p&p Team Space

Today, I only have time for a short note.  Rather than do anything technical, I figured I let people in on what is going on in p&p.

A while back, Darrell Snow mentioned the new team-oriented collaboration space that the patterns & practices team was building.  Well, it is just about done, and we will be moving in within a week (if all goes according to plan).  I'll see if I can either post or link to a few pictures in the near future. 

We are all looking forward to using the new space, which has a few interesing features: 5 team areas that can be closed off or opened up to one another, floor to ceiling whiteboards and whiteboard glass walls, and small lounge areas for privatge conversations or phone calls.  While the p&p developers are giving up offices and a bit of privacy (and I knew this when I joined the team) we believe that having a team of developers, testers, project managers, and other folks working in the same space on the same project can really help communication and productivity.  A large part of the Agile community believes in this concept as well (lots of XP and Scrum practicioners recommend collocated teams whenever possible.)  Personally, it took a bit for me to warm up to the idea, but now I would not want to do a project any other way.