Programming

Schedule Games

Bill Brelsford — Wed, 04 May 2005 18:11:00 GMT

If you haven't seen it yet, Johanna Rothman has a great series on “Schedule Games” over on her blog starting here.

Lean-Agile Software Development Summit – May 23 – Fairfax, Virginia

Bill Brelsford — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 14:47:00 GMT

I received this information today via the Agile Project Management mailing list.

The Lean-Agile Summit: a unique opportunity to meet and interact with the thought-leaders of Lean-Agile Software Development and Project Management. Come hear Rob Thomsett, Mary Poppendieck, and Sanjiv Augustine discuss how organizations can transform their IT to deliver greater business value by combining the principles of lean business management with agile project management. Great for Business Executives and Project Managers. Monday, May 23, 2005 from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm at CC Pace, 4100 Monument Corner Drive, Fairfax, VA. The cost is $500 per person and space is very limited. To register go to http://www.ccpace.com/Resources/Resources_agileForum.htm

For more information contact mblaylock@ccpace.com

SQL Server 2005 pricing

Bill Brelsford — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:08:00 GMT

This isn't news, just posting here so I can find it later.

SQL Server 2005 pricing

Enterprise $24,999 per server processor

Standard $ 5,999 per server processor

Workgroup $ 3,899 per server processor

note: Log shipping now available with Workgroup

Dell is selling servers pre-loaded with SQL Server

SQL Server 2000 now has a Workgroup version

What is a persona?

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:31:00 GMT

I often hear people talk about personas. Although they correctly attribute them to Alan Cooper, the descriptions I hear often conflict with what I have read in Cooper's books and learned at his companies training seminars. In this post I will try to point out what I think are some important differences between what I have learned and what I often hear described.

To try to keep things clear, I will refer to personas as I hear the typically described as Typical Personas (TP) and personas ala Cooper as Cooper personas (CP).

Discussions of personas are usually related to the requirements gathering phase of a software development project (Cooper does not limit personas to software, but I will for this discussion). The first step in this process is generally to determine the users for the proposed software. The typical process that I hear for generating TPs is described like so: come up with a list of users (usually by brainstorming), consolidate this list and organize into roles, then if you have time and feel it is necessary (would be beneficial), you can create personas by adding some interesting personal details and a picture. While this is a crude description, it fairly describes several conversations I have heard; the common points being 1) personas are created at the end of the process 2) as an extension of user roles 3) they are created by adding personal details to create an imaginary user that project members can identify with.

A CP is a model that is based upon observed behavior, that is, research. User roles are identified to help determined research sample sizes. People trained (special skills) in interviewing and observation to field research to gather information about the users behaviors and environment related to performing business tasks. This may include using software while performing those tasks. Observed behaviors, motivations and goals are analyzed and used to identify personas. Narrative descriptions are developed for each persona.

Each process appears to produce a similar product (a narrative description of a user), but it is the process that leads to each that is important.

TPs tend to start with a brainstorming of potential users. CPs start with observed behavior. In my opinion, this is one of the most important differences. Starting with direct observations by people trained in observation and interviewing techniques is far superior to brainstorming exercises, postulating, or remembering past activities.

TPs tend to have a 1 to 1 relation with a user role, after redundant roles are eliminated. CPs are modeled after patterns of behaviors and goals; they typically represent the needs of many.

I believe personas are a powerful tool for product design and I hope this post will encourage others to further investigate personas further and learn how to use them in their development processes.

K.C. Area User Group meetings this week

Bill Brelsford — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 01:02:00 GMT

Two user groups in the Kansas City area will be holding their monthly meetings this Thursday (11/11/04). The locations are close enough you can attend both of them if you like (I'm usually just a little late for the start of the VFP meeting). Drop me a note or give me a call if you want to get together before or after the meetings.

You can find more information about the SQL meeting here, and the Visual Foxpro meeting here.

Phone Update

Bill Brelsford — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 13:57:00 GMT

I went to the T-mobile kiosk at the local mall and they gave me a new SIM card (I had an old VoiceStream card). This took care of the issue of the phone thinking it was in roaming mode. Then, after making a call to T-mobile, (the guys in the mall weren't familiar with the data services) to obtain the name of the access point, everything is up and running. Now I can get cramps in my fingers on my tiny keyboard and finish ruining my eye-sight on the tiny screen. Actually, for a tiny display, it really is quite nice\clear.

The best kind of geek toy

Bill Brelsford — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:57:00 GMT

I've been a gadget junkie for quite a few years now and last night I found a SmartPhone with the greatest feature ever, it was free. While attending the .Net Mobility Road Show event last night in Overland Park, my name was picked first in the prize drawing and I won a Voq Professional Phone. This SmartPhone has a pretty cool fold out key board built into it. The phone recognizes when you open the keyboard and opens up a special application to immediately search for contacts or send an SMS message.

I have wanted a SmartPhone for some time now and ever since Scoble got his new phone, I almost bought one like his on 3 different locations. Since I have recently moved and have the extra expenses that go along with that, I kept putting it off. So big thanks to Microsoft for the new toy.

I stuck my T-mobile SIM card in the phone and it seems to work fine, except the phone indicates that it is roaming even though it is connected to the T-mobile network. I had recently turned off my data service for my phone, so I will have to give them a call to turn that back on and see if they have any idea about the roaming.

Mobile Coding

Bill Brelsford — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:46:00 GMT

The .Net Mobility Road Show is going on in Overland Park, KS. this evening. Is anyone else in the K.C. area planning on attending?

TDD at the KC DotNet Sig

Bill Brelsford — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 03:33:00 GMT

Jeff Julian and John Alexander did a presentation on Test Driven Developement for the Kansas City DotNet SIG this evening. The promised to post their slides and sample code to the DotNet Sig website soon.

Try MSDN2

Bill Brelsford — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:30:00 GMT

MSDN2 has been recently went live. Use it to find Whidbey documentation. If you would like to read some background info from the architect, go here.