[Sigia-l] IA and Agile Processes

[Jeff Lash]

>> How important IS
>> colocation, really? Is it needed 100% of the time? -
> Can you give us more context on the colocation part of this question?

Sure; looking back, I didn't ask the right question. It should have been:
how can you make it work when you're not spending all of your time colocated
with the team?

This specific project I'm starting is based out of the UK, while I'm in the
US. For various reasons, I can't be in their office for the entire project.
What types of problems might this create and how can these be mitigated?

But, my question is more in a general sense -- is it vital that UCD/IA is
colocated all the time for the entire project? Again, I'm trying to help
define how UCD will fit in as other projects use agile, not just this one
specific project. We are a large, geographically distributed company, with
UCD members in various offices, but it may not always possible to find the
right internal customer, developers, and UCD resource in the same office.

I'm guessing this is something that consultants as well as others in large
organizations like mine have dealt with.

My feeling is that colocation is great, and quite helpful, but the project
can still be "agile" if designers are spending part of their time colocated,
part of their time out testing with end users, and part of their time
working on their own.

The trick would be doing the right tasks and deliverables at the right time.
When colocated, time should be spent with the internal customer and
developers, creating paper prototypes and dealing with technical issues,
fleshing out the details, obtaining agreement. Then, I could see going
"home" and translating the rough ideas into a functional prototype and
starting to spec out the UI; these, after all, are things that require less
collaboration. Next, test with end users, come back and make some changes,
and then repeat the cycle over again.

Has anyone tried something like this?

I'd also think that things like videoconferencing, web meetings (e.g.
WebEx), wikis, Basecamp, etc. can help with the distance issue. Now, the
time zones, that's another issue completely...

Jeff