Educating Programmers with Placemats - NDepend Static Analysis Poster
Stuart Celarier works here at Corillian (a division of CheckFree) and is not only a Senior Engineer, but a "Placemat Visualization Expert." Just kidding, but handouts are just one of the things that we believe makes an effective presentation.
Presentation Rule: When possible and appropriate, ALWAYS offer a handout. Folks can read faster than you can speak.
Stuart has taken a lot of what makes up our architecture at Corillian and started creating 11x17 Visualizations in the form of what I've been calling Placemats. They're the kind of thing that could teach you all about our design, then you could eat on it. :)
He hangs these mini-posters up all over the company, along with pens, and encourages folks to scribble on them. Someone who knows more than we will walk by, notice a mistake or whatever, and fix it. He's on version 28 of some of these posters - It's 
Collective Knowledge with an Open Source-style, disseminated in mini-poster form. Anyone can propose a patch, just by scribbling on the poster. Stuart then comes around and collects the changes. So much cleaner than "Reply To All" or even SharePoint. Perhaps not as profound as the most famous visualization: Napoleon's March, but we try.
HOW TO SPREAD THE GOOD WOOD: Get the word about whatever you're interested in getting the word out about. When possible, make posters. Hang them everywhere. Let them soak in. Let folks scribble on them for a few months. Laminate them. Make T-Shirts. Rinse, Repeat.
We're huge fans of NDepend over at Corillian, and working with it more each day. I've done a Podcast on Static Analysis with NDepend and written up a pretty long article about NDepend and what it can bring to software development at your shop. We're just scratching the surface.
In order to get the word out about NDepend (which is a pretty complex thing, especially the underlying Comp.Sci. concepts around software complexity) Stuart created this NDepend Metrics Placemat, suitable for printing at 11x17.
If you're at TechEd, go see our colleague Patrick Cauldwell along with Stuart "Celery Stew" Celarier at the NDepend Birds of a Feather at TechEd. They'll be passing out high-quality color prints of this poster. The BOF is at lunch, so bring food:
BOF09: Exiting the Zone of Pain: Static Analysis with NDepend, scheduled for Tuesday, June 5, 2007 at 12:00 PM, in Room S331 A. We'll be discussing how and why to use static analysis tools like NDepend. I'm especially interested in hearing not just how people use tools like NDepend, but who uses them (in their organization) and how often.
Here's the PDF for your download, use and abuse. Thanks to Patrick Smacchia, creator of NDepend for his help and review:
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Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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It would be awesome if you did a DNRTV with NDepend. I've played with it, but it seems that to get value out of it, you have to climb a steep learning curve. A visual would be very useful.
Regards
@Wade-o/frizzo - Good idea. I'll look into making a screencast. Do also check out the (no voice) screencasts at ndepend.com. Also take a look at Lattix, a similar tool.
Link-Back: http://jb-brown.blogspot.com/2007/06/dinning-on-your-education.html
Is that a spelling error, cuz I hate spelling mistakes. ;-P
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I haven't checked out NDepend yet, so I could be missing something, but I think the placemat is interchanging LCOM with LOCM (or vice versa).