Re: Consultancy company
On or about Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 03:19:04PM +, Robin Szemeti typed: >After our meeting yesterday and some careful consideration by the >management team it turns out you are just too damn dumb. We have worked >with chewing gum brighter than you. We regret to inform you that our shipments of "some of that inter webby stuff", as you requested, have been delayed and are unlikely to be available before the heat death of the universe. However, we can recommend you to one of our partner organisations, No-Reputation Holdings (Holdings) (Cayman Islands) Ltd... R
Re: Consultancy company
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, you wrote: > I would say that part of the sales process should include weeding out > those kinds of clients. If it turns out that there aren't any we can > find with a clue, then the fun begins, but I'd like to think that the > market is large. ;))) Dear Sirs, Thank you for your enquiry requesting our services. After our meeting yesterday and some careful consideration by the management team it turns out you are just too damn dumb. We have worked with chewing gum brighter than you. Please go away. Yours etc, Shall I knock it out as a template .. it could come in handy :)) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, you wrote:
>
> > Heh. But if we're good at our job we can pull them through that.
>
> uhh .. I have on occasion worked with clients that I reckon are the
> exception to that rule ... some of them find lightswitches a
> technically challenging problem.
>
> I reckon the XP thing will work for clueful clients (or non clueful
> clients who can be lent a clue for a short while) however I reckon
> you need another layer of abstraction for totally clueless clients
> .. there is a whole class of clients so clueless (' I just want one
> of those dot-com things') that you probably need another level of
> handholding ... they discuss the artistic and 'feelgood' bits of the
> project in as precise terms as they can and then direct the XP team
> as the customers representative.
>
> A bit like employing an architect to design your new offices ... you
> express your ideas, he produces a cardboard model, you say 'ooh very
> nice make it so' and the architect liases with all the contractors
> .. next time you see the thing is when they hand over the keys.
>
> I know this goes against the XP idea but I really do think some
> clients will not have anywhere near enough clue to work that way ..
> or even the time or inclination to do it. I can see a role of
> 'architect' being needed on occasion.
I would say that part of the sales process should include weeding out
those kinds of clients. If it turns out that there aren't any we can
find with a clue, then the fun begins, but I'd like to think that the
market is large.
--
Piers
Re: Consultancy company
On or about Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 01:09:40PM +, Robin Houston typed: >Did you mean >http://www.webreview.com/archives/broken/2000/04_07_00.shtml >? Yes. Been a while since I looked at that one. R
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Houston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 12:49:45PM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > > http://www.webreview.com/pub/2000/04/07/broken/index.html > > Eh? I get a four-oh-four. > > Did you mean > http://www.webreview.com/archives/broken/2000/04_07_00.shtml I like this one: http://www.waitingforbob.com/index.php/20001130 oooh! h! -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
On Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 12:49:45PM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > http://www.webreview.com/pub/2000/04/07/broken/index.html Eh? I get a four-oh-four. Did you mean http://www.webreview.com/archives/broken/2000/04_07_00.shtml ? .robin. -- "You are bound to be in a state of mental unrest, even turmoil. And of course there can be no inner peace: be proud of it!"
Re: Consultancy company
On or about Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 12:33:44PM +, Robin Szemeti typed:
>there
>is a whole class of clients so clueless (' I just want one of those
>dot-com things') that you probably need another level of handholding ...
>they discuss the artistic and 'feelgood' bits of the project in as
>precise terms as they can and then direct the XP team as the customers
>representative.
http://www.webreview.com/pub/2000/04/07/broken/index.html
Roger
Re: Consultancy company
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, you wrote:
> Heh. But if we're good at our job we can pull them through that.
uhh .. I have on occasion worked with clients that I reckon are the
exception to that rule ... some of them find lightswitches a technically
challenging problem.
I reckon the XP thing will work for clueful clients (or non clueful
clients who can be lent a clue for a short while) however I reckon you
need another layer of abstraction for totally clueless clients .. there
is a whole class of clients so clueless (' I just want one of those
dot-com things') that you probably need another level of handholding ...
they discuss the artistic and 'feelgood' bits of the project in as
precise terms as they can and then direct the XP team as the customers
representative.
A bit like employing an architect to design your new offices ... you
express your ideas, he produces a cardboard model, you say 'ooh very nice
make it so' and the architect liases with all the contractors .. next
time you see the thing is when they hand over the keys.
I know this goes against the XP idea but I really do think some clients
will not have anywhere near enough clue to work that way .. or even the
time or inclination to do it. I can see a role of 'architect' being
needed on occasion.
--
Robin Szemeti
The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
Chris Heathcote <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > on 22/1/01 6:34 pm, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > One of the things that I love about the iterative approach of XP is > > that during the process the client begins to learn exactly what she > > wants, and is taught to express that by the team. The idea is to > > create genuine collaboration. > > and a complete look of horror on the faces of clients when they > realise they just don't have a clue :) Heh. But if we're good at our job we can pull them through that. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
on 22/1/01 6:34 pm, Piers Cawley wrote: > One of the things that I love about the iterative approach of XP is > that during the process the client begins to learn exactly what she > wants, and is taught to express that by the team. The idea is to > create genuine collaboration. and a complete look of horror on the faces of clients when they realise they just don't have a clue :) c. -- every day, computers are making people easier to use http://www.unorthodoxstyles.com
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > > Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day / > > week you have changed something and can show it to the client > > again. This way the client really understands what he really wants. > > wow ... "a client that understands what they want" ... Mr Brocard, > for gods sake WALK to the meeting, DO NOT drive. I have no idea what > you're taking but I want some .. do you get to see little blue spacemen > too ;)) > > nah seriously.. if XP can really achieve this then great .. I hope > it can .. infact I almost believe it can ... a little voice in my > head keeps saying 'please let this be true' .. but sometimes when > people come up with such abstract ideas as 'a client that > understands what they want' I do begin to wonder if its not pushing > it a bit far ;)) One of the things that I love about the iterative approach of XP is that during the process the client begins to learn exactly what she wants, and is taught to express that by the team. The idea is to create genuine collaboration. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Dave Mee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >= Original Message From "James O'Sullivan" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > = > >On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Michael Stevens wrote: > >> On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > >> > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he > >> > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my > >> > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some > >> > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to > >> > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness > >> > > >> I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the > >> issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific > >> you attempt to be. > >> > > >This, in theory, should make the client think whether they really need > >this "small change" or if it can wait until a later date. It also gives > >you some ammo if the client changes their mind as there should be no > >ambiguity. > > > > Apologies if I'm walking in late on this one... > > One of the best solutions I've come accross to this problem is to > take an iterative approach to development. Instead of a three month > deadline, you work towards three one month deadlines. the client > prioritises at each stage what is most important for them, along > with the developers; then you work to the deadline, and slip > functionality (rather than time). Any things that are missing are > then rolled into the next iteration, and again prioritised along > with any new functionality the client feels they need. This is an XP thing. And it is good. Specs change. This is a law of nature. If you plan up front for that to happen then you reduce the cost of change dramatically. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Michael Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:26:18AM +, James O'Sullivan wrote: > > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Michael Stevens wrote: > > > On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > > > > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he > > > > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my > > > > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some > > > > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to > > > > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness > > > > > > > I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the > > > issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific > > > you attempt to be. > > > > > > > All changes no matter how small should be passed through a change control > > process, normally put in place by the project manager assigned to that > > specific job. > > > > A change control document will normally be produced which will detail what > > the client wants, how much it will cost and what the effects are on the > > project timeline. This will need to be read and physically signed off by > > the client before any work is undertaken. > > a) you need to be able to persuade management this is a good idea > > b) you need to get someone writing specs who is actually able to be specific. > And you need to have some way of dealing with a client who will > refuse to pay until you implement something that they say is > contained within the spec, and you don't. Despite the fact you're > both reading the same spec. Keep the specs/stories simple. If the team is unsure of what a story means then they need to go back to the client for clarification, and possibly to have the requirement broken down into simpler bits. As time passes in the project, the client will get better at writing requirements. And we'll get better at estimating how long they'll take to implement. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
"James O'Sullivan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Michael Stevens wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > > > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he > > > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my > > > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some > > > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to > > > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness > > > > > I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the > > issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific > > you attempt to be. > > > > All changes no matter how small should be passed through a change control > process, normally put in place by the project manager assigned to that > specific job. > > A change control document will normally be produced which will detail what > the client wants, how much it will cost and what the effects are on the > project timeline. This will need to be read and physically signed off by > the client before any work is undertaken. > > This, in theory, should make the client think whether they really need > this "small change" or if it can wait until a later date. It also gives > you some ammo if the client changes their mind as there should be no > ambiguity. The XP approach to this goes something like: Client: We want this. Team: Write it on a card. Client: There you go. Team: This will take 'm' days to implement. We have n > m days available in this iteration, do you want this in this iteration. or Team: This will take m days to implement. We have n < m days in this iteration. If this goes in, which ones to we take out? And the client makes the decision. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Mark Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Roger claimed that: > > > This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness > > in customer relations than I've ever seen - and if that firmness were > > present, we wouldn't need XP anyway... > > One of the main problems with full disclosure with the client is that it > can only ever work when you've only got one client. In my job you tend to > be working on more than one project at any given time; I certainly don't > think I'd like to be the one to tell the client 'sorry this is late, but > there was this unexpected problem with some work we were doing for another > client and it took up all our time'. This is a good point. Eventually I'd like to see 'client teams' built on a project by project basis, but this definitely needs a good deal of thought. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
> On or about Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 12:51:59PM -, Robert Shiels typed: > > >Often, when I do something that I consider really easy and spend little > >effort on it, I get lots of really good feedback. Alternatively if I spend > >weeks on a trickey problem, no one says anything. This seems like a similar > >rule. > > That can also be caused by management that has no idea of what's difficult > and what isn't. Believing such feedback leads to flashy sites that don't > work, in my experience. Just another reason for workplace cynicism... Agree totally. But it doesn't harm your career/salary much to look out for these little snippets, work out how to do more of them, and produce one now and again. At a recent client they were trying to get batch ftp to work with a password that has '%' in it (two people had been working on it for two hours). I wasn't expected to know how to do this, but my various buggering about on the internet must be worth something because I remembered to use '%%' [1]. Instantly I'm a guru. People rememered the 30 seconds work, my reputation grew, I got really good feedback to my company. Don't tell them how much I really know :-) /Robert [1] I've googled around, but can't seem to verify this now
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, you wrote: > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Men in black theme - we must all have black suits - dark glasses > > avliable from Macy D's soon, and we can get a clapped out van from BT > > for next to nothing > > Don't forget the welding gear. good point, well made. .. hey .. say I wanted weld a diesel tank for instance ... -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
RE: Consultancy company
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Jonathan Peterson wrote: > > > There is in fact Pareto's Law which says that 80% of > > results come from > > > 20% of work (or 10-90 or whatever the numbers don't really matter). > > > > > > > Often, when I do something that I consider really easy and > > spend little > > effort on it, I get lots of really good feedback. > > Glad I'm not the only one. I spend three days futzing around unable to get > stuck into a problem, and then eventually manage a decent half days work to > get it done before the deadline. Then, while I'm worrying about having > wasted 2 1/2 days someone comes and says what a good document it was. I > don't get it. > > I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the way other people in the office seem to > beaver away steadily. > But in truth they are doing the same as you and think everyone else is beavering away while they futz around. I mean to a casual observer me typing this message will appear to be legitimate work :) /J\ -- Jonathan Stowe | http://www.gellyfish.com | I'm with Grep on this one http://www.tackleway.co.uk |
RE: Consultancy company
> > There is in fact Pareto's Law which says that 80% of > results come from > > 20% of work (or 10-90 or whatever the numbers don't really matter). > > > > Often, when I do something that I consider really easy and > spend little > effort on it, I get lots of really good feedback. Glad I'm not the only one. I spend three days futzing around unable to get stuck into a problem, and then eventually manage a decent half days work to get it done before the deadline. Then, while I'm worrying about having wasted 2 1/2 days someone comes and says what a good document it was. I don't get it. I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the way other people in the office seem to beaver away steadily.
Re: Consultancy company
On or about Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 12:51:59PM -, Robert Shiels typed: >Often, when I do something that I consider really easy and spend little >effort on it, I get lots of really good feedback. Alternatively if I spend >weeks on a trickey problem, no one says anything. This seems like a similar >rule. That can also be caused by management that has no idea of what's difficult and what isn't. Believing such feedback leads to flashy sites that don't work, in my experience. Just another reason for workplace cynicism... R
Re: Consultancy company
> Simon Wistow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > I sometimes feel guilty because 90% of my work gets done in 10% of my > > time. > > There is in fact Pareto's Law which says that 80% of results come from > 20% of work (or 10-90 or whatever the numbers don't really matter). > Often, when I do something that I consider really easy and spend little effort on it, I get lots of really good feedback. Alternatively if I spend weeks on a trickey problem, no one says anything. This seems like a similar rule. C'est la vie. /Robert
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Men in black theme - we must all have black suits - dark glasses > avliable from Macy D's soon, and we can get a clapped out van from BT > for next to nothing Don't forget the welding gear. Actually, I'm more for the Ghostbusters theme: boiler suits, handhled nuclear weapons, a disused fire station and an ambulance. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > and this template toolit thing rocks dunnit .. (now I have the hang of it > .. sorta) It is the rockingest thing I've rocked to since the last one. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The overiding thing should be 'make this the very best company to work > for AND the very best company to have work done by' A1 bleeding edge code > written by the planets happiest programmers ... sounds like a good recipe > to me. Not sure about the bleeding edge part, but certainly "using the highest productivity techniques known to man" would certainly rank high up there. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
Mark Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > 2. I first heard about building at the end of the day in Brooke's > Mythical Man Month. Continuous integration and smoke testing. Oh yes. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
Simon Wistow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I sometimes feel guilty because 90% of my work gets done in 10% of my > time. There is in fact Pareto's Law which says that 80% of results come from 20% of work (or 10-90 or whatever the numbers don't really matter). No need to feel guilty since this is the way things are. -- 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED] reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -- philip k. dick
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > > Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day / > > week you have changed something and can show it to the client > > again. This way the client really understands what he really wants. > > wow ... "a client that understands what they want" ... Mr Brocard, > for gods sake WALK to the meeting, DO NOT drive. I have no idea what > you're taking but I want some .. do you get to see little blue spacemen > too ;)) Further to this most clients aren't even interested in understanding what they want (that's _your_ job). They just _want_ it. -- 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED] imagination is more important than knowledge. -- albert einstein
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
>On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Roger Burton West wrote: > >> On or about Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:44:11AM +, Neil Ford typed: >> >> >That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site >> >in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping >> >out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into >> >their network :-) >> >> Wireless, shurely? Just drive by and connect to their LAN... >> > >What 'Drive-by Hacking' ? > >You really need a low-rider chevvy and wear bandana round head for that >one. :) > As was known to happen at 1 Infinity Loop when the Airport was first released :-) Neil. -- Neil C. Ford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.binky.ourshack.org
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Roger Burton West wrote: > On or about Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:44:11AM +, Neil Ford typed: > > >That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site > >in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping > >out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into > >their network :-) > > Wireless, shurely? Just drive by and connect to their LAN... > What 'Drive-by Hacking' ? You really need a low-rider chevvy and wear bandana round head for that one. :) /J\ -- Jonathan Stowe | http://www.gellyfish.com | I'm with Grep on this one http://www.tackleway.co.uk |
Re: Consultancy company
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, you wrote: > Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day / > week you have changed something and can show it to the client > again. This way the client really understands what he really wants. wow ... "a client that understands what they want" ... Mr Brocard, for gods sake WALK to the meeting, DO NOT drive. I have no idea what you're taking but I want some .. do you get to see little blue spacemen too ;)) nah seriously.. if XP can really achieve this then great .. I hope it can .. infact I almost believe it can ... a little voice in my head keeps saying 'please let this be true' .. but sometimes when people come up with such abstract ideas as 'a client that understands what they want' I do begin to wonder if its not pushing it a bit far ;)) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
Neil Ford wrote: > > > > >The "A-Team" - scenario is one in which a team goes in to rescue a failing > >project, or go in and retune/redesign an existing project that works but has > >become a victim of its own success. Think of this work as bespoke > >enhancements. > > > That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site > in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping > out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into > their network :-) > > So who's bankrolling the van and who wants to be BA? lol - monday's been c*** so far (Linx rooter down apparently - sounds like something off an excuse sheet). Men in black theme - we must all have black suits - dark glasses avliable from Macy D's soon, and we can get a clapped out van from BT for next to nothing Greg > > Neil. > (whose tounge is ever so slightly on his cheek!) > -- > Neil C. Ford > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.binky.ourshack.org
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
> So who's bankrolling the van and who wants to be BA? > > Neil. > (whose tounge is ever so slightly on his cheek!) > -- Sorry, but I can't resist pointing out that this amusing misspelling. I guess I'd pronounce this a bit like lounge. Tongue is a pretty stupid way to spell it anyway, tung would be better. Now back to your regular (extreme) programming. /Robert
Re: Consultancy company
Mark Fowler sent the following bits through the ether: > Two points: Picky, picky. Fine. I'd say that of the bits I've tested, I've found that continuous testing is a very important part. Writing the tests before the code is cool too. But you know this already ;-) Leon -- Leon Brocard.http://www.astray.com/ yapc::Europehttp://yapc.org/Europe/ ... For Sale: Slightly used message. Enquire within
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
>On or about Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:44:11AM +, Neil Ford typed: > >>That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site >>in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping >>out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into >>their network :-) > >Wireless, shurely? Just drive by and connect to their LAN... > That one had hit me after I'd hit send. Just plug in your airport and away you go. Neil. -- Neil C. Ford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.binky.ourshack.org
Re: Consultancy company
On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:26:18AM +, James O'Sullivan wrote: > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Michael Stevens wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > > > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he > > > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my > > > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some > > > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to > > > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness > > > > > I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the > > issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific > > you attempt to be. > > > > All changes no matter how small should be passed through a change control > process, normally put in place by the project manager assigned to that > specific job. > > A change control document will normally be produced which will detail what > the client wants, how much it will cost and what the effects are on the > project timeline. This will need to be read and physically signed off by > the client before any work is undertaken. a) you need to be able to persuade management this is a good idea b) you need to get someone writing specs who is actually able to be specific. And you need to have some way of dealing with a client who will refuse to pay until you implement something that they say is contained within the spec, and you don't. Despite the fact you're both reading the same spec. >From memories of my last job, both of these can be a problem. Michael
Re: Consultancy company
That Brocard bloke wrote:
> > Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day /
> > week you have changed something and can show it to the client
> > again. This way the client really understands what he really wants.
Two points:
1. This is not what the book is all about. The book is all about many
things working together, this being one concept. In XP they are all
important.
2. I first heard about building at the end of the day in Brooke's
Mythical Man Month.
Later.
Mark.
--
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
Name => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer' ,
Firm => 'Profero Ltd',Web => 'http://www.profero.com/' ,
Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]', Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960' )
Re: Consultancy company
Andy Wardley wrote: > Having said that, I do very little "real" work at work, instead > spending my time reading/writing email, chatting to people, playing > table tennis, having meetings, and doing other brain dead tasks. I sometimes feel guilty because 90% of my work gets done in 10% of my time. I mean I *know* I can pull out the stops and work my arse off for extended periods of time but I can't seem to get myself to get into work at 9:30am work till lunch, 45 mins having a sandwich then work till 5:30-6:00pm and still be productive. In fact now I don't think I could do it at all. But I get my work done and people seem to be happy with the quality and how fats it gets delivered so ...
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
On or about Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:44:11AM +, Neil Ford typed: >That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site >in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping >out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into >their network :-) Wireless, shurely? Just drive by and connect to their LAN... R
Re: Consultancy company
At Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:42:46 +, Leon Brocard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dave Mee sent the following bits through the ether: > > > One of the best solutions I've come accross to this problem is to > > take an > > iterative approach to development. > > Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day / > week you have changed something and can show it to the client > again. This way the client really understands what he really wants. And if you don't want to buy the XP books, but want to know more... http://www.extremeprogramming.org/ Dave...
Re: Consultancy company
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Leon Brocard wrote:
> Dave Mee sent the following bits through the ether:
> > One of the best solutions I've come accross to this problem is to take an
> > iterative approach to development.
>
> Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day /
> week you have changed something and can show it to the client
> again. This way the client really understands what he really wants.
This even works well if you are working on projects for yourself. It's a
very good way of maintaining focus and not going off on tangents when
you're programming.
Later.
Mark.
--
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
Name => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer' ,
Firm => 'Profero Ltd',Web => 'http://www.profero.com/' ,
Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]', Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960' )
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
> >The "A-Team" - scenario is one in which a team goes in to rescue a failing >project, or go in and retune/redesign an existing project that works but has >become a victim of its own success. Think of this work as bespoke >enhancements. > That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into their network :-) So who's bankrolling the van and who wants to be BA? Neil. (whose tounge is ever so slightly on his cheek!) -- Neil C. Ford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.binky.ourshack.org
Re: Consultancy company
Dave Mee sent the following bits through the ether: > One of the best solutions I've come accross to this problem is to take an > iterative approach to development. Inded. Look at XP. The whole idea is that at the end of every day / week you have changed something and can show it to the client again. This way the client really understands what he really wants. Leon -- Leon Brocard.http://www.astray.com/ yapc::Europehttp://yapc.org/Europe/ ... (This tagline in Stereo where available)
Re: Consultancy company
* James O'Sullivan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > A change control document will normally be produced which will detail what > the client wants, how much it will cost and what the effects are on the > project timeline. This will need to be read and physically signed off by > the client before any work is undertaken. > i've always been very fond of change control documents and work order documents (those of you who were at ebookers at the time i was there will remember this), however they really come in to their own when they are tied to one of my other great loves - VCS's so that all changes are associated with some form of work order - of course the fun is making it all easy for the programmer - now if only we knew some flexible text processing language that could help here ;-) -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.uklinux.net
RE: Consultancy company
>= Original Message From "James O'Sullivan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> = >On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Michael Stevens wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: >> > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he >> > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my >> > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some >> > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to >> > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness >> > >> I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the >> issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific >> you attempt to be. >> >This, in theory, should make the client think whether they really need >this "small change" or if it can wait until a later date. It also gives >you some ammo if the client changes their mind as there should be no >ambiguity. > Apologies if I'm walking in late on this one... One of the best solutions I've come accross to this problem is to take an iterative approach to development. Instead of a three month deadline, you work towards three one month deadlines. the client prioritises at each stage what is most important for them, along with the developers; then you work to the deadline, and slip functionality (rather than time). Any things that are missing are then rolled into the next iteration, and again prioritised along with any new functionality the client feels they need. This has the benefit that you generally meet deadlines, and the client is much more aware of what is going on. Generally they will also have agreed to what has and hasn't happened, and they don't suddenly turn around and scream 'waht the hell is this', as they have watched and been involved in the development process. easy! Dave --- SKI FOR FREE!!! For every passenger that travels another goes free. http://www.thefirstresort.com/index.asp?linkfrom=tot1
Re: Consultancy company
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Michael Stevens wrote: > On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he > > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my > > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some > > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to > > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness > > > I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the > issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific > you attempt to be. > All changes no matter how small should be passed through a change control process, normally put in place by the project manager assigned to that specific job. A change control document will normally be produced which will detail what the client wants, how much it will cost and what the effects are on the project timeline. This will need to be read and physically signed off by the client before any work is undertaken. This, in theory, should make the client think whether they really need this "small change" or if it can wait until a later date. It also gives you some ammo if the client changes their mind as there should be no ambiguity. -- James
Re: Consultancy company
On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 09:41:11AM +, Michael Stevens wrote: > I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the > issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific > you attempt to be. So get it on paper, with a signature, so you can wave it at them. If that doesn't work, use weapons. -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/ Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
Re: Consultancy company
On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 08:47:35AM +, Roger Burton West wrote: > On or about Sun, Jan 21, 2001 at 11:08:29PM +, Piers Cawley typed: > >And if the Big Cheese does hand down decisions that override the > >Minion then the contract between developer and client should stipulate > >that the client pays for the wasted time. > > Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he > originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my > experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some > excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to > annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness I've also found a lot of customers are absolute *geniuses* at fudging the issue of what they did and didn't agree to, no matter how specific you attempt to be. Michael
Re: Consultancy company
Roger claimed that:
> This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness
> in customer relations than I've ever seen - and if that firmness were
> present, we wouldn't need XP anyway...
One of the main problems with full disclosure with the client is that it
can only ever work when you've only got one client. In my job you tend to
be working on more than one project at any given time; I certainly don't
think I'd like to be the one to tell the client 'sorry this is late, but
there was this unexpected problem with some work we were doing for another
client and it took up all our time'.
Later.
Mark.
--
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
Name => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer' ,
Firm => 'Profero Ltd',Web => 'http://www.profero.com/' ,
Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]', Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960' )
Re: Consultancy company
On or about Sun, Jan 21, 2001 at 11:08:29PM +, Piers Cawley typed: >And if the Big Cheese does hand down decisions that override the >Minion then the contract between developer and client should stipulate >that the client pays for the wasted time. Contracts _should_ say that the client pays for changes to what he originally said he wanted. Sometimes they do. It's quite rare, in my experience, for this payment actually to be demanded. (Usually some excuse along the lines of "it's a big customer and we don't want to annoy them".) This XP approach seems to require a lot more firmness in customer relations than I've ever seen - and if that firmness were present, we wouldn't need XP anyway... Roger
Re: Consultancy company
On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > The client doesn;t send Big Chief to sit with the designers, instead > > 'designers' is kind of the wrong term with XP. agreed > > they send Useless Minion. UM is positive and helpful and gives quick > > decisions ona whole variety of topics. And a week later turns up > > with changes handed down by Big Chief overiding those decisions. > > worse still the decisions handed down make no sense because he > > hasn;t been with the team and doesn;t undrstand whats going on. > > This one is, potentially a problem. I'd say that, as a company > consulting with the company you make *bloody* sure that the client is > aware of the importance of the 'on site' customer, and of their status > as final arbiter. It's also stressed that the OSC can say "I'll get > back to you on that", but a lot of the time questions that need to be > answered are uncontroversial and can be answered trivially even by a > UM. in my experience getting simlpe concepts across to large and important clients can sometimes be difficult when a) the subject has a funny word in it like 'computer' and b) they don't know what that word means. I just can;t help wondering if it will work .. if it does then I will be no 1 happy bunny. I have XP installed sitting right here and tagged up for a re-read this week (i'm having a month or so off to recover from a 12 month period of development with little breaks) ... and this template toolit thing rocks dunnit .. (now I have the hang of it .. sorta) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, you wrote: > I rush to point out that those stereotypes were *not* what I was on > about in my "I'm really unsure about telecommuting" thing. I'm one of > the gregarious types. acknowledged ... those 'stereotypes' where pretty extreme and I am sure there are other issues on both sides my basic thrust was however: don't discount any possibilities ... lets open doors not close them before we even get there. Personally I am quite happy to do the office based thing, I don;t have a problem with it. I also enjoy doing the home thing. Different working methods suit different people and different projects. Surely the best outcome is success, success => happiness and happiness => enjoying what you are doing. One of the best things about having your own consultancy is surely that there is no PHB laying down cast iron rules, sure what we do has to make VERY good business sense and be based on sound policies that we can all agree to but lets try and keep things 'open'. flexi-time, pinball machines, games room .. whatever .. if its reasonable then do it. The overiding thing should be 'make this the very best company to work for AND the very best company to have work done by' A1 bleeding edge code written by the planets happiest programmers ... sounds like a good recipe to me. -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
"Dean S Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > -Original Message- > From: Aaron Trevena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > >I did a little pair programming at emap - I probably wasn't doing it > right > >tho'. even so we did get thru the hard bits quicker and could split > up to > >do the easy stuff. I think it made a difference but then I was mostly > >being a backseat coder so either we did okay or stuart was very > tolerant > >indeed. > > > How did you establish who would make good pairings? Was it done by > trying to place two equals or was it done more on a mentoring level of > a very experienced coder and a less experienced one? (I've not read > that much on XP) The Dictum in the XP literature appears to be 'nobody is allowed to say "No"', pairs form and re form on task by task basis. 'Regular' pairs are to be discouraged. XP Installed has a bunch of stuff on this. > Has anyone who's used XP had a client that was willing to make an > employee available pretty much full time or was it more they come in > for a chunk of the afternoon three times a week? I have an issue with > the fact that clients will be willing to pay a member of staff to > spend all day in the consultants office in case they need to be asked > questions. The XP argument goes something like: This team costs you £X000/day. Your liason costs you £X00/day. We believe that having someone available to us, on site, full time (but able to do however much of their work that can be done remotely), will dramatically reduce the amount of our time it takes to deliver a product, and will also increase the final value of that product. Do the maths. (Well, maybe not quite so bluntly, but you take my point) > I'm not saying its a bad thing to have someone on hand, I can see > its uses but from the clients point of view why not just have > contact by phone/email. That was the liaison has access to everyone > in his base office so he can resolve issues faster with more > authority than if he were in your offices. Also you have a paper > trail of requests, questions and responses. There's a whole chapter on this in XP Installed. Paraphrasing, "Customer onsite == answer in 30 seconds. Customer offsite == answer today." They also point out that you can make either version work, but the onsite customer option works best. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > > One customer. On site. Full time. Absolute honesty. Get them on your > > side. The are the people who are *paying* for this, they deserve > > nothing but your honesty. Tell 'em about any problems and tell 'em > > early. Tell 'em about successes and tell 'em early. Get the customer > > rep onside and you have an advocated. Treat the customers like a > > mushrooms and you don't get repeat business. > > sounds great ... when do we start. > > Seriously XP sounds like it should work .. I read the books I was > convinced. > > The only thing that occasioanlly worries me about it is that my current > client is still working his way up to being a mushroom. Apart from that > the client has a total staff of 5. I cant see them sparing 20% of their > workforce in order to sit and keep the developers comapny. Worse still I > have not yet had a decision on anything in less than 24hrs. I think that > would haold true even if they were on site too. > > So I am really keen to do an XP managed project ... if it really does > work then that sfantastic, best result I could ever have. I suspect that > it fails, just in different ways to other project managment systems. > > obvious ones: > > The client doesn;t send Big Chief to sit with the designers, instead 'designers' is kind of the wrong term with XP. > they send Useless Minion. UM is positive and helpful and gives quick > decisions ona whole variety of topics. And a week later turns up > with changes handed down by Big Chief overiding those decisions. > worse still the decisions handed down make no sense because he > hasn;t been with the team and doesn;t undrstand whats going on. This one is, potentially a problem. I'd say that, as a company consulting with the company you make *bloody* sure that the client is aware of the importance of the 'on site' customer, and of their status as final arbiter. It's also stressed that the OSC can say "I'll get back to you on that", but a lot of the time questions that need to be answered are uncontroversial and can be answered trivially even by a UM. And because the XP approach advocates code that passes its tests at all times, the political value of something that is actually doing stuff can be useful too. And if the Big Cheese does hand down decisions that override the Minion then the contract between developer and client should stipulate that the client pays for the wasted time. And if this does happen then we should learn from this how to improve our 'client interview' process. Which kind of implies that our sales teams should work pairwise as well so that there's experienced developers in on the interview too. > Client has no concept about what software development is like and within > a week or two cancels the entire thing 'some of those guys spent a whole > week working and half the time couldnt even get it to run, by the end of > the week all they'd done was write some strange "library" code and even > that doesn;t seem to do anything' Remember that, with the XP approach, library code doesn't get written so much as it kind of happens. If you don't need it *now* you don't write it. Add functionality as you require it. > > but hey .. next person organising a XP based project that needs a junior > perl hacker .. gimme a shout ..
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming > > Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. > > I want to try it too. I'm not convinced by all of it - pair programming > for example - but so much of the other stuff seems damned sensible that > I want to give it a go. Including pair programming. I'm trying to keep > an open mind on that fucking stupid idea. When they got the permie in who's taking over the project I'd been working on, we spent a fair amount of time doing the PP thing. And it was great. A *fantastic* way of getting information shared and passed on for what was basically a decently engineered but atrociously documented project. By the time I left, James knew his way around the system and was confident he could extend it as required. And I was confident he was right about that. (Did my ego good to know I'd written something without sanity checking that was relatively easy for someone to pick up quickly too...) -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > > I don't see why you can't have a mix - it would be good to have a core > > group of people who always (nearl) work in the office so that if you > > usually work from home but need some face 2 face there will be people > > there (or in a pub nearby). things like IRC and email provide good > > communication about what is going on and can be used to acounce when and > > where people are. > > thats true enough .. although it doesn't fit in with the XP model that > well .. but there is always MOTWTDI .. the basic problem is that > 'office' workers see 'home' workers as a bunch of idle slackers who only > pretend to work from home and really spend the day gardening, and 'home' > workers see 'office' workers as bunch of people who;d rather spend the day > arseing about and chatting than actually doing something .. I rush to point out that those stereotypes were *not* what I was on about in my "I'm really unsure about telecommuting" thing. I'm one of the gregarious types. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
What sort of work do you want to do? What sort of business do you seek? Body shop, A-Team or bespoke software house? This message generated a few threads: Working from home v office; pair programming vs traditional project "individual portions"; and handling client contact or involvement. These issues are all related to winning a project from a client and going away to develop it (bespoke software?). At least one earlier message concerned body-shopping i.e. putting a bunch of developers into a site e.g. an investment bank and hiring them out on time and materials basis. This replaces the agents with your own salesman, then gets the team members into sites as contractors (there are many small to medium sized consultancies in this market sector). A lot of the messages seem to be based on the developers dream of working with a bunch of drinking buddies (generally a good thing) and seem to assume a software house type of business. This model is for fixed price work with whole projects paid on delivery of the project or stages thereof and variation orders. The "A-Team" - scenario is one in which a team goes in to rescue a failing project, or go in and retune/redesign an existing project that works but has become a victim of its own success. Think of this work as bespoke enhancements. Unless someone brings some business to the venture (e.g. a client with a requirement or an idea for a new software invention with sufficient funding), the venture will need someone to bring in the business. If the venture has a mix of bespoke software and body-shopping then the premises will not need a desk for every member to be in the office concurrently (at any time. some will be out at client site). Usually within a fixed length contract there may be times when a contractor needs to get some more work from the client. At such times the worker attends project meetings and planning sessions which are part of the job and are paid. A consultancy must attend meetings and discuss project requirements in order to win business. Fees will need to cover the consultancy for periods off charge, so basing project costs on say charging sixty pounds per developer hour will not cover all the costs. So, at the meeting, I suggest a few questions for the agenda: What sort of business do you expect to win? What funding have you (living of savings until you get money in)? How do you want to spend your savings (office space, salesman, equipment)? Mark
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > Same here. I don't think there's any point in arguing which is "best", > life is about balance and adapting to whatever is appropriate at the > time (beware methodolgies ;-). now that makes a whole bucket of sense to me. You get my vote ... -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 11:00:05AM +, Andy Wardley wrote: > For me, telecommunting is fine for maybe 50% of my week, but unless I'm > working on a very singular project (i.e. running in deep hack mode), then > I need to have the human company gained from being in an office environment. Same here. I don't think there's any point in arguing which is "best", life is about balance and adapting to whatever is appropriate at the time (beware methodolgies ;-). One key realisation I had last year was that the *idea* I *could* work at home was often the most valuable thing, being able to not wake up and think "f*ck, I have to be in for an 8:30am meeting" but that I had the option of working at home. For me, it is soul-destroying being shackled to a time/place and seeing that stretch into the infinite future void. For some people it isn't, it actually comforts them. Vive la difference. On dealing with clients/sustomers: cheesy perhaps, but think of them as friends -- I *love* dealing with peole I work with/for and enjoy the human contact, and go to the pub with almost everyone I've worked with. Having said that, I tend not to pick projects with 'mushrooms' or people who will be asking me too much about what a browser is. Fortunately the market can sustain this pickiness. > But I suppose that's the point. Allowing myself to kick back a little at > work gives me the balance to work flat out at home. Ditto on the live close to work idea: the only time I would live far from work is if I had a direct, uninterrupted train journey I could read on. I live 5 mins from the office, and that's a bicycle ride through one of the most idyllic parts of the US ;-) (OK, so no beautiful wife yet) Crucially, people are different so work within the acceptance of that fact and learn what works best for everyone and oneself. Then it'll be *really* fun. Paul
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
Dave Hodgkinson sent the following bits through the ether: > Leon, are you acting as scribe? Yes. Don't expect a masterpiece though. Leon -- Leon Brocard.http://www.astray.com/ yapc::Europehttp://yapc.org/Europe/ ... All new improved Brocard, now with Template Toolkit!
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
"Dean S Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > -Original Message- > From: Aaron Trevena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > >I did a little pair programming at emap - I probably wasn't doing it > right > >tho'. even so we did get thru the hard bits quicker and could split > up to > >do the easy stuff. I think it made a difference but then I was mostly > >being a backseat coder so either we did okay or stuart was very > tolerant > >indeed. > > > How did you establish who would make good pairings? Was it done by > trying to place two equals or was it done more on a mentoring level of > a very experienced coder and a less experienced one? (I've not read > that much on XP) The latter. You mix skills. And the second isn't idle. He's coding up the test cases. > Is the Monday night meeting still on for those of us who can't make > the lunch time one? Oh, yes. Leon, are you acting as scribe? -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, Dean S Wilson wrote: > How did you establish who would make good pairings? Was it done by > trying to place two equals or was it done more on a mentoring level of > a very experienced coder and a less experienced one? (I've not read > that much on XP) We both were fairly experienced but from different backgrounds and I just happened to be waiting for stuff to come thru on the project I was working on and leo reckoned we should work on some stuff together, I think it helped. From that I'd guess that pair programming can definately work. A. -- http://termisoc.org/~betty"> Betty @ termisoc.org "As a youngster Fred fought sea battles on the village pond using a complex system of signals he devised that was later adopted by the Royal Navy. " (this email has nothing to do with any organisation except me)
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Client has no concept about what software development is like and within > a week or two cancels the entire thing 'some of those guys spent a whole > week working and half the time couldnt even get it to run, by the end of > the week all they'd done was write some strange "library" code and even > that doesn;t seem to do anything' Doesn't happen with XP. "Least necessary". You have the scheme of the library in your head, agreed by the team, but you're coding visibly from the outset. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
Roger Burton West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 10:28:13AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > >One customer. On site. Full time. Absolute honesty. > > Nice idea if you have customers who can take the truth, and who know > when to shut up and let people get on with things. I'd like to see > it working, but I haven't yet. Which is why you're not selling to people, you're interviewing them for suitability of working with you. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
Robin Szemeti wrote: > > On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > > I don't see why you can't have a mix - it would be good to have a core > > group of people who always (nearl) work in the office so that if you > > usually work from home but need some face 2 face there will be people > > there (or in a pub nearby). things like IRC and email provide good > > communication about what is going on and can be used to acounce when and > > where people are. > > thats true enough .. although it doesn't fit in with the XP model that > well .. but there is always MOTWTDI .. the basic problem is that > 'office' workers see 'home' workers as a bunch of idle slackers who only > pretend to work from home and really spend the day gardening, and 'home' > workers see 'office' workers as bunch of people who;d rather spend the day > arseing about and chatting than actually doing something .. > lol That about hits the nail on the head ;-) > Break down those totally incorrect stereotypes and you're on the way to a > flexible poicy that allows you to retain the very best staff in > conditions they enjoy. Shurely one of the driving decisions behind > setting up a mutual business is not just financial success but also good > working conditions and more freedom. I gladly trade lower income for > better working conditions any day (to a point anyway). My basic break > even is at about 30K a year .. once I get to that poijt I start taking > holidays. Money is great, but chilling out by the pool is better and > skiing is better still [speaking of which its Chamonix again in 2 weeks] > Agreed. Also happy empolyees usually results in financial success due to greater productivity. Greg > just my $1 / (2500^0.5) > > -- > Robin Szemeti > > The box said "requires windows 95 or better" > So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
Piers Cawley wrote: > > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > David Cantrell wrote: > > > > > > > That should read there's too many distractions at home for me (or > > you as the case may be). > > > > I am about 150% more productive at home - 25 % because I save the > > journey, and the other 25% due to not having to go to meetings / > > going for long lunches / the chat that turns into a tangenical > > discussion on XZY / some Luser or PBH asking a stupid question that > > they could have worked out themselves if I was not there / > any other activity that takes me away from the task in hand>. > > The vision I have is of a team (or teams) working in *our* premises, > with customers working with us. We avoid pointless meetings. The > customer is there because they know what we're supposed to be doing > for them, and they know what's important. When you're only working a > 35 hour week (40 tops...) then you should have enough free time > outside work that there's less inclination to piss off for a long > lunch. And the whole point about setting this up is to get rid of the > PHB. > > > Sorry the above turned into a rant, I just get a bit pissed off with > > closed minds that assume that having people in an office = > > productivity. > > *Ahem*. Were I to be the sort of person who takes things personally, > I'd take that personally. Or something. > > Seriously, I tried working from home when the trains were up the > spout, and for a couple or three days it was great. However, one or > two points. > > 1. As a sole developer, working from home is/can be good, especially >when your head is down and you're turning out the code for a >particular bit. But working from home means you're away from the >customer, and the customer is the only person who can make business >decisions about what your code is supposed to be doing. I've never said that I do not meet customers on a face to face basis arround once a week. Working as I do means that the customer and I focus on the specs, and iterative developement - as they need to be clear that I know what I am supposed to do. > > 2. You are away from the team. Again, sole developer, this is not a >problem. Consultancy where we're supposed to be doing the synergy >thing, not quite so good. Time you spend away is time in which you >aren't plugged into what's happening and (and this is *really* >important), time spent away is time in which you aren't doing the >mentor thing. I strongly believe that, in a joint consultancy deal, >it is *really* important that gurus help to enlighten students, >otherwise how do we get our partners up to speed so we can go out >and get more fun work and make more fun money? Agreed that if you need to teach - guru and student need to be in the same place. > > 3. Every time I need to ask you something and you're not there and I >have to phone you, there's a chance I'll think 'ah fuck it' and not >bother. And there's a chance that that will be a *really* bad idea. But if you are confortable phoneing (|emailing|irc) me then you would - as that is how we would need to comunicate. I've wasted so much time being in an office being asked and asking lame questions just because I am next to someone. I have much less distractions at home. > > I'm not saying that offices (especially client offices) don't suck. > But they don't have to. If we're going to do this, lets do it right. > > Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming > Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. But dammit again, it makes > *sense*. Also bear in mind that when I made the decision (having tried > it) that I'd rather commute in and be near the customer rather than > work from home (in my *very* comfortable home office...) that meant > adding another 4 hours (count 'em) of travelling time to my day. If > I work from home I work too long. If work too long my code starts to > suck. If my code starts to suck I get embarrassed and my reputation > starts to slip. I want to work with copilots. I want to be able to > *have* that tangential conversation that'll turn out to be useful in > six months time. And table football's no fun if you're playing with > yourself. > > > Yes there are advantages to working in an office - i.e the team can > > be greater than the sum of its parts. > > This is *so* important. > > > But working from elsewhere also allows idividuals to be productive - > > often alot more. > > How are you measuring productivity? > An assumption on real hours worked - i.e when I was in London I was ever working more than about 6 hours a day (on a long day) due to lost time ... At home I regualarly hit 6 hours on a day that is 4 hours shorter. I have not measured this as their is no use benchmark qw(:gregs_time); > > Why not combine the two - i.e have a day a week where everyone meets to > > brainstorm / ask questions / do what needs to be done to take advantage > > of
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
-Original Message- From: Aaron Trevena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I did a little pair programming at emap - I probably wasn't doing it right >tho'. even so we did get thru the hard bits quicker and could split up to >do the easy stuff. I think it made a difference but then I was mostly >being a backseat coder so either we did okay or stuart was very tolerant >indeed. How did you establish who would make good pairings? Was it done by trying to place two equals or was it done more on a mentoring level of a very experienced coder and a less experienced one? (I've not read that much on XP) Has anyone who's used XP had a client that was willing to make an employee available pretty much full time or was it more they come in for a chunk of the afternoon three times a week? I have an issue with the fact that clients will be willing to pay a member of staff to spend all day in the consultants office in case they need to be asked questions. I'm not saying its a bad thing to have someone on hand, I can see its uses but from the clients point of view why not just have contact by phone/email. That was the liaison has access to everyone in his base office so he can resolve issues faster with more authority than if he were in your offices. Also you have a paper trail of requests, questions and responses. Is the Monday night meeting still on for those of us who can't make the lunch time one? Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > I don't see why you can't have a mix - it would be good to have a core > group of people who always (nearl) work in the office so that if you > usually work from home but need some face 2 face there will be people > there (or in a pub nearby). things like IRC and email provide good > communication about what is going on and can be used to acounce when and > where people are. thats true enough .. although it doesn't fit in with the XP model that well .. but there is always MOTWTDI .. the basic problem is that 'office' workers see 'home' workers as a bunch of idle slackers who only pretend to work from home and really spend the day gardening, and 'home' workers see 'office' workers as bunch of people who;d rather spend the day arseing about and chatting than actually doing something .. Break down those totally incorrect stereotypes and you're on the way to a flexible poicy that allows you to retain the very best staff in conditions they enjoy. Shurely one of the driving decisions behind setting up a mutual business is not just financial success but also good working conditions and more freedom. I gladly trade lower income for better working conditions any day (to a point anyway). My basic break even is at about 30K a year .. once I get to that poijt I start taking holidays. Money is great, but chilling out by the pool is better and skiing is better still [speaking of which its Chamonix again in 2 weeks] just my $1 / (2500^0.5) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, David Cantrell wrote: > On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming > > Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. > > I want to try it too. I'm not convinced by all of it - pair programming > for example - but so much of the other stuff seems damned sensible that > I want to give it a go. Including pair programming. I'm trying to keep > an open mind on that fucking stupid idea. I did a little pair programming at emap - I probably wasn't doing it right tho'. even so we did get thru the hard bits quicker and could split up to do the easy stuff. I think it made a difference but then I was mostly being a backseat coder so either we did okay or stuart was very tolerant indeed. A. -- http://termisoc.org/~betty"> Betty @ termisoc.org "As a youngster Fred fought sea battles on the village pond using a complex system of signals he devised that was later adopted by the Royal Navy. " (this email has nothing to do with any organisation except me)
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming > > Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. > > I want to try it too. I'm not convinced by all of it - pair programming > for example - but so much of the other stuff seems damned sensible that > I want to give it a go. Including pair programming. I'm trying to keep > an open mind on that fucking stupid idea. Pair programming was one of the bits I was keen on. It sounds like it should work. We all know how to independent prgrammers spend all their time tripping each other up and asking if they can mod some other bit of a library .. net result less than one programmers worth of output .. even if pair programming only yields 1.1 X output its a bonus. I also reckon it would be a fantastic mentoring and mutual improvement system. -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote: > > As for working at home, i believe the optimal week is mon,tue in > the office, wednesday at home, thu,fri in the office. YMMV > > however - if you were building a company their are other concerns > beyond productivity, the establishment of a team/company spirit > and bonding for instance. also the discussion of strategy on > non-IT matters in the company, building a company as has been > discussed requires buy in to issues beyond perl hacking. I don't see why you can't have a mix - it would be good to have a core group of people who always (nearl) work in the office so that if you usually work from home but need some face 2 face there will be people there (or in a pub nearby). things like IRC and email provide good communication about what is going on and can be used to acounce when and where people are. If you know what proportion of home/office people you have you can design the office accordingly. For instance I quite simply do not aarive at work before 10 am due to th physical impossibility of moving from a to b in west london between 7 and 9 am. Other important factors are eating your own dogfood - ie not only use our own software but analys the needs of your own organisation and keep your house in order - it gets you into a better habit and methodology - things like document management, documentation, online admin, internet and stuff most of which can be reused for clients, and keeping the work interesting productivity is highest if the work is interesting - always make sure you have enough people and time to develop more than you firefight - this means your develop better software as you have more resources and aren't sick of the project and you have to firefight less and less avoiding the vicious circles that many companies fall into of firefighting all the time and losing morale and inetrst and producing shit code which needs more firefighting. A. -- http://termisoc.org/~betty"> Betty @ termisoc.org "As a youngster Fred fought sea battles on the village pond using a complex system of signals he devised that was later adopted by the Royal Navy. " (this email has nothing to do with any organisation except me)
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, 20 Jan 2001, you wrote: > One customer. On site. Full time. Absolute honesty. Get them on your > side. The are the people who are *paying* for this, they deserve > nothing but your honesty. Tell 'em about any problems and tell 'em > early. Tell 'em about successes and tell 'em early. Get the customer > rep onside and you have an advocated. Treat the customers like a > mushrooms and you don't get repeat business. sounds great ... when do we start. Seriously XP sounds like it should work .. I read the books I was convinced. The only thing that occasioanlly worries me about it is that my current client is still working his way up to being a mushroom. Apart from that the client has a total staff of 5. I cant see them sparing 20% of their workforce in order to sit and keep the developers comapny. Worse still I have not yet had a decision on anything in less than 24hrs. I think that would haold true even if they were on site too. So I am really keen to do an XP managed project ... if it really does work then that sfantastic, best result I could ever have. I suspect that it fails, just in different ways to other project managment systems. obvious ones: The client doesn;t send Big Chief to sit with the designers, instead they send Useless Minion. UM is positive and helpful and gives quick decisions ona whole variety of topics. And a week later turns up with changes handed down by Big Chief overiding those decisions. worse still the decisions handed down make no sense because he hasn;t been with the team and doesn;t undrstand whats going on. Client has no concept about what software development is like and within a week or two cancels the entire thing 'some of those guys spent a whole week working and half the time couldnt even get it to run, by the end of the week all they'd done was write some strange "library" code and even that doesn;t seem to do anything' but hey .. next person organising a XP based project that needs a junior perl hacker .. gimme a shout .. -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming > Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. I want to try it too. I'm not convinced by all of it - pair programming for example - but so much of the other stuff seems damned sensible that I want to give it a go. Including pair programming. I'm trying to keep an open mind on that fucking stupid idea. -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/ Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
Re: Consultancy company
> > Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. For me, telecommunting is fine for maybe 50% of my week, but unless I'm working on a very singular project (i.e. running in deep hack mode), then I need to have the human company gained from being in an office environment. Having said that, I do very little "real" work at work, instead spending my time reading/writing email, chatting to people, playing table tennis, having meetings, and doing other brain dead tasks. But I suppose that's the point. Allowing myself to kick back a little at work gives me the balance to work flat out at home. The annoying thing, is that there are some packer types at CRE who see it the other way. When I am in the office, they think I am "working hard", but when they don't see me, they assume I'm doing nothing. I am in the exceptionally fortunate position of working a 10 minute drive away from home. I typically work the morning at home doing "real work" then go into the office for human contact, email, chit-chat, brainstorming, etc., in the afternoon. Then back in time to pick up ickle Ben from nursery at 6.00, bath him, put him to bed, etc., then relax in the evening reading, hacking, watching some TV, or having fantastic sex with my beautiful wife. When you've been spoilt like that, it's very hard to consider giving that up to spend valuable hours of your day sitting or standing on a train. And I'd rather have trees, fields, peace and quiet around me than be working in a big, dirty and crowded city. There's more to life than work. But I must admit that I have a peculiarly low tolerance for city life. Must be my fragile consitution... :-) > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > for me. Agreed that Guildford wouldn't be everyone's ideal location, but I was thinking more of the "in town" vs "out of town" location. You can get a much larger, much nicer office building somewhere in the green belt than in central London, for the same kind of money (not that I've looked, though). OK, that tends to assume that more people travel to work by car rather than train, or live in the surrounding area. So come to sunny Guildford and have fantastic sex with my beautiful wife! (No, I *am* joking, really) A
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 10:28:13AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: >One customer. On site. Full time. Absolute honesty. Nice idea if you have customers who can take the truth, and who know when to shut up and let people get on with things. I'd like to see it working, but I haven't yet. R
Re: Consultancy company
Roger Burton West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > >The vision I have is of a team (or teams) working in *our* premises, > >with customers working with us. > > (side-rant) > The customers _must_ be kept isolated from the developers. This is > the single most important thing the customer-interface people > (whatever you call them) can do. Inviting the customers into your office > will drop productivity by 30-50% because your developers can't talk > honestly about what's going on. One customer. On site. Full time. Absolute honesty. Get them on your side. The are the people who are *paying* for this, they deserve nothing but your honesty. Tell 'em about any problems and tell 'em early. Tell 'em about successes and tell 'em early. Get the customer rep onside and you have an advocated. Treat the customers like a mushrooms and you don't get repeat business. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 09:12:25AM +, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: >Roger Burton West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> The customers _must_ be kept isolated from the developers. >That's exactly wrong. >And the XP book explains why far better than I ever could. It may be possible to make it work. I've seen it foul up horribly. If I'm writing a piece of code, I am not helped by having some fool who is trying to come to grips with the concept of "what is a web browser" breathing his tooth decay into my face and asking me whether I've tested the last bit of code I wrote (before, you understand, he's deigned to see if it works himself). R
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
> IIRC, Sim City is one of Ken Livingstone's favorites. There can't be the option to revoke all bird feed sellers permits.
Re: Consultancy company
Roger Burton West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > >The vision I have is of a team (or teams) working in *our* premises, > >with customers working with us. > > (side-rant) > The customers _must_ be kept isolated from the developers. This is > the single most important thing the customer-interface people > (whatever you call them) can do. Inviting the customers into your office > will drop productivity by 30-50% because your developers can't talk > honestly about what's going on. That's exactly wrong. And the XP book explains why far better than I ever could. -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Consultancy company
On Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 12:24:24AM +, Piers Cawley wrote: >The vision I have is of a team (or teams) working in *our* premises, >with customers working with us. (side-rant) The customers _must_ be kept isolated from the developers. This is the single most important thing the customer-interface people (whatever you call them) can do. Inviting the customers into your office will drop productivity by 30-50% because your developers can't talk honestly about what's going on. R
Re: Consultancy company
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Piers Cawley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: [snip] > And table football's no fun if you're playing with > yourself. Maybe if you kept your hands on the table football...? -- rob partington % [EMAIL PROTECTED] % http://lynx.browser.org/
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
* Alex Page ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 09:27:18AM +, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: > > > It should be mandatory for all public servants to be adept at Sim > > City. > > IIRC, Sim City is one of Ken Livingstone's favorites. > yip, and all devoted Sim City fan's sooner or later get bored and decided to see how they can screw up their City. Oh I know i'll make trafalgar square a pedestrian only zone -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.uklinux.net
Re: Consultancy company
As for working at home, i believe the optimal week is mon,tue in the office, wednesday at home, thu,fri in the office. YMMV however - if you were building a company their are other concerns beyond productivity, the establishment of a team/company spirit and bonding for instance. also the discussion of strategy on non-IT matters in the company, building a company as has been discussed requires buy in to issues beyond perl hacking. anyway thats just by 2 cents -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.uklinux.net
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 03:34:31PM +, Leon Brocard wrote: > > > OK. We might as well do this quickly, how about Monday 12.30 at the > > New World restaurant in Chinatown. Everyone who is vaguely interested > > in a Perl Consultancy of some sort is invited. > > Count me in. > > The New World's on Gerrard St, isn't it? Gerrard Place. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > David Cantrell wrote: > > > > On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 05:04:54PM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > > > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > > > have people in the same room; > > > > Plus there's too many distractions at home. Even if you live on your own. > > It's great to have the capability - for those evening brainwaves, or if > > you're ill - but doing it every day just doesn't work, at least for me. > > > > That should read there's too many distractions at home for me (or > you as the case may be). > > I am about 150% more productive at home - 25 % because I save the > journey, and the other 25% due to not having to go to meetings / > going for long lunches / the chat that turns into a tangenical > discussion on XZY / some Luser or PBH asking a stupid question that > they could have worked out themselves if I was not there / any other activity that takes me away from the task in hand>. The vision I have is of a team (or teams) working in *our* premises, with customers working with us. We avoid pointless meetings. The customer is there because they know what we're supposed to be doing for them, and they know what's important. When you're only working a 35 hour week (40 tops...) then you should have enough free time outside work that there's less inclination to piss off for a long lunch. And the whole point about setting this up is to get rid of the PHB. > Sorry the above turned into a rant, I just get a bit pissed off with > closed minds that assume that having people in an office = > productivity. *Ahem*. Were I to be the sort of person who takes things personally, I'd take that personally. Or something. Seriously, I tried working from home when the trains were up the spout, and for a couple or three days it was great. However, one or two points. 1. As a sole developer, working from home is/can be good, especially when your head is down and you're turning out the code for a particular bit. But working from home means you're away from the customer, and the customer is the only person who can make business decisions about what your code is supposed to be doing. 2. You are away from the team. Again, sole developer, this is not a problem. Consultancy where we're supposed to be doing the synergy thing, not quite so good. Time you spend away is time in which you aren't plugged into what's happening and (and this is *really* important), time spent away is time in which you aren't doing the mentor thing. I strongly believe that, in a joint consultancy deal, it is *really* important that gurus help to enlighten students, otherwise how do we get our partners up to speed so we can go out and get more fun work and make more fun money? 3. Every time I need to ask you something and you're not there and I have to phone you, there's a chance I'll think 'ah fuck it' and not bother. And there's a chance that that will be a *really* bad idea. I'm not saying that offices (especially client offices) don't suck. But they don't have to. If we're going to do this, lets do it right. Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. But dammit again, it makes *sense*. Also bear in mind that when I made the decision (having tried it) that I'd rather commute in and be near the customer rather than work from home (in my *very* comfortable home office...) that meant adding another 4 hours (count 'em) of travelling time to my day. If I work from home I work too long. If work too long my code starts to suck. If my code starts to suck I get embarrassed and my reputation starts to slip. I want to work with copilots. I want to be able to *have* that tangential conversation that'll turn out to be useful in six months time. And table football's no fun if you're playing with yourself. > Yes there are advantages to working in an office - i.e the team can > be greater than the sum of its parts. This is *so* important. > But working from elsewhere also allows idividuals to be productive - > often alot more. How are you measuring productivity? > Why not combine the two - i.e have a day a week where everyone meets to > brainstorm / ask questions / do what needs to be done to take advantage > of a group. Because groups don't work like that. All of a sudden I'm taking notes. And trying to remember the questions I needed to ask. And having to plan further ahead than I want to. And I'm not cutting code. > Rant over. Time to wrap up the counter-rant too. -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
From: "Greg Cope" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > No - just dont like the gun ho lets fry anyone on deathrow - and now a a > great chestnut one of them got to be president ... Fear not so much a leader of the Free World(tm) who is demonstrably unable to form grammatically correct sentences in his one, only native tongue but the fact that he's attempting to install one of the most hard-right anti-choice judges in existence to Attorney General. Abortion is barely even legal here; they'll be chasing womens' right to vote next... > > No, cable installation "engineers". All cable company phone > > support/accounts. > > Luckily I've not suffered from those. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/16186.html Paul
Re: Consultancy company
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, you wrote: > That should read there's too many distractions at home for me (or > you as the case may be). im with greg on this one :) although I can see that some project would need 5 day a week attendance at some stages I am not convinced that that is the only way to do it all the time. The probelm I have at home is NOT being averly dostracted, but getting carried away and forgetting to eat for too many hours :) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, you wrote: > On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 05:04:54PM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > > have people in the same room; > > Plus there's too many distractions at home. Even if you live on your own. > It's great to have the capability - for those evening brainwaves, or if > you're ill - but doing it every day just doesn't work, at least for me. it just requires a certain disipline. Some people can, some people can;t perhaps you should think in terms of the Perl motto itself .. TMTOWTDI If you;re the sort of person who needs the disipline imposed by turning up and not being allowed out until home time then office working is for you .. I can do it .. but I prefer not to. team Building is a tricky business. to make a team work you need several different sorts of people. I once worked for a guy who was a fastiious documenter. over the years he'd assemebled a team of like individuals ... who could have documented for nasa, but would never have come up with the idea for a space shuttle if their lives depended on it. theres a strong tendency to recruit people in your own image and this has to be resisted if you are to be succesful. there is no such thing as the 'perfect consultant' .. you might have your own idea of what the perfect consultant is .. establish a consultancy with 25 of em and I guarantee it will fail. diversity is the key. this has been proven time and time again, hard as it may be to believe you actually do need the idiot that wanders around all day from desk to desk, and the unix wizard whos always late, wears sandals and a CAMRA t shirt. assemble a team of squeeky clean straight-A computer science graduates and you will not have the success that you think would be assured. the converse is also true ... don't build a team soley out of 'ideas people' ... they'll dream it up but never finish it. The true test of team managment is to prevent the different team roles from irritating the hell out of each other ;)) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
David Cantrell wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 05:04:54PM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > > have people in the same room; > > Plus there's too many distractions at home. Even if you live on your own. > It's great to have the capability - for those evening brainwaves, or if > you're ill - but doing it every day just doesn't work, at least for me. > That should read there's too many distractions at home for me (or you as the case may be). I am about 150% more productive at home - 25 % because I save the journey, and the other 25% due to not having to go to meetings / going for long lunches / the chat that turns into a tangenical discussion on XZY / some Luser or PBH asking a stupid question that they could have worked out themselves if I was not there / . Sorry the above turned into a rant, I just get a bit pissed off with closed minds that assume that having people in an office = productivity. Yes there are advantages to working in an office - i.e the team can be greater than the sum of its parts. But working from elsewhere also allows idividuals to be productive - often alot more. Why not combine the two - i.e have a day a week where everyone meets to brainstorm / ask questions / do what needs to be done to take advantage of a group. Rant over. Greg > > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > > for me. > > Yeah. What he said. > > -- > David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/ > >Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
Re: Consultancy company
Piers Cawley wrote: > > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Piers Cawley wrote: > > > > > > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > > > Andy Wardley wrote: > > > > > > > > > > On Jan 18, 4:28pm, Leo Lapworth wrote: > > > > > > Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. > > > > > > > > > > It sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I've even got as far as > > > > > writing a (fledgling) business plan for such a venture based around > > > > > Template Toolkit-ish web development, support and consultancy. It's > > > > > something that Simon Matthews and I have been talking about for a couple > > > > > of years, but never really quite got around to taking the plunge. I > > > > > was about to jump but work related improvments of the last few > > > > > weeks have pushed it back onto the back burner. > > > > > > > > > > Now, what would it take to convince you that there are nicer places to > > > > > work than central London? Guildford, for example, is quite wonderful > > > > > and only a train ride away from the smoke... :-)= > > > > > > > > Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? > > > > > > > > i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the > > > > commute - I live in a small flat) > > > > > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > > > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > > > have people in the same room; that way you get people who know the > > > answers immediately on tap and able to overhear other discussions and > > > contribute as appropriate. Whilst I love the journey to work in the > > > home office I don't like the rest of the office conditions. Having > > > people there is important. > > > > I can understand the idea of building a team, but I think I am more > > productive here, than in an office where I am nearly constantly > > interupted. Also not being able to ask a question of the person next > > door, means I go look for the answer - and the person next door can > > get on with it. > > Hmm... Have you looked at the XP books? > XP ? > > MySQL AB is a example of a company that is developeing a "product" in a > > virtual sense - why not try and develope a virtual company ? > > Well, clients probably like offices. Admittedly not necessarily a > *good* argument. > Ah well there I agree - a posh office creates an impression that alot of big clients (read high revenue clients), find appealing. I've not argued against an office - just the idea that everyone has to be in it all the time ! > > > > > > > > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > > > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > > > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > > > for me. > > > > But is treking into that good to working from home ? ADSL is > > cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. > > Where it's available. That would be 'not from my exchange in the > forseeable future...' Ah well, I want to move to Cornwall which will not get adsl for another few years ;-( Greg
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 03:34:31PM +, Leon Brocard wrote: > OK. We might as well do this quickly, how about Monday 12.30 at the > New World restaurant in Chinatown. Everyone who is vaguely interested > in a Perl Consultancy of some sort is invited. Count me in. The New World's on Gerrard St, isn't it? -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/ Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
Re: Consultancy company
On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 05:04:54PM +, Piers Cawley wrote: > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > have people in the same room; Plus there's too many distractions at home. Even if you live on your own. It's great to have the capability - for those evening brainwaves, or if you're ill - but doing it every day just doesn't work, at least for me. > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > for me. Yeah. What he said. -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/ Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
Re: Consultancy company
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, you wrote: > I can do 200% as much work at home because I can work when and as I feel > able to and so work when I am my most productive. well having spent the last year telecommuting I can affirm that it does let you sometimes work at phenomeonal rates But I also can see the other side .. contact and 'just being able to ask' is important too .. the telephone still works, and when I worked in a building full of people I;d just as lilely phone em up or email em as walk round to their office to see them. I'd say on balance that both have merit. at white heat development pace its better to be all in one room .. when its thrashed out and just needs plain doing, then wandering off home and doing it when it feels best is just as powerful. I'd see an ideal solution as being flexible and not pre constraining yourselves to a fixed pattern. If you prefer one type of working much over another then do it that way .. both have merit. and I'm still dead keen to be involved in an XP project :)) whatever .. if you lot are going to be in Chinatown on Monday thats as good a reason as any I can see for making a trip to the smoke ... see ya there. -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, you wrote: > > But is treking into that good to working from home ? ADSL is > > cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. > > Where it's available. That would be 'not from my exchange in the > forseeable future...' ISDN is cool .. and from this quarters BT bil I only was connected for a paltry 786 hours too ... :) -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Consultancy company
At 17:42 19/01/01, you wrote: >Piers Cawley wrote: > > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? > > > > > > i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the > > > commute - I live in a small flat) > > > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > > have people in the same room; that way you get people who know the > > answers immediately on tap and able to overhear other discussions and > > contribute as appropriate. Whilst I love the journey to work in the > > home office I don't like the rest of the office conditions. Having > > people there is important. > >I can understand the idea of building a team, but I think I am more >productive here, than in an office where I am nearly constantly >interupted. Also not being able to ask a question of the person next >door, means I go look for the answer - and the person next door can get >on with it. > >MySQL AB is a example of a company that is developeing a "product" in a >virtual sense - why not try and develope a virtual company ? Sounds like a great idea. Personally, as someone with M.S. (the MonSter), I need to be able to nap as and when I need to and work as and when I am able to. Working from home allows me to do this... > > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > > for me. > >But is treking into that good to working from home ? ADSL is >cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. I can do 200% as much work at home because I can work when and as I feel able to and so work when I am my most productive.
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 09:27:18AM +, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: > It should be mandatory for all public servants to be adept at Sim > City. IIRC, Sim City is one of Ken Livingstone's favorites. Alex
Re: Consultancy company
Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Piers Cawley wrote: > > > > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > Andy Wardley wrote: > > > > > > > > On Jan 18, 4:28pm, Leo Lapworth wrote: > > > > > Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. > > > > > > > > It sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I've even got as far as > > > > writing a (fledgling) business plan for such a venture based around > > > > Template Toolkit-ish web development, support and consultancy. It's > > > > something that Simon Matthews and I have been talking about for a couple > > > > of years, but never really quite got around to taking the plunge. I > > > > was about to jump but work related improvments of the last few > > > > weeks have pushed it back onto the back burner. > > > > > > > > Now, what would it take to convince you that there are nicer places to > > > > work than central London? Guildford, for example, is quite wonderful > > > > and only a train ride away from the smoke... :-)= > > > > > > Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? > > > > > > i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the > > > commute - I live in a small flat) > > > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > > have people in the same room; that way you get people who know the > > answers immediately on tap and able to overhear other discussions and > > contribute as appropriate. Whilst I love the journey to work in the > > home office I don't like the rest of the office conditions. Having > > people there is important. > > I can understand the idea of building a team, but I think I am more > productive here, than in an office where I am nearly constantly > interupted. Also not being able to ask a question of the person next > door, means I go look for the answer - and the person next door can > get on with it. Hmm... Have you looked at the XP books? > MySQL AB is a example of a company that is developeing a "product" in a > virtual sense - why not try and develope a virtual company ? Well, clients probably like offices. Admittedly not necessarily a *good* argument. > > > > > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > > for me. > > But is treking into that good to working from home ? ADSL is > cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. Where it's available. That would be 'not from my exchange in the forseeable future...'
Re: Consultancy company
Piers Cawley wrote: > > Greg Cope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Andy Wardley wrote: > > > > > > On Jan 18, 4:28pm, Leo Lapworth wrote: > > > > Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. > > > > > > It sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I've even got as far as > > > writing a (fledgling) business plan for such a venture based around > > > Template Toolkit-ish web development, support and consultancy. It's > > > something that Simon Matthews and I have been talking about for a couple > > > of years, but never really quite got around to taking the plunge. I > > > was about to jump but work related improvments of the last few > > > weeks have pushed it back onto the back burner. > > > > > > Now, what would it take to convince you that there are nicer places to > > > work than central London? Guildford, for example, is quite wonderful > > > and only a train ride away from the smoke... :-)= > > > > Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? > > > > i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the > > commute - I live in a small flat) > > I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to > really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to > have people in the same room; that way you get people who know the > answers immediately on tap and able to overhear other discussions and > contribute as appropriate. Whilst I love the journey to work in the > home office I don't like the rest of the office conditions. Having > people there is important. I can understand the idea of building a team, but I think I am more productive here, than in an office where I am nearly constantly interupted. Also not being able to ask a question of the person next door, means I go look for the answer - and the person next door can get on with it. MySQL AB is a example of a company that is developeing a "product" in a virtual sense - why not try and develope a virtual company ? > > And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) > it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where > they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good > for me. But is treking into that good to working from home ? ADSL is cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. Greg > > -- > Piers
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat wormdiscovered
On 19 Jan 2001, Piers Cawley wrote: > > Put me down for that. Might bring Gill as well. > It seems like every tom dick and harry's other half is called Gill around here :) /J\ -- Jonathan Stowe | http://www.gellyfish.com | I'm with Grep on this one http://www.tackleway.co.uk |
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
At 14:55 19/01/01, Neil Ford wrote: > >Dave Hodgkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >Mmmm... so, when are we going to have a meeting about all this? >Well seeing as I will be amongst the great unwashed from next week, >anytime soon would be good. Me too!
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
At 15:49 19/01/01, Dave Cross wrote: >I'd love to come along, but probably wouldn't have time to get there >and back during lunch. Can we do it one evening? An evening would be better for me, too... Natalie
