AGILE IN ACTION

Collaborative Workspaces: Keeping the Furniture Police at Bay facilitated by Rachel Davies and Mike Hill explored the constituent elements of effective and ineffective informative workspaces and how they affect collaboration. In the workshop we split into teams and were handed a brief that described an imaginary project for which were we to design workspaces. The first workspaces we built were from hell. The best hellish workspace had the developers (in the same team) physically separated by cubicles. xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces10 Originally uploaded by sjb140470 . QA was in the basement, under the table. xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces11 Originally uploaded by sjb140470 . While the business analysts were in the same city, they were actually located in a different office, over on the window sill. xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces12 Originally uploaded by sjb140470 . And the product owner was in a completely different country, out of sight, on the mantelpiece. xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces8 Originally uploaded by sjb140470 . Here are some more hellish workspaces:

We continue to make our bullpen a more informative workspace . Today we relocated our planning boards to make room for our new 32" screen. This replacing our 18" monitor showing the cruisecontrol dashboard and selenium test runs. I want to get picture-in-picture working so that we can radiate other information at the same time.

Sometimes it's amusing working where I'm working. People in the office seem to be genuinely intrigued by how we work, although they often look on perplexed. They ask lot's of questions, they survey our informative workspace and take the time to read our information radiators as they pass by. Occasionally, one person comes and stands outside our bullpen and gazes upon the hustle occurring within. It's great. I don't think they get Agile yet but they're interest encourages and motivates us. And what's gratifying is that they tell us how happy and impressed they are with the work we do. It's wonderful to feel valued and appreciated. And it's great that they see the business value being delivered.

Come up for air is a pattern for taking regular opportunities to communicate and to refresh awareness. Before examining the pattern, let's take a look at a metaphor. When snorkeling, you have to come up for air regularly otherwise a bad thing can happen. When up and before submerging again, you should check that it's safe to do so by surveying your surroundings and taking your bearings.

A few people I've spoken with recently said that agile planning tools do not really fit into an informative workspace because the information they contain is not directly visible to passers-by. They have a point.

Designing the layout