Paul Hammond's Blog

I work in one of Microsoft’s MSN development teams in London, and our team is looking for Software Testers.  There is one role already advertised, and a Lead role that will be published later this week.

If you are a developer or tester looking for a new challenge, and you would like to work for Microsoft/MSN, check out the job descriptions here: http://london-msn-jobs.com/.

The dates and venue for this years Agile Conference have been announced.  The conference is from August 9th to 13th in Nashville, Tennessee.

You can find out more details about being a presenter or attending the conference at http://www.agile2010.org/.  The submission system will be open soon if you have something you’d like to share with the Agile community!

This year’s metaphor is “Learn.  Practice.  Explore…”.  From the conference website:

Learn. Practice. Explore...
The metaphor for this year’s conference describes stages of learning. For those of you who are familiar with the Japanese martial arts this is referred to as Shu Ha Ri. These stages describe a path from learning to mastery. It is the goal of the Program Committee that the program we put together for Agile 2010 will provide something compelling for each stage of learning.

Read more about the conference and the three main conference themes at the Agile 2010 Conference Blog.

Time for another reflection on a year passed.  I wrote my first yearly review (Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009) last year, so I thought I’d continue the tradition.

So, What Happened In 2009?

Travel featured again, although not as much as in 2008.  This year I made only 8 trips, spending 66 days on the road.  I returned to Dublin once, Shanghai twice and Seattle three times.  I visited Cyprus for the very first time for our family vacation, and headed to Chicago for the Agile 2009 conference.

I was in Chicago with my friend Dave, who lived there for a while.  He introduced me to some great food (including delicious Pizza at Giordano’s, breaded Steak Sandwiches at Ricobene’s, and breakfast at the West Egg Cafe).  I was able to catch a White Sox vs Orioles baseball game at US Cellular field, but sadly I couldn’t get tickets for the Cubs vs Mets game at Wrigley.  I visited the stadium though.

Cyprus was fantastic.  Blue skies and sunshine every day, 35 degree heat, lovely beaches.  We rented a house and a car and explored the Eastern end of the Cypriot owned part of the Island.  I was fascinated by Famagusta and the ghost town.  Highly recommended if you want a slow moving and relaxing holiday in a very beautiful place.

While I was in Chicago, I spent some time exercising with super-fit Dave, and I realised that I was seriously unfit.  I resolved to change that, and I blogged about my exercise and weight loss progress back in November.  I’ve continued on since then and lost a further 5lbs in weight.

In February, I completed my 365 Days photography project.  It felt great to hit 366 days without missing a single picture, and I learned a lot about both my camera and Photoshop.  I’ve since had the photos (rather vainly) printed into a hard-cover book using blurb.com, so I can flick through it every so often to remember the achievement.  I’ve since forgotten all of the Photoshop techniques I learned during the year, and many of the camera techniques!  I am sure it will come back to me when I take on my next photography project.  I’m yet to decide what that will be.

In July, I finally got to see a long-time favourite artist of mine, Babyface, live at the indigO2 in London.  He was completely awesome, and I hope he comes back through London again soon.

I finally bought a new desktop computer in August, one that gives me enough power for photo and video editing, as well as multi-track audio recording.  I’m looking forward to giving it a proper workout soon, time permitting.

On the 1st December, my daughter sang with the Young Voices Choir at the O2.  It was amazing to see her join 8,000 other children to sing along with a number of celebrities who graced the stage.  The kids took up a third of the auditorium!  It was a very impressive sight, and an even more impressive sound.  I am looking forward to getting the DVD of the show in the New Year.  You can see a clip from the 1st December Young Voices concert here.

I’ll be finishing out the year at a wedding on December 31st.  I’ve never mixed celebrations before, so that will be a first for me.  I’m looking forward to seeing in the New Year in a suit, rather than the usual pyjamas…

What Didn’t Happen In 2009? 

Last year’s post had a list of things I wanted to try and to in 2009.  So, how did I do?  Very poorly it seems.  I did visit Chicago and Shanghai.  I didn’t read anywhere near as much as I wanted to, I didn’t learn any more Spanish or Mandarin, nor formally take piano or guitar lessons.  I didn’t participate in NaNoWriMo 2009, didn’t record any music, and didn’t start a new photography projects.  Oh, and if anything, I blogged less.  So, pretty much a big FAIL against my predictions!

Onwards to 2010.

The first thing to think about is what I will call 2010.  Am I going to be in the “Twenty-Ten” crowd, or the “Two-Thousand-and-Ten” bucket?  Unlike in the 1900s, where saying “Nineteen-Seventy” sounded right, saying “Twenty-Ten” or “Twenty-Twelve” sounds a little wrong to me.  I think I’ll be going with “Two-Thousand-and-Ten”.  You?

Things that may or may not happen in 2010:

• I will probably be involved in planning the Agile Conference again, so will likely be heading to Nashville, Tennessee in August.  Another US city I’ve never visited before.
• More exercising, both running and cycling, including at least one formally organized race – probably a 10k.
• I’ll be visiting my childhood home town much more often that I have done in recent years.
• I will almost certainly write and record something this year.  Just one more bit of hardware to buy first (a new DI box, for those who care).
• I’ll be switching blog engines, from DasBlog to GraffitiCMS.  I’ll also hopefully have a new site design in the New Year.
• I’ll be developing an iPhone application, probably working with Tee to extend his BostonFireBox.com offering.
• We’re enjoying discussing the possibilities for our family holiday this year.  No decision yet, other than “we are definitely going on holiday!”.
• I’ll be decorating our bedroom and our hall, stairs and landing early in the New Year so that the carpet we already paid for can be fitted.  I hate decorating.  Humbug.

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone, I hope 2010 is everything you want it to be, and more besides.

My friend Dave is very fit.  He works out every day, eats right and has the will power to stay away from bad foods.

Late in August, I went to the Agile 2009 conference with Dave.  On the first day in Chicago, I decided that I should take advantage of our hotel being right on the River Walk, and suggested to Dave that we go for a run.  I think I managed about 2 miles that day, with a rest or two, and Dave seemed to be OK with me slowing him down!  I was breathing hard after a couple hundred yards, and struggled to push myself through the second mile…

At the time I was carrying about 204lbs (14st 8lbs for you UK folks, 93kg metric).  I knew I was overweight and unfit; simple tasks like walking flights of stairs made subsequent conversation difficult, so it was obvious I was out of shape.  But running with Dave really brought it home to me how bad I had gotten.  Other incidents also tipped me off.  For example, when I told a colleague that I had a 32” waist, he laughed at me!  We agreed that while I wore 32” waisted trousers, they sat very low (way below my waist) and that my proper waist size was in fact much larger!  And when I remembered that I had been 140lbs throughout college, I realised I’d added nearly 50% of my body weight in my “sitting on my backside at the office” years.  Granted, 140lbs was way too thin, but equally, 204lbs was just too fat.

So, I found myself quite profoundly shocked at myself, all of a sudden.  It took such a long time for the weight to creep up, that I hadn’t really noticed so much.  Struggling for breath as I walked the last 200 yards back to the hotel sure made it obvious.  So, right there on that Monday morning, as I watched the sun rise over the lake, I made a decision to exercise more and eat better, and to try and get myself fitter.  If I lost a little weight, that would be a bonus, but as long as my heart was healthier, I would be happy.

I exercised every day in Chicago with Dave, either running on the lake front, or in the gym.  The 5 days came and went, and I still felt awful after every session.  But when I arrived home, I decided I had to make a continued effort.  I decided that I’d make time for exercise by getting up earlier and running first thing in the morning – time when I’d ordinarily be sleeping anyway.

Knowing that I would need some sort of regimented approach, I went online and found a novice 10k training programme.  I began to follow it, to the letter.  I would run 3 times a week, and then either use our cross-trainer or take my bike out for long rides on the other 2 days.  At the same time, I started changing some of my eating habits; fewer Diet Cokes, skim milk, much smaller breakfast cereal helpings, more fruit during the day (I never was very good at remembering my 5!), and fewer snacks.  Nothing drastic, just some sensible changes.

I’ve been following “the plan” for about 12 weeks now.  Two significant things happened this weekend.  Firstly, I bought some new jeans, with a waistband that is 2” smaller than my old jeans – some lovely Superdry jeans with a 30” waistband.  And they actually fit me at the waist this time!  Secondly, I got down into the 12-stone-something range (albeit only 12st 12lbs, or 180lbs).

Incredibly, with some regular exercise and a sensible approach to eating, I have lost over 24lbs in weight in just 3 months.  No diets, no fads, just a little will power and a few hours hitting the road when I would probably have been sleeping anyway.  I’ve found that I actually like running and cycling, and that there is a certain meditative quality to both.  I’ve also found that I can push myself farther than I thought I could, able to go “just one more mile” when my body really wanted me to just stop and sit on the curb.  My lap times over the various distances have consistently improved too, and I am able to run much further distances; both indications of my fitness improving dramatically.  And you know, generally, I just feel so much better…

Despite having quite a bad a right calf strain this week which has slowed me down a little, this is not a temporary life change for me.  I intend to continue exercising 5 days a week (even though the winter months might be tough!) and I will at least maintain my fitness and my 175-180lbs of body weight.

While reasonably security conscious, sometimes we leave things out in our back garden, mostly out of convenience or laziness!  Usually there are garden chairs, sometimes garden toys, and very occasionally, our kids' bikes.

About 6 weeks ago, my son's bike disappeared from our back garden.  We have a side alleyway that isn't gated, so getting in to the garden is easy.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that someone came around the back and took the bike.  I am surprised that anyone would steal a bike made for an 8 year old though.  At the time, I was also surprised, they didn't take my daughter's bike too.

Anyway, as a result of the theft, we've had a 6-foot gate fitted, and had to buy new bikes for both the kids.  We probably should have had the gate fitted a long time ago, and I am not too upset about having to buy new bikes as they were growing out of their old ones anyway.  Also, Dylan got a BMX that is perfectly fine for me to ride too, and it has stunt pegs front and back.  How long before I seriously injure myself I wonder?  But I digress.  We'd put the whole incident behind us, and moved on.

Last week, my wife was driving home, and as she approached our house she noticed a small bike propped up against the fence opposite.  Doing a double take, she realized that it was Dylan's missing bike!  I hate it when things like this happen – I also want an explanation; I'm not happy with simply "oh, how lucky it showed up again!"

That said, we *think* we figured out what happened.  There are some construction works happening in the field opposite our house, laying some new pipes.  They've dug some large holes and created some large earth piles.  No-one has been on site doing any work for a good few weeks though.  We think that someone took the bike so that they could have some fun on the hilly terrain, and then simply dumped it in the long grass once they were finished.  Then, last week, the workmen finally came back to work on the site; they must have found the bike and left it leaned against the fence in the street so that the owner might see it.  Which we did!

Anyone want to buy a bike for an 8 year old boy?  Good condition, only one owner, one theft and a month sitting out in a field in the typical English summer rain.

I’ve been a huge fan of Babyface since the winter of 1989/1990, although I'm guessing that not many people really know who he is.  He wasn’t well known at all in the UK, and I only stumbled across his genius in a round about way.  In my teen years, I used to DJ with a couple of friends at a bar in a holiday camp.  The last half hour of the evening was dedicated to slow songs and slow dancing, a final opportunity for the drunken holiday-makers to try to seduce the other party-goers that had taken their fancy.  One of the tracks that was popular at the time was "Superwoman" by Karyn White.  If we played it once, we must have played it 100 times in the summer of 1989.

Once the summer was over, as part of my desire to "relive the good old summer nights", I picked up a copy of Karyn White’s debut album (eponymously titled "Karyn White").  I didn’t really care too much whether the rest of the album was good, but I wanted a version of "Superwoman" on tape.  I was pleasantly surprised that the album was actually very good, and there was a duet with Babyface on there called "Love Saw It" which I loved.  I also noticed that many of the other tracks were written by Babyface.

In January of 1990, I travelled to Florida for the first time.  While I was there, I stumbled across a copy of Babyface's album "Tender Lover" in a record store.  Based on the limited amount I knew about Babyface from the Karyn White album, I took a chance and spent a chunk of my spending money on the tape.  I never looked back.  I was an instant fan from the first few bars of "It's No Crime" playing through the tinny headphones of my larger-than-a-housebrick cheap Sony Walkman copy tape player.

Turns out that he is probably more famous for the songs he has written and produced for other artists than for his solo material.  He has had literally hundreds of hits with songs that he wrote for almost every R&B artist you can name.  Boyz II Men ("I'll Make Love To You" and "End Of The Road" anyone?), Toni Braxton, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, TLC, Mariah Carey to name a few.  Check out Babyface's Wikipedia page for an list of his top 10 hits (which of course doesn't include the huge amount of album tracks and international hits).

So, fast forward 20 years, July 2009.  I *finally* got to see Babyface perform live two Saturdays ago, at the indigO2 venue in London.  It was a long time coming, and *well* worth the wait.

He opened with "For The Cool In You", followed by "Never Keeping Secrets" and "Every Time I Close My Eyes".  Then, since he was playing in London and wanted to honour a local, he covered Clapton's "Tears In Heaven", with the caveat that the band had only rehearsed it that day.  Next was one of the highlights of the evening for me, a medley of songs he has written for others: "Two Occasions" (The Deele), Bobby Brown's "Don't Be Cruel", "Every Little Step", "Rock Witcha" and "Roni", "Can We Talk" (Tevin Campbell), "My, My, My" (Johnny Gill), and finally Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You" and "End Of The Road".

At this point he played a tribute to Michael Jackson - "Gone Too Soon" – which I thought he did really well.

Next up were a couple of songs from that first "Tender Lover" CD - "Sunshine" and "Where Will You Go" – which I think was my other highlight of the evening, hearing two of the tracks that really got me into him in the first place.  He finished up the main set with "Grown and Sexy", "Change The World", and what seemed to be one of the crowds' favourites "Whip Appeal".

He came back out for an encore of "When Can I See You Again", which was fantastic.

All in all a fantastic mix of songs from across his whole career, an amazing band that really brought the songs to life, and an amazing songwriter and vocalist who brought charisma and humour and great songs to the stage of the indigO2.

If you get the chance to see him live, take it.  You'll love it.

I was looking through some back issues of Director magazine today, and stumbled across an article that was written in March 2008 entitled Terminal 5 Comes Alive.  It is an interesting read that discusses the leadership approach taken when BAA built Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport.

The first thing that struck me are some of the numbers.  The total cost of the project was £4.3 billion.  There were 147 sub-projects, clustered into 18 main projects.  These in turn fell under four project components – civils, rail and tunnels, buildings, and systems.  The 8,000 people who worked on the project were moved around by 60 buses, ate in 18 canteens, and used 18,000km of toilet roll!  At its height, the project was costing £3-£4 million per day.  A huge project, by all counts.

The article talks about the dismal record that most large construction projects have, and cites the Jubilee Line extension (London Underground), the Millennium Dome and the British Library as a few examples.  Yet Terminal 5, vast project that it was, managed to stay on time and budget.  Incredible.

As I read the rest of the article (which I encourage you to do yourself here: Terminal 5 Comes Alive), I started to recognise many of the values that are a key part of agile software development philosophy.  Sharon Doherty, the article’s author, calls out three key ingredients for success: an intelligent client, integrated teams, and courageous and determined leaders.

Collaboration over Contract Negotiation: BAA created the T5 Agreement, a contract that saw most of the risk fall on BAA’s shoulders, with incentive plans devised to reward exceptional performance across stakeholder teams.  This meant that stakeholders were not continually covering themselves against potential risks, and in fact were encouraged to find ways to ensure “exceptional performance”.

The article quotes one construction firm employee as saying (emphasis mine) “we received incentives to perform at exceptional levels, which normally meant having to work with other teams in a more collaborative way, solving problems together and worrying about getting the job finished”.  Another passage of the article describes people working “in the spirit of collaborative problem-solving instead of protecting their company interests; and always working to deliver, at a minimum, industry best practice and striving to achieve exceptional performance”.

Sharon summarizes the key leadership lessons as:

1. Think Big Picture: the whole project was complex and lengthy with a changing set of stakeholders.  Keeping the big picture in mind at all times was crucial.
2. Engender And Operate With Vigilant Trust.
3. Drive For Success Despite The Odds: the date and budget were set early on, and very made public.  The commitment was made.  Everyone knew that they had to hit those targets, and worked together in times of trouble to ensure they did.
4. Keep Stakeholders On-Side And Aligned With Objectives: the T5 Agreement went a long way to creating an environment where this could happen.
5. Get The Best Out Of The Integrated Team: they created a “one team” mentality across all of the contractors.

Seeing some of the key agile software development philosophies that make so much sense to me applied at a scale I can barely comprehend and in a totally different industry just further underscores my belief in the way I choose to approach software development projects – common sense really does work.

I’ve owned a pair of Bose QC2 Headphones for a long time now, and I’ve blogged about the great Bose customer service before.  A few weeks ago, I noticed that the padding around the left ear-cup had started to come loose.  At first it wasn’t too bad, but with continued use it got progressively worse.  Before too long, it ended up looking like this:

The material had completely come apart from the assembly and the foam of the ear-cup was coming out.  They were still just about wearable if you fiddled with the foam before putting them on, but a lot of the noise cancelling properties of the left headphone had disappeared.

I called Bose Customer Service and explained the problem, expecting that I would have to send them back for repair.  It turns out that replacing the ear-cups is a cheap self-service option.  For £23, I had two new ear-cups delivered to me with simple instructions for fitting them.

What I hadn’t realised before calling is that the ear-cups just pop off if pulled gently; there is a plastic ring that the cushioned part is attached to, and this just snaps in under some tiny plastic wedges.

Once the package from Bose arrived, it was a matter of a couple of minutes before I had two brand new ear-cups fixed on to my headphones.  I hadn’t realised just how soft the original ones had become and the new ones feel nice and firm, creating a really comfortable fit again.

So, if you’re struggling with your QC2’s ear-cups, call Bose and give your headphones a new lease of life.

I've been a big fan of the Lego games for a while now – Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman.  They are all fairly simple games on the surface, yet can be challenging when you dig into them.  My young son (who is now 9, but started playing the Star Wars game when he was 6 or 7) was able to play two player games with me, and contribute to winning (unlike some other games where he was just a burden due to his limited skills).

In Lego Batman, we easily managed to get about 85% of the game finished between us, just playing through the levels in Story Mode and then Free Play mode.  Once we hit 85%, it became a concerted effort to collect everything and reach 100%; something we'd never quite managed with Star Wars or Indiana Jones.  We played every level, became "True Hero/Villain" everywhere, rescued all the hostages, gathered all the post boxes and artefacts, and played the "special levels".  Despite that, we were stuck at 98.8% and there were still some data items that weren't unlocked.  I couldn't figure out why; there was nothing left to find, no levels left to play.

Turns out, according to various web searches, this is pretty common.  I saw a lot of "98.8% complete – help!" items in forum posts, and many seemed frustrated by what folks were assuming was a bug or glitch.  I was definitely in the "frustrated" bucket myself.  However, I don't think it is a bug.

I went back at the weekend and replayed the "special levels" – Wayne's Manor and Arkham Asylum.  I played Wayne's Manor (and due to some issues finding items), finished it in about 40 minutes.  Nothing changed in my completion status.  So I played it again, this time focussing on getting things done quickly.  19 minutes and a completed Wayne's Manor later, and suddenly I was at 99.4% complete.  Hmm, 0.6% extra for completing the level quickly.  Also, 0.6% shy of 100%.

Assuming that the elusive 0.6% could be gotten in the other "special level" by completing it quickly, I headed over to Arkham Asylum and zoomed through it as best I could.  Imagine my joy when the final 50G message immediately popped up, and the completion percentage went up to 100%!

So, hopefully this post will help some of the other folks on the internet who have been frustrated by this situation.  It isn't only about getting everything in the game, certain things need to be done quickly too.

[Oh, by the way, if anyone is reading this who can influence the right folks at the video game company, creating "Lego Back To The Future – The Video Game" would be completely AWESOME…]