XP2005_InformativeWorkspaceWorkshop

RachelDavies and TimBacon will be presenting a workshop at XP2005 in Sheffield on 21st June. The topic of the workshop is creating an Informative Workspace (new XPv2 pactice). We are planning a practice run at XtC on 3rd May - please sign up at Xtc20050503. It will help us if you sign up for the practice run a few days beforehand because we need to prepare materials for the workshop exercise and want to make sure we have enough materials for all participants. --RachelDavies

Call for Position Papers: XP2005 Informative Workspace workshop

Join our workshop at the XP2005 conference to explore ways to establish an Informative Workspace which provides useful feedback. Informative Workspace is one of the new XP practices launched in the second edition of XP Explained (Beck & Andres). The practice is to build feedback mechanisms around an agile team that support them in their daily work. These feedback mechanisms can take the form of visual displays (Information Radiators) that are manually updated by the team or electronic eXtreme Feedback Devices (XFD) such as lava lamps or audio signals linked to automated processes. It is vital to ensure that feedback mechanisms are easy to interpret, low maintenance and adapted to local practices.

We encourage participation from developers, coaches and managers with experiences to share on creating informative workspaces within their organizations. Interested people should submit a position paper to the organizers describing their background and interest in the workshop.

1. Personal Background. Briefly outline your experience with agile software development.

2. Suggestions for Informative Workspace. Describe one or more techniques or practices that you believe are helpful for creating an Informative Workspace. Why do you believe these are beneficial? Have you used them? Have you observed others use them? What contextual factors do you believe may make them more or less likely to lead to success?

Workshop Overview

The workshop will start with introductions followed by a short presentation to introduce the topic. Next participants will share their experiences by reading their position papers.

The workshop will then move on to an exercise. Participants will be divided into teams and given a manual task to perform as a group. Teams then experiment with simple tracking to see if this improves performance.

During the workshop, participants will develop ideas for Informative Workspace innovations - prototyping ideas for automated feedback devices, chart formats or workspace layouts.

The presenters will photograph all the outputs and arrange for these to be uploaded to the workshop web page.

For additional reading and photos, please see http://www.agilexp.com/XP2005_InformativeWorkspace.php