About Agile From Alistair Cockburn

• ·         Convection Currents of Information
• ·         Erg-seconds

Work and time
With every speech act, X radiates both information
and energy into the environment around

• ·         Osmotic Communication

We have seen three separate effects that office layout has on communication costs within a project
- The reduction in cost when people discover information in background sounds (osmotic communication)
- The overall cost of detecting and transfering information (erg-seconds)
- The lost opportunity cost of not asking
So if we put them into one room not always will work that will depend on:
Three more issues affect the answer in any one particular setting:

- The sort of information being shared - mixing programmers with bussines experts
- People's personal preferences - Some people really value their quiet, private offices
- Drafts  - Drafts are unwanted information, in our newly extended metaphor. Too thin walls let drafts pass.

Osmosis across Distances - voice over-ip services

• ·         Drafts...explained before
• ·         Information Radiators

Two characteristics are key to a good information radiator. The first is that the information changes over time. This makes it worth a person's while to look at the display. 

With information
radiators, the passers by need not ask any question; the
information simply hits them as they pass. The other characteristic is that it takes very little energy to view the display. Size matters when it comes to information radiators - the bigger the better, as many people remind me. 

A second use of information radiators, suited for any project using increments of a month or less, is to show the work breakdown and assignments for the next increment

A third use of flipchats as information radiators is to show the results of the project's periodic reflection workshop.

A fourth use of information radiators is to show everyone the user stories delivered, in progress, the number of acceptance tests written and met, and so on.

• ·         Applying the Theory of Hot Air

take advantage of convection currents of information and osmotic communications

Caves and Common: provision for both private and project space. 

Skunkworks: "...the aerodynamics group in my office began talking through the open door to the structures bunch about calculations on the center of pressures on the fuselage, when suddenly I got the idea of unhinging the door between us..."

• ·         Jumping Communications Gaps
• ·          Modalities in Communcaiton

Peoble at whiteboard have Physical Proximity, Three dimensionality, Smell, Kinasthetics, Touch,Sounds,Visuals(Gestures),Cross-modality timing(combination of all above),Low latency,Real time question and answers, all this bring trust and learning.

•          The Impact of Removing Modalities

Physical Proximity (example...weak one)

Visuals, by phone you have not facial expresion, gestures...

Voice, by email we loose vocal inflexions and  more important Real time question and answers

• ·         Making Use of Modalities

 Will increment comunications channel's temperature

• ·         Stickiness and Jumpting Gaps across Space

So why did they need to write use cases at all? The answer is: To give the information some stickiness.

whiteboards (static information radiators) and people (dynamic information radiators).

So a reunion on a white boards or sharing papers will got convection currents of information, osmotic Agile Software Development communication, face-to-face communication, realtime question and answer.

A colleague, Mohammad Salim, responded to this situation by covering all the walls and hallways with rolls of butcher paper,

• Jumping Gaps across Time

However, on long-running projects, it turns out to be critically important that the chief architect stays around! This person's contribution is to keep memories of key ideas alive across changing development teams. Once again, people are used as the archival medium!

• ·         Teams as Communities

People should pull to aprox same direction.

• .     The Project Priority Chart

aligning efforts

• ·         Amicability and Conflict

amicability is 

• ·         Building "Team" by Winning
• ·         Team Cultures and Subcultures
• ·         Teams as Ecosystems
• ·         Mapping Methodology to Ecosystem

So if we put them into one room not always will work that will depend on:

• Three more issues affect the answer in any one
  particular setting:
  · The sort of information being shared - mixing programmers with bussines experts
  · People's personal preferences - Some people really value their quiet, private
  offices
  · Drafts  - Drafts are unwanted information, in our newly
  extended metaphor. Too thin walls let drafts pass.

• Osmosis across Distances - voice over-ip services

Information Radiators