Thinking for a Change

The last session of the first day was about Agile Documentation. This wasn’t a session someone had prepared in advance. We discussed a bit about the topic. At first, there was a bit of confusion about what we were talking about. Part of the discussion was really about requirements. What information do you need to start the project or to determine the impact of new requirements upon the system. Another part was about what documents we need to write during and after the project.

What documentation do you wish for?

At the end of the session, someone asked the question “If you arrived on a project, what documentation would you wish to be there?”. The image contains the list of what we wanted.

We quite liked to have an installation manual and documentation about the development environment, to be able to see the application and get stuck in developing some new stuff. To understand the big picture, we like to see the “system on one page” and some explanation of all the (seemingly) weird decisions that have been taken during the project.

For people outside of the development team we recommend an operations/maintenance manual, which contains all the information you need to keep the application running. Some users might need a user manual or online help.

Acceptance testing documentation

What I’m currently struggling with is: “How can we test the quality of documentation? Can we write acceptance tests or fit criteria beforehand to drive the writing? TDD: Test Driven Documentation?”

Answers on a postcard…

Presentation Zen

First session in the afternoon, we did the “Presentation Zen” session. We looked at a few examples of modern presentation styles, starting from Garr Reynolds‘ Presentation Zen site. We formed 4 groups and asked each team to give a presentation about what they liked and disliked. The teams presented their findings, first in a rehearsal, then to the people who weren’t in the session. It was a fun session (an important part of “presentation zen”), with a lot of creativity. Let’s hope we can reduce the number of bullet points in the world. Stop reciting bullet points today; start telling stories; start answering people’s questions.

Presenting the zen way

Vera, Willem, Kristel and Lieven explaining that you have to structure your presentation with the audience and your goal in mind.

They started out with a distracting, dense bulleted page. Then they presented the same information in several slides, using humor, asking questions of the audience and keeping us awake with their quattro presentation technique.

They stressed the fact that slides and documentation (handouts) should be different.

Bernard, Stijn, Hans and Paul presented themselves and what they liked and disliked in the different presentation styles.

They didn’t like the frenetic pace and many slides of a Dick Hardt or Lessig presentation. They feel it’s too intense and too easy to lose the focus of what the presenter is trying to tell.

They did like funny presentations, creativity and keeping the attention of the audience by the use of repetition, something you’ll encounter a lot in “Lessig” style presentations.

Johan presented the idea that the slides should underline, strengthen or summarize what the presenter is saying. It’s not the slides that tell the story, it’s the presenter.

I liked the fact that this team didn’t explain the different techniques, they showed them. “Show, don’t tell” at work…

Klaas used a “Takahashi” style (a single word per slide, in big bold letters) throughout his presentation. He explained what the different styles were about.

This is very much a presentation style where all the attention is focused on the presenter and the story they’re telling. The slides are sparse and stark. Klaas did need more words and more time than the previous team to explain what the different styles were about. Sometimes, an image does say more than a thousand words.

What’s it all about?

What is that “Presentation Zen” thing all about and why host such a session at Agile Open? It’s not about powerpoint gimmicks and who has the most slides in his deck. It’s not about getting rid of bullet points. That’s just a symptom, not the root cause.

It’s about communicating our ideas effectively; getting the story across. It’s about storytelling and fun; engaging the audience. If you want to talk to people about agility (or any other subject that you feel strongly about), you first have to make sure that they don’t fall asleep, that they listen.

Agile Open today! When we organize an event, I always feel like I did when exams started: after all that preparation, it’s finally started. No more stress, just do it!

Planning a conference

First thing in the morning, everyone briefly presents the session ideas they put on the conference site. Some sessions got invented on the spot. Usually, these are of the type “I have a problem with X. Who can help me solve this problem?”.

After that, everybody votes for their favourite session by putting stickers on the session descriptions. Then, it’s a simple matter of scheduling the sessions in 6 slots in 2 tracks, taking into account the constraints:

• A session leader can’t do two sessions at the same time
• We have one large room and one smaller room.
• We have one beamer.

We made a definite schedule for today and a tentative one for tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll revisit the schedule and may reschedule, based on the new information we’ve gained.