Round 2 with the UI for AgileDash, and I am happy with how it looks now, next up is the integration with SharePoint 2007 which should be interesting. I still plan on using SPServices, but I could also write my own WCF service to act as a proxy to the SP Object Model, one is server side processing being relayed via Web Services, the other is Client Side Processing being relayed entirely client side. Decisions, decisions…
Let me know what you think of the UI…
AgileDash, our flagship product which is an Agile project management tool which we be capable of running in multiple platforms. The first platform AgileDash will be available on is Microsoft SharePoint, which we are naming AgileDash SP. AgileDash SP was originally planned to be released for the new and powerful Microsoft SharePoint 2010 platform. However, as much as I want to develop against SharePoint 2010, most people and potential customers are still using 2007 and they will be for the near future. There are several reasons for this, the main reason is that SharePoint 2010 is 64 bit only. This is a good thing since it gives 2010 the ability to be more powerful by being able to scale vertically as well as horizontally. This also comes with a price to pay that a lot of customers are running 32 bit hardware still, they have heavy investments in this hardware and it will take time for them to convert over.
Now with all of that said, this was not a light decision on our part. SharePoint 2010 offered a rich client API for us to develop against with Silverlight and jQuery. SharePoint 2007 however does not offer this, and its extremely difficult to develop against when it comes to client side applications, in particular rich interface applications such as Silverlight. I ran across something that changed my decision drastically, Marc D Anderson has been working on a jQuery framework called SPServices that acts as a proxy to the SharePoint 2007 web services that lets you easily and naturally program against. He is actively developing this framework and it supports a large degree of functionality. I plan on working closely with Marc to develop and get this framework working in Silverlight.
I plan to start testing several scenarios in Silverlight calling out to the SPService jQuery library immediately. I will be posting about my findings on how this is working, what the performance is like, etc.
So I have tinkering with multiple types of UI to go with on AgileDashSP, and I thought it would be very cool if I could pull off a rich user interface while keeping functionality high, I would love to hear opinions if you think the sticky notes just complicate the UI. They can be scaled up and down as they are vector graphics, so I can make them smaller if needed, but you fit less information on them as they get smaller. I do plan on implementing a clever way to view the info at a quick glance if the text does get trimmed.
Please let me hear your feedback!
As micro-ISV it is often hard to generate new ideas, you lack the ability to bounce things off of large teams. It is often difficult to make important decisions on what features are important and which ones are just “nice to have”. That is why I chose to take a rather interesting approach to generating user stories for my software. First off, this is not SCRUM I am talking about here, but I am borrowing a concept from Agile methodologies for managing software requirements such as User Stories. The reason I chose this approach is because it has worked the best for me in the past, it is easier to prioritize, and thirdly I believe Agile methodologies can work on a single person team as long as you adapt and use only the pieces you need. Typically when I do Agile coaching the main thing I tell teams is to use the parts of Agile that work for you, and don’t worry about what Agile “is”, as that is not productive.
So how do you generate user stories without a team? Well you need to organize your thoughts in a relational, visual, and meaningful way. If you do not accomplish this task you will have a very difficult time generating and prioritizing your user stories. Instead you will get caught up in brainstorming your ideas using your user stories, you want to avoid this as its not useful. Typically I create what I like to call “Epic User Stories”, these are the first stage of user stories I create. These stories will either get migrated down into the product backlog or they will remain epics only to be further broken down at a later time. If I deem a story epic and I cannot break it down immediately into more clear low level stories and tasks then it is by its nature a low priority story.
So how do you organize your thoughts into a relational, visual, and meaningful way? Well a new tool that is gaining popularity is MindMapping. What is MindMapping? Well the Wikipedia definition is:
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study,organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.
How do you generate a mind map? Well you could simply pull out a piece of paper and draw your own mind map. The concepts for mind mapping are very simple, however, a more robust and productive way of doing this is to utilize a mind mapping software tool.
There are many out there, as seen below the length of trial and price as of this writing:
There are a ton more but those are the ones worth mentioning in my opinion. Which one did I choose? Well I have a friend who was able to get me a promotional free copy of ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 Professional, otherwise I was using xMind before and it was more than adequate for my needs. I highly recommend any of the above solutions, they all accomplish the same goal. Once you have your “mind on paper”, you can begin generating user stories from those relationships and ideas.
Eric Malamisura
Owner of Elucidsoft LLC
IM via Google Talk: elucidsoft
Phone: +1 (703) 679-7688
