Workshop Title:

Play at Work: Applying Agile Methods to Museum Website Development

Abstract:

Get together with other conference attendees and play games in this hands-on, interactive workshop facilitated by Carbon Five, a technology development and consulting firm, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). A special emphasis will be placed on experiential learning through Agile games and exercises, such as "Planning Poker" and "Story Mapping," in this unique half-day workshop.

Instructors will demonstrate how a successful partnership between SFMOMA  and Carbon Five has created  a lasting procedural legacy, and how the Agile process continues to provide a tactical toolkit and streamline ongoing development work. Participants will learn first-hand how games and other Agile tools and techniques can be successfully adapted and applied to museum website  development, resulting in rapid delivery, reduced expenses, and improve teamwork. Participants will be strongly encouraged to share their own experiences and learn from each other in this session.

Workshop Description:

Get together with other conference attendees and play games in this hands-on, interactive workshop facilitated by Carbon Five, a technology development and consulting firm, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). A special emphasis will be placed on experiential learning through Agile games and exercises, such as "Planning Poker" and "Story Mapping," in this unique half-day workshop.

Instructors will demonstrate how a successful partnership between SFMOMA  and Carbon Five has created  a lasting procedural legacy, and how the Agile process continues to provide a tactical toolkit and streamline ongoing development work. Participants will learn first-hand how games and other Agile tools and techniques can be successfully adapted and applied to museum website  development, resulting in rapid delivery, reduced expenses, and improve teamwork. Participants will be strongly encouraged to share their own experiences and learn from each other in this session.

Through games and other facilitated interactions, participants will learn how to:

• Break down, prioritize, and classify projects to make decisions on what's important
• Apply these tools and practical applications to any project
• Establish a sustainable cycle of planning, development, and delivery
• Avoid spending money and resources on things you don't really need
• Solve complex problems with simple solutions

This workshop can be taken independently, or can be complemented by the half-day morning workshop, Project Management for the Resource-challenged. While the morning workshop will include a high-level introduction to some of the latest trends in Agile development as they apply to project management, this afternoon workshop focuses exclusively on hands-on Agile activities and games. If taken together with the morning workshop, participants will gain a broad view of project management practices and techniques coupled with a deep view of specific Agile activities. However, the morning workshop is not a prerequisite and this workshop can be taken on its own.

Testimonials

Dana and Alon ran a shorter but similar session at Museums and the Web 2010 in Denver, CO, and received some great feedback:

"I attended Dana Mitroff and Alon Salant’s workshop at Museums and the Web 2010 and the world of Agile Development that they presented felt mature, thoughtful, playful, and modern. Dana said something along the line of we “we’ve been burned by the old waterfall methods” of software development and turned to agile as a conscious effort to find an alternative. I hadn’t thought about agile in a few years and it’s come a long way. To me, the techniques and philosophy of agile as Alon and Dana presented it felt like a set of magnetized 3-d puzzle pieces that snap together with a satisfying click: the world makes sense and covers all the worries of getting stuff done but in surprising and unexpected ways."

--Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy, Smithsonian Institution

Agile Methods have been Crucial for the IMA in the last 4 yrs... Love what @dmitroff and A. Salant are teaching #mw2010

--Rob Stein, Chief Information Officer/Director of MIS, Indianapolis Museum of Art

A great session on Agile methods at SFMOMA by @dmitroff engaging, clear and made it sound possible and fun. #MW2010

--Sarah Winmill, Head of IS Services at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Chair of the Charities Consortium IT Directors Group

Instructors

Alon Salant

Principal

Carbon Five

171 2nd Street 4th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94105

http://www.carbonfive.com

Alon Salant is a founder and owner of Carbon Five, a software development firm dedicated to delivering high value software through an agile collaboration with its clients. Alon has over ten years experience delivering web applications for startups and large institutions. His areas of expertise include Agile Coaching, software design, automated testing and rubber-hits-the-road software development. He has written articles and book contributions for O'Reilly and spoken at SXSW, Web 2.0 Expo, JavaOne, CodeCon and Bay Area user groups on technology and process topics. He is also an avid cyclist, surfer, bicycle mechanic and urban gardner. He holds a degree in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dana Mitroff Silvers

Head of Online Services

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third Street

San Francisco, CA  94103

http://www.sfmoma.org

Dana has worked on the design and production of large-scale, educational websites since the early days of HTML. Among the sites she has worked on are the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, UC Berkeley Interactive University project, and Computer Curriculum Corporation. Dana led the multi-year redesign of sfmoma.org, and oversees all aspects of the public-facing SFMOMA website. She is on the international program committee of Museums and the Web and presents regularly at that conference, and has also presented at the annual meetings of the Museum Computer Network, American Association of Museums, IMLS Web Wise, and the National Museum Publishing Seminar. Dana has taught and lectured at both the undergraduate and graduate-level for numerous Bay Area institutions, including the University of San Francisco and JFK University. Dana holds an MA in art history from the University of Chicago and a BA in journalism from the University of Southern California.