It’s not uncommon to be on conference calls these days. What with the economy making business trips for short meetings a thing of the past, and new technologies with video conferencing making talking to one another not in person more like you’re face to face, we have come to a time when conference calls have become an important, if not crucial, part of any organization or company, especially whilst conducting business globally.

Have you ever been on a conference call where someone was snoring? I have. Have you ever been on a call where someone’s kids were screaming in the background? I have. Have you ever been on a call where the other person’s accent was very difficult to understand, you couldn’t hear them properly, and there was so much background noise both on their line and in your office that you couldn’t concentrate? I have. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

It seems that even though, or perhaps because, conference calls are getting more and more common, people don’t take them as seriously as they should. In a “normal” meeting, do these things happen as often? When you’re face to face with someone, do you really speak like that?

Here are some simple tips to make sure you don’t push people’s buttons when you’re on the line (or how to be professional about conference calling): Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I was asked if it was possible to create a task which would last the entire duration of a project (e.g. Project Management task, or weekly meeting) and set it to auto-extend should the project be delayed. Here is the solution:

Read the rest of this entry »

With Microsoft Project Professional, it is possible to synchronise your tasks between Project and Microsoft SharePoint. This allows project managers to take advantage of the advanced scheduling capabilities of Project Professional, whilst enjoying the collaborative capabilities of SharePoint.

In the attached PDF, I will explain the steps that will allow you to exploit this extremely useful capability.

Please click here to view the PDF

Held at the Kofi-Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT in Accra, Ghana, 20th – 24th September 2010, this event saw data managers from the West African Health Organisation region take part in a 4 day workshop with the aim to reach the following goals: 

• Build capacity of Ministry of Health staff in the Economic Community Of West African States related to current and planned implementation of Hospital Information System (HIS) software, particularly iHRIS (for human resource management) and DHIS (for general health management).
• Build a network of Ministries of Health, their staff, implementers, researchers, developers in the region and beyond to facilitate sharing of experiences and knowledge for HIS strengthening.
• Review the architecture of iHRIS, DHIS2 and other Open Source applications in use or intended to be used in the computerisation of health information systems (HIS) in the region.

The workshop attracted data managers and other Ghana IT professionals from the World Health Organisation HQ, University of Oslo, Health Metrics Network, Health Information Systems Program and Centre of Disease Control, along with blue-infinity’s Microsoft Solution Architects Gary Patchen and Xavier Bocken. These key contributors to the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange Health Domain (SDMX-HD) were also there to use the SDMX-HD standard to connect Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems together and to promote interoperability amongst clinical and HR systems.

 After quite a bit of discussion, and several hours of programming, a milestone was reached on Friday 24th.

Friday began with a joint presentation by Patrick Whitaker (WHO) and Bob Jolliffe (University of Oslo). Showcasing live, they explained how indicator definitions and metadata can be obtained from WHO’s Indicator and Measurement Registry and transferred to DHIS2, to enable data exchange based on a shared Data Structure Definition file between DHIS, iHRIS and OpenMRS . The result of this is the ability for data exchange between international, national, district and facility levels. The demonstration was based on existing software and real-life datasets from Sierra Leone, following their defined reporting needs.

This is the first time such interoperability among these systems has been achieved. This important milestone was highlighted by the presence of Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Health, M. Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo at the closing ceremony .

The interoperability team "all connected"

Recently, Julia Borkenhagen and I held a presentation at Soft-Shake 2010 on the blue-infinity way of integrating the UX team with an Agile software development process.

Over the past few years, the software user interface has evolved around new technology and concepts such as Web 2.0, RIA and portlets, introduced by major players such as Google with Gmail, or Apple with the iPhone / iPad apps. Thus the level of expectation from the end  users has increased in terms of usability, design and innovation.

So what are the steps to combine a user centered design approach with Agile development? In our presentation, we emphasized 5 key points:

1. Do your homework first
   Before starting to sketch out screens and workflows, take some time interviewing key stakeholders and representative end users and analyze existing applications as well as competitors / best-in-class. Developing personas and scenarios might help to better understand the users’ context, needs, motivation and behavior patterns.
2. Build a hi-level concept
   Instead of jumping right into the sprint process, it is important to have  a sprint 0 and come up with the general UI framework for the application (just as you need to define the technical architecture upfront). This includes process flows, a sitemap, hi-level wireframes, UI patterns, graphic design templates.
3. UX works one sprint ahead of development
   Probably the most important point to consider for Agile development, the User Experience team needs to be able to work one sprint ahead and come up with detailed wireframes and specifications. Ideally, they should also be able to do some quick usability testing to validate the screens and flow with the users.
4. Agile usability testing
   Testing should happen all throughout the project, starting in the initial analysis phase to test the existing, doing paper testing with the wireframe concepts and finally also test actual working software before it gets released.
5. Collaboration throughout
   Any agile project will fail if the team members are not able to collaborate effectively with each other.  Since this is an iterative process, it is essential that developers are involved in the initial concept phase and the UX team in the development phase. and both sides are open-minded, flexible and respect each other.

Below is an excerpt of the slides we presented:

Agile mobile testing device

The b-i UX team attended the 6th Euro IA Summit which took place in Paris last weekend. This event gathers a large number of experts from the information architecture and user experience community in Europe. Design and usability issues regarding mobile devices were the hot topic this year, and we would like to share some of the smart recommendations we took away from the event.

The session about Mobile Usability testing by Belen Barros Pena, a senior interaction designer from the UK, was particularly interesting because it was not only based on theory : she gave us very practical tips on how to conduct and record mobile usability testing.

She addressed the following questions and issues:

• Do we test mobile phone applications and websites in the lab or in the field – meaning the actual user environment?
• It’s very easy to record screen and the facial expressions of the user when testing a website or application on a desktop. But for mobile app tests, it’s much more challenging. So how do we record mobile screens, fingers and user facial expressions when using a mobile device?

Marketed mobile testing solution: too heavy for the user

Device used by Nielsen Norman group: the user has to keep his mobile on the table within the square

Well, Belen’s answer to the first question is rather clear: testing the mobile phone in the field is more complex and time-consuming. It’s difficult to record what’s happening on the screen when users move in their natural environment. When testing a particular application, working in a lab makes it easier to catch what happens on the screen and the user’s actions/reactions. Field testing also requires double the time of lab testing.

The answer to the 2^nd question is that for recording the mobile screen and the user, the best solution is to build your own system:

• It’s cheaper: the manufactured lab solutions are very expensive.
• It’s lighter and allows the user freedom with movements: the ready-made labs appear to be too heavy for the user during the test session. Alternatively, users have to use their mobile sitting at a table and must keep it within the camera range.
• It’s easy to fix: should the home-made solution break down, it is easier to fix as you built it, and are familiar with the components.

I took some pictures of the device made by Belen for recording mobile screens during user test sessions. The photos below show Julia and Nicolas (UX consultants at b-i) trying it out with their own phones:

The device is very light and allowed Julia and Nicolas to use their mobile very easily, even with the camera which is used for recording the screen. The phone support can be adapted to different sizes and styles of phones.

Read the rest of this entry »

On the contrary to what you might think, Flash and Flex can be fully accessible.
Since Version 6.0 of Flash Player in 2006, Macromedia has thought about accessibility by implementing a screen reader that is compatible with Microsoft Active Accessibility to support playbacks of flash websites.

In 2009, Adobe released version 9.0, the first player to allow rich media to be accessible to people with disabilities. In doing so, they tried to perfect their support for people with any disability (visually impaired, mobility impaired, hearing impaired etc.) and provided numerous accessibility specific components and a guide of best practice.

In the past year, the Adobe team has worked hard with Freedom Scientific in order to make Flex fully compatible with their famous reading software, JAWS. They have also worked with The Paciello Group and SSB BART Group (two consulting companies specializing on web accessibility) to ensure that the new Flex 4 will provide accessible standard controls. Today, the new Flash Builder contains a large selection of accessible components to provide support for users with disabilities.

Making Flash and Flex accessible has not been about a matter of technology, but of wise preliminary planning. Accessibility needs to be a developer’s concern during the early stages of a project, and should be focused on throughout the whole development process rather than postponing it until the end. If you’re interested in finding out more about Adobe and Accessibility, their blog follows their efforts to making rich media more accessible to all.
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/

Running application manageability is a feature that is often forgotten about on a project, not only by the development team, but also by the customer when defining the requirements.

A good application is one that fits business requirements, is developed in compliance with quality criteria,  is stable and scalable etc..

A very good application also addresses operational needs. And one of these is the ability to easily control and monitor the running application, in real-time.

Lacking the capability to control and monitor usually results in reduced up-time. By monitoring real-time business and technical indicators, problems can be detected before they occur. The application can then be controlled and configurations changed without interrupting or stopping it.

Http servers, application servers and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) provide out-of-the-box management features, but these are usually of a technical and low level nature, and do not allow for accurate monitoring (Http access logs, memory usage, database connections etc..).

One great solution is to add the Java Management Extensions (JMX) services to your applications. JMX is a standard way of exposing services and contains a built-in JVM service, including the graphical JMX console (jconsole) and most of the monitoring applications provide out-of-the box JMX connectors.

JMX offers three valuable features:

• MBean managed attributes access : read access on Java class managed attributes
• MBean managed operations: managed Java class methods invocation, including setters methods
• MBean notification : managed Java class ability to send notifications to JMX listeners

These features provide hot deploy configuration management ability and application or business dedicated metrics.
Personally I usually use JMX to provide metrics on the access and response time of high and medium level services (external services such as web services or EJB, DAO, interfaces with external systems..), and sometimes some useful statistics, usually defined in conjunction with the production operators. I also use JMX to control some service parameters, such as logging level.

You may think “That sounds great, architects always have great ideas but they do not have to suffer the process of implementing them!”. But in this case there is an easy, straightforward and powerful solution: Spring.

Read the rest of this entry »

You may have read interesting posts on Continuous Integration (CI), Test Driven Development (TDD) or source code and build management process (maybe even on this blog ). Most of them show solutions based on Apache Maven tool.

I am not going into details about what Maven is or is not, and how to use it, as Sonatype has released a very good on-line book on the subject “Maven the complete reference“, and on top of it it’s  free. I have read it and I think this book is THE reference to learn Maven or deepen your knowledge on the subject.

Also,  take a look Nicolas Frankel’s review,  a consultant I am working with on a project.  I definitely agree with his opinions.

Resources:

• Sonatype’s Maven the complete reference: http://www.sonatype.com/books/mvnref-book/reference/public-book.html
• Nicolas Frankel’s book review: http://blog.frankel.ch/maven-the-complete-reference
• Apache Maven’s web site: http://maven.apache.org/
• Maven 3 should be released soon (currently in release 3.0-alpha-6): what’s new in Maven 3 (french)

One of the the favorite question of a project sponsor during a steering meeting is “So, what is the status of my project?” If things are looking good, a frequent answer from the project manager often sounds like this: “Well, we seem to be within the budget and it looks like we will meet the target go live date…”. If things are a bit dicey, he or she might say “Well, there have been some roadblocks and bottlenecks, so it looks like the timeline might slip by a few weeks and we will also need an additional budget…” Now if I were a project sponsor, this is definitively not what I would want to hear. I will share in this post a good way to report on project status, using a simple methodology: the Earned Value Management.

The goal of Earned Value Management (EVM) is to objectively understand what was accomplished, and compare it to work planned, in other words what was spent and how. By using EVM, the project manager wants to manage cost (and schedule) rather than just monitoring and reporting it.

Let’s take an example of a project status. The project, 10000 CHF budget, 10 days effort, will produce 10 deliverables. The status report gives the following elements: Time elapsed 5 days, spent to date 6000 CHF, deliverables produced: 5 complete and 1 half done. What is the status of this project? How far along are we? What about the performance of the team? If we spend 60% of the budget, does that imply that we have 60% of the project completed?

Read the rest of this entry »

At the Adobe MAX 2009, it was interesting to improve my knowledge in the Test-Driven Development (TDD) and see the new features of Flash Builder 4 in action.

The Unit Test Agents of Flash Builder 4 are simplifying most of the work for you. They can be extended to higher levels just like the old FlexUnit would do, but on top everything now is included in the SDK, well integrated and well documented. TDD is very important for us when working on major or critical applications, since it  allows us to reduce errors and bugs. Even though you might increase  development time in the beginning by finding errors, incomplete or even missing functionalities, you will  end up with less problems to solve gain the time that would be spent debugging the app.

TDD is a great way to deliver with agility an almost bug-free solution in this very competitive business environment.

Sources of project failure

After several surveys, it appears that the main cause of project failure is the lack of project management methodology.

Presented in the form of a Pareto chart, here are the main causes of project failure.

The purpose of the Pareto chart is to highlight the most important among a set of factors. In quality control, it often represents the most common sources of defects, the highest occurring type of defect, or the most frequent reasons for customer complaints.

Reading this results show us that the most important phase in project management are “Initiating” and “Planning” phases.

Read the rest of this entry »

A "napkin scetch"

Wireframes are the backbone of any successful web or software project. Information architects create wireframes to provide a visual schema on how pages are put and linked together without specifying a visual identity. Similar to the architectural blueprints for a building, wireframes constitute the common understanding between the client, business analyst, designers and developers.

Seeing is believing

During the concept phase, wireframes help to visualize ideas and get everybody involved. Tools such as Visio allow information architects to quickly create click-through scenarios to simulate possible interactions with the future application.

Stakeholders are busy people. They will not read lengthy functional specifications and are unlikely to page through detailed presentations. But they will look at screen mockups and storyboards. The use of wireframes is a time-saver. Instead of waiting for months before seeing actual screens, stakeholders get a sneak preview almost immediately. A client once told me after a three-day intensive workshop: “This is amazing! Prior to working with you, we waited for six months to see actual pages, and when we finally did, they were not at all what we had asked for.”

Reducing time = saving money

Wireframes can save you very costly rework at a much later stage in the development process. Making fundamental changes during the development phase may cost a lot, with an outcome that is often uncertain. Paper, on the other hand, is patient – and cheap. Changes are easily made. In fact, good user experience design relies on an iterative process involving different team members as well as feedback from the end users.

Wireframe in visio

Getting the team on one page

Early paper prototyping also helps with internal communication and productivity.

• Designers are able to quickly mock-up the visual identity and enhance the user experience without wasting time thinking about data, page flow, and business scenarios.
• Content providers can easily visualize the placement and space for their copy.
• Developers may use the prototype to give more accurate estimates for development time and to raise potential flags in terms of feasibility or performance.

During the development phase, the wireframes serve as a quick reference and reduce the chances of misinterpreting functional requirements.

Last but not least, wireframes facilitate early usability testing, which will reveal potential issues with page flow, layout, nomenclature, or functionality. As discussed previously on Agile Usability Testing, this can be done very quickly at low cost and will provide valuable insight into the users’ minds.