At work right now and don’t have time to sit and write a blog post/analysis, but wanted to document these two screenshots:

Banner on Facebook Home screen on sign in (Dec 22, 2011):

Facebook Ads Landing Page for users (Dec 22, 2011):

In getting ready for two new team members to join our team of 3+Director, I’ve been thinking about our team processes and wanted to share some of them for feedback.  (Anyone else using agile for website development? i.e. not app/software development?)

The notes below are based on conversation with the Manager of our Software Development Team, which has its own daily stand ups and wall, and a great article by Martin Fowler.

Background

We are a team of a developer, designer, architect (sitemaps & wireframes) & a director.  Architect is doing double duty as team manager.  Two developers joining the team.  We don’t do project by project stand ups or “walls”, but instead have team-wide/all-projects stand ups and a single wall managed through Zendesk.  We currently meet on Monday afternoon for an hour, followed by Wednesday & Friday for 15 minutes.

Walk the Board, Round Robin & Y/T/O

After reading the various methods of structuring the stand up, we are going to go with Walk the Board followed by a Round Robin to clean up/catch loose ends that aren’t on the board (and get them onto the board)! Currently, we go person to person and say what we’re working on, and what’s holding us up. Starting in the new year, we will go top to bottom in our virtual wall, doing “Yesterday/Today/Obstacles” for each item that is different than the last time it spoke.  Then we will draw business cards for who goes first and ask them if there are any Yesterday/Today/Obstacles that haven’t yet been discussed, and then go clockwise around the group repeating Y/T/O for everyone.

Outcome: Focus on priorities (rather than individual staff reports to the leader); No (prioritized) ticket gets left behind!

No Discussion in Stand Up

We often only talk to each other during our stand ups, or conversation gets pent up because we only meet every other day.  No problem solving in stand ups as this kills energy. Instead identify opportunities for problem solving or improvement and make a plan for outside of the Stand Up.

Outcome: Higher energy, faster stand ups. Encourage collaboration/problem solving outside of stand ups throughout the day, rather than turning back to our computers.

Daily Meetings

Our priorities and tickets change constantly.  We will meet every day to stay in sync on what’s done/not done and changing priorities. Also help each other/address obstacles more quickly (vs meeting every other day).

Outcome: Better synchronization on what’s important; Less hold up on obstacles.

Facilitator Takes Notes

An identified facilitator will take notes and summarize in an email to the team after each stand up.

Outcome: Obstacles & commitments are documented.

Let the Stories Talk

Because we will Walk the Board, each story will talk (Y/T/O presented by whoever last touched the ticket).  For unassigned tickets, the team manager will talk because they handle each ticket upon arrival and are the last person to touch it (until it is pulled by a team member).

Outcome: Focus on priorities (rather than individual staff reports to the leader); No (prioritized) ticket gets left behind!

Start the Day

We will move our meetings to 10:30am.  (Core hours are 10am til 3:30pm).

Outcome: Better synchronization on what’s important; Less hold up on obstacles.

Huddle

We will stand close and speak up!

Outcome: More energy, better communication!

Stand Up

We will meet away from our desks and we will stand up!

Outcome: More energy, keep stand ups timely and focused.

15 minutes

We will be under 15 minutes!

Outcome: More energy, keep stand ups timely and focused.

Separate Stand Up from Web Planning

Our Monday meeting is a 1 hour planning/priorities communication meeting. This isn’t a stand up! Add a meeting on Mondays at 10:30am that is a stand up.

Outcome: More energy, keep stand ups timely and focused; Less hold up on obstacles (by meeting quickly & efficiently daily).

Signal Phrase

We will end the meeting every day with the same phrase. This will be fun, it will enforce tradition/ritual and it will end the meeting.

Outcome: More energy, create ritual.

Publish the Results

The facilitator will email the notes from the stand up to the team immediately after each stand up. Notes can be taken directly into an email on a phone, laptop or tablet – no extra work. Device can be passed to a colleague when the facilitator is speaking, or the facilitator can add notes on his/her sections after the fact.

Outcome: Obstacles & commitments are documented. Formalizes the meeting. Stand ups aren’t just pointless/talk.

Rotate the Facilitator

A team can benefit from an established facilitator if they are experienced with Agile/Stand Ups.  Otherwise, it can lead to Report to the Leader, which works against creating a team that manages itself and team accountability.

Outcome: More energy; Focus on priorities (rather than individual staff reports to the leader).

Our New Stand Up

1. All Hands Gather at 10:30am Every Day
2. Walk the Board (Y/T/O for each ticket)
3. Round Robin (Draw cards, then clockwise, Y/T/O)
4. Catch Phrase!

I’ve been a huge Involver.com fan since my days as a Facebook application “developer” – they do amazing applications that seem to rise above the rest in terms of stability and thought to business/marketing needs. My love of Involver has blinded me to the flood of similar companies and product lines that are on the market: Buddy Media, North Social and PinPoint Social to name a few.

We recently worked with PinPoint on a promotion designed to increase fans on a new Facebook Page. I haven’t been closely involved with the project and haven’t seen the backend of PinPoint’s software, but I’m fairly impressed with the frontend experience.

Step 1: Get people to the contest tab on the Facebook Page

Landing Tab

Step 2: Like the Facebook Page

Note the helpful text in the form fields …

Step 3: Complete the form

Loving the form validation cues – this is on my wish list for forms on our websites at work. If only there were trees that grew time …

Step 4: Post on Profile(s)

Glad to see this included. It’s surprising how opportunities like this get skipped once apps go into build and little things start to give when the reality of execution sinks in and deadlines get closer …

Step 4a

I thought this message could have been a little less generic. I’m guessing the backend offers the opportunity to customize this, but we didn’t take the time or didn’t realize it? Something generic like this is going to be written off as a scam by most people. Also – the downside to any iPad contest that leverages Twitter – is the flood of iPad sales pitches that hit users as soon as they tweet the word “iPad.” We’re all in agreement that automated tweets/@mentions based on keyword searches are evil – right?

And that’s that. Step 5 (take me to a strategic URL) was missing. After I completed my submission, I was taken back to the bottom of the contest screen and all I could see was black. At minimum, I should have been scrolled to the top of the screen so that I saw the confirmation message. Preferrably I would have been taken to the Page’s “Welcome” or next call to action tab.

All in all, a nice experience. Pricing and info available at http://pinpointsocial.com/ – a great looking website. Monthly pricing model – similar to all of the social profile app companies out there – darn it.

A social media savvy co-worker sent me a link to Anderson Cooper’s Facebook page today – take a look at the display image!

Part of a series of posts sharing my notes from Podcamp Toronto 2011 …

Was really looking forward to this panel of awesome women in (social media) marketing, and it definitely lived up to and blew away my expectations!

The Holiday 2010 project of cleaning all my hard drives and syncing my iTunes library across three computers and two iOS devices has come to a close – or as much of a close as any tech project reaches.

This method will create a new tab on your Facebook Page displaying the YouTube videos of your choice – these can be from your own YouTube account, or from others.