Agility

Every new system we build is by definition new, therefore not clearly defined, therefore subject to change.

During many years trying to develop massive princely systems, I always believed there was a more agile way.

From the agile manifesto, my personal top five:
1. Released development is the measure of progress.
2. Welcome changing requirements - even late in development.
3. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
4. Promote sustainable development - should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
5. Simplicity - minimizing the amount of work done.

And to prove this is the right approach - wherever a group is relatively free from red tape, as in some business units who happen to be independent of formal IT, this is how we develop.

Saving Daylight Time

I was going to write about this in a couple of days, I've mentioned the subject before, but I'm so happy with what happened last night that I'm writing now.

The clocks went forward last night. Or was it this morning? Anyway, it's fantastic news. Thanks to the genius who suggested this idea, we now get a whole extra hour of daylight. Everybody loves daylight. So nobody has anything to complain about.

In fact, why lose the hour again in October? Why don't they just move the clocks forward again in preparation for Winter. Then we'd save daylight in Winter too. And next March, we can save another hour by moving forward again. Just keep this up for a few years, and we'd have twenty four hours of daylight every day. How cool would that be?

Painting the Forth Bridge

I have crossed the legendary Forth bridge, and I know of the story:

So much steel is involved in the 1.5-mile long rail bridge over the Firth of Forth that, the legend goes, by the time the painters finish, they need to start over again at the other end.

But I was always skeptical of that ... that would mean nothing large can ever be completely painted. Which is rubbish. If you want something finished earlier, you usually just need more money or more effort thrown at it.

In fact, for a large static structure, it seems to make perfect sense to employ just the right number of workers so that the rate of paint application is equal to the rate of paint degradation. Any more workers, and the "burn rate" is higher than it needs to be.

However, according to the Reuters news report, Balfour Beatty has been paid 74 million pounds to complete the job by 2012. You thought your house painters charged a lot. The job started in 2002, and the new coating lasts 20 years. So in 2022 the whole thing starts again. And the legend lives on.

Productivity, Sex, Kids

OK, time to get accusations of sexism and anti-family bias. Yesterday's headline from the British Psychology Digest had the simple headline:

Childless Women Are The Most Productive

While you pause on that headline, also take into account that there were broadly four groups being compared:
- Women with school-age children
- Women without school-age children
- Men with school-age children
- Men without school-age children

The article was peer-reviewed research in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour. Abstract here.

The study seems quite explicit that women without school-age children are more productive than those with them. The BPS summary suggests this is due to "domestic responsibilities" though of course it presents this as explanation not as endorsement.

The study also seems explicit that men without school-age children are less productive than those with them. It suggests that this result is explained by the stereotype of "breadwinners", where increased family responsibilities required the men to work longer hours to earn more.

But that last line hints at the misleading nature of the headline. By productivity, the study measured it simply by counting billable hours. More hours worked equals more productivity. Perhaps true for lawyers in Canada, but is that generally true in the workplace?

And another implicit message in the headline. Free of childcare responsibility, women are more "productive" than men?

Common Sense Rules

In complete disregard to rule number 6, time for a current benchmark score. The links are often to the "exceptions that prove the rules".

1. Frequency. 9/10. Well actually it's 146 out of 159, but marks out of ten.

2. Topicality. 6/10. I still think the majority of posts start from new events, but only just. This is relatively a weak area.

3. Length. 8/10. Including labels and titles, so far we have 29168 words in 146 posts, average less than 200 words per day. As even the shortest post is about 80 words, that's pretty consistent.

4. Usability. 9/10. I think this fails where you a forced to follow a link to get the main point of the note. But that has only happened a couple of times.

5. Multimedia. 9/10. I've resisted. If you want music and video, then watch MTV.

6. Common Theme. 8/10. Well a few personal diversions, but generally I think it's been consistent and holistic.

7. Cohesiveness. 8/10. Actually, I've probably gone too far with the internal links. It's become a web not a path.

8. No Advertising. 9/10. I lost a mark for the intrinsic self-promotion. But no other compromises.

9. No Pictures. 8/10. Perhaps this rule should be broken more often. I'm pleased with those that have been inserted, they were small and monochrome, but original drawings take a lot of time.

10. Title. 7/10. We need more silly puns. But I guess that most people don't get them anyway.

That's 81%. I'd love to know if there is any blog anywhere on the planet that would score higher. But then again, I did make up the rules :)

A spire

Yesterday we saw a summary of the blogosphere. Today, the top ten ways that we try to fit within it.

1. Frequency. One post per day, no more, no less.
2. Topicality. The stimulus should have happened within the last 24 hours.
3. Length. About 100-200 words. That's only 3-4 paragraphs of 3-4 lines each.
4. Usability. The whole thing should be able to be skimmed through in a few seconds or analysed carefully for subtexts. Every link should be optional, not an integral part of the post.
5. Multimedia. Those files are big and slow to load. Worse, it tends to run at its own speed, it is harder to skim through or linger over.
6. Subject. There should be a developing theme, not just a random personal opinion.
7. Cohesiveness. Although independent in itself, each post should connect with others in the blog.
8. Advertising. No.
9. Pictures. As with words, should be original, and the minimum needed to get the point across. A small monochrome bitmap will often perform better than a large cluttered one.
10. Title. Include a stupid unnecessary pun.

OK, number 10 was a joke. And of course these are common sense rules, not yours.

Simple Chemistry for blogs

There hasn't been a picture for a while. What there has been is an attempted return to the guiding principles developed at the dawn of blogtime - simplicity, speed, conciseness. But I said recently that I delight in diversity...




... although I just drew this picture, everyone should remember these images from basic school science classes. So let us visualise each blog post as an atom.

A is for Air. These are the random blogs that I may like to read but only if I like the blogger. There are all sorts of subjects mixed together, almost nothing connecting them.

B is for Boron (or any other metal, but that one seems appropriate). This would be a very structured homologous blog. All posts basically cover the same subject area.

C is for Common Sense. Actually it is for any blog like this with lots of very long threads, all twisting and merging and diverging. Those that have more internal cross-links tend to have greater structural strength. This one is definitely less like Polythene and more like Nylon.

D is for DNA. The ideal. Only a couple of threads, but they match together almost perfectly. And the replicating pattern seems to take on a life of its own. See, I told you this blog was holistic :)

Mean Time

I left the last post saying it was ridiculous to give everyone stress and jetlag twice a year, but left it fairly equivocal on when we should we fix our zone - in October or in March.

However, generally lights are on for longer in the evening than the morning. On average we surely spend more waking hours before work than after work. It's the same for entertainment - the afternoon kickoffs today will all need expensive floodlights next week. So in terms of energy usage and carbon footprints and global warming and best aligning daylight with peaks in human activity, we should keep brighter evenings.

Some people in the highlands say it wouldn't get light until 9 am there in midwinter - well do they all really prefer it to get dark every day at 3 pm? Anyway, they can have their own time zone if they really want one, but whatever they choose is not going to increase their daylight. Obviously.

So finally, I have no great prejudice either way so long as it is fixed as soon as possible. But as a positive suggestion, the UK should stay on BST all year - call it British Standard Time and leave it there.

Saving Time

It's that time of the year, so (for once I hope) a very predictable post.

The "clocks" are going back this weekend. By the "clocks" I mean every single thing that reports time in your home, your car, your office, your train station, your airport, your radio and TV broadcasters. Today there may be clocks on your central heating system, your cooker, your fridge, your radio, your DVD player - you know the list, a few may reset automatically, but don't forget the spare watch in the bedroom drawer.

Only an idiot thinks we gain daylight by doing this. On top of the time wasted to change clocks, clearly whatever you save in the morning you lose exactly the same amount in the evening. Obviously. Everyone knows that. Except idiots.

The time taken to change clocks (and timetables) is a non-productive drain on society. Perhaps it was only a minor inconvenience when every home had just one clock in the hall that needed to be regularly synchronised with BBC chimes anyway. Today it is lunacy.

Changing time is a significant cost for every local business, and it is an enormous cost for every global business. Jet-lag is a real drain too. We force the whole country to endure an hour's jet-lag twice a year. Ridiculous.

Some people prefer brighter mornings. Some people prefer brighter afternoons. Don't try to justify clocking with bullshit about getting closer to nature. The cockerel doesn't suddenly decide to crow sixty minutes earlier. Cows don't realise when it's GMT and trudge down for milking accordingly. Crops ripen according to the sun, not the clock.

I would prefer to stay on BST. Others would prefer to stay on GMT. But, as often stated, this is a blog for common sense and not for personal preference. We can adjust to either time zone. Just leave the damn thing alone.

22.5 minutes

I love the BBC. I love sport. But when it comes to football, I can't stand the commentary on five live. It is true that one particular BBC commentator makes me green with rage and I turn off the radio whenever he is on. But this is a blog for common sense, not for personal dislike.

The BBC is constantly under cost pressure. They have claimed they cannot bid for sporting events because they do not have enough money. They are relocating to cheaper offices. They are making staff redundant. So why, unlike virtually every other radio station on the planet, do they feel that they must switch commentators halfway through a half? I'm not talking about the co-commentator, the guy who provides a foil for the main speaker throughout the game. I'm talking about the crazy switch that happens 23 minutes into the action.

It is ridiculous. Don't pretend that "it's radio so they need to talk more than TV guys, what if one guy loses his voice, there are no commercial breaks during a half, what if one guy gets eaten by an alien" ... other radio stations across the world manage fine. And if you've listened across the world, other commentators talk much much more than BBC ones.

But the thing that takes this scenario from wasteful (of which there are plenty of examples everywhere) to downright ridiculous (hence this note) is that adding the extra costs actually provides a worse service. While listening to a game, changing the main voice breaks up the flow. It spoils the game. A ninety minute football match is not a five day test match, one professional should be able to manage it.

By losing the second commentator, they would reduce costs and also provide a better listening experience. It's win-win. It's common sense.

Trusted Tellers

At least anecdotally, everybody in the western world has heard of the phenomenon of the "phantom withdrawal". It is when you get your monthly bank statement and then see an ATM transaction that you cannot recall.

In a similar manner to the credit card issue mentioned yesterday, it is not easy to prove your innocence. If your own experience does not tie in with the results of the statistical correlation algorithms used by the bank to detect unusual activity, then it is your word against theirs again.

If the banks can be bothered to investigate, they might spend time and money looking to see if there is CCTV footage. But even if you can prove it was not you, they will say it is an "accomplice".

The process could easily be easily fixed. As customers, we would only need to agree that only pre-specified people could make withdrawals with each card. Then scan a finger or hand or face with every withdrawal. It would be very expensive to scan and verify and record this centrally in real time with every transaction, it would be very cheap to just store it locally as an audit record. It would eliminate the phantom withdrawal. But it is still not in the banks' interest.

Set in stone

Finally time for another little picture. I travelled into central London on the tube at the weekend. Except for rush hour, it's a fairly rapid and pleasant way to cross the city. We pass a station where one line to the west splits into two lines to the east. I used to live there. There are three platforms at the station.

When travelling west to east you need to be sure that you get the right route. People on the platform don't know quickly which branch the train will take. We all know on-platform monitors are sometimes inoperative, then you need to read the little note on the front of the train to work out where it's going or hope for an intelligible station announcement.

And going east to west, it's a crazy random game. There can be two trains about to head in exactly the same direction, down the same track, but whichever one you settle in, you "know" the other one is going to depart first.

The whole line was closed for months recently. They should have rebuilt the station. I'm not presuming more space. You would still have three platforms. You would still have exactly the same lines going in and exactly the same lines going out. But issues above all sorted. Easy.

DB

If you are reading this, then you are using a computer, then you are accessing a computer database.

Most people do not "visualise" the route from the keyboard to a physical space on a real disk when they do a search - they just hope to see a symbol on the screen that represents what they are looking for, then expect to click through to what they really want.

But I'm an architect. Sadly, I have not designed bridges or skyscrapers since college days. But I have designed databases. And while the search cursor flashes, I still picture magnetic heads scouring across disk space.

Database principles are not complicated, but data can be stored in many different ways at varying levels of redundancy with various indexing strategies. There are eternal struggles between ease of input and ease of access. Yet ultimately it is just like guiding a little micro-man on a journey around the information store.

Sorry lorry tax attacks

I guess my previous post was not obvious enough. There is only so much explanation you can do in about a hundred words. But even the little clarification in the comment didn't seem to clear it up.

What I learned in economics class was that road taxes should contribute to not only the cost of resurfacing but also towards external costs such as pollution, congestion, noise, and in general any external disruption to those affected by the road.

And comparing lorries with cars, even if we assume that the relative weight on the tarmac is ten to one, the relative weight of knock-on disruption is much more than ten to one.

How often does a shed load from a car close off the entire motorway? How often does a jack-knifed car close all three lanes? There is a certain amount of revenue to be collected, there are arguments for raising or lowering that. But to reflect disruption effects, proportionately the lorry drivers should pay more. Car drivers and other taxpayers should pay proportionately less.

So I do not agree that we'd all end up paying more. It's just redistribution of society's charges to more accurately reflect society's costs.

If it's still unclear, then I can always bring in some maths ;)

Re-source

We are struggling with resource issues. Every project manager needs to juggle people, money, and time.

I've been there before. I've been on projects where the shortage of skilled people meant that the whole team had to work until ten every night. And every weekend. I've been on projects where the physical shortage of equipment (basically just PCs and desks within a secure environment) meant that the entire project had to operate in shifts, some people starting before sunrise and handing over to the second batch in the afternoon. I've worked all night to meet deadlines.

But that was with previous clients, those were big infrastructure projects, the teams were large, and everybody seemed to be fully in it together. The whole team worked those stupid hours. Teams split up. Times change. Demographics change. Interests change. Remuneration changes. So it doesn't happen any more.

But the budgets and deadlines just keep coming.

Jake Bullett, part two

A while ago I compared being a manager with being a traffic light. The analogy remains valid, a good traffic light should help you to go where you need to go with minimal disruption.

But I do not like traffic lights. To be more precise, I do not like the fascist implementation of traffic lights currently prevalent in the UK.

Except at peak time, they slow traffic and cause congestion, they do not relieve it. If you come to a junction and there is no-one there, why shouldn't you cross it? If you wait, traffic just stacks up behind you.

I hope this blog is never only a complaint, there should always be a positive suggestion. Every light-regulated junction should be more like the flashing yellows in the US - of course you must be careful, at some points you may have priority, at others you may need to pause briefly to enforce a look around. But if there is no-one crossing, then surely it is better to move on rather than let traffic stack up behind you.

It's hard to be objective about this. My wife got a hefty fine and a quarter of her driving license was removed because she did not wait unnecessarily at an empty crossing. A few months later, perhaps overconcerned about this, she braked hard at another traffic light where it would have safe to continue, and a heavy 4x4 ploughed into the back of her. Unfair? Dangerous? Criminal?

This is not an advert

Despite what my wife thinks, I do not watch much television. But after dinner almost every weekday evening, I will sit down and wind down in front of the set for an hour or two. And I always have something interesting to watch.

We had the full cable package for a while. Hundreds of channels. But the old cliché felt true - there was so much choice but it was all rubbish. You could never find exactly what you wanted. And when you've just plonked down on the sofa, do you really want to get up again and go ploughing through stacks of video cassettes or DVDs? And even if you could find something to watch on one of the more obscure channels, the programme would have already started or be so littered with advertisements that watching would become a chore.

I am not here to recommend specific products, but a Freeview hard disk recorder really does change your life, well your TV viewing life anyway. You do not need Sky+ or V+. Integrated boxes from Humax or Sagem cost barely more than a basic Freeview receiver. Flick through the weekly schedule, tag things that look good, a few will be. Watch what you want, when you want.

Never hire another DVD for the rest of your life. Never sit through another television advertisement for the rest of your life.

No wonder the marketing industry is worried.

This is a mad way to leave

My company exists, in the words of its own slogan, to help companies change to be even more successful. It is what I do.

I was working in a leased building, an old factory recently converted to offices. The advice that I gave inside that building must remain confidential - the client paid for it! But I also gave them some advice outside the building, and it is far too obvious to be confidential.

On leaving the car park, security insisted that we drive all the way around the building to exit. Presumably they blindly followed the dictum that one way streets are safer than two way streets. But driving round the back, you were forced to drive through a giant lorry park and right past the entrance to a very busy warehouse. This immediately struck me as madness. I wrote to the building supervisor with a diagram proposing a new route out, and a couple of weeks later new markings and signs went up instructing traffic to go exactly as I had suggested.

Is it only a few odd people who always look to make things better? Who knows how long workers had put up with a ridiculous system simply because "that is just the way things are"?