Eventyr

Responding to Change

(I'm not really making a point here, but wanted to note the thought down anyway.)

Driven home to me this week has been the shortcomings of informatics in academia. 

It is all about insularity.

From one side, as discussed this week at the HCT Seminar by Ann Light, is that the common debates we may have (such as the ramifications of RFID tags or smart houses for the elderly) never seem to reach everyday people. 

In reverse, new advances elsewhere are not taken up in teaching, as was realised when we found ourselves explaining the concept of Test Driven Development to the third-year undergraduate I am co-supervising.  Why is this not taught?  Or even mentioned?    (In the same vein, why has he used waterfall in three projects, yet never heard of agile...)

Ho hum. 

Project Management Notes

"When you work in IT, you deal with the consensual hallucination of Project Management. There is an almost universal belief that it is possible to predict ahead of time how long a project will take, how much it will cost and what will happen along the way. In the broadest sense, this is possible. If you have enough experience you can come up with ballpark figures; last time we did something similar it took this long and cost this much.  But some people believe Project Management should tell you these things down to the day and the dollar. A project plan should tell you every task that needs to be completed. A project plan should be flawless and leave nothing to chance. And a project plan should be completed before ANY work is done on the project."

The Myth of Project Management

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"Although they are often unappreciated by those around them, they are critical to making software development happen.  The best project managers are often the most inconspicuous since things happen so smoothly when they are involved."

Positive Activities:

1. Manage Customer Expectations
2. Develop a Rapport with the Customer
3. Understand Where the Project Really Is
4. Increase Visibility
5. Speak the Developer’s Language
6. Know How to Say No

6 Signs of Good Software Project Managers (via Tom)

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The key terms above also fit with arguments over the role of project management in Agile, where the commonly asked question is `Does Agile Dispense with Project Managers?' since they are not expected to 'run' projects:

"Agile methodologies do away with many of the tasks by which Project Managers formerly measured their own performance: they are no longer required to manage the triple constraints of cost, schedule, and scope.  Product Owners and Development Teams are now accountable for these activities. 
So, traditionally trained project managers experiencing the shift to Agile are often confused as to what their new roles and responsibilities should be in an environment that no longer requires them to make stand-alone decisions."

The positive activities detailed above really come into force here.

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To Manage Agile Projects you need to consider the following suggested practices:

• Emphasizing leadership, not management
• Tackling visibility and reporting
• Prioritizing requirements based on business value
• Making collaboration a first-order process
• Implementing true test-driven development

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People are still needed (pdf) to:

• Manage the Boundary
• Manage Team Membership
• Manage Risks
• Be a Team Champion

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There exists A Project Manager's Survival Guide to Going Agile which may provide a useful resource when I get the chance to read it.

Scary Things in IT

12. Application Development:
"Talk about the trip down the proverbial rabbit hole. Mostly you get to deal with people who prefer machines to people and can’t understand why people don’t behave like machines. What’s amazing is that the line to get into the rabbit hole gets longer every day."

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT

Missing Out

I'm sad.  A badly timed 'bout of cold (kindly donated by my god-daughter) means I am missing what looks set to be a very fun night at XtC.  Not only will it be busy, with very interesting attendees, but I am missing an opportunity to play with dice.  Pff.

Nothing will stop me from being there next week though.

The Social Network Benefit

"By analyzing patent citations, they were able to show that companies can benefit from a reverse flow of knowledge that results when an engineer or other technical expert moves on. Why? Because, according to Rosenkopf, there are social networks that transcend companies and allow the employees left behind to gain access to the knowledge being generated at their colleague's new place of business. She is not talking about corporate spying, but rather the flow of ideas and information among professionals who work in the same field. Their findings, she concludes, "call into question the conventional wisdom that losing employees means losing knowledge."

Other studies have looked at the opposite phenomenon—"inbound mobility"—documenting the transfer of knowledge that comes with hiring. When people are viewed strictly as "human capital," the departure of an employee results in the former employer's loss of that person's intellect and talent, and the corresponding gain of those same valuable attributes for the company doing the hiring. "The belief has been that if you lose an employee, that's a bad thing for you," Rosenkopf says. Even common lingo—that a company is losing a worker to another firm—implies that there is nothing good that could possibly result.

But Rosenkopf says the picture is different when employees are viewed in terms of "social capital." Workers aren't just silos of knowledge and skill unto themselves, but rather are part of social networks of workers from various firms who talk about what's going on in their field. Those networks may involve formal arrangements, such as strategic alliances, but they may also be informal, involving professional conferences, e-mail exchanges, common blog sites or even after-hours socializing."

The Social Network Benefit

Interesting concept realignment.  'Losing staff' may be a benefit not a loss after all... 

The emphasis on the value of social networking is inherent to this: "In other words, whom you know does matter. On a lower level, inner-office networks play a role in how information flows around a company. The corporate organization chart tells only so much. Who chats with whom around the office and whom people go to for advice also matter."

Clifford Geertz

"The next necessary thing...is neither the construction of a universal Esperanto-like culture...nor the invention of some vast technology of human management. It is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet contained in a world where tumbled as they are into endless connection, it is increasingly difficult to get out of each other's way."

Clifford Geertz 1926-2006

We’re not unreasonable

Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Things have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

- Re Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton

Past will be Present

Now my mind set may vary but here I still lay
Don't know how I got here or think I care to stay
The past will be present if I dare to forget
I've got two feet in the future but its not here yet
[...]
This life is here to stay, and you can't take my pride away
I was born in to this life, and these are the cards I'm dealt

Regular Guy - Dropkick Murphys

Lights in the Sky

Interesting year this year at Lewes, but was overwhelmed by desires to leave the crowds behind.

Managed to time it to see the Southover speech pre-march, where the emphasis was once more on issues around religious persecution.  It was only slightly marred by someone's mobile starting to ring with that ringtone. 

"I'm in a parade" I expected someone to shout.

The crowds were less this year, but the police presence was restrictive - we ended up stuck in a zone, behind crash barriers, packed in like sardines but unable to leave.

It was good to see the familiar banners; `we burn to remember' and `always rivalled seldom equalled' still having a soft spot in my heart.

It was far nicer however to leave Lewes behind and park up on the golf course with views across the valleys, Hollingbury, Patcham, Brighton, Moulescombe and Coldean, and watch all the little lights springing up across the city.   

Bring Cowpat

There is something wrong with sending a text that says: "Reminder: Possession tonight. Bring cowpat."

I like the little bits of randomness in my life.