Making Agile Austin's Membership Participation Based

Hello all:

I'm proud to putting forward a change to the way we define members of Agile Austin.  This is an effort that came from the community and had many many thoughtful minds come up with the best path forward for our community.  I also believe that this may be used as a model for other communities, ensuring that goals are properly aligned when the communities scale.

Thanks to the folks that made this happen--I'm excited to see what comes of the vote next month!

All the best,

Matt

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Howdy Fellow Members of Agile Austin:

The least you need to read:

In two days, in addition to the vote on the Agile Austin Board of Directors, we’ll also be putting forth the vote on how we define our membership.  We would like to change Agile Austin membership from being fee-based to being participation-based as It is more meaningful to have people who participate in our programs define the formal leadership of our organization rather than those that can spend thirty dollars. The board and I would like to wholeheartedly endorse this change to our membership definition and ask that each of you vote in favor of it as well. 

We need 50% of all MEMBERS to vote for this change.  We will not make the leap to the next level as a fully participatory community-aligned organization without YOUR help.  Feel free to join at http://www.agileaustin.org/join/ by May 31st in order to help us make this change.  As a Board we cannot do this alone.

Where did this come from?

Over the past 18 months, we have decentralized the control of Agile Austin from a small board of directors to a group of leaders and individuals within the community working in concert with the board.  Listening to existing and former members, I engaged in a series of discussions to change Agile Austin for the better (“DeltaAgileAustin”), including the concept in a change of membership definition.  I’m not sure exactly where the idea came from, but it was definitely a joint jam among community members, board members, and anyone else whose ear we could tug on the subject.  A number of us continued to meet and refine the idea, and we spent a good amount of time in board meetings where we discussed the same.  The result is the language/vote that you see today.

Why?  What’s wrong with how we do it now?

At the dawn of Agile Austin, we had little in the way of resources to achieve our mission (http://www.agileaustin.org/agile-austin-charter/).  The framers thought rightly that if we charged a bit of money, we could cover food, supplies, and never be strapped for cash.  Since then, we’ve grown up and have a rich ecosystem of partners and sponsors.  No longer are we dependent on our membership for dues to fund our activities.  As a board, we have dispensed with every single benefit of paid membership, with the exception of voting for the board of directors.  We believe that it’s more meaningful to have people who participate in our programs define the formal leadership of our organization rather than those that can spend thirty dollars.  Frankly, it seems a bit distasteful to pay to vote as it can encourage unethical behavior.

We thought about giving the vote to anyone in the community, since that’s who we serve, but thought it made more sense to give a vote to one who meaningfully participated in our programs.  With about 20 programs per month, this gives everyone approximately 240 opportunities a year to participate.  We agreed that six meetings constituted “meaningful participation.” 

I also believe that this represents an innovative model in how a large and powerful user community can effectively be run, and may be used by other organizations.  Coupled with the other changes we have made, we have largely open-sourced the management of the community, which has been directly responsible for the growth and impact Agile Austin has on the software development community in Austin.

You convinced me—how do I make this happen?

You must be a member to vote for this—indeed we need 50% of our membership as of May 31, 2013 to vote favorably to make this change.  You can join here: http://www.agileaustin.org/join/ (yes I get joining and voting for this will negate (eventually) the method of joining—just the way it works).  The vote will come out with the election vote in early June.

OK, we have sponsors now, what if that changes in the future?  What if people want to sponsor Agile Austin monetarily?

No problem—we can change the definition of membership in the future like we’re doing now.  There’s nothing preventing us from having a “personal sponsorship” either—we just don’t want the money to be associated with the vote.

But I’d like to make a change to the wording!

We have had meetings on this for about a year and we have had the language available for review for a while.  If it does not pass this time, we can consider it for the future. 

The full text of the vote and the details:

The Agile Austin board proposes that the definition of an Agile Austin member change from fee-based ($30/year) to participation based (attending at least 6 meetings in the last 12 months).  Note that at least 50% of members must vote for this proposal in order for it to be adopted.  If adopted, this proposal will take effect on September 1, 2013.

Specifically:

•  "Membership in the Corporation shall become effective upon receipt of a properly completed application form, receipt of specific dues and approval of the application by the Secretary of the Corporation in accordance with the Bylaws and criteria developed by the Board of Directors of the Corporation." from Section 2.1 will be changed to: "Membership in the Corporation shall become effective upon confirmation of attendance of the minimum number of meetings specified by criteria developed by the Board of Directors of the Corporation.".
• "Membership shall terminate upon the occurrence of any of the following: (i) nonpayment of dues by a member within 30 days of due date..." of section 2.2 will be changed to "Membership shall terminate upon the occurrence of any of the following: (i) failing to attend at least the  minimum number of meetings specified by criteria developed by the Board of Directors of the Corporation...".
• Section 2.3: "Dues. Annual dues shall be established by the Board. No portion of the due paid by any member shall be refundable because their membership is terminated for any reason. Annual dues for new members are due at the time of application. Annual dues shall cover one calendar year of membership and are due for renewal in the month of initial application. The Board shall have the authority, upon application by a member, to waive or reduce the annual dues on a case-by-case basis, for that member." shall be removed.

Tracking of participation will be determined by the board and adjusted based on community feedback (i.e., we will inspect and adapt in an agile fashion).  Our initial plan is as follows:

•  People in the community will register interest in becoming a member by giving their name and email address to an Agile Austin program lead at any Agile Austin meeting (this could be as simple as giving a lead your business card).
•  On registration, potential members will receive an email from the Agile Austin Board with details on becoming a member.
•  As currently, meeting participants will register for meetings via Eventbrite.
•  At the meeting, Agile Austin program leads will check in people who are interested in membership via the Eventbrite app (or other means).
•  Once a potential member has attended 6 meetings within a 12 month period, they will receive an email confirming their membership and their right to vote in elections and other matters.
•  If a member gets to the point that they have not attended 6 meetings within the last 12 months, they will receive an email that their membership has expired.
•  For Agile Austin's current paid members, membership will remain effect until it expires (12 months from when membership started / it was last renewed).
•  No new memberships / renewals will be granted based on payment of membership fees.
•  If less than 12 months of data is available, membership will be determined by attendance in the time period from the adoption of this proposal to date. In other words, if a membership vote was done on September 1, 2013, those who paid for membership on or after September 1, 2012 and those who have attended 6 meetings since the adoption of this proposal would be able to vote.

I still have questions--can we talk before I vote?

Sure--feel free to send a message to board@agileaustin.org or send a note to the Agile Austin Yahoo notification group to engage in public discourse.

All the best,

Matt Roberts
President, Agile Austin
president@agileaustin.org

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[Delta Agile Austin]One Year Later - The Impact of the Change

Hi all:

It’s been about a year since we last met to discuss changes that the community would like to see in the way that Agile Austin is run, the programs that we host, and the mission and purpose of this now-gigantic and much more decentralized user group.

Some of the key changes that have come about from these efforts in the past have included:

• Opening of every single Agile Austin program to all members of the Austin community.
• Opening of the board meetings to all members of the Austin community.
• Publication of the notes from board meetings to all members of the Austin community.
• Advance insight and ability to put items onto the board meeting agenda for all members of the Austin community.
• Reconsideration of membership—we will put forth a proposal in the next election to change Agile Austin membership to be not fee-based ($30/year) but participation-based.
• Deprecating the practice of having any fees associated with any Agile Austin program including the book discussion group—any exceptions now need a board meeting vote.  In the past year, we had one exception, which was the Keep Austin Agile Conference.

While we did not implement every change that was suggested, I represented all ideas in front of the board.  Now that our board meetings are open, it may be fine to deprecate this program, but I wanted to see if there was any interest.

These discussions were the engines that drove increased quality, expanded breadth and depth, and more inclusive nature of our programs.  I really enjoyed them as they were intense, sometimes heated, but always made me think different(ly).  Perhaps that's the biggest and most persistent delta (i.e. "change")--the change of mind that will continue to push us to work together and continue to focus on the community as we build this amazing organization by and for our friends and colleagues.

If anyone is interested in continuing the discussion, please let me know and I’ll set up an open meeting.

All the best,

Matt Roberts
president@agileaustin.org

@multicastmatt

GUEST BLOG: 3 Ways to Make Documentation as Agile as Development

Welcome back to a colleague and friend of mine, Janice Hamrick, who is an outstanding Technical Information Engineer (aka Tech Writer) and a totally entertaining mystery writer. I read the following three ways to achieve true agility across all development team disciplines and LOVED it.   However, I felt that a fourth point was necessary:

#4 - Be Prepared to Design!

I have often thought that one of the most powerful, yet underutilized, roles of Technical Information Engineers is to make software usable. Sitting alongside of the developers while the software is being created is a huge benefit as they can answer questions like “how am I possibly going to document that???” Serving as de facto Subject Matter Experts across the product, they can also help find potential flaws and opportunities for excellent feature design and simplification. 
~ @MulticastMatt

We all know that the rules of Agile software development decree that user stories must be shippable at the end of a sprint. In other words, a feature must be fully coded, fully tested, fully documented, and fully accepted by the product owner before you can call it done.

To those new to Agile, this seemingly defies the natural order of the universe. After all, everyone knows that documentation always follows development, right? In fact, some teams so firmly believe it’s impossible to have both in the same sprint that they plan to have documentation lag one sprint behind. What they might not realize is that they are no longer practicing Agile development. Because in Agile, you’re not done until you’re done. And let’s face it:

If it’s not documented, it’s not done.

So how do you make documentation as Agile as development?

1. Make Documentation Visible

When story planning, give documentation the same weight you give any other critical-path task. EVERY story should include four documentation tasks:

• Provide content for docs.
• Document the feature.
• Review the documentation.
• Update the doc based on review feedback.

Notice that two of these tasks are the responsibility of someone other than the writer. The team commits to providing information in a timely manner and the team commits to providing thorough reviews to ensure accuracy and completeness of the documentation.

Tip 1: Don’t be afraid to mark the doc task as blocked if time is running short. You want it to be obvious that the story cannot close without its documentation.
Tip 2: Don’t skimp on the estimated hours for these tasks. If you need two different reviewers, put in twice the hours on that task or, even better, put in two review tasks.

2. Be Willing To Write Reality

Be willing to write your documentation to reflect reality. You need to document each feature as defined by the user story, even though you know that eventually you’ll have to rewrite the same topic – either to add the next new bit of functionality or to alter what was previously done because something changed. We’re all familiar with those epic stories that span multiple sprints. The developers break a standard CRUD story (CReate, UPdate, Delete) into three parts and deliver one piece per sprint. Yes, it might be easier to wait until all three are done or even to write anticipatory information, but it’s critical to be able to demonstrate the current functionality when the sprint ends. This puts you in a marvelous position of being able to ship a beta with no notice whatsoever (and yes, that’s happened to me). It also means no revisiting your topics if time runs out and the forecast development changes don’t actually make it into the release.

3. Be Willing To Write Fiction

As a semi-contradictory corollary to the reality rule, be willing to write fiction. Once a feature has been defined for a sprint, you can get started on the documentation. Creating process flow graphics, defining the scenario, providing the key background information, even updating the list of new features in the release notes can all be done before the first line of code is written. Yes, you run the risk that you’ll need to rewrite if something changes, but getting a jump start can be critical to success. You also run the risk of providing unexpected value for your team – timely user-focused questions can help the developers improve the feature as they go.

Tip: Don’t let your fiction be confused with fact. If a feature looks like it’s not going to be completed in a sprint, mark the corresponding docs with a “Do Not Publish” condition and only remove the tag after the code is accepted.

The Bottom Line
So, is it possible for documentation to be as Agile as development? As with all things Agile, success is up to the team. In Agile, everyone on the team is responsible for every story, which means everyone on the team is responsible for documentation.

As soon as your team commits to this principle, the answer is a resounding YES!

How do you keep your documentation agile? Share your tips in the comments. 

About the Guest Blogger

Janice Hamrick joined CA Technologies in 2010 as the Senior Technical Information Engineer for the Capacity Management suite of products (formerly Hyperformix).  Before joining Hyperformix, she spent years writing documentation for backup and recovery products for a rival company whose three initials shall remain unnamed. It is a myth that she has worked as a technical writer in the software industry since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but she does remember when “agile” was something you had to be to avoid the saber-toothed tigers.

Outside of work, Janice is the author of the award-winning Jocelyn Shore mystery series (DEATH ON TOUR and DEATH MAKES THE CUT, Minotaur Books).  She has completed the third novel in the series which will be published in 2013 and is currently working on a new and much darker mystery series.  Learn more at www.janicehamrick.com. 

Summer Soujourn in Juneau

Summer Soujourn in Juneau, a photo by cpgmattr on Flickr.

A cloudy day in Austin reminds me of a "sunny" day in Southeastern Alaska nearly five years ago.

@multicastmatt

Timid Incrementalism Will Get You Nowhere

Hi all:

When I came on board at Hyperformix, just over four years ago, I was impressed with many things about the company, most notably its leadership (both technical and managerial).  As part of the Senior Management Team, I had an opportunity to work with an amazing VP of Products and Marketing, Bruce Milne.  I'll never forget the sign he had on his wall--it was a standard sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper printed out some time ago as it had seen some weathering.  Upon this paper was the fading ink that had no small impact on my mind and life almost every day since.

TIMID INCREMENTALISM WILL GET YOU NOWHERE

In agile software development, we practice iterative as opposed to incremental development.  There is a big distinction as the latter does not allow for dynamic change while the former anticipates and embraces it.  Perhaps a corresponding statement could be "FOCUSED BOLD ITERATION WILL DELIVER DISPROPORTIONATE VALUE" in agile and lean product development.  I'll admit, it's not as catchy and sounds more like management speak.  Give me a few days to wordsmith it :)

I've googled the original phrase and can't see if it had any origin other than Bruce.  I believe it has implications across both business, creative, and personal life and I always keep it close to the front of my mind and helps me to focus on "thinking big".

I hope this is of value to others!

@multicastmatt

The Ripples of Pebble Across My Life's Pond

Hello all:

On Saturday, March 16th 2013,  I unboxed my Pebble, which represents a "new" era of wearable computing.  For those that don't know, the Pebble was an insanely successful kickstarter project to build an e-paper watch as an extension to your smart phone (iPhone or Adroid).  They acheived 10,000% of their funding plan with $10,000,000 of $100,000 raised. 

Here's their kickstarter page:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android.

I thought I would keep a running total of ways that this "wearable computing" has affected my life.  Note, as I have my phone with me so much, I already feel as though I have wearable computing integrated in my life--perhaps too much.

But first, why did I back the Pebble?  Well, all the cool kids were doing it.  OK, they weren't.  I was pretty early on, but I really liked the idea of this scrappy company using Kickstarter to get their product funded.  It allowed me to play VC (venture capitalist) at a very low entry point.  Note:  playing VC meant that I could have lost all money and gotten nothing in return or gotten a potato in a dozen years.  I don't know how many backers really understood that concept given the online groaning about the missed delivery dates.

From a pure feature and benefit perspective (i.e. logical), I thought it would be a kick ass way to remotely control my iPhone, which is usually in my pocket or on my arm band when I'm running or riding.  There is promised RunKeeper integration which could have additional benefits, unknown to me at the time of writing.  I have made certain allowances to spend any monies necessary to keep my exercise plan on track--this fell (after some heated internal debate) under those auspices.  Additionally, I thought it would be a good way to get status messages that may or may not be important when in meetings with others and I don't want to be so rude as to check my phone, but checking one's watch is perfectly socially acceptable (mostly).

The Pebble replaces the Timex Ironman watch that I've been wearing since 2008, and whose features I use just about every day when it comes to seeing day/date and time and timing my well-defined runs and moutain bike rides.  I use to use my Garmin for the latter, but given the propensity for my running partner and I to run the same routes, I found I didn't need the distance piece as it was essentially the same every time (note, this might be an issue and we should consider changing it up).

So here it is, my ongoing observation log of the ripples in my life from Pebble in reverse chronological order.  The ones in bold are a bit more meaninful:

• [March 18] No one at work has noticed my Pebble at work.  What is wrong with people? :)
• [March 18] I keep looking down at the watch (currently in "TextWatch" face (right now it reads "one six" with the six below the one in modern font) looking for the day and date.  I find it irritating that it's not there, but I'm not willing to switch to any other watch face that includes it as it isn't as cool.
• [March 17] I've figured out a great new feature--I can use the music control to find my iPhone!  I know that there is an app for that, and I do have it, but it takes about two seconds to start playing tunes on my watch--no need to find a computer or iPad, log in, wait for it to find it, and then tell it to play the tune.  I'm amazed that the bluetooth actually reaches across my first floor.  This is a very usable feature!
• [March 17] I keep getting notified on my phone that the Pebble app wants to communicate with the Pebble.  I don't know why--I'm all up-to-date.
• [March 17] Realization--while there aren't too many features available today, I feel like the folks at Pebble have created a great minimum viable product (MVP) with time, date, music control, alarm.  I believe that this can be extended through software in the future akin to the original iPhone.  I'm really glad I backed this project.
• [March 17] Notifications are going to be a bit more of an issue than I had first thought.  You have to go through a manual series of steps to get them to come across correctly. 
• [March 16] Downloading the first update was unsuccessful the first few times, then it wasn't.  It seems to help for the watch to be close to the iPhone.
• [March 16] Getting intimate with Pebble in our first shower together--I CAN CHANGE MUSIC IN THE SHOWER-WOOT! Yes, it's water resistant to 5 ATM.  I wasn't expecting that when I backed it, but it's really nice for it to be there, especially given the exercise implications.
• [March 16] Argh!  There is no stopwatch (chronograph).  Wow, at least for the short term, I'm going to need to use my other watch for runs.

Why Did We Stop Doing Annual Performance Reviews When Adopting Agile?

I delivered this presentation at the Agile Austin (www.agileaustin.org) Leaders' SIG on June 1, 2012.  This covers, at a high level, the reasons why we decided to deprecate the annual performance review when we switched to an agile philosophy/mindset for delivering valuable and usable customer software.  The system we put in place was primarily designed to encourage/codify alignment of the work of all team members with the highest business priorities, while remaining flexible enough to deal with important change.

A "side" benefit was that the amount of waste avoided in the effort that allowed the team to stay razor focused on innovative product development.  I talked with a few other companies in Austin that were considering doing something similar.  One of them had calculated that they spent a fully month of their organization's capacity (i.e. November) doing annual performance appraisals.  Once they stopped doing them, they received over 8% productivity back immediately!

Note that I am a strong proponent of putting in performance plans in place when it makes sense from an improvement basis.  There are good reasons for doing so legally, in order to protect all parties (including the individual contributor).

Like all things it was a bit of a compromise as I was still against the compensation payouts, but our agile culture was a constant reminder to not implement incentives that would take away from teamwork and collaboration.  Once we came into CA Technologies, this system was deprecated for a more traditional annual performance review system (I'll blog about that later), but the team was still laser focused on the top business priorities, without the need for any other extrinsic motivation mechanism.

I would be interested in hearing others' learnings in this area, as I see traditional annual performance reviews as key impediments to adopting an agile culture and enjoying the full impacts of its benefits.

Here's the slideshare link:
http://www.slideshare.net/MattRoberts6/agile-performance-management

Another source of wisdom is Dr. Deming, the quality prophet who taught Japan to dominate the U.S. auto industry.  In this video, he talks about the Five Deadly Diseases of Modern Management.  Number three is: Annual Rating of Performance at 4:58.  It's only a few minutes long but has a very large impact.

-@multicastmatt