Archive for March, 2009

Project failure rate still high. Agile is the answer.

A recent study shows how a disturbing number of development projects still fail due to poor upfront analysis.

I think that this oversimplifies – the devil is in the detail. From experience it is about far more than just “the wrong scope” (I’m referring to the project requirements as the “scope”) – it is also about “scope creep,” “scope change” and underlying business change which inevitably results in “scope change.”

If you want to scope a big development at the start of the development, you are going to have a tough choice when the inevitable scope change requests come. Either, enforce the “letter of the law” by referring to the brilliant/bullet-proof requirements documentation you created upfront OR allow the changes and “donate” the work required to the paying client.

Neither option is reasonable. Someone is going to lose out in either case.

There is an answer. It’s called Agile Development. At WWW, we use a particular methodology called “SCRUM.”

The Agile Manifesto puts the issues squarely on the table.

In simple terms: Work in smaller chunks. Deliver business value often. Collaborate with the software owner/sponsor very closely throughout the process. Accept that change is inevitable in software development – accommodate and encourage it. Ensure that everyone on the development team trained and mandated to maximize business value on behalf of the software sponsor/owner. Everyone on the team is both developer and analyst.

March 23, 2009 | 2 comments | View Post

Online convenience for travel claims

In response to a recent stipulation enforced by SARS (South African Revenue Service), which states that effective 1 March 2009, South African tax payers will be required to properly track their travel and related expenses in order to qualify for rebates, we’ve launched a free web application that enables users to accomplish this online.

Available through www.travellogger.co.za, the online travel log enables users to track their mileage online throughout the year and easily export this data to a CSV file, for use in Excel, when it becomes time to submit their annual returns.
The web-based nature of the app affords users the convenience of logging their travel any time and any place where they have internet access. The app is also compatible with the majority of popular cellphone web browsers – making ‘on the road’ logging a breeze.

Users can feel assured in using this application as their information is backed up on a web server in a secure data centre environment. Users also have the extra option of exporting the information, and backing it up for convenience on their own PC or laptop.

Employees that are required by their employers to log their travel will also find this app particularly useful.

1 March 2009 to 28 February 2010 will be the last year where the “deeming provision” may be used to calculate a business travel deduction. Before, taxpayers were only asked to provide their total business and personal mileage for the year. However, according to the SARS web site, this provision was open to abuse and resulted in excessive deductions, which did not match actual business expenses.

So, from 1 March 2010, taxpayers seeking to claim a deduction for business travel will be required to keep a logbook and www.travellogger.co.za will assist taxpayers in doing so.

March 11, 2009 | 6 comments | View Post

High Business Value, Low Complexity, Low Effort

Fact: small technical implementations can sometimes have big perceived or real business benefits for clients…

White Wall Web recently worked with RE/MAX of Southern Africa to deliver a new digital initiative which “allows sales associates with profiles or accounts on major social networking sites (such as Facebook or MySpace) to add, manage and organise property listings through social bookmarking.” (Read more about this here)

This sounds exceptional from a business value perspective and has generated notable press coverage, but technically, this is one of the simplest implementations we have completed on behalf of RE/MAX of Southern Africa in the entire 5 years of working with them. This got me seriously thinking about maximizing business value when consulting…

Business Value, Complexity and Effort

When doing project work at WWW, we follow the SCRUM process. Three important metrics considered in the planning process are “business value,” “complexity” and “effort.”

Business Value is all about the value a piece of functionality will create in positioning a business to meet it’s organizational objectives.

Complexity is about how complex a piece of functionality is to produce.

Effort is about how long a piece of functionality will take to produce.

Complexity and Effort differ in that two tasks may take the same amount of time (effort) but require a far more skilled person to do the one than the other (complexity). Consider the difference between watching a 2 hour movie vs. conducting a 2 hour heart surgery.

Clients are happy when…

…they maximise business value while minimizing costs. Since both effort (time = money) and complexity (high skill = money) add cost.

Consultant’s Gold

As a consultant/solution provider you have struck gold when you find ways to maximize business value while keeping effort and complexity at a necessary low.

Fight the urge to use all your super powers all the time

As consultants/solutions providers (in any field) we have a great toolset of awesome super-powers. The urge is to use them all, all the time. We are conditioned to think “It’s not good enough to add some simple social-media-bookmarking-tool-bar to a website as a professional and respectable solution.” Surely that can’t be of great value? What will my peers say? How could I possibly do that and claim I have done something noteworthy/worthwhile?

It’s all about what you value

What we value most dictates what we will consider to be most commendable. For example, if you value a healthy family life, you will think that an 80 hour work week is excessive and stupid, but if you value hard work and maximum wealth creation, you will think that a 40 hour work week is lazy and stupid.

This issue is actually rooted in the same. As a consultant/solutions provider, if you value creating maximum business success for the clients you serve, your focus will be on business value creation at the lowest possible cost. If you value the technical implementation of a solution, that will be what you consider most commendable.

It’s also about professional maturity

A mature professional appreciates and celebrates the creation of business value.

It is immature to elevate technical implementation above business value creation because in reality, technical implementation is a means to an end and not an end in and of itself.

The Web Dev Community

As an international and local community, I think we are getting better at this, but we still have a way to go. What I mean is, I recall 3-4 years ago, techie forums (for example) being very heavy on the actual tech used in producing solutions. Some loud-mouths “out there” would lambaste others in the community for their technical implementations (even often when the resultant business value created was high, despite not-too-amazing tech)

As a community of practitioners, we need to continue create a new peer pressure: maximize business value, keep complexity and effort at a necessary minimum.

A developer/technician/consultant who gets this right is a true professional in my view.

March 2, 2009 | 2 comments | View Post