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:
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