Magic Milestones

I don’t expect to get conspiracy from bit10’s financial advisor (or to be interested in what he says at all to be honest) but robbie turned out to be both amusing *and* interesting.  This is a substantial achievement for someone with actuarial roots!

Some stories…

Aparently some big shots once demanded reasons why their pension pay-outs had been cut and wanted the answer.  Two of them sat there whilst robbie told ‘em the facts.  “You both draw huge pensions and there simply aren’t the funds.  So the only way to make your pay-outs go up is for one of you to die”.  Excellent.  Bet they both checked under their cars for a few months after that!

But the most interesting conversation with Robbie was that about the demographic of the UK - a hot topic right now but interesting for so many other reasons. 

Apparently, in the year 2020, 40% of the population will be pensioners.  This will cause a cataastrophe for the government in terms of pension funds and probably for others too.  Robbie points out more depressing facts and by the end of it I feel that I should probably kill myself now to do society a favour.  One less mouth to feed when I retire in 2044 (if I’m lucky!) .  But no! It gets worse. 

Robbie tells of the “doomsday situation”.  This is when they discover a cure for cancer and people stop dying.  There are now no more funds to look after these whithered 90 year olds who used to do “cool stuff on the webbymethingy”.  Oh woe is me and my doomed generation.

But no… it gets worse!  What if they already have found the cure for cancer and they aren’t letting on because of the afore mentioned doomsday affect!

Oh the ethical web we weave!

So what did this conversation do for my political persuassion?  Well, I once thought the welfare state was good for one’s health but after an hour with Robbie - I wasn’t so sure.  I’m seeing logan’s run in my mind’s eye and suddenly it ain’t bizarre fiction.

What could go wrong if bit10 went “agile”?

This was a workshop where we brainstormed common experiences of trying to implement agile methods…

Common issues for development

1. Developers who don’t wish to communicate as much as Agile demands
2. Developers who don’t like pair programming
3. Developers who don’t know how to test
4. Testers who don’t have automated tools
5. Senior developers who don’t want to change because they know best and they are good at what they do so why change?
6. Difficulties with test driven development - reluctance/ not understanding
7. Developers who amend code (behind the scenes) when this isn’t good for the team as a whole
8. Developers who don’t like stand up meetings

Common issues for customers

1. Not having time to devote to the project
2. Not being skilled in testing
3. Wanting everything in the first iteration
4. Customers who don’t have the real decision making power
5. Customers who test the version before it’s ready
6. Customers who don’t appreciate code that isn’t 100% ready
7. Too many customers
8. Who is the customer?

Common issues in culture and management

1. Some teams don’t want to be “self-managing” they want to be told what to do
2. Some project managers don’t know how to plan under agile
3. Any change is painful
4. People’s roles change
5. If the company values aren’t about communication then Agile won’t work
6. Visibility for senior managers

Tips

1. Link progress to something visible like a pie chart in excel
2. Create user stories for technical aspects such as backward compatibility as well as other user requirements
3. Use “information radiators” like whitboards etc
4. Take things slow, adopt Scrum first then XP practices
5. Let senior people help you implement Agile
6. Gain customer buy-in and they become an ambassador for your project