of the in-scope project requirements to the project team.The customer brainstorms on how to measure the benefit to the organization for the in-scope requirements.Eventually in long run, the customer’s executive management needs to know the value addition the project is bringing to the organization in order to get a continuation or further funding.
This is where The SharePoint Requirements Rainbow game comes inThis collaborative game originated by the ‘21apps’ team is a game to help teams clarify the requirements and user stories they create. It provides a way to help teams ensure the requirements that are defined add value, have some way of measuring this and importantly aligning them to the vision with a clear Why?The facilitator lists all the finalized requirements on the outermost requirements rainbow.Once the customer agrees to the listed requirements, project team and the customer move the in-scope requirements into the scope rainbow. This helps in clarifying the scope of the project or the product.How to measure the success?The customer define the success criteria of the in-scope project requirements to the project team.The customer brainstorms on how to measure the benefit to the organization for the in-scope requirements.Eventually in long run, the customer’s executive management needs to know the value addition the project is bringing to the organization in order to get a continuation or further funding.
This is where The SharePoint Requirements Rainbow game comes inThis collaborative game originated by the ‘21apps’ team is a game to help teams clarify the requirements and user stories they create. It provides a way to help teams ensure the requirements that are defined add value, have some way of measuring this and importantly aligning them to the vision with a clear Why?The facilitator lists all the finalized requirements on the outermost requirements rainbow.Once the customer agrees to the listed requirements, project team and the customer move the in-scope requirements into the scope rainbow. This helps in clarifying the scope of the project or the product.How to measure the success?The customer define the success criteria of the in-scope project requirements to the project team.The customer brainstorms on how to measure the benefit to the organization for the in-scope requirements.Eventually in long run, the customer’s executive management needs to know the value addition the project is bringing to the organization in order to get a continuation or further funding.
Here is an example:Here is how to setup and facilitate the Requirement Rainbow gameDraw or Print out a requirements rainbowHave the team stand around the rainbowYou need 1 facilitator and 1 scribe/observerThe facilitator lists all the finalized requirements on the outermost requirements rainbow.Once the customer agrees to the listed requirements, project team and the customer move the in-scope requirements into the scope rainbow. This helps in clarifying the scope of the project or the product.How to measure the success?The customer define the success criteria of the in-scope project requirements to the project team.The customer brainstorms on how to measure the benefit to the organization for the in-scope requirements.Eventually in long run, the customer’s executive management needs to know the value addition the project is bringing to the organization in order to get a continuation or further funding.Only then do you move onto the next requirement and repeat the same processThe end result is a set of well defined, well understood, measurable requirements that have value statements that map back to the vision. This process can also help flush out requirements that don’t belong or add value to the overall solution
So where can you begin?Easy games to get started with is Sailboat/speedboat and Pruning the product treeBe brave to try something new
I hope you found this to be interesting and useful.Thanks for coming.Wait for the applause to build….Let me just tell you how you can contact me, and then I’ll take questions.
Founding member of BuckeyeSPUG (COSPUG)Been working with SharePoint since 200515 years of IT experienceLead a team of 45 SharePoint consultantsProfessional Scrum MasterSix Sigma CertifiedSharePoint Saturday Speaker and OrganizerDog Food Conference Planning Committee