[Discussion] web sprint

[Robert Carter]

Our web site is good and I had people comment on this on sunday - "you  
have a really good site". But it lacks a couple of things, principally  
picture galleries. What do you think of the idea of having a sprint to  
get some of the rough edges tidied up. For those of you who don't know  
what a sprint is: You start with a few clearly defined objectives, you  
set a time limit, you agree on who will participate.

These people take roles, eg content person, admin person, graphics  
person, people to make coffee etc. Everyone meets up with any required  
computer equipment in a place with internet access (tanglespace). And  
it's a race to complete all the objectives in the given time frame. If  
you finish before time, you add extra features to use the allocated  
time and when this is done competitively (with several teams) these  
count for bonus points.

I like this idea because: People only have to commit to a specific  
amount of time and then they go home and don't have to think about it  
any more. People all together in the same place gives a good sense of  
cohesion and fun and makes it less like work, it also helps  
communication. The time limit prevents endless discussion about  
technical details and focuses people on getting stuff done.

This approach has been successfully used by some nice open source  
projects like Adam Hyde's FLOSS manuals.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/

What do you guys think?

Rob


Work blog:
http://createrevolutionaryart.tumblr.com
Home page:
http://mintmedia.co.nz

rob at mintmedia.co.nz
Phone +64 9 623 4303
Cell +64 21 42 11 29