Project Management for IT Professionals

I attended a Skillpath seminar, Project Management for IT Professionals, in December 2007. The two-day workshop provided an overview of standard project management processes, with a special focus on the challenges inherent in technology projects. In addition to reinformcing concepts that I have learned elsewhere, including some that we've implemented in Digital Services, I was particularly interested in the following tidbits:

• When faced with many stakeholders (as we often are in the library), don't try to balance all the input yourself. Instead, select or ask users to select a representative for the group.
• All projects have 3 constraints which should be identified and balanced: time, budget (costs, staff time), performance. In my opinion, performance tends to be our highest priority (i.e. features), with both time and budget (staff time) as much lower. We tend to spend a lot of time and a lot of resources to get things working the way we want. It is helpful to identify that this is our usual top priority and to consider that it doesn't have to be.
• Identify a project sponsor--the person who has the authority for changes to this service or tool. Ask that project sponsor to sign off on a summary document explaining the project scope, priorities of the constraints, and measures of success. Come back to the project sponsor as changes arise, including changes that alter time, budget or performance.
• Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and PERT chart with the team rather than in isolation.
• Reliable time estimates for the PERT can be created with a formula using optimistic, pessimistic and most likely time estimates.
• Make contingency plans for the unexpected.

I plan to implement some of these standards for projects that I'm managing. If they work for me, then I plan to suggest for Digital Services projects and model for others in the organization.

Fast, Cheap & Somewhat in Control: 10 Lessons from the Design of SlideShare / Rashmi Sinha

Monday, March 26, 2007; Closing Plenary

Creator of MindCampus (user experience research product) and SlideShare (shared space for slideshows) shared insights on application development and IA.

Observations on current web:

• Agile development is part of Web 2.0.
• 1st generation—sharing without context
  2nd generation of social networks—connect over objects (photos, question)
• Users drive navigation; Let good content rise to the top
  

SlideShare

• “myspace for over 30-yr olds”
• will be adding audio soon
• some are using as courseware
• Will be releasing API

Approach to developing SlideShare:

• Create and get feedback afterwards; get answer to the real thing.
  a. Needed to see in use to understand use of the social system.
  b. Don’t have the tools to anticipate social system
• Don’t need personas when social software users pound you with advice.
  a. Customer service as user research; monitor blogs/rss
• launch first, refine later
  a. don’t over-analyze
  b. look at best practices, make a guess
• constant connection with users by monitoring activity and other informal ways; whole team responds to issues that arise.
• designer-developer role in the team allowed for easier communication—less need for design artifacts; hybrid roles are more common in small teams
• under invest in visual design—let users feel ownership of space; users less afraid of messing it up
• Focus instead on making the app as fast as possible.

Much of this approach is surprising and was experimental (seeing as she first developed a product to assist in user research). Through this development, she discovered:

• you do need to do user research when feedback “becomes a torrent”
  Too much input, then you can’t process.
  Need to decide who you are building for
  New team members need summary info
  Need to improve beyond “low hanging fruit”
  

Possible application to L&ET:

• What tools do we provide that could be useful in a "mashup?"
• How do we staff support for the apps we’ve built?

Links for More Info:

• Slide show (hosted on SlideShare, of course) and podcast

Project Touchstones: How to Bridge Competing Viewpoints and Build Vision, Consensus, and Innovation / Jess McMullin

Monday, March 26, 2007

A key to working with business is to become a peer--design deliverables together.

Tools:

• Affinity diagrams—sticky notes
  With any data where trying to ID patterns
• Sketching with clients—conversational; use as a prop to articulate priorities (ask them to draw and then why did you draw it that way)
• Design the Box—design the elements of packaging (name, tagline, 3 key selling features, imagery/color/type; feature set)--helps to focus on the important
• Backcasting—start at ideal; what are assumptions and what has to happen—looking at dependencies/relationships; back to current situation
• Mental model/alignment diagram--lines up user activities with features of product--can build on wall with stickies

Principles for transforming from review/approve to working together
1. codesign—get over hesitancy of showing unfinished work
2. simple—should not have to be an expert to participate
3. concrete—sketching, sticky notes
4. flexible—should mean different things to different people; see technical and business implications in deliverables
5. evidence based—informed; secondary research (gender and video games); qualitiative research—looking at users in context
6. surface agendas—look for things that will; some things are easy to hide agenda behind; figure out how people really feel

Approach
1. getting people to work together—need to have the important folks at the table (ex: marketing VP); difficult to get them to commit
2. peel back the layers—get to agendas

• ask 5 why’s of any type: how is that important, why did you come, what do you hope to learn

3. partner, pilot, publicize—partner with influencers; small pilots; publicize the success; pulls in senior executives; need to have people there to “make sure you are doing the right job”

With sketching—can stay away from literal representations to help to remove from final product if people tend to get too committed to their view as final; stress at front that we will rip all of it up; emphasize that business skills is what is needed—not design

Consultant versus in-house challenges—point to processes already in place; then add the notions of codesign.

Application for L&ET:

• We have the perpetual problem of potential candidates for this type of thing with no time to participate. I think that if we went intense and made quick progress, that folks would be motivated to participate.
• Projects to try this one:
  o search box
  o room scheduler
  o Staffweb
  

Links for More Info:

• Slide show and podcast

Finding Innovation in the Five Hundred Pound Gorilla / Kevin Cheng, Tom Wailes

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Two Yahoo! employees shared ways that innovation is encouraged at Yahoo!

• Hack Days—24 hour brainstorms
• Google 20%--engineering dept spends 20% of time to work on own projects/innovate
• Scrum—agile, short cycle (2 week) product releases

Need to overcome fear of:

• wasted time,
• high cost,
• diverted resources,
• failure,
• missed opportunities,
• unknown

To overcome fear, start small.

• Design Day—took user reearch; 1 day, several people; storytelling
• Local Field Day—45 people, split into 3-person groups, local stakeholders, went to users on same day, made poster boards to ID problem areas
• Design Exploration—2 days, 2 designers, work into low time; follow with stakeholder review
• Water cooler conversations—don’t freak people out, plant a seed instead; when multiple people planting a seed, it's important to not go on and on (eventually falls on deaf ears); then escalate; allow the other person to have their own thoughts
• Consider your sphere of influence--advocate at the level where you do have influence, and then let others influence up the chain for you

Build trust

• Transparency and visibility; give people ability to see into the process
• Make clear design deliverables for stakeholders
• Have a low barrier to entry into the team
• Do less design deliverables like wireframes and more cartoon storyboarding, prototyping, product simulations to give feel of experience—communicates with others and works through design process (Wireframes as not communicating the concepts or feel).
• Get more people involved in idea/scope; less involved later while trying to crystallize ideas
• Brainstorming across functional areas of the organization. Recruit the design team to help the rest of the organization think through the needs.
• Keep stakeholders informed. Visualize ideas in a way that stakeholders can understand right away. (ex: Video showing user experience—storytelling how a user uses the site; ex: flash video of personas—short and sweet)
• Build track record

Making Believers

• User research; field studies
• Interviews, diaries, watching users in their environment

Overcome fear by making time
Building trust by involving people
Making believers so it can happen

Related Links for More Info:

• Abstract and PPT

The Conversation Gets Interesting: Creating the Adaptive Interface / Stephen Anderson

Saturday, March 24, 2007

The beginning of the abstract for this presentation provides an excellent intro:

"With the proliferation of rich Internet applications and interactions more closely aligned with how people think, we face some interesting challenges:

• Do we design for one common audience and common tasks, or tailor applications around specific audiences and their unique activities?
• How do we resolve the tension between creating simple applications that ‘do less’ and the demand for new features that some people really do need?
• As we move beyond usability to create desirable interfaces, how do we handle a subjective domain like emotions?

"These types of challenges could all be addressed by creating a truly ‘adaptive' interface."

Examples of ways that applications could be/are being tailored for niche audiences (i.e. "the long tail."):

• Expanding text box to accommodate use
• Using IP address to guess at correct location of user
• If the person attaches multiple files, give him the number of fields he typically needs
• Assume info based on meeting types—lunch meeting pulls preferred lunch spaces.
• Look for iterative actions and reveal features over time to tailor to need
• Increase the button size if this user consistently misses it
• Color and saturation to indicate age and importance of content—old data fades in color (see: ShaunInman.com)
• Prominence of a help link minimizes over time if you never use
• To fit smaller/different display sizes, changing layout (liquid versus fixed) and content (disappears to fit in new spacebased on display)
• For mapping application, collapse neighborhood driving instructions based on history.
• Changing [help] text based on audience? (travel agents versus travelers)
• Text changes based on regional differences (Coke, pop, soda)—just like we’d do in a conversation
• Removing L-shaped global navigation when applications are displayed
• Changing help based on what you know about the person (novice user gets instructions for simpler tasks like drag and drop)

Challenges:

• These kinds of options/features are currently being done primarily with cookies. Could also use rich profiles.
• OpenID may provide more options when small bits of info about a user can be put together to paint a bigger picture (which, of course, if also a danger).
• Requires a clean separation of content and the application.
• First, get the basics right (metaphor of using rough grit sandpaper first; fine detail later)
• Disclose what you are doing.
• Provide opt-outs (i.e. "Please logout if you are not [Fred]."
• Be wary of changing spatial organization (users will look for the same content in same spot)
• Ease into this kind of info
• Could use Web 2.0 model of testing live on users

Links for more info:

• Slide show presentation from SlideShare

Information Architecture in Second Life / Stacy Merrill Surla, Lori Bell, Andrew Hinton, Beth Kanter, Peter Allison, Josh Knauer

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Introduction

• Online gaming can be goal oriented (World of War Craft) or social networking-oriented (Second Life). Second Life can include goals, but they are created by the users.
• Examples of using Second Life other than a game include for simulations, commerce, meetings, presentations.
• IA of Second Life--visitors find it difficult to wayfind within environment
• High learning curve to use, but then also to make environments (CAD, scripting, etc)

Demo of virtual (public) library area:

• Promote literature through discussions; exhibits; author visits; programs
• Individual libraries can join in
• Answering reference questions
• Created 10 islands in a year
• Can sometimes crash during busy times
• Difficult to control the environment—can be interrupted by anyone/anything
• Can present immersive information (ex: Walk-in books)
  

Possible Application to L&ET:

• Span spatial divide by working on a project (any project) within Second Life.
• Do we have information that can be inserted into Second Life for users to interact with in different ways? Ex: within Second Life, some has combined Google Maps, info feeds and cataclysmic events.

Links for More Info:

• Slide show presentation on SlideShare

@toread and Cool: Tagging for Time, Task and Emotion / Margaret E. I. Kipp

March 25 2007

Analyzed the tags at social bookmarking sites Connotea, and Del.icio.us.

• Many of the tags were descriptive and useful for other users.
• 16% (3049 tags) were time/task (i.e toread, toblog) tags. CiteULike has a feature for marking an item for later retrieval. Users appear to still tag things as "todo" or "toread."
• Additional tags were affective (i.e. cool, boring). Appeared to be review-like rather than marking for future use.
• some appeared to be for a specific group (i.e. course numbers)
  

Application for L&ET:

• What implications are there if we were to allow tagging within LEO? Do we delete this kind of use, or do we allow it to flourish?
  

Link for more info:

• Abstract and PPT.