+1 to this ;) Goood goood cool aid. Eric Ries' "The Lean Startup" is an important read - - everything I've read about this subject seems important! We tried to bake as much of this way of thinking/working into the Smithsonian web strategy as people could tolerate, and an agile methodology is baked into the Smithsonian commons project charter (http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Smithsonian+Commons+Project+Charter)
The trick now is getting our organizations to recognize this way of working as a legitimate (better!) way of perusing the mission/results/outcomes than monolithic RFP's and multi-year design/build contracts - - and to get good at it. I've talked to quite a few vendors who are uncomfortable doing lean/agile projects with GLAM's because they feel that we (the clients) aren't very good at it yet and we can't get decision makers to make decisions/commitments as quickly as the process demands. In addition to Bruce and others, Dana Mitroff Silvers at SFMOMA has been doing great work transitioning towards lean/agile and has a lot of wisdom on the subject. (At Dana's recommendation I did the Certified Scum Master training and it was great - - life changing! - - and affordable. http://www.scrumalliance.org/scrum_certification ) -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bruce Wyman Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 5:18 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Lean Startup advocates? I'm a huge fan of Eric's writing and his general approach was reflected in a bunch of the original work that we did in Denver Art Museum's galleries. I'd recommend him to anyone in a heartbeat that's trying to figure out how to make some change and is frustrated by your institution's process. Hell, even if you're not, it's still a good read. When I first joined DAM in 2004, before the expansion opened, we chose an early exhibit about the construction of the expansion to start trying out a slew of interface ideas and pieces of tech. There were maybe a half-dozen interactive bits that tested out RFID, tangible interfaces, oversized projections, and interactions that embedded visitors in the experience. They were all relatively simple in execution and we treated the exhibit as the testbed for more complex tech elements that we would develop later and, more importantly, how our visitors would interact with the ideas that we were proposing. Everything we did later --- experience, additional software, and complexity --- all iterated on those early tests and we constantly refined what we were doing based on what we were learning. I ran the tech department as a startup in the museum and publicly described it as such to the rest of the senior staff, trustees, and outside advisors. It was very much ingrained into my thinking and we frequently did most of our work on a shoestring budget and with only 1-2 people. It meant that we were able to do a fair bit of work that couldn't be done elsewhere at a much lower price point in the end. We had to build internal tolerance for iterating on projects and creating awareness that an opening wasn't a finish line, but instead just another milestone in the longer-term view that we had of tech in the museum. I am a huge fan of just getting stuff out into the public. We can discuss and prototype ideas ad nauseum but seeing how visitors interact with something over the course of a few days will tell you far more than all the anticipatory discussion and wondering will do. You just need to be prepared to iterate, accept that all of your original assumptions about the experience could be wrong, and, perhaps most importantly, be prepared to quickly capitalize on opportunities you might see in how people interact. > Nate Solas <mailto:nate.solas at walkerart.org> July 20, 2012 1:43 PM > Anyone out there implementing (or wanting to) advice from Eric Ries's > book The Lean Startup? It's been vigorously recommended to me and at a > glance some of the ideas are pretty appealing. Especially a fan of > testing before committing to big projects / changes, etc... > > Article from Wired last month: > http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/07/features/the-upstart?p > age=all > > Just curious if anyone's drunk the kool-aid? Tips / ideas / warnings? > Happy > Friday! > Nate > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum > Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bruce Wyman bwyman at teufelkind.net
