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A "whiteboard warrior" is someone
who uses
inclusive tools, such as
whiteboards or paper, to do software modeling.
On a whiteboard you may create a sketch to explore an
architectural idea, to
model storm with a
project stakeholder to
understand a requirement, or to explain your
design to a teammate. Using index cards
you may write
user stories or create a
CRC model to explore an object design.
Using paper and sticky notes you may create an
abstract UI prototype to explore the
requirements for a screen or report. If
you're doing these sorts of things then you're a
"whiteboard warrior". Sure, I could have
called you an "Index Card Warrior" or a "Sticky
Note Warrior" but those names just don't have
the same ring to it. |
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My experience is
that the vast majority of modeling within the IT
community is actually performed using inclusive
tools. Unfortunately, we rarely seem to
talk about it and as a result I suspect it
hampers our ability to learn from one another. This has to change.
As a result, I've decided to put together the
"Whiteboard Warrior Program" which I invite you to
join.
The Whiteboard Warrior Program
This program is very straightforward. All I'm
asking you to do is to share your
experiences on software development projects using
inclusive tools such as whiteboard or paper to model.
Just write it up and publish it in a publicly available
place, such as a web page, a blog, a Wiki page, or a
magazine article. Hopefully your article will
include some sort of snapshot of your model(s), you can
see examples of doing exactly that all over this site
(see
Software Modeling on PoWs), so that others can see
examples of how "real work" is being done with fairly
simple tools. Then, once it's publicly available
let us know on the
Agile Modeling Mailing List so we can hopefully pick
up some good ideas from you. Why would you want to do
this you might ask? Two reasons. First, you
get the right to put the Whiteboard Warrior logo (see
below) on your article, home page, or wherever you think
is appropriate. Hopefully you'll link back to
this page from the logo so that others truly
appreciate the honor and glory of being a whiteboard
warrior.
Second, you can share your stories
with the rest of the world. As Martha Stewart
would say, this is a good thing. Many developers
believe that if they're not using a
sophisticated CASE tool that they aren't modeling.
This is a real shame because it can prevent them from
taking advantage of simpler tools to think problems
through to communicate their ideas to others. I
believe that by sharing our stories we'll help people to
grow their modeling skills, thus making them more
productive as IT professionals.
Whiteboard Warrior Stories
TBD
I actively work with clients around the world to
improve their information technology (IT) practices as
both a mentor/coach and trainer. A full
description of what I do, and how to contact me, can be
found here.
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