wanting to connect a few dots here, still working this agile/xp experience...
first, you know open space... circle, marketplace, bboard, breathing. now, map that to extreme programming(XP). old-style planning-driven software development is the two year plan and delivery of software in six or nine month chunks. hopefully when the two years is finally delivered, the business needs haven't changed. ha! okay, so XP delivers software every two weeks. they sit WITH the customer, identify needs. they put them on 'story cards', one need/module per card and spead them out on a table. each pair of programmers grabs one card and works on it for one iteration, 1.5 hours to perhaps 3 days. they come back together after each iteration to compile and green light what's done and identify what's stuck. sounds a lot like morning news and breathing and the rest of open space. next, think about learning. in an XP environment, a new hire will come in and be paired with an veteran programmer for 2 weeks. switch for two weeks. switch again for two weeks. end of six weeks, new hire is ready to be paired with next new hire. this learning ought to be possible in other places two. next, productivity. at this conference, one organizer brought one client, a non profit group that needed a piece of software written to meet some specific business needs. they called it XP Fest. they worked nine hours, in six 1.5-hour iterations. anyone who wanted to program could come work on it. they had five computers, so ten workers per cycle. they used a new language called ruby, so people could learn it. 75% of those working didn't know the language when they started. the organization experienced 75% turnover in personnel during the six iterations. the had working software when they left that needed only one more iteration to be fully equipped. shifting back to open space, i am thinking that software groups like this, and their clients are ripe for open space. i think their stories and our stories travel nicely together, reinforcing and supporting each other. i also envision a day when we are growing facilitator groups within organizatinos, so that managers can facilitate each other's groups, in a sort of partnered opening/managing function. paired leadership (facilitator and sponsor) a parallel to paired programming. and when organizations learn to open space for themselves, they will really start to wake up... and we can all go back inside <grin>. any thoughts? anybody else bumping into other agile folks??? m -- Michael Herman 300 West North Avenue #1105 Chicago IL 60610 312-280-7838 voice 312-280-7837 fax http://www.michaelherman.com ...an invitation. * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
