eigen

Imagine the situation: Hydraulic fluid pressure is dropping fast; supply tank levels are also dropping. You are pretty sure there is a big leak in the system, but you have no idea where it is. Pretty soon the operation will be compromised: The pressure will be below the minimum required and you may be forced to shut down the field. It is a scary picture.

Ah, the old ones still the best ????. But such questions can sometimes be worth considering. For example, when is Agile not Agile?

In an earlier blog, I wrote about what Agile is. And that’s all well and good, but what has Agile ever done for us?

I’ve been using Apple products since 2007. Every smart phone I’ve had has been an iPhone but yesterday I ordered a new Android phone. I’m so fed up with shelling out around £1000 every couple of years but I’ve been trapped because all my music is in iTunes, all my family have iPhones and we run Macs*. Man, I hate being locked in! I wouldn’t mind if it was still value for money, but it’s not – I feel like I’m being taken for a ride now.

In November (this month as I write this) we have not long closed out possible two of the best custom software projects we have done. Sure there were bugs in the testing and there will be more found by the users I’m sure, but what made them so good? We hit the schedule to within a week on both of them and there were no scope changes over the entire project, so we hit the budget as well. This is particularly impressive for one of them because it was a completely new piece of software, written from scratch; taken from powerpoint to in production in 5 months.

This picture makes me laugh and if it makes you laugh too then you’ve probably been involved in purchasing or project delivery at some point.

You have probably heard software developers talk about being Agile, and maybe wondered what they mean. Perhaps they do star jumps and touch their toes before breakfast, or write code while limboing under desks? Well, it’s nothing like that… read on to find out more!

Back in July I asked myself the question “Why are we still in business after 11 years?”. A small specialist company in a big competitive industry. We’ve been through 3 downturns now and we continue to develop longstanding relationships with some of the most innovative operators in the business. Clearly we are doing something right but what is it?

Did you ever learn to play “Sweet child of mine” on the guitar? Like almost every other teenager who had a guitar I learned the opening riff to “Sweet child of mine” and I remember playing it in a guitar shop when I was testing out an amp, only to have one of the staff point to a sign on the wall that said anyone playing “sweet child of mine” would be thrown out the shop and told never to return!

The world was shocked to learn about the massive explosion in the port of Beirut: This has been a terrible tragedy with an astronomical cost in terms of lives lost and damage to property; one could even argue, to the whole country, as even the strategic grain reserves were hit.