UPDATE: I wanted to note that I am not endorsing SCRUM as the end-all-beat-all process for software development. I just wanted to illustrate that I like the “chicken and pig” story. SCRUM does has it’s downside as I clarify down below in the comments. No process is as productive as conversation which is something that SCRUM tries to minimize and mitigate.

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately into agile project development process. I found it interesting that while at opus:creative (Opus Creative Group), on one major project of mine, I was actually utilizing SCRUM as an active process. I had adapted into this process naturally based upon the constraints of the particular project. Essentially it boiled down that the client needed to see a working model each week in order to publish the build internally. Typical Opus process wouldn’t have allowed this and so I adapted. Come to find out: it was an agile development process called: SCRUM.

In my research into agile/SCRUM, I found the delineation of roles to be superb and comically accurate. There are only two types of roles in SCRUM: Pigs and Chickens. Pigs (such a Nine Inch Nails term!) are the developers, IA, UX, designers etc… while Chicken are account executives, strategists, project managers. Why would they possibly be named this? Here’s why:

A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed but you’d only be involved.”

Scrum was developed to cut out overhead on large software projects. Essentially, the issue of developers that would come into presentations with no deliverable completed because of communication meetings with uninvolved personnel (account executives, project managers etc.). Scrum removes the Chickens from the equation by allowing them into the development cycle ONLY at the end of the sprint. If they require additional information, they can look -themselves- at the backlog document which is updated organically, daily, but the Chicken can’t influence the sprint until the end of the week cycle.

Brilliant.

This puppy has nothing to do with the article except that she's sleeping with a pig. Photo by J.

I’ve neglected updating Stonethorn simply because I wanted to take the time to return to blogging sufficiently. In order to do this it warranted some rethinking of how to return. Creatively occupying my mind while keeping up on syndication technologies is the main goal of the site with keeping friends and enemies apprised of my actions and events being the secondary. The main problem was that for the first five months back in Portland my mind was occupied with integrating into the agency lifestyle and process. Then after that I was just so busy I couldn’t devote time to updating.

So, I’m going to start blogging again and I’m going to start by answering the question that plagues my inbox from everyone: what exactly is it that I do now? I’ve intentionally not answered these emails because I wanted to give a full complete answer. People know I’m busy, but they also know I’m not designing anything, I’m not programming code, I’m not working with IT infrastructures, nor photography. So what the hell am I doing and what is this ambiguous Project Manager thing? Well, I intend to clarify that.

Also I’ll be posting a mad cap ton of things I’ve written this past year that never got posted.

Last week I had a phone interview with the senior Project Managers, Estelle and Ethan, as an introduction and from that preliminary session they decided they wanted to meet me in the flesh and scheduled a physical interview for Wednesday morning.

Prior to my phone interview I spent a measure of time perusing their website and to say I was impressed is an understatement. Many agencies that I have viewed (including some of the largest and most prodigious ones with reputations that proceed via layman word-of-mouth) are rather lackluster, letting their clients success speak to the level of their creativity and ingenuity the agency has at arsenal, rather than actually showcasing themselves what their strengths are. Opus’ website was another beast altogether, employing some of the more progressive examples of how information can flow utilizing RSS and push technologies, database and dynamically driven Flash instead of simple creative Flash works and static pages. Upon seeing this site I became invigorated to talk with them about their future implementation plans for things like Ruby on Rails etc. While the technology was evident in the construction and deployment of their site, it gave amazing step-by-step examples of how projects started and ended. Print works, design, branding and collateral were all explored and detailed and not just projects that were years old, but current projects (displaying that they did not abandon projects). My synergy towards the interactive comes because at Kimber the projects were all print originating and the interactive and web came as a secondary heel; a necessary-evil in the mind of the marketing there. So to see a company that understands the future and how the two (print and interactive) are more a marriage than a sibling relationship was exciting.

My interview went very well and I felt I was able to portray both sides of my personality, both the fun self-deprecating side and the professional side. The team leaders all were memorable and stood out as distinct assets with their own expertise, ideally showcasing to me that this company was truly, A Team.

As I left I was told that a decision would come on Friday regarding a placement candidate. I drove back to my apartment and started packing; then I took a moment to email each one of the team members a personalized message (since they all so conveniently gave me business cards) and relay again how enthused I would be to be a part of what I saw there.

It worked. I’m now a Project Manager in training for them!

Instead of hearing on Friday about the position, I was told Thursday morning that they wanted me. YAY!