Rob's Flash Messages
Rob's Stories
YAM's
1236 
As you probably know already, I consider "new" methods like SCRUM a YAM, a Yet-Another-Method. And there are a lot of YAM's. Like potatoes they are root-vegs and you can find them everywhere in any vegetable shop. Very versatile and you can bbq, bake, smoke, boil, fry, grill or even eat them raw with the right recipes. Some have other bumps and dents but at the end of the day, they all taste more or less alike.
Well, coming back to earth, you know that a YAM, the Yet-Another-Method and not the vegetable, in the Application Development context is a box stuffed with techniques and tools of which probably most of the time more than 80% are "borrowed" from earlier emerged YAM's. Perhaps with another footprint or selection, other tools, given other names and acronyms, put in another context or changed just slightly enough to make them (false) distinct. There is a complete industry around YAM's and tools (YAT's ???) and many vendors make a living of it. I have nothing against that, it drives professional innovation but it make the life of the humble IT-professional a bit awkward.
SCRUM in my view is just another representation of other agile YAM's like IAD, DSDM, Lean Development, XP, RAD, Essential UP, SMART, DevOps and I am sure I missed a few dozen others. Sometimes it's even a bit embarrassing to see people so excited about "new" methods like SCRUM or DevOps. I can only hope that the "SCRUM-Masters" have enough knowledge and experience to learn from the past and look over the SCRUM-fence, But to give all the original YAM-inventors some credit, every YAM is usually based on some very good and new ideas to improve our profession indeed. Sometimes a YAM is just connected to a tool of the same vendor to create a complete (lock-in) package. But obviously, in an attempt to deliver a full size and complete new method, the "borrowing" from others is unavoidable.
Yes, agile projects have sprints, iterations, time-boxes or what ever you call them. A short period of time with a working and implemented piece of software at the end with real business value. And yes, that forces to use other workflows, techniques and sometimes tools than we are used to in a waterfall environment. But no, actually there shouldn't be anything against using good "agile techniques" like workshops, standup meetings, backlogs and the like in any kind of project. And to be honest, they have been used in all sorts of linear projects for decades. Conversely, still looking at any agile method like SCRUM as a YAM, lots of the (intermediate) deliverables in agile are quite similar to those in linear ones. Maybe a different presentation but it's not another planet. We're still building and implementing IT applications.
So then, what are the real differentiators between agile and a linear projects?
Leaders
186 
With some embarrassing voting behind us and a few others to come soon, it's interesting to watch why the populists (with a small "p") among others in the UK, US, the Netherlands and a few other countries have won or will win and lose their widespread support probably slowly afterwards.
Firstly, they all dismiss and insult the current establishment. However the "establishment" is more than a handfull of politicians. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of hard working people are part of it too and tearing the establishment apart will certainly touch many gov jobs and probably not in a good way. That does not mean the current governments do not need some renewal but simply insulting all those people is not the way forward.
Secondly, they all claim to "bring back jobs which were stolen by the Asians, Eastern Europeans and Mexicans". However, this will prove to be completely impossible because the only way you can do that is changing the country into ... "China". Already a lot of jobs in western countries are taken by foreign workers simply because obviously the own population does not want them. Additionally, the to Asia outsourced jobs are not paid very well compared to own standards so again, either the own people do not want those jobs or they accept to pay more for the more expensive goods they produce themselves.
Thirdly, they all claim also to "create jobs".
I am scared
963
Some people might wonder why I target Trump so much as I am not even American. Well, to some extend I have surprised myself with it too. I guess the main reason is that the direct and personal influence of the biggest economic and military nation on this planet now hits me too hard in a bad way. The turmoil in the US (and UK) directly affects my savings and investments and furthermore it disturbs the political landscape I felt reasonable safe in with topics like climate, NATO, ICC, UN, Russia, Iran, North Korea and a few more.
So after some long thoughts and digging deep into myself, something popped up I thought a had stashed away thoroughly but obviously not. I am just scared. I got more scared about my life and my future because I thought there was a trutsworthy and unbreakable bond between the old allies US, UK and (the rest of the) EU. Obviously not. I know, in any relationship some sacrifices have to be made but today I only hear the US and UK talk about their own priorities. On top of that, any decency and respect seem to be lost. When I hear Donald Trump or Boris Johnson talking, recently quite a few American senators, the speech of Brett Kavanaugh and of course in Europe Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and Recep Tayyip Erdogan I believe humanity has taken quite a few steps backwards.
New leadership
1027 
With Brexit and Trump as the US president, countries like the UK and US have obviously chosen to go their own way. They don't want the consequences of globalization: free movement of goods, capital, services and people and most importantly like in case of the US, commit to global agreements like the Paris Accord. Instead, they want to make their "countries great again" whatever the consequences are for the rest of the world. Well, they believe that their greatness is automatically beneficial for the rest of the world.
At this very moment, the "rest of the world" does not agree. Leadership of Theresa May and Donald Trump in- and outside of their own countries is challenged by "the rest of the world" with awesome examples of Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel. May and Trump have shred the prime leadership positions of their countries in just a few months after hundreds of years of dominance and they will never get it back in this new world order with a strengthening EU, China, India and a few others. How foolish can anyone be?
Democracy is a high good. People from a country can vote for a leader or in a referendum demand a certain policy. The rest of the world can't vote for it which is OK by itself. After all, the people of the said countries build their own environments and therefore their own democracies. It would be a mess when people from all over can vote anywhere.
However, those people (from the rest of the world) would still have to live with these globalization-fobic countries. Fortunately there is a simple solution: if you can't vote in a booth, you can still vote with your wallet. It's exactly the same as the sanctions countries punish other countries with. Only on a personal scale. The concept of "Buy American" can be easily reversed.
Personally I already had a shortlist of countries I tried to avoid. Not going on vacation to them, avoid buying their goods or services, avoid advertising their qualities. On my list far far away countries like North Korea, Syria and South Sudan do not do much harm, either way. I would not know any product I would like to buy from them and I certainly would not go there anyway. Russia and Suriname are already a bit more difficult. Should I not buy Russian vodka anymore? Start to ignore my friends and colleagues from Suriname?
Now the UK and the US not only are moving away from my personal "good world" vision but more explicitly, ruining my pension savings severely, ruining the ecological future for the planet, ruining the ideals i've been standing for all my life, it gets more nasty. Maybe it's time to stop admiring Apple iPhones, using Amazon and Google services, watching BBC and Netflix, shopping in London or New York, playing golf in Scotland, buying Levi's, Coca Cola, Ford, Jaguar or even fuel from Exxon for my car. Instead of a blacklist I at least can have a whitelist of countries where I would spend my money preferably: Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France, India, China, Japan and a few more. Not that they are perfect but at least they don't insult my ideals that much or harm me personally.
I was wondering by myself, is this disappointment, bitterness, revenge? Not really. Brexit and Trump just opened my eyes that this world obviously still is too complex too have equal multi-lateral cooperation between large economic and military powers with too big ego's. Although I do believe that we should never stop putting in energy in multi-lateral unity, for the time being "focus" is the key-word. Focus on simplicity, strength and growth. Smaller countries (say smaller than 250 MIO people or a GDP less than 2.000 B$) are irrelevant in this game and better unite with others. It's like the old G5, G7, G10, G20 or whatever Gxx from the "old ages" still try to show their leadership and willingness to cooperate. Unfortunately these G's are all history because they hang on to the old "world leadership positions" instead of what is actual today.
I suggest a maximum of 10 conglomerates in which every country has its place. Those who do not want to join one of the 10 conglomerates, give up their votes in the global play. This new BIG-10 replaces the security council too. If there are changes in power (= volume in GDP), the BIG-10 changes too accordingly. No more fuzz with smaller countries without significant power. "Participation" is the key-word for them as focus was for the conglomerates. It will hurt the smaller ego's a bit but that's the price for "great together" as opposed to "small alone".
So to the EU I would say: Stop the hassle and let's make Europe (finally) great (again). Forget NATO, TTIP and more. Go your own way, create a "Make and Buy European" culture (which does not mean to close down all other business relationships), invest in security in all levels and stop relying on the UN/US/UK, create a strong if not avoidable even federal coalition. Borders in Europe have changed in the last 200 years frequently and more often than anywhere in the world! So what's the point? Unite, invest, protect, forget the differences and focus on the strengths. (and try to avoid the bureaucracy a bit).
By the way, above advice is alike for any to build conglomerate, whether that's in Africa, South America or Asia.
And for the people who still have to vote for their own future this year: Happy voting :)))
(many thanks to Martin Sutovec and Ingram Pinn for their awesome cartoons)
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