The Prince2 problem

November 21, 2010 by jmorse in Prince2, project management | Leave a comment

Last week I completed my course and exam for my Prince2 practitioner certification. Now it’s no secret to those that know me that I have reservations about Prince as a methodology and over prescriptive ways of working, leaning more towards agile approaches as a rule. But any methodology is just a tool and, despite what others may say, a tool is only as effective as its application and the makeup of the team using it. Prince2 is no exception.
Here’s the revelation, Prince2 is not as bad as I first thought, there is a lot there that makes sense (if applied correctly) but, there are also a couple of pretty major gotchas as well.

So where does that leave us, Prince2 is a valid and useful means of getting things done, if applied properly (a whole different subject), its definition however has lost its way a little, time to get back on track fellas.

The manual.

Let’s start with the manual, as it’s likely anyone’s first exposure to Prince2 will be through the manual.  Be it guide or manual the tome reads like a book written by a crowd, a crowd that like to use a lot of words.  As a result the manual is badly written it, repeats itself often and end up confusing the reader rather than informing and assisting. Even if you make allowances for the fact that it’s written as a reference guide not a linear read.  The manual desperately needs to be designed (note, designed not re-designed) the structure needs refining, information design is vital in products like this and this needs to be added as part of the requirements for future editions, the methodology may be mature but the reference manual most definitely isn’t.  But then you need to reference it on the exam, and that’s where it gets really interesting.

The course

Firstly the course, it’s taught in a classroom environment which on the face of it seems to fit the material, which can be bland and confusing and does not do the methodology, which is not bland and confusing, justice.  There seems to some room to spice things up a little, one of the elements of the agile movement that make it so attractive to its advocates, is its user friendliness. It set outs to make the Agile fun right from the start and its courses are designed to be fun (and a little embarrassing) Prince2 could do with adopting some of this learning, information is easier to assimilate when learn by doing as opposed to being lectured to, maybe that would help the bad rep that prince2s has as a boring management tool.

The exam

Finally you get to the exam, firstly you need to suspend reality for a while to believe that any exam is an adequate method for testing a candidates understanding of a subject.

In Prince2 you face a test the reaches new level of confusion. When you take the course they allow a day, yes a whole day, on how to sit the exam, on how to interpret the questions and decipher what they actually mean. Now, any exam that needs a day to explain how to answer the questions to relatively intelligent, mature candidates has a problem. The real scary thing is, you need that day, the questions are designed to confuse the candidate, the format, though based on a prescribed testing method, has been skewed to fit the ideas of the examiners.  The English used is deliberately confusing and as a result the test becomes more a test in your English and your ability to just pass the test, your Prince2 knowledge becomes of secondary importance, and your ability to apply the methodology isn’t tested at all.

Prince2 is a valid management tool with useful if a little over complicated processes, if it’s applied correctly but that’s a whole different discussion.

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Lest we forget

November 11, 2010 by jmorse in misc, poetry | Leave a comment

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

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@ia on ia

September 24, 2010 by jmorse in content, information architecture | Leave a comment

I picked this up on twitter and immeadiately felt the need to repost,

very very good, for more information go to :

http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/

http://twitter.com/iA

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Success

September 23, 2010 by jmorse in poetry, random | Leave a comment

If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it

If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it

If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,

If gladly you’ll sweat for it,
Fret for it,
Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,

If you’ll simply go after that thing that you want.
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,

If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,

If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You’ll get it!

Berton Braley

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Parenthood in a digital age

May 19, 2010 by jmorse in privacy | Leave a comment

I recently became a parent, that not to say we gave birth, no, but after a long drawn out process, we, my fiancée and I, managed to get her son a visa to come live with us in the UK, he was 11 and has now just turned 13.

It’s a difficult age, I remember the turmoil of teenage life (just) and dread what adolescent treats we have in store, but my most immediate problem is, now he is ‘of age’, he has an argument against my stance that he being underage (according to the terms and conditions of Facebok) can’t have a face book page until he turns 13, didn’t think that one through fully.

Facebook is not evil, nor is the internet, but doing what I do consider myself savvier than the average parent, and, judging from conversations with my boy, this would seem to be a well founded assumption.

The internet is not a playground, there a risks associated with its use, just the as there are risks in most things, and whilst we cannot (and should not) fence our young of from these risk completely we do have a duty to teach them and mentor them in the best practices. The net it is not a safe environment on which to publish your details, and Facebook most certainly is not place for a new netizen to cut their wings.

We, as parents,  can only do so much to protect and educate our kids, we talk to them about  cyber bullying but have no control over whether we are listened or  heard, than same goes for the  discussions on publishing personal data .

There are rules in our house when it comes to the internet, we  do not allow access to the net in the bed room, access is monitored and software is installed to block inappropriate content where possible.

He will get Facebook, the digital world is the world he will grow up in and he must be savvy to all its opportunities, but it will be under certain conditions,

  1. He will not publish his birthday, holidays,  address, telephone number, school info or age
  2. He will not ‘friend’ anyone he does not know
  3. He will friend his mother and me.
  4. He will continue to be limited on how much time he spend online
  5. I will set up his account and privacy settings and he will not change them
  6. He will be wary of the images he publishes and only publish them to friends

It seems draconian but until the sites themselves help us the parents, protect our children, we the parent need to proactively monitor our little ones and make sure they understand the risks, a responsibility to many parents seem less keen to address.

It is my hope that he will discover all the great stuff out there, and become interested in adding to it, creating new experiences  and getting beyond just consuming, IM and games…..which are fun as well ;)

We shall see.

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PM 101: badgers never win

March 25, 2010 by jmorse in project management | Leave a comment

Little tip, no matter how much you try and how hard you want it, as a PM you should always avoid the constant badgering of your team or resources attached to your team, to deliver ‘product’.

it never works,  when I was on the other side of the line writing code and being ‘the resource’  I often encountered tow types of PM, the ‘badgers (?)’ and the guy / girl who knew how to get the best from their team, the ‘badgers’ task where always at the bottom of the list, same is true now I am the guy.

  • Trust your team
  • Set up your communication lines and trust them
  • Ask yourself who is this meeting benefiting, me or the project *before* you call it.
  • And leave the guys alone..

*caveat this assumes you have a team of competent staff, if this is not the case adjust your communication lines and project protocols according ;)

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Documents suck, information is cool

December 28, 2009 by jmorse in information architecture, information management, web 2.0 | Leave a comment

(With respects to Aarawak for messing with  their tag line)

I’ve been thinking recently about the role of documents in an organisations process,  and the slowly dawning realisation that they are increasingly irrelevant, barriers to information sharing, and possibly damaging to all that come near them. Ok that may be a little strong, but let me ellaborate.

When the ”document’ becomes the focus of your efforts, and not the information in them then they become a problem, not a solution.  You’ll need document management, audit and access control. when all you really want is the latest info, in an easy to find and use format, also know as ‘a Wiki’.

Worse, documents, when created to satisfy the needs of a process or procedure are often resented by the creator, written after the fact and as quickly as possible, and as a result can include inaccuracies, disinformation and missing details that are needed, in short document suck and act as a barrier to information sharing.

Develop a wiki as part of your project, allow all the actors in your team to contribute as needed, and not only do you have a record of the activity, discussions and decisions made on the project, you have living documentation to support the product once its released.

Now in order to make sure that the information being added to the site is findable,  you still need to have some control over the the structure, language and fair use of the wiki.  The idea is to make sure that on any product wiki, any one type of information (IA diagram for a web site for instance) will always be in the same relative location.  (mysite/ia/diagrams).  How you manage this is up to you, either build the structure and contributors follow it, or you do a little post editing, the end results are the same.

In any event ditch the documents, focus on the information instead.

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All change

November 23, 2009 by jmorse in Prince2, project management, scrum | Leave a comment

Its been a while, I know, thing is its been a period of change, no longer do work as a Information Architect at Eduserv, after a period of upheaval, the word came down and I moved to the project management team to look after the shortfall.  I’m still there.

The jury is still out as to whether this is a good thing, PM’ing isn’t something hard to me, and i do get to expand into scrum, as opposed to Prince2 methodologies, I’m not convinced that Prince2 works, in fact, I kind of have a sneaking suspicion that a methodology that focuses on the documentation, where the methodology is one of the (if not the) deliverable, is seriously flawed.  Done right it can work for certain projects, done wrong, by the letter with too many ‘controls’  its all too easy for the methodology to get in the way.

Scrum may be interesting, so far its not been boring.

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The Netflix Approach

August 7, 2009 by jmorse in design | Leave a comment

The web has been buzzing with discussion over the ‘leaked’ internal presentation from Netflix discussing their approach to business, if you’ve not seen it then spend a few minutes reading through it (its meant to be read not so much presented)

Culture

View more presentations from reed2001.

No doubt this approach is genius, there may be some suspicion that its more viral PR than a real HR presentation, it sure makes me want to work there, or somewhere similar.

We all know brilliant jerks, we all get bogged down in process that slows down our ability to do work and we all recognise the ‘silo’ environment…unless you work at Netflix that is.

The response from any offending business man will be that in these tough times they cannot afford such luxuries, but anyone that has read No Logo – Naomi Klien knows that successful business invest in times of crisis.

Read the presentation see what you think

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Usable or accessible?

July 23, 2009 by jmorse in accessibility, content, usability | Leave a comment

The following article first appeared in Public Sector Executive in August of 2008, http://www.publicsectorexecutive.com/dataview/News/News_Article.aspx?KeyValue=438 

I revisited the article to see how relevant it is today and whether progress had been made in the subsequent years.  The first thing i notice it the lack of references to social web and participatory culture of the web, I touch, lightly on pervasive media. Have things change however when considering accessibility and usability?

I’m not convinced…

Original copy

Ensuring a website can be accessed by those with disabilities has been widely discussed, and many public sector organisations are following the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) guidelines on accessibility when developing their web-based services. However, how does accessibility impact usability? Is there any need to distinguish between the two? What about the wider experience of interacting online?
Web accessibility is synonymous with the provision of web services for individuals with disabilities and usability is considered a more general concept, relating to the ease with which everyone can use web-based services. However, the two are intrinsically linked. Although improved web accessibility is important, web developers need to take into consideration the needs of all visitors, rather than just those who need to use a screen reader to navigate web pages for example. Consequently, the key to the provision of both usable and accessible web services is that web designers think of the users’ needs first and foremost, and adapt the design accordingly. By doing this, they are able to create web services that all users can benefit from.
Focus on users
When developing a usable web service, public sector decision makers should first identify all target groups – not only those the organisation is currently interacting with. Who are they? How do they want to interact with you?
For example, a local government body may wish to raise its profile among the teenagers living in the community. One way of engaging with this particular segment of the population is via the web.
Due to the rapid pace of web technology development, the public are now using a variety of platforms to find information, access services and interact with public sector bodies. These include games consoles, PDAs and mobile phones, as well as assistive technologies such as screen readers and voice browsers. In addition, individuals may wish to have access to public services at their convenience, so it is important that a website is easy to use not only with a PC or Mac, but also with a mobile phone, public kiosk or other appropriate platforms.
To ensure that public sector organisations are able to interact effectively with their communities, and their individual preferences, it is vital that they keep abreast of technological developments that deliver websites quickly and easily. By improving usability and accessibility, organisations can also demonstrate that it is socially responsible, enhancing its public profile among its different target audiences.
Getting started
There are a myriad considerations when building public web services. It is easy to focus too much on the technical issues, at the expense of design, and vice versa. It is content however that is most overlooked.
All content should be structured clearly with headers and paragraphs, and any particularly important information should be positioned at the top of the page so that users do not have to read through, or listen to, the entire page before getting to the section containing the information they are looking for. To illustrate, it is commonplace on private sector websites that the “contact us” section is located at the very bottom of the page. Some private organisations may not wish to be contacted by the public, and therefore attempt to hide their telephone number or email address at the bottom of the webpage. However, all public sector bodies should encourage a dialogue with their audience and, as part of this, make contact information as easy to find as possible on the website.
Additionally, language should be simple and consistent, and free of unnecessary jargon. By following the guidelines of the Plain English initiative, an organisation can become known as a reliable and useful source of information. Ensuring that language used on the site is easy to understand is important not only because information should be accessible to those whose first language is not English, but also because if the public is able to find information easily online, it is less likely that they will have to resort to customer support services. In essence, improving usability leads to cost savings and makes more funds available for improving the overall effectiveness of the organisation.
To ensure that an organisation’s website meets general usability and accessibility requirements, it is worth investing in user testing during the planning stages and upon completion of the site. Despite the wide range of automated testing tools available, they are not nearly as accurate and reliable as actual user testing. Moreover, a site can be technically compliant while being difficult to use or functionally inaccessible, which is why user testing is crucial in measuring the degree of ease with which users are able to find information and interact with the organisation in question. In addition, once a usable and accessible site has been developed, organisations should remember to monitor the way in which content is added and updated on the site to ensure that the site will not become unusable or inaccessible.
There are some public sector websites that have been designed in a way that enables the public to access information easily using a variety of platforms and with the vast majority of widely-adopted of web browsers. The DVLA (www.dvla.org.uk) and the Training and Development Agency (www.tda.gov.uk) are good examples. These organisations have realised that making their websites more usable and accessible for all is not only beneficial for the organisation from a financial and administrative point of view, but it also enhances their public image. Above all, it enables individuals of different ages, lifestyles and levels of ability to easily access public services online.
Following W3C guidelines is the first step towards improving a website, but it is not enough. Public sector organisations need to think beyond that and take into consideration the needs and preferences of everyone they wish to reach, to guarantee that their web-based services are both usable and accessible for all.

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