James and I are co-teaching a tutorial at IEEE RE’13 in Rio on how to Implement Visual Models for Software Requirements Immediately.

We are super excited about the attendees – they are from all over the world, they come from industry and academia, and they are all incredibly knowledgeable about requirements. And, they are all really engaged in this requirements class – lots of fantastic questions and sharing of their own stories! It’s neat to see that people in different countries and cultures can use the fundamentals of visual requirements in similar ways.

Now, an interesting point about logistics. Because we are in Brazil and didn’t want to pack giant sticky pages and they don’t have whiteboards (in fact they have chalk boards in our room!), we are using cling-on whiteboard sheets for the activities. Basically think of thin sheets of paper that cling to the walls using static and act as whiteboards. Then we use sticky notes and markers on those to create models for practice.  We DID bring our poker chips along though – so attendees can accumulate points by participating towards an end-of-day prize. They love them! There is some serious (and fun) competition going on here….and learning I do believe.

Meanwhile, down the hall, there are loads of other workshops and tutorials going on in the same building. However, we are by far the most interactive and visual of them. We have put some of our diagrams and sticky notes in the halls on the walls for others to see as they come by. And well…. we are drawing a crowd!!