All posts by wolfgang.cramer@gmail.com

What if you’re always connected and inputs are natural?

Here’s some food for thought.  We have seen significant changes in broadband access and storage costs over the last 5 years.  If we assume that network connectivity will continue to become more ubiquitous and inexpensive in the next few years and consider some of the following REAL capabilities available today, it is not difficult to foresee a convergence of these maturing capabilities into a far more valuable state than they are available today.  We consider this future state as one of ‘extreme connectedness’ where unlimited opportunities may present themselves.

Consider the following:

1. World with touchscreens and multi-modal inputs






 

2. Wearable and embedded input capabilities



 

3. Augmented reality advancements




 

 

4. Sensors and automated recognition capabilities




 

5. Artificial intelligence



 

6. Nanotechnology

My tweet highlights – 4Q09

Highlights from http://www.twitter.com/wolfc for 4Q09.

30-Dec-2009 — Our 2007 prius got 46.3 miles per gallon in 2009.
26-Dec-2009 — RT @garyvee: Being the big person in any situation has never been the wrong move…NEVER!
17-Dec-2009 — RT @vaynermedia 10 “Top 10″ Lists Every Entrepreneur Should Read http://bit.ly/6rPaib
17-Dec-2009 — RT @sparklingwit: RT @joshholden: Email pref channel to share content http://bit.ly/654Yid < but social media total over 50% in just few yrs
16-Dec-2009 — RT @venturehacks: When it comes to incorporating customer feedback into our products, 1 is a point, 2 is a line, 3 is a pattern.
16-Dec-2009 — talk about unfinished work… look at visualization of changes to Darwin’s master work over 6 editions http://benfry.com/traces/
16-Dec-2009 — checking out inspiring visualizations at protovis. i like job voyager, esp wane of farming http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/ex/jobs.html
12-Dec-2009 — Checking out vook’s Sherlock Holmes app. Sound like great concept.
09-Dec-2009 — Trying out dragon dictator app.
09-Dec-2009 — @roonoid replace Twitter?  Me likey posterous – dead simple, started moving stuff from 3 different sites after trying posterous for 10 min
09-Dec-2009 — Not convinced planning poker output any more valuable than estimating by using SMLXL. Convo discussion is critical part #agile
09-Dec-2009 — RT @IBM_NEWS: Fordham Univ and IBM Launch Curriculum to Prep Students w Business Analytics Skills – http://tinyurl.com/yd43cfz > go rams
06-Dec-2009 — Ported posts from blogger and tumblr to http://wolfc.posterous.com  think I found a new home. Wired up with google analytics too. Easy!
06-Dec-2009 — Exploring http://wolfc.posterous.com to see if it can be single location to aggregate all my nonsense. Seems easy so far

29-Nov-2009 — Both compelled and repelled by the confidence found in #crushit by @garyvee
26-Nov-2009 — Damn you food network!  Over-inspired… cooked far toooooo much for family thanksgiving
26-Nov-2009 — Was not expecting u-haul to accept at pump wireless payment for propane fill-up. Emailed my receipt. Nice!
25-Nov-2009 — Cracking open ‘crush it’
20-Nov-2009 — Can’t believe mars rovers are still exploring… Since Jan 2004!!!
18-Nov-2009 — salesforce chatter http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/ > very interesting
14-Nov-2009 — RT @sweettt: Twitter is lonely place. 1 post in Fb & get reply. 10 tweets & 1 reply in Twitter; 10 FB replies > looser connect, more value?
06-Nov-2009 — RT @prb112: http://tinyurl.com/ylfpy2j kudos Google on Dashboard. Appreciate >> ditto, wonder when we get for entire online persona
04-Nov-2009 — Gave a presentation in second life today with @roonoid. Tech issues got in the way I think

31-Oct-2009 — Considering getting serious and adding value on Twitter. Like what I get now but…
26-Oct-2009 — RIP Geocities. Kinda like looking back on old pictures from your first high school dance. http://bit.ly/1kYLAa
23-Oct-2009 — disconnecting twitter feeds to fb
22-Oct-2009 — Reminding myself that one attracts more bees with sugar than with vinegar.
21-Oct-2009 — Another great post from some time ago I keep thinking about. http://bit.ly/2JwUaP consistently suck less, you will retain most of your users
16-Oct-2009 — Read this post months ago and find it applies to my work every week http://tinyurl.com/cnv78z
15-Oct-2009 — @JasonWyatt usability.heat map for #2 is cool http://bit.ly/19hCEM
12-Oct-2009 — messing about on http://www.xtranormal.com
10-Oct-2009 — Digging Photoshop iPhone app. Fun. Simple. Wonder if @acoven mixed up in this goodness.
09-Oct-2009 — ready to get hacking…. but coffee first!
07-Oct-2009 — @roonoid pt2 Smart firms 1-make it easy to share individual journey insights; 2-harvest insights for better of company.
07-Oct-2009 — @roonoid journey vs destination. Same as tvi… Value for who? Journey import for me but destination import to the firm.
07-Oct-2009 — @roonoid journey matters more. Grass grows on the side of the mountain, not the top.

Planning poker basics

http://www.planningpoker.com/detail.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker

What is the goal of planning poker?

  • The goal in planning poker is to arrive at a shared & understood estimate for desired capabilities in a short and inexpensive manner.??
  • It provides a comparative view of the technical complexity of delivering desired capabilities.
  • It is not to derive an estimate that will withstand all future scrutiny.
  • Sprint & Iteration planning then uses these estimates coupled with the business priorities in order to select scope.


How does planning poker work?

  • An overview of a given user story (or capability / feature) is provided. The team is given an opportunity to ask questions and discuss to clarify assumptions and risks.
  • Each individual lays a card face down representing their estimate.
    • Estimates should cover the full technical scope including design, discovery, development, and unit testing.
    • Units used vary – they can be days duration, ideal days or story points.
  • Everyone calls their cards simultaneously by turning them over.
  • People with high estimates and low estimates are given a 'soap box' to offer their justification for their estimate and then discussion continues.
  • After the soap box discussion, we repeat the estimation process (another round of poker) until a consensus is reached.
  • In many cases, the estimates will already converge by the second round. But if they have not, continue to repeat the process. The goal is for the estimators to converge on a single estimate that can be used for the story.?? Again, the point is not absolute precision but reasonableness.

Why Planning Poker?

  • Planning poker brings together multiple expert opinions to do the estimating.
  • A lively dialogue ensues during planning poker, and estimators are called upon by their peers to justify their estimates.
  • Studies have shown that averaging individual estimates leads to better results as do group discussions of estimates.

Corner cases kill innovation

http://tinyurl.com/cnv78z

For weeks after reading this post I kept being reminded of it.  It covers how difficult the balance is between planning for long-term goals at the expense of short-term success…. example – we plan to go worldwide so we should have a multi-language solution. 

In my opinion, we see this all the time in enterprise efforts.  Some call it overengineering but I prefer to think of it as having lost perspective to what is really valuable.  We seem to get carried away with more and more rich features that are only used by a very small subset of users (assuming they have the patience to find out which of the 100 features they will use).