[Design] [Scooby] Feedback on real-time collaboration tool

[Mimi Yin]

I think the only hurdle for me was performance. I already had a gmail  
account, which I use regularly, so setting up an account wasn't a  
blocker for me.

You're right that we didn't all need read-write access.

This might be good to try out for the competitive analysis spreadsheet.

Thx,
Mimi

On Jul 5, 2006, at 10:17 AM, Priscilla Chung wrote:

> Last Wednesday the Scooby team decided to test out the  
> collaboration spreadsheet tool that's still in beta by Google (Labs).
>
> http://www.spreadsheets.google.com
>
> I'm sending this e-mail to document and to hear from those who  
> participated, feedback on how this particular collaboration tool  
> worked, what didn't work and what we can learn from this tool.
>
> Since this was a bit of an experiment in learning and seeking out  
> new tools in working collaboratively, there was a bit of confusion  
> on the original invitation list and who was to participate. My  
> intention was not to leave people in the dark, but to just try  
> something out with a small group of people and if it worked, the  
> team could decide if it would be worthwhile to incorporate this  
> tool for part of project planning.
>
> Just to update, we continued working on the planning for Scooby  
> 0.3  (without the spreadsheet tool) in place of the status meeting  
> last Thursday. Please see attached for the latest version of the  
> feature ranking matrix. The Scooby 0.3 FRM will also be documented  
> and updated on the wiki. For more details see: http:// 
> wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Projects/ScoobyZeroDotThree
>
> What is a this 'feature ranking matrix' (FRM)?
> This is a spreadsheet that helps Product/Program/Design (PPD) team  
> decide on priorities based on target user's needs and Engineering  
> to estimate (SWAG) how long it will take to implement the features.  
> Once both teams have entered in their data, it helps determine the  
> priorities for that particular release. See attached for FRM example.
>
> In regards to the spreadsheet, here is some feedback I captured:
>
> Negatives:
> + Only two people sent me their Gmail address as requested from the  
> original invite and with the confusion of people who wanted to  
> participate in the meeting, it took an additional 15 mins to have  
> everyone in the same chat room viewing the spreadsheet and to get  
> over the chaos/excitement (because this was a new) and move forward  
> with the task at hand.
>
> + In addition to the chaos, I rushed in adding everyone with read/ 
> write access and that was a big mistake on my part. People were  
> making changes to the spreadsheet, mainly because it was 'new' and  
> 'cool' to see changes made on the fly and everyone else could see  
> as well. So in some ways this point is a positive because people  
> were really excited to be able collaborate in this way.
>
> + The tool is clearly still in beta. There were bugs in the tool  
> and some of the guests had refresh problems on different browsers  
> etc, and then there were limits to how many people could  
> participate. It was clear to all of us who participated that this  
> tool is still in beta.
>
> + Adding an extra tool to the process means making sure everyone  
> also has an account and it is yet another hurdle for everyone who  
> need an account just to follow along. When working with a small  
> group ie. the Scooby team it was not as difficult, though if it  
> were for the Chandler team, it might have been more difficult to  
> have everyone on board.
>
> Positives:
> + The real-time interactivity was very 'cool' and people were  
> really excited to be able collaborate in this way.
>
> + The chat feature is great. We chatted on IRC mainly so we could  
> archive our chat in case we needed to refer back to what decisions  
> were made. Perhaps if there was a file to 'download' your  
> conversation, that would be ideal for our purposes.
>
> + Everyone was on the same page when going through the document.  
> Made it really easy for people to follow along, and to stop off- 
> topic conversations (the cross town bus analogy.)
>
> What I learned:
> + To give certain people read/write and other people read only  
> access. When I originally thought of how things could work,   
> everyone could put in their SWAG for the line item, we'd still  
> follow the same methodology to go through each line item one by one.
>
> Perhaps if the users are used to understanding of what the task is,  
> could there be a way where I would just hand over the spreadsheet  
> and ask everyone to enter in the SWAGs? This way I could  work on  
> other things, keep the window open and if they had questions or  
> finish they could just ping me. This collaboration tool could  
> introduce new ways to work, perhaps more efficiently or does one  
> really need to go through each feature line item by line item?  
> Would it cause more confusion in the end? I  don't know. This is  
> just a thought after using this tool.
>
> I leave the decision to the team to see if we should use this tool  
> again for planning Scooby 0.4 in a couple of months from now. I  
> would also love to hear feedback from everyone who took part  to  
> add their thoughts about the tool if I left out anything, etc.
>
> Thanks, -Priscilla
>
> <zeroDot3FRMv2.xls>
>
>
>
>
>
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