Espresso Fueled Agile Development : Non-Technical

What is a "brown-bag talk"?

mpuleio — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:20:56 GMT

In past posts, and the recent Unit testing SharePoint post, I have mentioned "brown-bag talks." This has spurred emails from non-native English speakers asking me what in the heck a brown-bag talk is...

I am not sure if this is a Microsoft term, or a wider industry term (I think I remember it from my pre-MS employment, but that was a long time ago). Either way, it is a meeting over lunch where one person presents something they found interesting. The p&p dev team has organized a series of lunches every couple of weeks to talk about new and interesting technologies we are working with, and I have also seen brown-bag talks that cover just about any subject you can think of.... from reports about a conference someone just attended to a slide show about someone's vacation. The "brown-bag" part of the name is an indication that even though the meeting is at lunch time, lunch is not provided and you need to bring your own lunch. As a weird quirk of American culture, folks who bring their own lunch to work (rather than eating in the cafeteria or elsewhere) often carry it in a brown paper bag, hence the term.

Sorry about the confusion. In the future, I'll try to explain colloquialisms or not use them at all.

We really do listen to community feedback

mpuleio — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:27:31 GMT

The other day, we shipped the Smart Client Software Factory April 2008 Release. Before we shipped, I asked the team to audit all the open work items in the queue on the SCSF community site's Issue Tracker and determine what we had fixed. We had used the items in the Issue Tracker before and during the project, to help guide some of the bug fixes and features. However, the audit allowed us to do some clean up and ensure we fixed a few things. Today, I used the results of that audit, and closed a few work items.

<Sidebar>

I did cheat a bit: I used the Visual Studio Team System integration with CodePlex so I could open up the list of all open work items in an Excel spreadsheet and publish changes back to the live Codeplex site. This made bulk editing a whole lot simpler, and saved me a lot of time.

</Sidebar>

Here are the results of the audit and work item closures:

Out of 89 open work items/ issues, we closed 45 today. A number of these had been fixed in the May 2007 release and never closed, a number were fixed in this release, and some were related to different weekly drops.
Out of the top 25 items (by community votes), we closed 13.
Looked at another way, we closed 1/2 of the open issues, and 1/2 of the top issues. Not bad.

So, keep up the discussion in our communities. We reply on the discussion boards, we actually do look at the open work items on occasion, and we do listen to the community.

"I need a new co-worker", or "p&p is Hiring"

mpuleio — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:48:00 GMT

Peter Provost left p&p a month or two ago*, and Ade Miller is now our Dev Lead. However, this leaves a gap in the dev team here at p&p, and leaves us with more work than people.

If you are a strong developer and love doing agile development, apply for the postion as a Software Development Engineer

Ade has also posted about this job openening at Come work for Microsoft patterns & practices!

[*] Here is Peter's post about leaving p&p:Changes for me.

Front Page of the Seattle Times!

mpuleio — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 04:50:00 GMT

This morning, I was sitting in a local coffee shop, drinking a latte, and I checked my email on my phone since I was expecting a response from someone. In my inbox was an email from Keith Pleas (the organizer of the p&p Summit) that the Seattle Times online had an article that highlighted p&p. I walked over to the newsstand, grabbed a copy, and was surprised to see my face on the front page. :-) Needless to say, I ended up buying a few copies to share with my folks, inlaws, and a few others.

The online article is here:Microsoft campus expands, transforms, inside and out. It does not talk about the team, or patterns & practices, but rather, the ongoing campus expansion. The front page photo was of the Client team room in the p&p Agile Development Center. I was standing behind Blaine, helping him as he put together a web site with the Web Client Software Factory. It was a reminder of why he is a Program Manager, and why we do not let him code much anymore. (Don't worry, Blaine has said as much himself, on stage at the p&p Summit).

[Update] I got an email with an A/V article at the Times site, Microsoft's New Look which talks a bit about the space, has a few pics, and quotes Peter Provost.

Enjoy.

Ade Miller has a new Blog

mpuleio — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:13:45 GMT

One of my fellow developers here at patterns & practices has moved his blog to a new location: http://www.ademiller.com/blogs/tech/

Ade has surprising bits of wisdom, having joined patterns & practices almost a year ago, after leaving Visual Studio Tools for Office. Ade's been leading the Web Service Software Factory team for their next release (due out soon).

He also has a great sense of humor, and a doctorate in Physics (but don't hold that against him).

His latest post, BritSpeak#1: “Suboptimal”, is "not half bad".

Add Ade to your RSS feed list. It'll be worth it.

CNN Series on the Future of the Office

mpuleio — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:38:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, a film crew from CNN International visited Microsoft to do a segment on how Microsoft is looking at the workplace of the future (Alan talked about it at the time). They talked to the Workplace Advantage group, the team that helped patterns & practices put together our "Agile Development Center." I have mentioned the Workplace Advantage and our space a few times in the past (p&p Team Space, p&p Team Space Update, p&p Team Space Update - Revisited, Team Rooms Increase Productivity). The CNN film crew ended up over in the patterns & practices space after they discovered that our team had already moved into one of these "future" environments.

The segment is interesting, and highlights a number of things that the Workplace Advantage team is doing on campus and as they look ahead. This segment is part of a series that also looked at a few other companies as well. Check out the entire series:

Blog Spam is taking a toll

mpuleio — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:21:00 GMT

When I started this blog, I ensured that folks could post comments in response to my thoughts and ideas. However, I did set it up so that any un-authenticated user's comments needed to be screened before they became visible. In recent weeks, I have become very glad for this fore-thought. Today, I started to review comments, which I do a few times a week. However, there is a lot more "spam" than anything else. So far, I think I deleted 300 comments, and allowed one, and there is no end in site for the rest of the comments that need review. This problem has grown over time, and what used to be a 10 minute job every couple of days now requires much more time.

As a result, I am temproarily turning off comments. In a few weeks, I'll consider turning them back on to see if the spammers have removed the site from their scripts.

In the meantime, please feel free to post about the projects I am working on over on their CodePlex sites.

Send Instant Messages and Send Money to Charity

mpuleio — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:05:00 GMT

I'm usually not one for talking about socail issues and charity, even though I do take advantage of Microsoft's donation matching program, but this was too good of an idea not to talk about.

There is a program that recently launched: i'm Making a Difference (http://im.live.com/)

Rather than do a bad job paraphrasing the description of the program, I borrowed (read: copied) the following description from the site:

"i’m is a new initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We've set no cap on the amount we'll donate to each organization. The sky's the limit."

This is a great way for MS to give back to the community, and for anyone to help influence which charities MS gives money to. The best thing is: there is NO cap on the amount. :-) While the list is a little bit short, all the charities are top notch and effective, and I was able to find a charity I feel good about helping. And I know people IM all the time. It is one of the preferred communication tools at work (if you can't be face to face). I use it all the time.

A few other folks have blogged about this:

My IMs are sending money to the American Red Cross. What are your's doing?

It has been a busy few weeks

mpuleio — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:36:00 GMT

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. I've been heads down, trying to get work done on the Web Client Software Factory. I've been busy with some stuff around the house: new appliances leading to the need to move a gas line and a water line in the kitchen. I started running Vista. And I had my laptop meltdown on me.

Now, I had been planning on upgrading to Vista for a while. I just had not taken the leap. Then, last Monday, I got to work, turned on my computer, and nothing happened. Actually, something happened: I got an error message that there was no hard drive. After an hour, I decided (with some help from our local lab admin and all around good guy Eric) that I was screwed. The drive was a complete loss and would not even spin up. No data could be recovered, but I could get a replacement on Tuesday. When I did, I just installed Vista, but more on that later.

Now, I had been planning on backing up my data when I upgraded to Vista. However, it had been about 2 - 2.5 months since I last backed-up my data. I lost all my notes for blog posts, a lot of email, some code, some project documentation, my favorites list, and some other personal information. Ouch! But it was my own fault for not backing up my data more often. Live and learn (eventually). I'm working on a simple, no thought required way to backup my data without my intervention.

So after I revived my laptop with a new hard drive, I installed Vista RC1 and Office 2007 Beta 2TR. Wow! So far, I am impressed. I have had a few problems, but nothing too major. My biggest problem is the inability to connect to my home wireless network. Now, I have not spent enough time troubleshooting to figure out if it is my network, user error, or a problem with Vista. My guess is user error, but for the moment I have a wired solution.

Everything else about Vista is great. The new Start/Run/Search functionality on the old "Start" button allows me to hit 3-4 keystrokes to get to most of the programs I want to run. This is great, since I can keep my hands on the keyboard, not on my mouse. The new control panel organization is clean, logical, and well thought out. The integrated search is fantastic. The restricted permissions are occasionally annoying, but not all that bad. It is no worse than the restricted permission set that users run under in OSX (my wife has a MacBook Pro that dual boots OSX and XP)

Office 2007 is definitely an improvement. Outlook 2007 rocks! I love the rich categorization and the To-Do Bar. And running with the Navigation Pane hidden is great. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all great, too. The ribbon based UI is simple and easy to navigate, and makes it easy to find what you are looking for.

So, please be patient as I recreate the rest of the articles I was working on for my "Why did I go agile" series.

Follow-up on the new space

mpuleio — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 04:01:00 GMT

A while back, I posted about the space the patterns & practices team built in collaboration with the Workplace Advantage folks (here and here).

Today, two articles by others were brought to my attention, and I'd like to talk about them. First, Adam Barr posted an article with a number of possible issues. Here are my opinions about them:

Private phone calls - We have a few options. There are a couple of private "focus" rooms that contain a whiteboard, two comfortable chairs, and a phone for private calls. Also, there are a number of folks who have an office around the outside of the area and do not use it, and they do not mind if folks borrow them for calls, private discussions, or whatever.
Socially unacceptable bodily functions - Rule # 1: Try not to be rude to your co-workers.
How to indicate that you don't want to be interrupted (the equivalent today of closing your door) We have successfully used sticky notes that say "Do Not Disturb" placed on the edge of a monitor or LCD. Not ideal, but it works. Of course, I have only done this once in the past 6 months.
Noise - Believe it or not, you develop filters after a relatively short time. After a few weeks in a collaborative space, I was able to ignore conversations that did not pertain to what I was doing, and pick up on conversations that I needed to contribute to. Also, background music helps. If you pass control of the music around to everyone, and have a few base rules, this can work well.
The possibility that someone nearby can see your monitor at all times- You get used to it. And you probably should not be using corporate resources to look at things folks would find offensive.
Where we put the accretion of Ship-It Awards, Rubik's Cubes, Lego models, conference badges, and other knick-knacks that people have strewn across their offices - We are still workin on this one. I'll let you know when we have a good answer.

I know Chris Tavares recently posted his thoughts in response to Joel On Software's post. And he re-iterates the same points I made, so I know I am not the only one in the group who likes the setup. I'll add that I joined p&p just as construction was starting. I gave up a job in another group in Microsoft where I had a private office and would not have to share it (like a lot of other folks) due to tenure. I was actually happy giving up my office because of my experiences working in a collaborative space that was setup in a bloody hallway lounge. If I could work in a shared space in a hallway lounge and have a positive enough experience to give up my office, you might what to try this crazy idea before you knock it. And when you consider how many people at Microsoft have to double-up in offices, a shared space where everyone is working on the same project might not seem too bad. Personally, I cannot imagine going back to a work environment where I need to lock myself in an office all day.

After working in the space for a few months, I can say that I am happy with the collaborative space, and everyone I work with is happy with it. Several folks with offices around the outside of the space have volunteered to give them up (believe it or not). We have made some modifications, and there are a few minor flaws with some of the arrangements, but I believe the whole re-design was a success. Are there issues? Of course, but they are minor issues. As a team of adults who respect one another, we deal with them as needed.

As for why we work in a collaborative space, I'd like to quote Darrell Snow: "Software development is a team sport." More on that later.

Neat Site: On10.Net

mpuleio — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:55:00 GMT

Check out http://www.on10.net. They have been in beta for months and recently went live with version 1.0.

Yipes. Things are crazy.

mpuleio — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 02:20:00 GMT

Wow. Things have been crazy recently (and they still are). Between ramping up on how things work in p&p, giving talks to other groups on Agile, working with product teams to see how their new products impact the guidance offered by p&p, and helping Peter out as he shifts into a more managerial role, I have not been able to find time to write up a post until today.

Bill Gates to shift priorities.

mpuleio — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:52:00 GMT

MSNBC has an article on a fairly big leadership change at Microsoft.

I'm sure that this will cause a few ripples across the company and the industry.

And I'm glad that Bill will be doing more with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

[Edit: Here is another article on the same topic.]

[Edit: And here is the official Microsoft communication about this]

p&p Team Space Update

mpuleio — Wed, 10 May 2006 19:06:00 GMT

While we are still not moved in to the new space, a few folks are using their laptops to camp and it try out. I acquired a few candid pictures (thanks Steve Elston) to show off the new area.

The above picture shows one of the largest workrooms in the space and a few folks (Eugenio Pace, Alan Ridlehoover, Blaine Wastell, Wojtek Kozaczynski, and Brad Wilson). There are a number of workstations with flat-panel monitor stands and nifty chairs; plenty of wall space to hold our information about a project; light from the outdoors (through the glass-walled offices); and plenty of room to get the team together for an impromptu discussion. On the right side of the picture, you can see curtains closing off another workroom. One of the things you cannot see in this photo is the ceiling-mounted projector that projects onto the wall with all the sticky notes and hooks up to one of the desks.

This shows two workrooms, a lounge area, and a few guys (John Socha-Leialoha, Edward Jezierski, and Francis Cheung) preparing for a demo. The curtain from the last picture is just off-camera on the right side. You can also see one of the projectors at work. Since this area does not have a nice big wall to project on, there is a screen that drops from the ceiling on demand. You can even see a few of the flat-panels installed. The lounge area in the background is nice, and can be converted into another workarea by dragging a few desks over and moving the lounge furniture.

Now you can see why we cannot wait to get moved into our new space. We will get moved this week (folks started packing boxes Monday).

Halo3 Trailer

mpuleio — Wed, 10 May 2006 01:52:00 GMT

News from E3: XBox.com has the Halo3 Trailer available to watch.

One word: "Yipes"
(No, that is not my first word choice, just the edited for TV version)

I loved Halo, I enjoyed Halo2 (even though the game and storyline seemed too short). I'm looking forward to the next installment in the story and another chance to save the universe.

As a side note, the Halo novels were really well done and give a lot of background into the story line. If you ever wondered where Spartans came from, read the first book.