KoyaanisqatsiWorkshop

Okay, this is taking shape now ... here's the proforma headings for a OT2002 Proposal

Abstract (Koyaanisqatsi from the HopiLanguage !) but it means life in balance. Workshop to do with balancing the skills of refactoring, testing, and about assigning responsibilities to classes. Too much or too little? The discipline of balancing these skills.

Audience a workshop for XPers who have at least some experience on an XP project.

Benefits Learn to find the right balance of several XP practices (refactoring, testing ... what skills ARE WE BALANCING?)

Session Format Workshop

Materials (I have a good video - the film of the same name - but I guess 1.5 hrs is too long and will need some editing - see http://www.angelfire.com/movies/Koyaanisqatsi/). Maybe show a video as a diversion.

Process How the session works. Intro music: Dancing Queen, Abba. Exercise1 Video Exercise2

Give each person in a team a single responsibility (though not necessarily telling others what it is). E.g: Refactoring King, Testing Queen, Bishop of Responsibility (sharing responsibility amongst classes), Knight of Timely delivery. Each person has an index card with virtues of themselves that they must promote. (We actually picking up on scope/quality/time/cost aspects here, trying to balance these). We need to adjust the levels of each skill until a balance is found. How to do this? Cards? How to measure the balance?

Currently - the exercise will be a marble run (large scale with tennis ball?). Exercise needs to be pairable, testable, refactorable, deliverable. (Could use real code, but this is always boring :-( ) PaulS prefers to use Blue-Peter style kit such as card, tape and bits of gutter or something.

Output One-page conclusion.

The workshop needs to be constructive, workshops that expose a problem without potential solutions can be unsatisfying to attend. -- RachelD . Agreed, so ...

Is it enough to allow the balance to be adjusted somehow, then use reflection to find the right level?

Perhaps in the first 2 iterations of the exercise no attempt is made to achieve balance and the last iteration teams might use their own or one of the following techniques to adjust the balance:

• an individual in the role of XpCoach
• timeboxing time spent on each activity
• team retrospective
• tips to resolve conflicts when pairing

Hmmm. If you could run lots of iterations, you could try either pulling one of the responsibilities (or, better, letting one dominate) for each iteration. Alternatively, start with one responsibility, then add another one each iteration (like a reverse ballon-debate) and watch how things get better. --SteveF

Excellent ideas, I wonder if we can take part of Rachel's and part of Steve's ... Have several iterations, add one practice card per iteration and let each team decide which practice they want to add. In each iteration, they can only use practices for cards they hold. e.g: We can only refactor and run tests in iteration 2. --PaulS

Is a marble run good enough? Not sure that it can cover all the skills to balance. The exercise we choose needs to allow many iterations, with stories added each time.

I wonder if a CRC exercise would work? Each team could walkthru their CRC in public. We could supply an existing model and CRCs at the start, and then supply a new story for each iteration. Something like an "real-life object sorter" might be fun. I can imagine the team passing a piece of rope around as they each get the thread of control.-- PaulS

Somehow need to put a price on each practice/virtue. Either with token money, or as Steve says below reverse-baloon debate?

The deadline for proposals to OT2002 is 18th September, 2001. Agreed, we'll aim for OT2002 but prefer the discussion here until we have the right format -- PaulS³host³³date³September 25, 2001³agent³Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)³KoyaanisqatsiWorkshop