Stacy Randolph : program management

Best of 2009 - Telligent Style

srandolph — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:24:00 GMT

1. What was your favorite work-related or field related or technical read for 2009 (white paper, book, etc)

Well, I keep trying to answer the question of how Agile works in a Client Services environment. This year, I tried to do a deeper dive on that with several projects (MS HSG v1 & 2, OLA, etc). My struggle with Agile in client services has been mainly two-fold:

Products vs. Projects. We're not building a product in client services,we're implementing an existingproduct with customizations. You could theoretically call the end result a product, but when you build a backlog for a customization project, we don't want to list all the possibleproduct user stories. There are too many and really we want to only capturethe customizations. Both for time's sake as well as for client understanding. But that doesn't give us (the project team) or theclienta full picture, either, so it feels like the user stories have huge gaping holes in them. Things like "As a User...I want to...create a blog post" are left out.

Building of the backlog doesn't get to happen as organically as it's idealized in Agile. In order to win a bid, you have to do some investigation and estimation, which encapsulates your scope. So, you're not really iterating and refining, unless the client wants to pursue that.

Client interaction with the backlog. I struggle with defining real user stories vs. project tasks in client services project. I often break down user stories into tasks. I understood tasks to be development tasks...so a breakdown of the work required to build a user story. But I struggle with how to present this to a client, I know that they don't care about the tasks, but the project team very much does. I am often faced with...how do we get a client to prioritize any of this?

I used a couple of resources that I already owned and some Interwebs resources for this research, including:

The new user story backlog is a map

Agile Project Management - Jim Highsmith

Use Cases - Requirements in Context - Daryl Kulak and Eamonn Guiney

2. What was your favorite project in 2009?

Microsoft Health Solutions Group.

Runner up: Outlook Live Answers with Azure integration.

3. What was your favorite Services developed custom feature for 2009?

Event blogs (see in action on AICPA's community)

Runners up: Self-registration for an invitation only site (HSG) and the blog curator tool for MS BIEB

4. What was your favorite enhancement for Telligent products in 2009?

Widgets in Telligent Community 5. The ability to drag & drop widgets around has opened up so much flexibility!

Runners up: Groups. Granular permissions in Telligent Community 5.

5. Favorite external app/product/feature you used in 2009?

I just can't live without SnagIt by Techsmith. I use it when creating Bugs, references in Email and when writing specs. The Windows Snipping Tool DOES NOT replace SnagIt, I need my full page scrolling and arrows.

Runners up: GoodReads.com for book sharing. I also can't live without MS Visio for wireframing and illustrating concepts.

Stacy Randolph

Program Manager & Senior Consultant, Telligent

Why haven't I known about Balsamiq?

srandolph — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:15:19 GMT

I use Visio all the time and even started my own module type library. But, I learned about the Balsamiq mock-up tool today and that does it, I'm converting. Right now.

What do I like so much about this tool?

Pre made modules for Software mock-ups. Easily resize and move around
Drag and drop - easy schmeezy
Alignment controls. These are hidden in Visio, you have to know about them and then find which toolbar they live in.

Module specific controls. For example, the vertical tabs module has some configuration options specific to vertical tabs:
Full Screen view - it comes with a nice little pointer

Initial questions, though:

Can I create or download new modules? What if there is a new module that isn't in the Balsamiq library?
What if I don't like the cartoonish looking feel of the modules? Can I modify the style at all? Not sure I I really really want to, though, they do give a fun feel to the mock-ups.
Can I change the background in my work area? You can remove the notebook, but I'd rather have a white background than parchment yellow.

Contact the company to get your own copy of this great tool:

A company's purpose is to serve people

srandolph — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:53:28 GMT

One of my favorite blogs is Logic+Emotion and in reading David's post about Customer Experience Resolutions, he states that "...the best results come from a culture focused on serving people" . Wow. Hallelujah. Woo hoo! Someone said it out loud.

Anybody who is or who has been in the front lines is intimately aware of this. Sales & marketing sets expectations, the Tactical team, where PM often sits, is the face to implementing those expectations. While in the front lines, if one doesn't have the support he/she need in the sales > creative > development > testing > ops > tech support departments, we let down the customer. And each other.

My job, as PM, is to serve people.

-->I serve Creative by clearly identifying the customer's requirements.
-->I serve Engineering by delivering them specs, redlines, comps, wireframes and any other deliverables they may need.
-->I serve QA by including them at the beginning of project, delivering specs and making sure they aren't squeezed at the end of the project.
-->I serve the Site User by ensuring the site delights them.
-->I serve Ops by ensuring that they get proper setup information and fair warning about shipping.
-->I serve Management by creating weekly project reports.
-->I serve the Product Team not only by implementing their product, but with clearly written bugs and clients' product suggestions.
-->I serve my entire company with each completed project launch.

I serve each customer by making them look good. What does that mean? When a customer gets kudos(from their customer, boss, co-workers, grandma, kids, cat, etc) about his/her project you know you've hit the mark. Simple, not easy.

I am constantly in service and you know what? It feels good.

It goes the other way too, I need people in order to serve people: Creative delivers the design, Engineering delivers the code, QA delivers a clear conscience, Ops lays the foundation, Management sets direction and the Product team innovates. It's all reciprocal--and that feels good too. Like a team, a good system, comrades...good folks.

Google's informal motto is "Don't be evil". Who would you be evil with? People. Same concept.

There are lots of tools that can help one serve people--email, websites, project status reports, file sharing, ticketing systems, bug systems, etc. Those are just tools, though. Attitude is the foundation of it all. Well served people makes good business.

Sometimes the numbers just don't add up

srandolph — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:40:26 GMT

I was working with some folks today on the feasibility of completing a project by a hard deadline with an immovable scope. We really really wanted to do the project, everyone was emotionally invested because we had a genuine interest in helping the client and honestly, the artwork kicked butt. (Hmm....funny how creative work gets people jazzed). I took the estimate numbers and plugged them into MS Project to see what story it told us.

At first, the story looked horrible--2 months longer than the client needed. Then I took snapshots of what it looked like with 1 developers, 2 developers and 3 developers. It cut the timeline down somewhat, but still looked bad.

I have learned something very important over the years when building a schedule: you have to think of the tasks in a schedule like variables in a formula. X +Y = Z, where X & Y are predecessors--what needs to happen before a particular task can start. Without a developer sitting next to you, sometimes it's foolish to make assumptions--and sometimes you just have to do it. So, I did some stacking based on timelines. Developer 1 couldn't start on skinning a single blog until the site skin was complete, because resources can't do two things at once. In the meantime, Developer 2 could start on a custom module and shouldn't impact developer 1.

Anywho, even when I did some fancy stacking and added 3 developer resources, the numbers just didn't add up--there was no way we could meet the deadline. If we went forward with the project, we were setting ourselves up to fail.

One of my PM mentors, Steve Weidner, taught me that sometimes the story that the schedule tells you isn't what you want. And that's OK.