Collaboration Beyond Code

David Weekly, PBwikieBig Best Practices SIG

February 4, 2009

Thesis: Your People Are Smart

Thesis: Your People Are Smart

The more they know,

the better decisions get made.

So stop playing “telephone.”

What do coders spend time on?

Coding is the primary activity…

But coding itself is not that hard.

Most work is in figuring out what to build.(and coding is just being more explicit.)

How do coders excel?

Having & mastering the right tools Understanding the problem.

Give them more customer access/data!

How are software projects built?

1. Gather customer inputs.

2. Agree on what to do.

3. Specify what to build.

4. Make sure it gets built.

5. Coordinate the launch.

6. Document the result.

PBwiki uses a wiki for all of these.

(not surprising)

…there are bad uses for a wiki.

Code snippetsWhy not just make a library / repository?

Notated walkthroughs of specific functionsThese will get stale. Nobody will update them.

1. Gather Customer Inputs

Have lots of conversations with customers. Put the raw notes online.

(with summaries) Send them out over email, present the

results to the whole team in person. Agile = connect coders w/users!

2. Drive Internal Consensus

Building on #1, come up with ideas for solutions.

Anyone can contribute. Anyone can comment. Lets thinking happen outside meetings.

Like in the shower. Which is a much better place to think.

3. Specify What To Build

Progressive advancement of wikipages. Start with executive requirements. Product Manager fills out. Project Manager assigns. Engineers spec the project. The page evolves.

4. Manage The Building Process

Use lightweight project management. Let contributors directly update progress. Have quick in-person checkpoint

meetings. Full transparency! The page evolves.

5. Coordinate the Launch

The code’s in SVN. What now?! Marketing, support, sales, QA… Peer review & development of materials

Let developers see how it’s being pitched & contribute (& correct)

“Sorry, what are you saying we have?” Fewer surprises in timing due to visibility.

6. Document the Work

Spec page evolves into:Public documentation / FAQs Internal/helpdesk knowledgebase

Procedure manuals The page evolves.

Why Wikis?

What you need, when you need it. (apologies to the domain squatters.)

A tool that evolves with your project!

Something that everyone in the company can contribute to and use Versus TXT files in your SVN repository. Versus an MS Project file output as PDF.

BONUS WIKI USES!!1!11!

Automatic enumeration of upcoming deployment changes.

Repository for ideas / brainstorms“Didn’t we discuss doing this last year?”

Team contact info page

Sharing is Caring!Trust your staff!

david@pbwiki.comDavid Weekly

Founder, PBwiki