Method Arts | A Consortium

The Sprint

By Mark Bixby // Feb 5, 2007 // Creative // 12 Comments // Permalink Mark Bixby's Mug Shot

$11M over budget, and five years late? Um...

In 2000, TCS America, a US subsidiary of India based Tata Consulting Services was contracted by the State of New Mexico to build an unemployment insurance benefits website - to offset bottlenecking in the Department of Labor’s phone system and office locations. The site needed to provide useful resources, answer questions and allow users to apply for benefits. Their current site (originally contracted for $3.6 M, and due by 2002) left us wondering what had gone wrong.

“Let’s just build it!”

No one can remember who exactly to blame, er… credit for that statement, but it wasn’t long before we’d defined a challenge for ourselves. We had a couple organizational meetings, assembled a great team, and on Sunday Jan 28, 2007 a group of 10 designers and developers came together in an office for 12 hours to see what we could come up with. The goal? Concept, design, code and perhaps even launch a website that exceeds the requirements and capabilities of the current site.

Good stuff takes time.

There’s a process and a workflow involved in web development. It was challenging, and at points comical, working through our improvised “simultaneous development strategy”. We knew before we ever started this wouldn’t end up a shining example of what’s possible working together, with modern technologies and practices. That’s simply not going to happen in one 12 hour day. This exercise was about the journey.

Why’d we do it?

Our motivation was not to win a contract (Method Arts is not interested in that piece of work). And it certainly wasn’t to make anyone at the State look foolish. We wanted to illustrate some of the opportunities that had perhaps been overlooked on this project, such as user experience, valid CSS/HTML, web standards, accessibility, technologies and frameworks like AJAX and Ruby on Rails. Also, we wanted to highlight some of the capabilities of our collaborative working model, and that companies need not go to Bangalore to find great talent.

So what did we accomplish, and what did we learn?

Well… (taking a deep breath) we: developed user personas, outlined ”deconstructed wire-frames”, created a site map, developed visual wire-frames, designed page templates, wrote working CSS/HTML markup, wrote part of a custom CMS using Ruby on Rails, created a secure login, user registration, and an AJAXy questionnaire (for weekly filing) that dynamically determines the next question, and simultaneously logs everything into a database (that we designed).

A few highlights - Developer Andrew Hedges got a crash course in Ruby on Rails from Programmer Daniel Lyons. And CSS guru Brian Warren got to try out and implement sIFR 3, although we didn’t use it in our finished templates (in the interest of keeping things simple and lightweight). That’s all going to come in handy on future projects!

Some design changes.

In the end it was a marvelous day. Experts working together solving problems, feeding off each others’ energy, learning… We’ll discuss as a group where to go from here. Perhaps we’ll finish the site and launch it as a demo. Or perhaps we’ll find another opportunity for a similar exercise, where we can afford more time, and maybe even create a website for a charitable cause.

Regardless, it seems we all got what we needed out of the day, and are looking forward to the next Method Arts Sprint. Hear the team wrap up HERE!

UPDATE!

Some Linkage:
An immidiate reaction in Daniel’s Post
An account from Reid Givens’ Post
A great reaction in the comments over at The Duke City Fix
A long week relived in Andrew’s Post
Another P.O.V. over on Brian’s Post

Dev Team...

Vincent Thome - Project Coordinator
Mark Bixby - Creative Director
Brian Warren - Web Developer (CSS/HTML, PHP, Javascript)
Andrew Hedges - Programmer, Manager (JavaScript, AJAX, JSON, PHP, MySQL)
Daniel Lyons - Lead Programmer (Ruby on Rails)
Lance Sanchez - Programmer (Ruby on Rails)
Kelly Patrick Robinson - Web Developer (CSS/HTML, PHP)
Reid Givens - Designer/Developer, Audio Engineer
Joshua Sallach - Film Director, Video Production
Christopher Anderton - Video Production

Special Thanks.

We want to thank Mudhouse Creative for offering up their offices on a Sunday. Thanks also to Chama River Brewing Company for hosting our rather noisy after-sprint party.

Wow, sounds like an awesome time! 12 hours of insanity. Fun, educational, and enlightening I'm sure, but you guys are crazy. Aren't most of you from different areas though? Did you just fly into the same location to pull this off?

This kind of stuff would be great to be a part of! And if you need ideas for charitable causes, I could probably come up with a couple non-profits that could benefit
Philip - added to the collective on Feb 20, 2007
Amazing work Mark. Unfortunately state and even federal governments sometimes aren't very selective about who they offer/ select proposals from. I worked for a company once that was only staying afloat due to a large government contract that they were moving incredibly slow on. The whole process of 'winning' these projects never seems very transparent.
Rob Goodlatte - felt the overwhelming need to share this with everyone on Mar 14, 2007
UNbelievable. I had quickly skimmed over this post and project when you posted it, but when you told me about it at SXSW I couldn't believe my ears -- $11 million over budget?! Five years overdue?! Those facts alone are worth wide-eyed amazement, but that you guys tackled the problem and nailed a solution in less than a day ... revolutionary.

(I think Philip is onto a great idea there.)
Sean S - felt the overwhelming need to share this with everyone on Mar 14, 2007
Looks really nice. Were you able to develop all of those items... wireframes, templates, sitemaps, etc. all within 12 hours? If so... impressive. I can't wait to see the final product.
Zach Katkin - had this incredible stroke of brilliance on Apr 7, 2007
Zach, we got pretty far, but not to completion. We did do all the wireframes, templates and sitemaps, but actual implementation of the site was maybe 80%.
- had this incredible stroke of brilliance on Jun 25, 2007
Thats really a good budget for a website! Its always these 3 components: time, budget and quality. If they work well together, work is fun!
Andrew - added to the collective on Jul 23, 2007
I also can't believe you did all that in just 12 hours. It would take me at least 10 days. I like your concept, especially the color combination!
Andy - couldn’t keep them to themselves on on Aug 9, 2007
Its shocking the amount of money being wasted by idiots running the things these day!
dean - felt the overwhelming need to share this with everyone on Sep 23, 2007
I like your concept..
- started this rumor on Dec 24, 2007
great post thank you very much.
i realy like what your saying here.
keep up doing these great posts.
i love your blog.
השכרת מקרנים - couldn’t keep them to themselves on on Jul 10, 2008
I'm still in awe ... 12 hours and all that accomplished? I have done things under time pressure before - but never in such a tight timeframe. Wonderful work, I'd love to see it when it goes out.
online fx trading - had this incredible stroke of brilliance on Jul 11, 2008
Being a former TCS employee, I would say that the company does have many many loopholes..!
Algonquin Real Estate - shared this intimate secret on Jul 15, 2008

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Method Arts - A Consortium