Food Fight 2011 Kick Off Meeting

1. Food Fight 2011 Kick Off Meeting

2. Agenda • Background – summary of FF2010 • New for FF2011 • WikiSpace • New planning strategy – Scrum • What is Scrum • How Scrum Works • Documenting Scrum • Begin Planning • Story Writing Workshop

3. Summary - Food Fight 2010 • Success! • All VIP judge tickets were sold • Raffle was profitable • Total profits ~$800 • Winner: Chef Kristine from the Laurrapin Grill • After Action review elicited numerous ideas for next year (listed in Back Up Slides)

4. New for 2011 • Creation of a WikiSpace • Free, public website • Easy to edit and upload content • Benefits: • All event info will be in one place • For planning committee and for interested attendees • Gives the event more authenticity • Wider, easier, and cheaper distribution of information • Location: http://aauw-food-fight.wikispaces.com/ • Become a member for editing privileges

5. Planning for 2011 – Scrum • What is Scrum? • Name derived from a rugby play in which team members restart play in a huddle with heads down and arms interlocked • An Agile (adaptive) methodology used for the planning and organization of projects • Enables a team to self-organize, track progress, and prioritize tasks while keeping the entire process transparent to all involved parties • Goal: reduce uncertainty and risk

6. How Scrum Works (informally) • Initial Session: Writing Stories • A story represents a functionality desired by a user for a certain purpose • Written in the form: “As a user I want a functionality to attain value.” • Example: As an organizer I want to have 4 committed chefs so that that if one backs out we still have 3. • Stories should be specific and attainable, items for which we can define being done • Counter-Example: As an attendee I want the event to be fun so I don’t feel like I wasted my time & money. [no way to define tasks that would lead to completion of the story or judge our success] • As many stories are written as can be thought of in a reasonable amount of time

7. How Scrum Works (cont) • Initial Session: Estimation • Humans are much better at relative estimation than absolute estimation • Use “Story Points” to estimate the size/difficulty of a story • Story Points are a unit-less estimate of the size and complexity of a piece of work • The value is the relative quantity of points among various stories (i.e. a story worth 20 points would be twice as much work as a story estimated at 10 points) • Story Points and estimation contribute to the team’s velocity, their rate of progress

8. How Scrum Works (cont) • Initial Session: Prioritization • Prioritize stories based on their importance and on their chronological dependencies • Can be done informally through group consensus • Can group stories into common themes in order to prioritize themes and then the stories within them • Initial Session: Planning a Sprint • Sprint: A period of time in which the team has committed to completing specifically selected stories • Typical duration: 30 days or fewer • During a sprint, only the selected tasks are worked on: no stories are added or removed from the overall backlog • The team’s velocity is the sum of the story points completed during that sprint

9. How Scrum Works (cont) • Scrum Iterations: Sprints • After each sprint the team regroups to discuss progress, problems, etc • New stories may be proposed based on changing need • The next sprint is planned based on the velocity of the previous sprint and the estimation/prioritization of the remaining stories

10. Documenting Scrum • Product Backlog • Contains all stories that have been generated • Includes the estimate and priority level • Record of planning and completion of stories in each sprint and the velocity achieved

11. Documenting Scrum • Product Backlog Burn Down Chart • A visual display of progress as stories are completed in each sprint

12. Documenting Scrum • Sprint Backlog • Contains all stories for the sprint, broken into tasks • Owner is assigned for accountability • Can track progress by hours of work remaining (probably not applicable to us) • Status marked as incomplete or complete as necessary

13. Begin Planning • Questions? • Proceed with Story Writing Workshop • Write as many stories as we think of • Use index cards • Estimate Story Points • Prioritize • Organize Sprint 1 • Documents will be transcribed and available on the WikiSpace

14. Back Up: AAR Comments • Plan date so it does not interfere with end of year school activities or holiday weekends • Contact Harford Cable Network –they could televise and provide a large screen so observers can see cooking in progress • Clearly mark the plates of each chef to ensure accurate judging • Provide copies of the menus of each chef’s restaurant –more advertising and something to read in down time • AAUW branded swag bags –menus, program, snack

15. AAR Comments con’t • Snacks: healthier or none at all, water and sugar free drinks • Have participation certificates for each chef made in advance • Specify in communications to chefs that they must provide their own plates • Use last year’s pictures in advertising –send to the Aegis • Get AAUW volunteers as day-of helpers • Make sure that solicited chefs are from restaurants that do catering so they have the equipment needed: • MaGirks, Dark Horse, Beech Tree

16. AAR Comments con’t • Pricing: cheaper for kids or family rate • Invite food editors/critics from the Aegis • Contact WJZ for radio advertisement • Limit the number of personal guests a chef can bring • Laptop for totaling scores in excel –efficiency and speed • Scoring was well-organized, numbered by judge and chef • 2010 sponsors: BJs, Shoprite, Safeway, Mars • Ask non-food oriented businesses for sponsorship • Chef bios – more effective to sit down with them and write it based on “dictation”