Dear all,

Two new draft chapters of my upcoming book "Agile Product Management. Turning
Ideas into Winning Products with Scrum" are now available for download and
review at http://www.mikecohnsignatureseries.com/books/agile-product-management.

Chapter 6, "The Product Vision," talks about the importance and desirable
qualities of a product vision in Scrum. It also suggests a range of helpful
techniques to create powerful visions. Chapter 7, "The Product Backlog,"
provides an in-depth guide to the product backlog from stocking and grooming the
product backlog to working with non-functional requirements and multiple teams.
Both chapters touch upon the user experience subject albeit not in great detail.

I look forward to your feedback and comments.

Best regards,
Roman

Hello!

I've been reading lots of Jeff Patton's work on User Story Mapping and am going
to try to introduce it into my organisation next week. I've read everything I
can find online but I'm just wondering - does anyone out there have a good clear
JPG or GIF of a user story map that I could show my team as an example? I'm
really looking for one with real data in it ideally!

Oh, and any tips and tricks on making this technique work?

Kind regards,

Elizabeth (aka Izabel_blue)

(cross posted)

Where: Brighton, UK
When: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 6:45pm

Info and booking: http://uxbrighton.org.uk/from-ethnography-to-design

If you are interested in using ethnography to improve design, this
event is definitely for you.

Simon Johnson & Miles Rochford will provide two perspectives on
ethnography, from client and agency points of view.

--

1. Simon Johnson: Bridging the Ethnography/Design Gap

Simon is a user experience consultant working with Flow Interactive.
He has worked for clients such as Reuters, Nokia and the Environment
Agency.

Simon has recently completed an research project for the Environment
Agency that has involved a mix of ethnography, user testing with
Silverback, depth interviews, war rooms, and design. Normally such
projects have tight NDAs, which stop the wider UX community from
learning about them. However, in this special case, the environment
agency has given the all clear, making this a great opportunity to
learn about a project that would normally be kept behind closed doors.

Some of the talk’s highlights:

     * Learn how street research can be translated into a final design
– that is so challenging it changes the mind of the Secretary of State
for Environment.
     * Get the ‘heads up’ on a national project that will affect 2.1
million houses on the coast, yes that includes Brighton.
     * Hear how Silverback software fared in dated 1970 seedy hotels.
     * Learn how to be jabbed in the chest by irate ‘users’ from
Norfolk and take it like a man.
     * Marvel how simple ethnographic research can put the government
machine onto a different track.

2. Miles Rochford: [subject TBA]

Miles is a Design Specialist at Nokia Design, based in London, England.

He has been an information architect and user experience specialist
for more than six years, working on a range of projects for
government, non-profit, corporate and startup clients based in the
United States, Europe and Australia.

He has experience in a range of different areas, including interaction
design, spatial data, health informatics, social networking, media
sharing, mobile devices, and service delivery.

[talk description to follow. Updates via http://twitter.com/uxbri .]

After the talks, we’ll continue the conversation over a drink at The
Greenhouse Effect.

--
Danny Hope
User Experience Consultant, Brighton (UK)
07595 226 792
@yandle

Kind of a key for UX, domain modeling, architecting, and other creative
activities

http://technicaldebt.com/archives/2009_05.html#000872

A fun little test for you :-)

jon
blog: http://technicaldebt.wetpaint.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA

Jon,

Hate to rain on the beans, but this popular and widely distributed "test"
has been around for many years and is totally without foundation. The
give-away that this is made up is "Doctors have concluded..." Which doctors?
How? Not only is this not research based but to the extent it tests
anything, it is most likely testing aspects of visual processing, not
"right-brain/left-brain." If it were evaluating any documented aspect of
"right-brain/left-brain" processing, it is what is more likely to be
"left-brain" attention to detail and serial processing, much as used in
"Find Waldo" type pastimes.

I use the quotes around "right-brain/left-brain" because, although still
pervasive in the popular culture the paradigm has been largely abandoned in
psychology; much of what is attributed to lateralization turns out to be
much subtler than the simplistic popular models.

--Larry Constantine, IDSA, ACM Fellow
   Professor, Department of Mathematics & Engineering
   University of Madeira | Funchal, Portugal

On 7 May 2009, at 12:11, Larry Constantine wrote:
[snip]
> I use the quotes around "right-brain/left-brain" because, although
> still
> pervasive in the popular culture the paradigm has been largely
> abandoned in
> psychology; much of what is attributed to lateralization turns out
> to be
> much subtler than the simplistic popular models.
[snip]

Hurrah! Somebody beat me to my usual rant on this topic :-)

Adrian

--
delicious.com/adrianh - twitter.com/adrianh - adrianh@...

Thanks Larry/(Adrian),

You are entitled to your bean raining/usual rants -- as long as you took
the test <g>.

One of the things I wish I added to the poll...

     * Are you in a technical field? Y/N
     * What were you doing in the 15 minutes prior to the test?
           o Technical problem-solving sort of work
           o Not much: relaxing, light reading, eating, etc

Because, whether it is based on "brain facts" or not, it is still fun to
hear my IT friends get tripped up on the test, yet their spouses or kids
see it immediately. And whether it is based on LEFT/RIGHT or merely the
ability for your brain to process the image faster or slower, I find it
interesting anecdotal evidence.

Personally, I find that I am more creative when doing mundane things
(shower, mowing the lawn, etc.). I guess if it is a myth of that being
dubbed "right-brained"activity ... so be it.

Could it be that the "right brain/left brain" in popular vernacular is
possibly just a term that is useful in that it serves as an alias for
the types of activity than it is for describing the true spatial
location of the actual activity? In other words, it is a handy "model"
that may not be precise as parsed, but accurate for the purpose of
describing the net effect and for /communicating/. It might not be
accurate if you are a brain scientist defending your PhD dissertation on
the subject... (Kind of like saying to a layperson that a software
application is made up of human readable source code, when we all know
it is much more complex than that. But this too is a handy /illusion/
that serves a purpose to /communicate/ to those that do not need the
accuracy.)

I did find a nice link to support your point:
http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm

I also found this coffee bean illusion and others here:
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/illusion/illusions.htm

Thanks for pointing this "controversy" out... The complexities of the
brain are at once fascinating and humbling. I'm sure in another 20 years
scientists will posit yet further theories about the brain to refute
today's.

jon

jon
blog: http://technicaldebt.wetpaint.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA



Larry Constantine said the following on 5/7/09 7:11 AM:
> Jon,
>
> Hate to rain on the beans, but this popular and widely distributed "test"
> has been around for many years and is totally without foundation. The
> give-away that this is made up is "Doctors have concluded..." Which doctors?
> How? Not only is this not research based but to the extent it tests
> anything, it is most likely testing aspects of visual processing, not
> "right-brain/left-brain." If it were evaluating any documented aspect of
> "right-brain/left-brain" processing, it is what is more likely to be
> "left-brain" attention to detail and serial processing, much as used in
> "Find Waldo" type pastimes.
>
> I use the quotes around "right-brain/left-brain" because, although still
> pervasive in the popular culture the paradigm has been largely abandoned in
> psychology; much of what is attributed to lateralization turns out to be
> much subtler than the simplistic popular models.
>
> --Larry Constantine, IDSA, ACM Fellow
>   Professor, Department of Mathematics & Engineering
>   University of Madeira | Funchal, Portugal
>
>
>
>

On 8 May 2009, at 17:06, Jon Kern wrote:

> Thanks Larry/(Adrian),
>
> You are entitled to your bean raining/usual rants -- as long as you
> took
> the test <g>.

More than a minute, under five. Probably not a fair time coz I knew it
would either be an actual image - or a pattern in the beans - so I was
looking for it in a particular way :-)

[snip]
> Because, whether it is based on "brain facts" or not, it is still
> fun to
> hear my IT friends get tripped up on the test, yet their spouses or
> kids
> see it immediately. And whether it is based on LEFT/RIGHT or merely
> the
> ability for your brain to process the image faster or slower, I find
> it
> interesting anecdotal evidence.
[snip]

Also possibly dangerous anecdotal data :-) Maybe it's not a creative
distinction. Maybe there's no distinction at all (your sample size is
small). Maybe it's a distinction of folk who were looking for a
"trick" in the image - rather than a literal picture. Maybe it's the
environment the question is framed in. Maybe it's rested vs tired
rather than technical vs creative Maybe...

The real problem I've found with the left/right thing is that it
becomes a label. You can't do X coz you're a left brain type. You
can't do Y coz you're a right brain type. Etc. This is, in my
experience, a deeply harmful outlook for people. Especially when the
labels are mythical :-)

Even if you take the original research by Fink and Marshall at face
value they were not saying anything about personality types - but
instead were talking about where different kinds of mental processes
happened. The idea of left/right brain dominance is just pop-
psychology - and is about as useful as astrology.

.... erm... ranting aren't I.... sorry!

If you want a really dramatic example of how silly the left/right
brain thing is - have a google around hemispherectomy - scary... but
fascinating stuff :-)

Cheers,

Adrian

> The real problem I've found with the left/right thing is that it
becomes a label.

That would be a problem, as labels usually are... the original goofy
thing i saw on this at least mentioned that you can work to improve
either "side" of the brain... Which I think is a truism.

As far as your other "it could be this, it could be that's" -- agreed.
Who knows what really goes on in such exercises of the mind.

Maybe the "test" should be given in varying order with and without a
sudoku puzzle <g>.

jon
blog: http://technicaldebt.wetpaint.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA



Adrian Howard said the following on 5/10/09 9:22 AM:
>
>
>
> On 8 May 2009, at 17:06, Jon Kern wrote:
>
> > Thanks Larry/(Adrian),
> >
> > You are entitled to your bean raining/usual rants -- as long as you
> > took
> > the test <g>.
>
> More than a minute, under five. Probably not a fair time coz I knew it
> would either be an actual image - or a pattern in the beans - so I was
> looking for it in a particular way :-)
>
> [snip]
> > Because, whether it is based on "brain facts" or not, it is still
> > fun to
> > hear my IT friends get tripped up on the test, yet their spouses or
> > kids
> > see it immediately. And whether it is based on LEFT/RIGHT or merely
> > the
> > ability for your brain to process the image faster or slower, I find
> > it
> > interesting anecdotal evidence.
> [snip]
>
> Also possibly dangerous anecdotal data :-) Maybe it's not a creative
> distinction. Maybe there's no distinction at all (your sample size is
> small). Maybe it's a distinction of folk who were looking for a
> "trick" in the image - rather than a literal picture. Maybe it's the
> environment the question is framed in. Maybe it's rested vs tired
> rather than technical vs creative Maybe...
>
> The real problem I've found with the left/right thing is that it
> becomes a label. You can't do X coz you're a left brain type. You
> can't do Y coz you're a right brain type. Etc. This is, in my
> experience, a deeply harmful outlook for people. Especially when the
> labels are mythical :-)
>
> Even if you take the original research by Fink and Marshall at face
> value they were not saying anything about personality types - but
> instead were talking about where different kinds of mental processes
> happened. The idea of left/right brain dominance is just pop-
> psychology - and is about as useful as astrology.
>
> .... erm... ranting aren't I.... sorry!
>
> If you want a really dramatic example of how silly the left/right
> brain thing is - have a google around hemispherectomy - scary... but
> fascinating stuff :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Adrian
>
>

Hello, Marjorie.  On Tuesday, May 12, 2009, at 7:40:09 AM, you
wrote:

> I think everybody who was interested enough to comment on or keep reading
> this thread should investigate the book, "On Being Certain: Believing you
> Are Right Even When You're Not" by Robert Burton.

> http://www.amazon.com/Being-Certain-Believing-Right-Youre/dp/0312359209

> He presents some very engaging and profound philosophical discussions
> about selective perception, the known mechanics of  brain function and
> probable role of evolution that give insights into things like this little
> game....when you consciously and diligently look for the man, you don't
> see him, but when you turn that processing off and let what some people
> refer to as intuition take over, he pops right out at you.

Thanks for this link. Ordered for my Kindle. Looks fascinating!

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
www.xprogramming.com/blog
Speak the affirmative; emphasize your choice
by utterly ignoring all that you reject. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello, Larry.  On Wednesday, May 13, 2009, at 7:19:03 AM, you
wrote:

> I don't mean to be the perpetual rain maker, but, this is just another
> flavor of pop-culture psychobabble. The Myers-Briggs and its related Kiersey
> Temperament Sorter are based on Jungian psychoanalytic theory, which, along
> with Freudian psychoanalytic theory, is taken less and less seriously these
> days. Most of the early personality theories, even the ones for which
> reasonably reliable instruments were developed, have largely been supplanted
> by evidenced-based personality models, particularly the now generally
> accepted five-factor model.

It's interesting, though, how much MB /does/ manage to say about
people's preferencee.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
www.xprogramming.com/blog
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.  -- Geoffrey Chaucer

Hello, Larry.  On Wednesday, May 13, 2009, at 10:24:03 AM, you
wrote:

> It SEEMS to manage to say-meaning,  people tend to feel/think it describes
> them and others. It's the apparent attribution phenomenon. Research shows
> that even completely phony tests with randomly assigned descriptions are
> seen as subjectively valid. Unfortunately, the real objective validity of MB
> is just not there.

I'm not sure what "objective validity" would be. Not sure there is
one. However, I have seen people well versed in M-B perform
substantially better than chance at tasks like separating the NTs
from the NFs. I think it is pretty obvious, observing me, that I'll
score T and not F, for example.

I can imagine that people would "see" whatever in a person with a
randomly assigned description. But are you suggesting that for
people who have actually answered the questions to the best of their
ability, that their real life responses are essentially random with
respect to their description? I'd have guessed otherwise.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
www.xprogramming.com/blog
The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.
   --  John Maxwell

Interesting Larry...

I have been subjected to numerous of these...
MB (ENTP)
MB-offshoot that I took with a therapist friend
KT
and a few others...

Oft-times, my own results are a teeter-tottering between two poles. In
one test, the instructor said most people align either in a vertical
column or along the horizontal row -- I was on the diagonal <g>. In
another, I was a strong Quick-Start, yet would take deep dives in being
Data Driven.

I just figured it was because I was weird... but maybe it was more due
to the inability of the systems to fully describe my "type?"

jon
blog: http://technicaldebt.wetpaint.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA



Larry Constantine said the following on 5/13/09 7:19 AM:
>
>
> Tim wrote:
>
> >However, rather than rely on the pop-culture meaning of right/left
> brain being thinking/feeling, I'd prefer to rely on the
> Thinking/Feeling spectrum of the Myers Briggs survey - it's actually
> based on some half-decent research (allbeit 50 odd years old now).<
>
> I don’t mean to be the perpetual rain maker, but, this is just another
> flavor of pop-culture psychobabble. The Myers-Briggs and its related
> Kiersey Temperament Sorter are based on Jungian psychoanalytic theory,
> which, along with Freudian psychoanalytic theory, is taken less and
> less seriously these days. Most of the early personality theories,
> even the ones for which reasonably reliable instruments were
> developed, have largely been supplanted by evidenced-based personality
> models, particularly the now generally accepted five-factor model.
>
> Frankly, the MB and KTS are fun at a cocktail-party level (“I’ll tell
> you my type if you’ll tell me yours” “Well, what can you expect from
> an ISTJ”) and remain immensely popular in management circles (in part
> because there are free versions of the KTS and no training, licensing,
> or fees are required to use them, unlike the more industrial strength
> instruments like the MMPI) and no doubt also owing in part to their
> somewhat simplistic categorization of people into “types”. In any
> case, they are not to be taken too seriously, certainly not compared
> to the more recent findings in neuroscience and cognitive science—even
> in their popularized packages.
>
> Only Introversion-extraversion from the MB remains as a generally
> accepted valid dimension of personality trait. As I’ve said before in
> this and other forums, a psychometrically weak test with little or no
> independent validity and based on unscientific theory is hardly a good
> grounding for significant insight into ourselves and each other. Among
> colleagues who work in this field, MB and KTS “types” are regarded as
> little better than astrology, garnering comments resembling the
> oft-quoted /Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy/—“Mostly harmless.”
> (Although there is debate about that.)
>
> Amidst all that rhetorical rain, I confess I have learned things from
> using the KTS, but I suspect this has more to do with the process and
> context within which it was used than from the validity of the
> typology or the measurement instrument. I have seen completely
> discredited “tests,” such as the Luscher Color Test, yield interesting
> and useful results in the hands of skilled therapists.
>
> But, we are getting pretty far afield from agility or usability…
>
> --Larry Constantine, IDSA, ACM Fellow
>
> Director, Lab:USE Laboratory for Usage-centered Software Engineering
> (www.labuse.org)
>
> Professor, Department of Mathematics & Engineering
>
> University of Madeira | Funchal, Portugal
>
>

Hi everyone. I checked with Jeff Patton and he said it would be OK to post an
open job req to this group.

http://www.enthiosys.com/news-events/ux-job-req/

Regards,

Luke Hohmann
CEO, Enthiosys, Inc.
615 National Ave, Ste 230
Mountain View, CA 94087
m: +1-408-529-0319
lhohmann@...
www.innovationgames.com: The seriously fun way to do serious work -- seriously.

A basic pass / fail test was developed at Nokia to understand if the
     many teams were implementing Scrum correctly. You can take this test
     by clicking on the link below.

     I will aggregate the results and email them to you if you are
     interested. I will present the results back to the Agile/Scrum
     community for discussion once we have 1000 responses. We have 360 so far.

     Please forward this email to other teams so we can get as many
     responses as possible.

     The test:
     http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p_DGqV8jkE4Wmpir24Xt8Zg

     cheers,
     Robin Dymond.
     --
     Robin Dymond, CST
     Managing Partner, Innovel, LLC.
     www.innovel.net
     www.scrumtraining.com
     (804) 239-4329

Just Wondering if Anyone as some sort of report on how to get Usability and user Experience Designer get introduced into an Agile Scrum team.

1. How do I persuade a team to pay attention to usability?
2. How do I persuade management to pay for a UX designer?
3. I just hired a UX designer. How do I integrate them into my Agile team?
4. We have a UX department which has normally worked pretty separately from our development teams. Now that our developers are going Agile, how do I get them to work together?

I've gotten them and immediately deleted them. At one point I think they were
legitimate but dunno any more. Either way if Julie wanted to be you friend she
should have asked you! :)

...sue

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Anders Ramsay <andersr@...>

Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 02:08:02
To: <agile-usability@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [agile-usability] Re: Julie wants to add you as a friend :)


Is anyone else receiving these?  Never heard of Grouply and based on the fact
they ask you to enter your yahoo id and password and a bit if Googling of
"Grouply", looks it is a phishing/address book spamming app, and possible
identity theft scam.  I could be wrong, but would recommend anyone else
receiving a message like this to ignore it.


On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 9:56 PM, julie chickering <jchickering@...
<mailto:jchickering@...> > wrote:
  We share the agile-usability group. I want to add you as a friend in Grouply so
you can see my profile with my pictures, my groups, and my favorite group
messages.

Here is the link:
http://www.grouply.com/register?r=3108105&vt=75439099
<http://www.grouply.com/register?r=3108105&vt=75439099>  .

Julie

  ====================
  Block Grouply Invites
<mailto:blocklist@...?subject=unsubscribe-Lj0jl7kR8Tbp9YSNNJtQbdAwhBZv3K\
GGh7cs5k6QzWylFiGGw%252FwE6A%253D%253D&body=Please+send+this+email+without+m\
aking+any+changes+to+the+Subject%2C+and+your+address+will+be+added+to+the+Groupl\
y+Block+List.>  | Mark as SPAM
<mailto:blocklist@...?subject=unsubscribe-Lj0jl7kR8Tbp9YSNNJtQbdAwhBZv3K\
GGh7cs5k6QzWylFiGGw%252FwE6A%253D%253D&body=Please+send+this+email+without+m\
aking+any+changes+to+the+Subject%2C+and+your+address+will+be+added+to+the+Groupl\
y+Block+List.>

  To block all emails from Grouply, click here
<mailto:blocklist@...?subject=unsubscribe-Lj0jl7kR8Tbp9YSNNJtQbdAwhBZv3K\
GGh7cs5k6QzWylFiGGw%252FwE6A%253D%253D&body=Please+send+this+email+without+m\
aking+any+changes+to+the+Subject%2C+and+your+address+will+be+added+to+the+Groupl\
y+Block+List.>  or send an email to blocklist@...
<mailto:blocklist@...>  with subject
"unsubscribe-Lj0jl7kR8Tbp9YSNNJtQbdAwhBZv3KGGh7cs5k6QzWylFiGGw%2FwE6A%3D%3D".

  Grouply, 495 Seaport Court, Suite 103, Redwood City, CA 94063

[Apologies for any duplication.]

Greetings,

We're giving Agile Usability List members a special discount to our new
UIE Roadshow: Secrets Behind Designing Great User Experiences, a
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