On Rabbits, Space and Cards: Moving Towards an Informative Workspace Johanna Hunt Future Platforms Ltd Brighton, UK joh.hunt@futureplatforms.com Tom Hume Future Platforms Ltd Brighton, UK tom.hume@futureplatforms.com Devi Lozdan Future Platforms Ltd Brighton, UK devi.lozdan@futureplatforms.com Abstract This paper addresses the initial experiences of a UK- based software development company while introducing the three elements of the ‘Informative Workspace’: open-plan working areas, extreme feedback devices and big visible charts / information radiators. Our experiences leave us convinced that visibility is vital, but a key element to suc- cessfully enabling an informative workspace was arguably missing in our case: control and ownership of the environ- ment. In our case, the open plan work area contributed to the lack of ownership over the space, and lack of clarity led to a failure of an index card tracking system. 1. Introduction The second edition of Extreme Programming Ex- plained [1] introduced a new core practice known as ‘In- formative Workspaces’. This practice is centred around the concept that a workspace should be informative about the working practice of the team. This is achieved through three main activities: Open-plan working areas, Feedback De- vices and Big Visible Charts / Information Radiators. To- gether these practices lead to a working space which is in- formative and helpful. Future Platforms Ltd. is a small mobile software de- velopment company based in Brighton in the UK. We are a team of specialists focussing on the design and devel- opment of mobile services. At the time of writing, the core team comprised five developers, a project manager, a lead designer and a client services director. The company mostly runs small projects lasting from a couple of weeks to a few months, and takes an iterative approach for larger projects. The company aims to take on many of the prin- ciples and values behind agile development, emphasising customer and team communication, and uses practices such as stand-ups, retrospectives, continuous integration, and so on. This paper presents our initial experiences when intro- ducing and incorporating Feedback Devices and Big Visible Charts into our existing open-plan office workspace. It pro- poses that our lack of ownership over the space may have led to failure in adoption of a charting system, when com- bined with a lack of clarity about approach. The story is explained through quotes from the people involved, gath- ered from a series of qualitative interviews. 2. Open Plan Working Space Our current work environment is already open-plan and modern, a lovely converted loft space in central Brighton, UK. The office space is located at the entrance of the top floor of the building. The space is light, airy and very open plan. We share the loft space with two small graphic design companies. “I love the space we are in. ... I quite also like the fact that there are other companies in there. It’s nice actually . ... I think the vibe you get out of having designers-types in there is quite a nice vibe to have.” There is a small kitchen area near the entrance and a group meeting area (See Figure 1) at the other end. These are shared by all the people working in the space. Because both ends of the office are shared by everyone in the loft space there is an awareness of a lack of privacy - especially for meetings in the group meeting area. AGILE 2007 0-7695-2872-4/07 $25.00 © 2007