I’ve had a great day at XPday2005. My presentation (making more money with agile software development) went down very well. I’m smiling as I type this because someone came up to me after the presentation and very kindly said that it was one of the best presentations she’d ever seen! It was really nice to hear those kind words Sonia. :) Another said it was very good. Marko, even more kindly, pointed out that I made the audience defensive early in the presentation when I said “The traditional way of building software simply does not work”. ( A couple of the audience disagreed with me, and they made good points – we are all using software in our lives, so we can’t be doing that bad as an industry). We talked about the slide and I’ve decided to remove it entirely and jump into the NHS story. Positive feedback is really nice, but negative feedback – given constructively – is harder to give and even more useful. So,Thanks Marco!
[If you saw my presentation then please send me feedback – good, bad, even neutral – I have spent many hours preparing and honing it, but I really need feedback about what worked and what didn’t so that I can continue to improve it]
I had a pint of sponsored guiness after the sessions and then returned to the hotel for a bite to eat. I’m not socialising tonight because I feel tired (and I miss my laptop). I didn’t sleep so well last night, which is always the case before a big day when I don’t want to be tired. Still, the pre-talk nerves that kept me awake also sent me for a quick visit to the toilet just before my talk where I discovered that my fly was down. Thanks last minute nerves!
Tim Lister, co-author of the wonderful Waltzing with Bears fame, was the keynote speaker.
- He talked about fish, dead fish actually, and how lots of software projects were like dead fish: you just know from the smell cominng off them that they were going to die.
- He said that he’s been consulting for so long now that he can tell by watching a project team at work for a few hours whether they are gong to fail or succeed. I believe that.
- On estimating … he quoted his father – a mathmatician – who, when asked to review Tim’s mathmatical analysis in a paper he was writing of estimated versus actual performance , said that the shocking gap and lack of correlation between estimates and actuals indicated that “these people have no right to estimate more than the season”.
Following Tim’s session was mine, then I missed the next session in favour of a head-clearing walk, then I joined Tim Lister’s masterclass for the afternoon where he talked about Risk Management. You might think this would be dull, but it was magic. He covered a lot of material from Waltzing with Bears but he’s a really interesting speaker and he added a lot of lovely stories that emphasised his points perfectly. A fascinating 3 hours.
- My favourite story was about his sister and brother in law who wanted to build a pool in the back of their house and so they asked for quotes. The first two contractors gave quotes, but the third refused to give a fixed price quote. “How can I?”, he asked. “How can I give you a fixed price quote when I have no idea what’s under the grass? It might be a nice easy dig, or I might find rock. Who knows?”. “If I give you a fixed price then one of us won’t get a fair deal – either I’ll over or under charge you.” – Sound familiar software people?
“Howabout for a small fixed fee I drill holes in the ground where you want the pool and that way I’ll find out what it’s like. then I can give you a fair quote?”
- Here’s a cool new word for you: abulia. Sound familiar.
- Tim said that incremental delivery is one of the best risk managment approaches in software development. But, we already knew that didn’t we!
Tom Gilb, popped by to say hello, which was great. He’s a bit of a hero of mine – having written one of the best software books ever: Principles of Software Engineering Management. His new book – Competitive enginnering – was published earlier this year and he had rushed over to give me a pdf copy. He said that he’s thrilled to give the pdf away because it’s the culmination of many years work and he wants to share it. I’ll probably buy a copy on paper now that it’s published. I asked Tom why he didn’t pop a copy on his website and he said his publisher doesn’t allow it. He is allowed to distribute it by email though. So, email him – tom at gilb.com – and if you ask nicely then he’ll probably send you a copy.
Finally, don’t eat at the Georgetown Malaysian restuarant in London. I just love malaysian food, but it is in short supply in Scotland. Truth be known, the only reason I married my wife is because she cooks the most wonderful malaysian chicken curry and she wouldn’t tell me the recipe. When I arrived at my hotel last night, I was too late for dinner but I was thrilled to discover that the Georgetown Malaysian restuarant was part of the hotel. The admin staff at vision had unwittingly excelled themselves and I planned to miss lunch at the conference tomorrow and sneak back here and have a nice malaysian lunch (don’t tell anyone). But since I was hungry and tired and hotel bound tonight I decided to have a nice malaysian dinnner. And it sucked. It really sucked. Small portions of blandness just ain’t malaysian food in my book. bummer.
Anyway, off to bed now, … night, night …
