ProjectConnections.com GuidelineAgile Technique: Information Radiators

INTRODUCTION: Agile Technique Guideline – Information Radiators
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What This Is
This technique describes an approach used by many agile teams to communicate information about a project called the “Information Radiator.” Alistair Cockburn coined the term in 2000 to describe publicly posted displays that show anyone walking by what is going on. Information Radiators are sometimes referred to as Big Visible Charts. This technique briefs provides some suggestions for using Information Radiators on your project.
Why It’s Useful
Information Radiators are useful quite simply because they provide an effective way to communicate project status, issues, or metrics without a great deal of effort from the team. The premise is that these displays make critical, changing information about a project accessible to anyone with enough ambition to walk over to the team area and take a look.
Information Radiators are also good ways to remind the team of critical items, such as issues that need to be addressed, items on which the team is currently working, key models for the system on which they are working, and the status of testing.
Depending on the type of information tracked on the Information Radiators, these displays can also help the team to identify problems early. This is especially true if the team is tracking key metrics about their performance where trends in the information will indicate something is out of whack for the team. This type of information includes passing and failing tests, completed functionality, and task progress.
How to Use It
1.As a team, determine what information would be very helpful to see plastered on a wall in plain sight. The need for an Information Radiator may be identified at the very beginning of a project, or as a result of feedback generated during a retrospective. Ideally, it will communicate information that needs to go to a broad audience, changes on a regular basis, and is relevant for the team.
2.Decide not only what you want to show, but the best way to convey it. There are a variety of methods to choose from, including a whiteboard and markers, sticky notes, pins, dots, or a combination of all of the above. Anything goes, as long as it is not dependant on a computer and some fancy graphics software. (Unless of course you are working with a distributed team; see suggestions for that situation below.)
3.Grab the necessary tools and get to work, but don’t forget to have a little fun with the creation process. Remember to make the Information Radiator easy to read, understand, and update. You want this to be a useful, living display of information, so don’t paint yourself into a corner at the beginning.
4.Remember to update the information radiator when the information changes. If you are using it to track tasks, you may change it several times a day. If you are using it to track delivery of features, it may be updated once a week or every two weeks.
5.Check in with the team regularly to find out if the Information Radiator is up to date and still useful. Find out if people outside the team are using it to gather information about the team’s progress without causing an interruption. Find out if there are possible improvements, or if the information radiator is no longer needed. Whatever feedback you receive, act on it.

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Agile Technique Guideline: Information Radiators

USING INFORMATION RADIATORS IN DIFFERENT TEAM SITUATIONS

If you have a group of people sitting together working on the same project, chances are information radiators will be very helpful for that team. They may actually start appearing on their own as people identify information that it would be helpful to share with others.

One of the more powerful aspects of information radiators is that you can’t help but to look at them if you are anywhere near the team area. This makes them effective for communicating information on a regular basis.

For distributed teams, regular communication is even more important, and more difficult. Unfortunately, if you are working with a distributed team, big charts on the wall will probably not be as effective. Of course, if portions of a larger team are collocated, those sub-teams can certainly use information radiators for information relevant to those smaller teams.

Alternatives for a Distributed Team

The good news is that there are some alternative means of communicating information across distance, though they aren’t nearly as radiating. The most effective mechanisms come as a variety of internet based collaboration tools.

For example, a committee that I am on which is responsible for planning a major annual conference utilizes Basecamp ( to share task lists, session descriptions, timelines, and other information. I have also used Google Groups ( to collaborate on writing articles and on other projects with a great deal of success.

The key with the use of any of these mechanisms is that you have to use the mechanism and keep the content fresh and relevant. You also need to consider whether you want the ability to notify the team when updates are made, and how. Do you email the entire team, provide an RSS feed, just rely on people to look, or allow each team member to choose?

WHAT TO RECORD AND TRACK IN AN INFORMATION RADIATOR

Progress

One common use of an information radiator is to track the completion of project tasks. This is often accomplished by tacking index cards on a corkboard, or using sticky notes on a whiteboard. Each card represents a task, and the board is dividing into sections such as Not Started, In Process, Done, and potentially others. As long as all of the team members do a good job of keeping the board updated, questions about the status of particular tasks no longer get asked. And if they do, team members can politely tell the questioner to “check the board.”

So how many tasks do you put up on the information radiator in this case? If you are building Work Breakdown Structures and defining detailed tasks for the entire project, should you put them all up on the board? NO!!! One of the concepts core to agile approaches to project planning is that the team does detailed planning only one iteration at a time. Agile teams avoid detailed planning at the beginning of the project in lieu of high-level planning followed by several, much more detailed planning discussions at the beginning of each iteration. Because of this approach, those teams generally fill the Information Radiator with tasks relating only to the current iteration. In addition to this they may keep a separate Information Radiator showing the planned completion time of specific features—or perhaps a spreadsheet if it is not as important for this information to be constantly visible.

Project Issues

Tracking project issues can often be accomplished in the same fashion as tracking project status. In this case, the team records each Project Issue or Test Issue on an index card and tracks progress toward resolving it based on its position on the board. The states used could be something like Identified, Investigating, Solution Identified, Testing, and Issue Resolved.

WHAT TO RECORD AND TRACK IN AN INFORMATION RADIATOR (Cont.)

Key Project Metrics

Many agile teams use Information Radiators to track their overall progress toward delivering features. The approach used for this is often called the Burndown Chart (or the Burnup Chart, depending on which direction people like to see their lines go). The quantity of features completed—which means done, i.e. running, tested, and ready for production—are measured on the Y axis of a chart, against time on the X axis. Features completed are usually measured in whatever metric is used to size the overall list of features; often this is a concept called "story points." Time is usually measured in terms of iterations.

If the team is doing a Burndown Chart, they start the chart showing the number of features slated for completion in the project or release, whatever the scope of the chart is. Then as features are completed, or new features are identified and added, the line moves accordingly. The Burndown Chart is especially helpful for showing the team not only what features they have completed, but also what features have been added to their list.

Displaying Key Project Models

I have often walked through the work areas of teams working on data warehouses and seen their walls littered with data models. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all devoted adherents to all the idea of Information Radiators. It is probably more likely that they posted the data models on the walls because they are too darn big to put on 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper. Plus we all have probably had experience with how flexible database administrators are with respect to their data models.

Truth be told, models are a good candidate for Information Radiators. These models will often initially be created during meetings with the customers in an attempt to understand the problem, view it from different angles, and then start discussing possible solutions. Keeping these models around the team room will help establish a common means of talking about the domain in which they are working, and leaving them hand drawn will encourage changes and improvement to the model when conversations uncover new information and better approaches. This is another one of the subtle side effects of this technique. Once something is committed to paper using something other than a writing utensil or index cards, it creates a subconscious impression that it set and cannot be changed. Often, that's not the case.

If you keep models as information radiators, you will probably not want to keep them around forever. At some point, they will either become so out of date (because it stopped seeming helpful to update them) or so messy that they're no longer any use. This may be an indication that it is time to commit the model to computer; especially if it provides critical information supporting continued maintenance of the system.

TIPS AND GUIDELINES FOR SUCCESSFUL USE

Draw and Update Information Radiators by Hand

There are several advantages to creating Information Radiators by hand as opposed to electronically. Hand drawing the charts can take less time both for initial creation and update going forward. More importantly, the hand drawn charts have a less sterile and more communication-rich feel to them. This is an aspect that is difficult to convey without experiencing it, but teams I have been on that have used Information Radiators pay more attention to and feel more ownership of information on handwritten charts.

Make Sure the Information Changes

If you are not planning on updating the information on a regular basis, do not waste time or wall space on an Information Radiator. Broadcasting outdated information, especially information that is expected to change frequently, is worse than not communicating at all.

The frequency for changes in this information varies, depending on the nature of the information displayed. If you are using it to track tasks, you may change it several times a day. If you are using it to track delivery of features, it may be updated once a week or every two weeks.

Use Information Radiators in Meetings

If you are using an Information Radiator to track status and/or issues, you've created an ideal location for holding Standup Meetings. (See the Agile Technique Guideline on Standup Meetings on our site.) The use of an Information Radiator can help the team keep the meetings focused and make them even quicker, plus it provides a visual aid that increases the richness and effectiveness of the communication.

Examples of Information Radiators

STATUS RADIATORS

Here is an example of using an information radiator to track Status.

The blue sticky notes are the features.

The index cards are stories associated with the features.

The purple sticky notes are tasks associated with the story that is In Process.

Note that we only have tasks on the board for the story being done in the current iteration.

See the next page for an example Burndown Chart.

Examples of Information Radiators, cont.

BURNDOWN CHARTS

Here is an example of a Burndown Chart.

Note that in iteration three, the line doesn't go down much. That's because a 13-point story was added. A red dot indicates where progress should have been had the story not been added. Some teams like to note those things on the chart.

See the next page for an example Data Model Chart.

Examples of Information Radiators, cont.

DATA MODEL RADIATORS

Here is an example of using an information radiator for a model. This particular example is of a Conceptual Data Model established during initial discussions with business to understand their domain.

WHAT ABOUT STATUS REPORTING TO PMOs AND EXECUTIVES?

You may really like the idea of using an Information Radiator, but what about all the requirements to provide status reporting to the PMO and the executive team? Do you have to do double work now? These are certainly things that you will have to consider when deciding whether or not to use Information Radiators. In an ideal world, all of the information that you are expected to report to the PMO and executives would be of great interest and use for the project team. You could post this information on the Information Radiator and then invite the PMO and execs to stop by the project room at their leisure and be assured of always getting an updated picture of the team's progress.

But experience has shown that the world is not necessarily ideal. In some cases, the information the PMO and execs want to see is not of great use to the project team (in which case you probably are justified in asking why it is needed). Or the information may be considered too confidential to be publicly broadcast; people do tend to get a little protective when dollar signs are involved. In either case, you were required to report this information in a specific format anyway, so it's not really extra work. In other cases, you may find that the information is relevant to both the project team and executives, but the executives don’t want or are unable to stop by on a whim. In that case you will need to weigh the extra effort of producing the information on the wall and on paper when deciding whether to produce the Information Radiator. One thing to consider when making that decision: would the team members find the information as useful in the format that you provide to executives, or would you have to reformat it anyway?

This same thought process applies to the work you typically when tracking progress on Gantt charts and task status. In this case though, you need to consider the true purpose of these activities. At the end of the day, you want to know how your project is progressing, what risks exist, and where help is needed to make the project successful. If your team is tracking progress on the wall instead of in Microsoft Project, does it really matter? The key thing is that you know the exact status of the project at a glance. In this sense, Information Radiators serve to strip all of the unnecessary ceremony away and focus on communicating the important information.

REFERENCES

You may be interested in reviewing these sites, for further information and explanations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kent J. McDonald, partner and co-founder of Accelinnova, has more than a decade of experience guiding successful projects and designing business solutions in a variety of industries, including financial services, health insurance, performance marketing, human services, non-profit, and automotive. By addressing common questions about project leadership, Kent demonstrates how agile practices can be applied in organizations, focusing on his "Words To Lead By: Collaborate; Iterate; Serve The Team; Consider Context; Practice Excellence; Reflect And Adapt; Deliver Value."

Kent has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from IowaStateUniversity and an MBA from KentStateUniversity. He is co-founder, and Treasurer of the Agile Project Leadership Network, is a founder of the Agile Iowa Group, and is on the planning committee for the Agile 2007 Conference. He welcomes questions about project leadership with a focus on value at .

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