Why Tough Mudder ?

February 4, 2013 by jmorse in fitness, personal, sports, Tough Mudder | Leave a comment

When I told my mom I was running this Tough Mudder race, her first response was..what did you call me ?

Once I explained to her what Tough Mudder was, she, like my boy asked simply why?

Aside from the charity thing, which i admit is not the primary reason the ‘Why’ is both simple and complicated.

I’m running this race because when i talk to people about it they say why?

And at 45  (as i will be when this race takes place) I refuse to become ‘that’ guy, I refuse to walk away from a challenge because I’m not as young as I was.  I stopped playing football because I could no longer compete, but I didn’t stop living.  If the past year or so has taught me anything its that quitting gets you no where.

  • I intend to run this race because life without challenges isn’t life its waiting to die
  • I intend to to run this race because i am going to be in better shape at 45 than I was at 35.
  • I intend to run this race so that I can show my boy that there is nothing you cannot achieve with hard work
  • I will get my ass out of bed and train in the morning
  • I will go home at night and train
  • I will eat right
  • I will lift, row and run until I am ready
  • I will compete

So when i get asked why I am doing this the answer is simple

Because its there

Get off your ass and do something , or sit and watch others, that’s your choice..

Click here to support Help for Hereos

 

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Tough mudder me

January 30, 2013 by jmorse in sports | Leave a comment

tough mudder logoSo in a fit of abject stupidity,  and after being bullied by my old buddy James Stammer from Synergi fitness, I have agreed to run the Tough Mudder race in September of 2013.

For those not familiar, Tough Mudder is a gentle jaunt through various terrain ranging from mud, more mud and underwater, inter-spaced with various gentle obstacles set out by the the course designers who, as far as i can ascertain, are ex special forces and some time lunatics…

Mud, ice, ridiculously high walls and electricity all take their place in the course and for some reason this appealed to me.

The word ‘special’ comes to mind, read into that as you will.

As with all such endeavours ill be killing myself in this madness for charity , help for heroes will benefit this time so i guess that’s all good. In the meantime at least I now have an excuse to go buy some funky new kit…right?

To sponsor this madness click here and fill in the details

need to know more check this out  or even this for the UK version

Watch this space for updates…I may need my head examining.. :)

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Liz Keogh’s blog » They’re not User Stories

January 6, 2013 by jmorse in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

http://lizkeogh.com/2010/02/02/theyre-not-user-stories/

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Article: Adaptive vs. Responsive, what’s the difference?

October 21, 2012 by jmorse in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Adaptive vs. Responsive, what’s the difference?

http://viljamis.com/blog/2012/adaptive-vs-responsive-whats-the-difference.php

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New start

June 3, 2012 by jmorse in misc, personal | Leave a comment

After almost 9 years and many adventures with some excellent people, i have finally left Eduserv and moved on to new challenges. Leaving a job i had been in for so long as hard and its was strange to leave so many people who I had grown to know so well.

However working in Bristol rather than Bath is a big plus, 20 minutes walk as opposed to an hour plus commute has many positives, and the new variety of projects I get to work on has introduced new challenges and opportunities.  The company, Felinesoft has thus far been exciting, busy  and very very different from the ‘serv’.  Being much much smaller there is a ‘pitch in and get it done approach’ which is only found in smaller setting.

I think i shall be happy here

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You are number not a free (wo)man

June 3, 2012 by jmorse in social networks, web 2.0 | Leave a comment

Hands up if you have a Facebook account, (or for that matter twitter or Google or another ‘free’ service) now hands up if you were one of the throng that howled with pain when Facebook changed its interface or bought Instagram or did anything else that you felt affronted by as a user, a customer.

How dare they they change your service without consulting you, after all its yours, right? Simple put, your wrong.  In a discussion I had with my new boss at Felinesoft, if you use these ‘free’ service that that you, your details, your pictures activity checkins, likes and even pokes are all traded by Facebook.

You are a product, you are what the Facebooks of this world trade on, not the customer.

Remember that the next time you feel the need to post a picture of yourself in your pants drinking a glowing pink drink with an umbrella poolside at some summer party you don’t remember attending.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you

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The Mayonnaise Jar

February 2, 2012 by jmorse in poetry, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day is not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and two cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and fills it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured it into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “YES”.

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things – God, family, children, health, friends, and favourite passions. Things, that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car. The sand is everything else — the small stuff.” he said.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you…” he told them.

“So… pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Worship with your family. Play with your children. Take your partner out to dinner. Spend time with good friends. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping tap. Take care of the golf balls first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled and said, “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

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Why?

July 29, 2011 by jmorse in Prince2, project management, scrum, waterfall | Leave a comment

Just a brief observation, but why do some PM’s try to score points off each other. There seems to be a breed of managers that try to create a situation, dissent for the hell of it purely because they can?

Wrong, bad, go to the naughty step; hate that, hate hate hate.

My job is to deliver the project, successfully, not win a p*ssing contest with the supplier/customer/partner PM.  I’ll not compromise my employers position, but my first and foremost is to deliver a profitable project, with a happy customer and partners who want to work with us again.

It should be yours also.

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Taking a view on Agile requriements

December 2, 2010 by jmorse in agile, project management, scrum | Leave a comment

I have recently been having a discussion with a colleague trying to get them to understand that, in an agile environment you don’t need to define the deliverables with finite detail but instead have a vision of what you need to achieve and work towards it in measurable chunks.

In order to do so I used the metaphor of someone who, looking into the distance can see their immediate destination close up, they can see the fences that bar their way, or shortcuts that will save time and effort and can plan their route in detail.

However as they look further into the distance and towards their eventual destination, the detail to which they can plan their route gets less and less.  It’s only as they travel their route that they get to see the new barriers, new paths to tread and that they can plan the route for the the next phase in detail.

Have a view of the long term goals of your project but you can’t plan the whole thing in detail as things change was you go, plan the next phase in detail using your experience to make informed decisions, defining the detailed requirements for the each phase in turn refining your understanding of the project deliverables as you go.

And remember, the methodology is a tool to achieve the end goal not the goal itself.

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Tailoring Prince2

November 30, 2010 by jmorse in Prince2, project management | Leave a comment

At the risk of seeming obsessive, I’d like to touch on one of the major issues I feel that Prince2 still has in its education program and thus its application in the ‘real world’.  It comes in part from the distinction, real or perceived between the real working environment and the classroom (or Prince2 environment).

The course runs for 5 days well 4 and a half and there are two exams in that.  During the classroom sessions you go through the methodology in full and that’s good, you need to so that you understand the how the Process, Themes and Principles work together properly.  However most, if any projects that the candidates run will never use the entire Prince2 process in full.  To their credit, the change on 2009 made allowances and put more focus on embedding and tailoring the methodology, but it’s not really covered in the course.  As a result there is a separation between the application of Prince2 and the classroom. Candidates are cut loose after taking the course and expected to tailor the methodology without it ever being shown how.

This is where the Prince2 process falls over, the result can only lead to badly tailored projects that use some of the principles or use the methodology incorrectly breaking the processes to suit the needs of the project, this may work with varying degrees of success but it’s little wonder that there is some confusion, even ridicule for Prince2, which is a perfectly valid methodology, when two companies’ can have a completely different idea of what Prince2 actually is.

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