Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged blogging, collective culture, long distance phone call, long distance telephone, Writing on 17 Sep 2012| 2 Comments »
Fifty followers. Fifty.
That may not sound like a lot to you, but it does to me. I’m not even 100 days into this experiment, and already there are 50 of you who found it interesting enough to click the “follow” button. Not bad, in my estimation, especially since most of you 50 (if not all of you) are new to (the thing that is) KRAG. That’s a pretty good reach, in my book.
Mostly, though, it proves a point: Blogging is powerful.
Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged e-ticket, high tech, low-tech, memento, new technologies, print at home ticket, seattle town hall, ticket stub, ticket stubs, tickets on 11 Sep 2012| 2 Comments »
Up on a shelf, next to some old journals, I have a box filled with memories.
Tonight, I’m going to a concert, and I won’t be able to put it in that box.
The concert is down at the Seattle Town Hall tonight and the music is a collection of piano trios. I bought my tickets to the series through an online vendor. As is my habit, I paid a little extra ($6) to have the tickets sent to my home.
The tickets didn’t arrive, and there was a little back-and-forth between myself and the vendor. For some reason, mailing physical tickets is sometimes beyond their abilities (despite the additional cost), and remailing them or issuing a second set is Just Not Done.
Posted in Hi Tech, tagged Agile, Corporate America, Firefly, IT, Jayne Cobb, methodology, project management on 06 Sep 2012| Leave a Comment »
I’ve spent some time on this blog bemoaning the flaws and poor implementations of Agile methodologies so, to be fair, this isn’t about that. I cannot blame Agile for the problems currently weighing on me at my Monkey-Boy-Day-Job. These problems go much deeper. It doesn’t matter what methodology you’re using; you can’t fix stupid.
Like most people, I want to succeed at my job. I want to do well and contribute to good outcomes. I really hate being set up to fail. But management-types don’t seem to grok that concept. So they do things like this:
To quote Jayne Cobb, ” Where’s that get fun?”
k
Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged amazon, book reviews, rj ellory on 04 Sep 2012| 1 Comment »
UK’s The Telegraph reports today that RJ Ellory, noted writer of crime fiction, has been outed as the author of pseudonymously posted raves of his own work—and likewise posted pans of his competitors’ books.
I will admit that I have posted a “review” on my own works on Amazon, but (1) it was done under my own name, and (2) it wasn’t an actual review, but a more in-depth blurb and a note to readers. The idea of heaping glory on my own work under a fake name just reeks of desperation, and the idea of trashing other writers in my genre? Oy. What was he thinking?
RJ Ellory has since apologized for his “lapse of judgement” but I say, this is no lapse. This was a self-justified, long-term pattern of bad behavior born of some overweening belief that he is just “too cool for school” and that the rules of fairness just don’t apply to Himself. For someone who gets the kind of notice, press, and accolades RJ Ellory already enjoys, this sort of petty, schoolyard tactic is nigh on unbelievable.
But, it is just another example of how standards have been reduced and misbehavior is only regretted once one is caught out red-handed. I expect this will not hurt Mr. Ellory in the long run—his sales will not markedly drop nor will his next contract be in jeopardy—but I hope it stings like hell for a while.
k
Posted in Hi Tech, tagged Agile, Corporate America, IT, IT Management, methodology, software development on 02 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Sorry, but this is another of my rants against the Agile methodology.
The concept of “teams in the workplace” is a good one. I have worked in teams before, where we all knew what we were all doing and we all swapped roles as required. But Agile drives this down to the sub-floor and then keeps going, shedding all concept of organization and efficiency in its goal to push all functionality down to the “team” level. This idea that “all decisions are made by everyone” takes egalitarianism to its ad absurdum point, and creates an atmosphere where you intelligent, capable, professional people are treated like 5-year olds at a picnic. What the hell is wrong with delegation? Why is even the hint of a hierarchical structure so antithetical to “team”? Don’t real teams have coaches?
Here’s the deal. Someone “on high” has decided that we (our team) needs to have a quarterly plan and commit to what we can deliver in the coming quarter. (How they reconcile this with the concept that we only commit to what we can deliver one sprint at a time is beyond me, but hey, that’s senior management for you.) So, instead of delegating this task to a small group who have the best overall view of what needs to be done and how all the pieces fit on a macro scale, they’ve decided that we all have to travel to corporate headquarters for an all-day, face-to-face meeting, so that we can all agree on all decisions. So now, instead of just wasting the time of say, five people for a day each, we’re going to waste the time of 20 people for a day each, plus the family time lost by those of us who have to travel to CorpHQ, plus the expense of paying for that travel and putting people up overnight (since the all-day session starts at—get this—7AM).
All so we can all feel good about our decisions.
Bollocks. This is just another example of management pushing their job down to the worker bee. Now, instead of management actually managing the resources and workloads, they push that task down to the teams. The teams now have to manage their resources and workloads, the teams now have the responsibility, and management can just sit there and prime their muzzle-loaders, preparing to take us down should we miss our goals.
Making each team member an active participant in every decision means duplicating effort and wasting resources. I have been a project and team leader in the past; I can do it, and I can do it well, but I prefer to be down in the weeds creating solutions to problems rather than higher up wrangling priorities and schedules. But why should I be required to do both? Especially (and this is what really steams my clams) when we have people who are paid to do it! All those folks with “lead” and “manager” and “director” in their titles? Why aren’t they leading, managing, and directing?
Blankity-blank.
k
Posted in Hi Tech, tagged Agile, Corporate America, IT on 25 Jun 2012| 5 Comments »
Is every corporation in America as Meeting-Happy as mine?
Recently, my we implemented a new methodology: Agile. We’d already been using it, here and there, but this was an across the board mandate, so that we were “all on the same page.” To be honest, I wasn’t a fan, since after 20 years in IT it was perfectly obvious that this was nothing new; we’d been “agile” back in the 90s and all these guys did was change the jargon. One thing I do like about it, though, is its enforced honesty about how you spend your time.
I just calculated the hours I’d have available for this next 3-week “sprint” (see what I mean about the jargon?). Out of 84 possible productive hours (14 days @ 6 hrs a day), once I take away all the meetings I have scheduled, I have a grand total of 37 hours to apply to actual work. Reduce that by the number of hours I expect to spend handling on-call issues (15) and I have 22 hours of work, or 26%.
Best case scenario, that means I’m spending over half my time in meetings. Planning meetings, “Backlog Grooming” sessions, demos, “retrospectives,” reviews, etc., etc.
No wonder IT has a rep for never getting anything done (or done well). After spending all that time in meetings, we don’t have time to do quality work! We slam it all together in the remaining 25% of our time and hope for the best.
Agile has some good points, but its enforced egalitarianism, born of today’s “Everyone’s a winner!” mentality, is stupendously inefficient. Divide the work, and you get more done faster. If everyone has to be present for every activity, we just get bogged down.
k
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 