Feedback on blogging

Here is the comment: The blog is interesting. But I don't feel I have time to read it... maybe I should make time? but in that case what to stop doing? and what if I also wanted to find time for a blog of my own? and what if all my colleagues were also writing interesting blogs? Are you reading lots of other blogs as well as writing your own? who is the target audience? what is / should be the balance between work and more personal stuff in there? do you have time to write an annual report as well?!

And here is the response: I guess this blog is an opportunity to communicate thoughts, ideas and generate a potential debate about issues that are mainly work related. There are only a few people reading but others say you need to gain some momentum and promote it to get to a tipping point where others actively chip in. If others want to do the same that seems like a good idea to me (please do - it's quite easy actually and doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes a day - happy to show anyone thow to get started). I am regularly reading a few other blogs within a "friendship" group but suspect there are few people currently doing this actively within the work context - although many students and others in a more social context. The target audience is simply people that know me or might possibly be interested in something that me or others might say. I think there should be some personal stuff in the mix - one of the things that I learned during recent 360 degree feedback and LSI inventories is that the separation of work and personal life is not necessarily a good thing and if it helps others to know something about you, your interests, family, experiences then that is overall a good thing to do. Whether you have time to write an annual report is a good question. I think that question could mean that if you have time to do blogs and other stuff like that then either you have too much time on your hands or you could be doing something more constructive instead. The other way to look at it, is that writing these jottings is sometimes done at work and sometimes on the move and more often than not at home out of hours so because I don't work a 9-5 existence I suppose that this is something that I principally choose to do in my own time. That's why I was wondering whether it was worth it and I think I'll persevere a little more (thanks to the four people who said yes it's down to you!)

Recycling and being green

Presentation by Ben this morning at LSS Board to tell us why the waste paper desk bins are being taken away. In Richmond Building (where I currently live) rather than JBP Building (where some others live) this has happened already. So the main focus was on how to communicate what is happening and why it is happening to the staff and students that will be affected. It is being promoted in three ways: reputation (e.g. league tables on green-ness), environment and saving money - those were the order of the slides........
Of course, Ben pointed out it's even better not to recycle at all - prevention of waste in the first place. A good example of that might be something mentioned a few weeks ago at Gartner - "de-materialise" - we used to have CDs but now we download MP3 files. It's a bit of a clumsy term so maybe someone has seen a better word or phrase. One small way in which IT could help is establishing a freecycle presence so will look into how that is coming along.

Is the grass greener at Warwick University?

Just a few thoughts after a long day including plenty of travelling to Warwick University and back - how can 300 miles take 8 hours in a car round trip? The M1 is a disaster zone. Anyway a good tour of the campus including SU, University House, Learning Grid etc - today was first year results day at 3pm with all the results issued at the same time by the central "hub" equivalent and then posted by departments - very carefully choreographed it seemed as we were in the Humanities Department at the time. Also a degree ceremony and the Arts Festival week celebrating the last week of the session. Last year, the English Lit course had over 1400 applications for 100 places in the first year and not only shortlists (round one) but then interviews (round two) every potential applicant. Must be nice to be a selecting versus recruiting University. Had a very interesting meeting with the new IT Director who has been in post for 3 months. The priorities sound quite familiar including writing a five year strategy/plan. The first eighteen months will focus on customer service (not technology), more robust infrastructure (network and email), getting a new management structure including co-location of staff sorted out, and finally building process review (and 6 sigma!) into the department and into the broader University culture. Key objective of new corporate plan for Warwick is doubling research in five years to break into top 50 worldwide Universities. A couple of nuggets about gartner and research made the trip worthwhile of their own accord. Always good to get out and see whether the grass is greener on the other side.

Warwick University thumbs up

I'm visiting Warwick tommorow for a couple of reasons - they are in process of refurbing the student union building, they have a new IT Director in post, I'm interested in what happened to the e-strategy five years on, and also hoping to make linkages with the UCISA and Annual Conference Committee. I suppose it could be called a "benchmarking visit". Last visit to Wariwk a couple of years ago we took a tour of the Learning Grid and SU building pre facelift and discusse the IT systems they use for Student Union activity (very extensive/impressive) - will hopefully get some up to date photos too. It is also the first tour of the Summer for potential applicants and Megan is going to tour the campus and visit the Humanities Building as she is interested in English Lit and Film Studies. The Warwick web site was easy to use to find out tour information and I also got into touch with the SU to discover it is the last week of term so lots of social activity going on in the plaza as it's Arts Festival week and also finalists get their results TODAY. COuld be a lot of hangovers on campus tommorrow one way or another. The enquiries and admissions people were very friendly and helpful and made a positive impression. I hope that Bradford does the same when potential enquirers call.

Surveying readers

So after about 6 weeks or so of doing this blog thing begining to wonder if this is a worthwhile spare time occupation or not. Very little feedback and/or comments which either means no-one is reading in first place or possibly posts are incredibly boring and uninteresting and/or both of the above. Therefore added a quick survey button to see if there's anyone out there. Please also feel free to add a comment or email me direct. If there's none I'll pack up in the virtual world it was an interesting experiment in communication for me at least and I've learnt quite a bit about how some of this stuff works.

Boundarylessness and LIW

From a recent discussion with Andy Walmsley, who used to work at GE, and introduced me to the workout concept. It has a bearing on LIW mentioned earlier.

In conjunction with Workout, Jack Welch introduced the concept of “Boundarylessness” whilst reorganising GE in the 1980s. It’s a cumbersome word but it became part of the GE core values as the organisation adapted itself to a changing business environment during the 80s and the 90s. Over time, many other organisations adopted a lot of GE’s management and communications practices after seeing how successful they were. Boundarylessness involved a fundamental change in the way that communication was carried out at all levels in GE. A very interesting (and also pleasingly succinct) paper on the subject can be found here.

This seems to relate to the U.S. Army adopting GE-style management practices (therefore, dare I say that such practices can work in a public sector organisation).

Location Independent Working

There is currently a JISC institutional exemplar about Location Independent Working which is running in the Business School at Coventry University. Its web site now has some of the materials they are using which were recommended by someone who had seen a recent presentation so I thought it was worth a look.

The key benefits appear to be related to changes to teaching methods and cross discipline projects resulting from hot desking. Obviously not all academics need a permanent office (they need at least two!) but does the same apply to support staff in the broadest sense? And as we are about to refurbish a building and potentially create new office space should there be a rather more radical approach for the staff in parts of Learner Support Services? I find myself doing LIW quite a bit - in the evenings and weekends at home, on the train when travelling about, on the smartphone, in meeting rooms on the campus etc. sometimes I come in a little later and work for a bit before setting off due to childcare and quite often I stay later too.

Amusing personalised number plate story

Stood in a car spares shop today buying a replacement stick on mirror for the door wing mirror that got broken last week (see twitter). Bargain at £7 versus a new wing mirror. Anyway while I was waiting to be served the shop guy was making up a personalised registration plate for a customer. It was AR 05 SOL but he was moving the letters around on a computer screen to illegally make it say A R05SOL. We got into a conversation and I said to the guy that it looked like aerosol but maybe it could be arsehole.

Actually it was a number plate for a Mister A Rossol who was stood in the shop just ahead of me. Very smart looking young pakistani gentleman with a highly manicured beard. Told me it was for his Audi Q8 outside (the white one) and asked me if I knew who he was, and that it was a very expensive asian number plate. I will know who he is whenever I see his car driving round Kings Cross/Halifax in the future.

Emerging Trends Radar

This was the third session in a series of "one hour debates". It was called Emerging Trends Radar and it was focused on scenario planning for 2028 (ie 20 years from now). It was based on a presentation by Nick Jones Gartner Group Analyst. As well as the Powerpoint we looked at the Microsoft Table and mentioned a related parody. We also discussed the meaning of crowdsourcing which was mentioned in the radar screen, and the need for a collaboration tool that would enable a few of us to work on some 2028 scenarios virtually but didn’t require admin overhead or for you to proactivily search out the service – so we talked about confluence (wiki), ning (develop-me), shared drives (H Novell), document management (e-pository), VLE (blackboard) and also Community Software tools developed at other Universities including Bournemouth and Liverpool (VOCAL). Is it time to invent another one?

Green IT update

A visit from Chris Cartledge an associate (retired!) of Sheffield University for a couple of hours to discuss several things relating to Green IT. The first is micro relating to the energy consumption of the Sunray thin client environment that is being prepared for Computer Aided Assessment (CAA). How will this compare to the traditional PC cluster facility? The second is macro relating to the HEEPI project and the work Chris has done at Sheffield to predict energy use, its key components and how significant it is within the total energy consumption (15% ish). The third is also macro relating to how we can use the framework to predict usage at the Bradford campus. We think there are some easy wins potentially. Will be interesting to see how easy they are in practice.

E-strategy board today

Well attended meeting today with two student sabattical representatives. Emphasis on the student focus to the e-strategy developments. There had been a certain reluctantance to communicate everything that we are doing on e-strategy as there is an element of "competitive advantage", so at the moment much of e-strategy remains under password protection from external visitors. Interesting that other Universities (York was cited as an example) are very transparent and that can give a feeling of confidence about future developments. The new Web Content Management System (CMS) will enable much better communication about completed projects and those that are in progress and planned. The CMS project is in very final stage of contract negotiations, there has been a successful planning/implementation away day - next step is a major audit of who,what,where on current web content. Genius colleagues in IT Technical Services have come up with a way of virtualising the service saving the planet and minimising capital investment. E-strategy today confirmed that it had completed its investment in SAINT staffing to meet forward student admin system developments and there would be no further pump priming/drip feeding. You heard it here first. Summary of Deans and Associate Deans feedback on the priorities for the next tranche of funding (several £millions) and a landmark moment as one of the main projects relating to Project A was finally approved (Developing the Learning Environment which increases people supporting the Virtual Learning Environment). An extra AOB on the need for a HD projector upgrade in the Great Hall refurbishment plan which has already committed £750k on the build and related works and it was agreed subject to one of the schools picking up any contingency and being available to students as well as commercial opportunity.

Password changing malarkey

So its 90 days since Novell reminded me to change my password in the next 5 attempts or be doomed. So begins the process of changing ALL my password becuase I choose to use the same password for everything so I make it strong and unmemorable and then work my way around every system that needs it. Is there a single sign on solution to this problem anyway? So far I have changed in this order Novell, Meeting Maker Twitter, Gmail (also does Blogger and iGoogle - good old Google), email (also does PC Cluster Login, staff filestore, Blackboard and Sun/UNIX Systems), Facebook, I'm sure there are others I just haven't got to yet today.

Exlibris demonstration

this afternoon there was an opportunity to take part in a presentation
by the library system supplier exlibris. There is a whole new
terminology in the cataloguing world and the most interesting nugget
is that our library system (Current) has no link with our finance
system. This is a mobile blog by the way on the smartphone. MMS does
not work with vodafone otherwise I had an audio clip and photo to
send.

Are you Dave Gorman?

I like Dave Gorman - we saw his live Googlewhack show at the Halifax Victoria Theatre and we also watched his first television show The Dave Gorman Collection - which could do with a repeat after 8 years - probably still worth watching. We also watched his recent road trip across America. Just like Dave Gorman I went searching for my namesakes in Facebook and found at least 500 other Graham Hills. On a related matter, our local fish and chip shop is called Friendly Fisheries - it was voted the friendliest fish shop in the country a year or two ago for obvious reasons - and the owner Dave Gavin (almost Gorman?) was interviewed on Radio 4 as a result. He was very proud of that achievement I believe. Anyway, Dave Gavin offered a free portion of fish and chips to the first customer that could identify themselves as Dave Gorman. It was a fairly safe offer under the circumstances.

Cycle to work week

This week is national bike week. My trusty stead has been repaired and is back on the road and I'm hoping to cycle from Queensbury every day this week. Day One has gone well so far but it is nearly all downhill.......this weekend Helen and I cycled the green route in Dalby Forest in a hail storm with the odd crack of thunder. This is Helen's annual bike ride. The cycling to work is annual for me too.

Great expectations of ICT?

A few weeks ago I mentioned the JISC student expectations survey that I had only just digested. Hot on its heels is the next phase - what did the students experience versus what they expected.

Great expectations of ICT: how HE institutions are measuring up
12 June 2008. New research commissioned by JISC and carried out by Ipsos MORI suggests that students are starting to mix their social networking sites with their academic studies and inviting tutors and lecturers into their virtual space.
The research builds upon on an initial study - Student Expectations - carried out last year when 500 students were asked to indicate their expectations of technology provision when entering into higher education.
This new data is based on students now that they are studying as first years at higher education institutions, compared to the previous study when they were still at school.

Key findings show that:

* General use of social networking sites is still high (91% use them regularly or sometimes). Frequency of use has increased now that they are at university with a higher proportion claiming to be regular users (80%) - up from 65% when they were at school/college
* 73% use social networking sites to discuss coursework with others; with 27% on at least a weekly basis
* Of these, 75% think such sites as useful in enhancing their learning
* Attitudes towards whether lecturers or tutors should use social networking sites for teaching purposes are mixed, with 38% thinking it a good idea and 28% not. Evidence shows that using these sites in education are more effective when the students set them up themselves; lecturer-led ones can feel overly formal
* Despite students being able to recognise the value of using these sites in learning, only 25% feel they are encouraged to use Web 2.0 features by tutors or lecturers
* 87% feel university life in general is as, or better than, expected especially in terms of their use of technology, with 34% coming from the Russell Group of universities saying their expectations were exceeded
* 75% are able to use their own computer on all of their university's systems with 64% of students from lower income households assuming that they are able to take their own equipment, perhaps due to lack of affordability and ownership.

The research also found that while students on the whole are satisfied with the level of ICT support provided by their institution around a quarter rate guidance on using ICT to support studies as neither good nor poor. This suggests that there may still be a group having difficulty in fully realising the benefits that ICT can bring to their studies.

There is also an opportunity to help students understand best practice for validating their work taken from the internet. 69% of students believe that they are validating information taken the internet whereas the Google Generation report, commissioned by JISC and the British Library and published in January 2008, explains that students 'do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web'.

Welcoming the publication of the report, Professor Sir Ron Cooke, Chairman of JISC said: 'The findings of the research show a great opportunity for universities to enhance their existing technology provision and for students to increase their knowledge and understanding of how these channels can help them learn and network.

'The use of social networking sites which are driven by students could have real value over study periods when students are away from the campus as well as being able to discuss issues with other students at different universities on similar courses.'

For further information and to access the full report, please go here.

BradUni.Mobi

There is an interesting piece of development work going on at www.braduni.mobi which was mentioned in this morning's "One Hour Debate". It's designed to work on just about any phone with internet access but its also viewable on a PC (though its better to shrink your browser window so you can see how everything wraps). Jacqui Cuthbert and Ruth Whitfield have done most of the work so far. It's still under development and there are ideas for a few more services yet before its launched in September for next Session. Any ideas or comments are most welcome via the mobile advisor John Fairhall

Celebrating the life of Professor John Wood

Colleagues, friends and family were invited to a very personal event to celebrate the life of Professor John Wood, who sadly died earlier this year of pancreatic cancer. Professor Wood was Professor of Medical Biochemistry here at the University of Bradford. The memorial celebration took place on Thursday 12th June, in the John Stanley Bell lecture theatre. I went along because although I didn't know John well other than hello in the profs car park, the Richmond lift or corridor he seemed such an interesting man and his inaugural lecture in the same JSB theatre in 1994 was the first I had ever attended. It was particularly memorable becuase it pre-dated powerpoint (proper slideshow) and there was a mix up including some rather interesting holiday snaps. I gatecrashed then and I gatecrashed today but felt glad to be an observer at such a unique event. John once said "Politicians come and go but scientists are here forever".

Bradford new entry in league table (duck density)

You should already know about the importance of league tables and the increasing importance of KPIs and Balance Scorecards. We came across a duck outside Pemberton Building yesterday and then another by the Science Park with three very small ducklings. At a stretch that makes 5 ducks in two days. We must be breaking into a top five position in the University duck density league table see here.

Very old blogs can be interesting

Did a search on google for bradford university blogs - how else do you find out what others are blogging (any answers?). Came across this from 2003 which ic virtually pre-history but a nice reminder of happier times. I'm not sure whether the figure quoted is ex or inc VAT......

Who are the VIPs?

Two review meetings with senior people last week and both of them effectively said that the IT Service should offer a "VIP" service (I think Gartner called it a concierge service when it referred to mobile phones) where there was a differential and quicker response to desktop or phone or other tech problems from the service desk and presumably second level if called upon. That hasn't been the way we have run things officially but unofficially if the VC's computer isn't working there are several people in the service who become aware quite quickly and are on the case (official photo here). So who do you think the other VIPs should be in a University? All students?? Just those paying expensive PG and/or Overseas Fees? The student union sabatticals? What about PAs to VIPs? Other influential "opinion leaders" in the organisation? Seems like a difficult one to answer but feel free to comment if you have thoughts on this.

University image bank

Some years ago we implemented document management using a tier one product called Stellent (rebranded e-pository by a supplier not the best name in the world usually rename suppository). One of the things we had a go at was an image bank. I logged in today thanks to Richard as fogotten the password (and its not LDAP at present?).

There are 7 images in the e-pository image bank system (that's all). The "real" image bank has many thousands of course but they are on hard disk and CD presumably. Obviously a pilot that never got going. Presumably due to being a bit clunky or slow but functionality is good.

On Flickr there are already 2,345 images matching Bradford and University - and some of them are BRILLIANT. Work done by others - presumably no copyright as already public domain?? I'm not clued up on that so may be wrong. Comments welcome. I've put the 7 e-pository images into flickr and tagged them with bradforduniversityimagebank so put that in and those 7 should come up. I've made it deliberately difficult! It took a couple of minutes to create a flickr account and then upload these images as I use photobox for personal images thanks to Drew's recommendation - as an aside they are based in Huddersfield so your photos are genuinely 12 hours keyboard to door!

On Photobucket there are only 76 images - but then its not as popular??

On Youtube there are 550 videos tagged with Bradford University

The University of Pittsburgh in Bradford has a Youtube Channel!!
Check out: http://www.youtube.com/user/uPittBradford

Atrium PC usage stats - interpretation?

With the help of a colleague Mark Jones we've just updated the usage stats for the 20 PC student cluster in the Richmond Building atrium which now compare April 2006 (when they were in there own separate room in the building C8, the first month the Atrium/Hub were up and running (April 2007) and for this year (April 2008). They were updated for a JISC one day elearning conference held at Bradford today in the Norcroft Conference Centre. How do you interpret these numbers? That people are abandoning the libraries / own rooms and using Atrium clusters, has there been any external college user impact, that maybe 24/7 not as imperative as we thought?
Would love to know what you think. I've uploaded the powerpoint presentation (relevant slide is 18) to Microsoft Skydrive in a public access folder and embedded the html in this blog so you can see the relevant information graphically. Don't know if this will work for you. It seems quite cool to me but maybe there are other ways to embed powerpoint or a powerpoint link in blogger (tips welcome from better experts than me). Click here:

Pub Quiz answers

As promised here they are. Well done if you got 25 or more. They were pretty tough!

1. Catherine Tate

2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

3. Rabbi Lionel Blue

4. Ranulph Finnes

5. Simon le Bon

6. Edward Kennedy

7. Jodie Foster

8. Alec Guinness

9. Lewis Hamilton

10 Ronnie Barker

11 Nelson Mandela

12 Yvette Cooper MP

13 Clare Rayner

14 Venus Williams

15 Ridley Scott

16 Edward Timpson – Crewe MP following by-election

17 Tamsin Dunwoody – Labour candidate

18 James Doohan – Scotty, Star Trek

19 Justin Rose

20 Mark Ramprakash

21 Mel Brookes

22 Geri Halliwell

23 Mika

24 Vince Cable – MP

25 Hilary Benn – MP

26 Bob Wilson

27 Anita Roddick

28 Phil Oakey

29 Samuel Eto’o

30 Julia Somerville –ex newsreader!

31 Gus Hiddink

32 Richard Curtis

33 George Alagahia

34 John McCain

35 Diana Ross

36 Viv Richards

37 Graham Hill – Namesake!

38 Phil Scolari

39 Louis Armstrong

40 Penelope Keith

41 Diane Abbott

42 Tim Roth

43 Striling Moss

44 Finley the fire engine

45 Douglas Haig – Field Marshall

46 Kaiser Chiefs

47 FD Roosevelt

48 Barry Elliot (Chuckle Brother)

49 Rihannah

50 Kelsey Grammer – Fraisier

51 Bo Diddley

Parking Ticket - to pay or not to pay?

So I got a parking ticket at the weekend for not displaying a valid pay and display ticket in one of the Hebden Bridge car parks. Guilty as charged. It was at 08:50 in the morning and charges start at 08:00. I left the car in the car park overnight and used public transport to get home. In the morning I cycled to the car to pick it up but didn't get there until 08:50 just in time to watch the ticket being slapped on the windscreen. However, the reason I didn't buy a ticket is that the machine said you must have a ticket between 8am and 6pm. It costs 30p per hour. And I parked up at about 7pm. So should I have put 30p x 13 hours into the machine in order to be covered to 9am the next day.? Well I decided not to and risk it. But apparently, you can purchase pay and display tickets after 6pm and these commence at 8am the following morning when charging hours recommence. There is no signage to tell you this but if you stick 30p in the machine after hours then it will tell you this. So my conundrum is whether there are grounds for an appeal due to poor signage or should I just cough up (it's £50).

pub quiz

If you fancy a go at NEXT WEEKS picture quiz - 50 famous faces - then here they are. If you lick on the image it expands so you can see even more clearly. A prize awaits for anyone that can get all 50!

Schools visiting University today

A large group of school children in the entrance to the building all huddled around their teacher receiving instructions: "I want you all to be the best behaved children here today and I don't want you to say anything unless spoken to". Mmm wonder if they listened to that instruction - hope not.

LTA Conference June 2008

This was the 7th annual conference and attracted some interesting presentations and delegates. There was also an exhibition for Learner Support Services in the atrium. The atrium has proven to be a real asset for things like this with plenty of room and a relaxed informal arrangement. Shame that the students had all gone home (undergrads at least) and most academic staff too so despite a great deal of hard work it didn't get the exposure that it might have done. Good job by LSS. Photos courtesy of roving reporter Peter Ketley.

Student Expectation Survey JISC

I’ve just been reading the Student Expectations Survey by the JISC dated July 2007 issued Sept 2007 – a hefty tome based on face-to-face and online surveys of 500+ students by MORI. This was pre-enrolment ie their expectations about rather than experiences of university life. There is an interesting section on use of ICT at School which is something that was mentioned in the discussion yesterday. Key findings summarised:

• HEIs should use the system of learning at schools and colleges as a model – since the status quo seems to be popular (however experience of e-learning may be limited)
• HEIs need to ensure that any ICT they use has clear benefits (doh)
• 25% say they learn better through a computer than face to face (they tend to be at the geek end of the spectrum)
• Differences in preferred learning methods (paper notes versus laptops) – so achieving the correct balance may be a difficult task (blended learning anyone?)

Probably worth reading. A link to the materials is at:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/studentexpectationsbp.aspx

Twitter

I'm now twittering and using twitterfeed to update automatically from this blog. Its a whole new language in this space. Richard was obviously there a long time before me - it's an age thing you know.

Ning

So as well as Facebook we also have a "managed" social space based on Ning which I found out about at today's learning teaching and assessment conference. I didn't know such a thing existed so I've signed up and created an IT group so we'll see if anyone else is interested in that as yet another forum. Can you have too many of these I wonder?

You need grit to make an oyster

Pearls are some of the most beautiful gems we know, and very expensive to buy. So it may come as something of a surprise to learn that pearls start off as irritating grains of sand and other substances which get into the soft part of the oyster. The oyster is a mollusc, which means that it has a soft and very sensitive body inside its hinged shell. When a grain of sand or grit gets inside the shell and on to the soft body of the oyster, the creatures covers it with layer upon layer of a hard smooth substances called nacre, which is the same substance which makes mother-of-pearl.

Earlier today we were talking about a particular gritty person who sometimes produces an absolute pearl. Sometimes organisations and teams need grit (just the right amount though)

OASIS is a place too

One or two colleagues attended an overseas conference in Finland on learning spaces last week. There is a link here to an interesting layout. I've circulated to see what people think about the Hall of Results and the temple of challenge or the Hall of potential. I'd like to be in the garage I think.

http://www.network-oasis.com/main.site?action=siteupdate/view&id=4

The Mythical Man Month Correspondence

For some time I've had some correspondence that I wanted to keep but wasn't sure where to - so this seems like a sensible place - all thanks to Andy Walmsley:

The trigger:

You may recall that in some earlier documentation on software projects and their challenges - produced for the E-Strategy Board - I referred to Fred Brookes' book on "The Mythical Man Month" which outlines the problems that arise - and which often makes projects overrun or go over budget.
These points are summarised here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

Nick Shelness, former Chief Technology Officer at Lotus and now IBM Fellow and Lotus Fellow, has recently provided an update to Fred Brookes' experiences - based on his own. It's an 18 min presentation here - http://media.inf.ed.ac.uk/jamboree/2007/shelness.wmv

And a response

1. Unless we're talking about a completely unworkable and ridiculous
set of requirements, the "change challenges" (what a project really is when it's on the ground and running) presented to the project will never in and of themselves be the cause of complete ruination. They may introduce delays, but these can be managed enabling the project to stay on course and come to a successful conclusion.

2. Of crucial importance to the success of any project is communication. The project team (including the project manager) *need* to communicate every day for five minutes. All each person needs to say is what they did yesterday and what they intend to do today, nothing more complex than that. Any further discussion between individuals takes the form of breakout meetings after the main one has dispersed. Stakeholders should be informed immediately of problems or queries and fully engaged in their solution. Communication of this nature has been right at the core of every successful project that I have worked on. Lack of communication has been a major factor in every unsuccessful project that I have worked on. Of all the projects that I have worked on, I know of none that have been defeated solely by the change challenges that have been presented to them.

3. As a corollary of the above, it's all about the people and not the technology, the timescales or the particular management methodology. Any sensible change challenge can be overcome if everyone on the project is fully engaged, communicating effectively, and feels that their input and work are valued.

4. Following on from the two points above, the seeds of success or failure are often sown very early on in a project, though it may be days, months or years before anyone realises this. One of the most insidious forms of project failure can be seen in a scenario where communication either never starts, is not effective, or does not continue. In this case, the project can appear to be progressing very well right up to the point where it crashes into the buffers and the entire train gets derailed with extreme prejudice. The flip side of this is that if effective communication between all stakeholders is stated as one of the major goals of the project and adhered to religiously, the true state of the project is fully revealed on a daily basis and all stakeholders can take action to correct problems as and when they arise. Constant minor course corrections are infinitely preferable to trying to turn the thing round in its own length at the 11th hour.
Indeed, the former is generally always possible to achieve whilst the latter may prove to be impossible.

And another response:

A project with a completely ridiculous technical remit (fly to Mars using a ZX 81 as the guidance computer), a foolish deadline (here's some CDs, replace SAINT in a week), or a team with completely unsuitable skills (we're going to ask the accounts department to write the new finance system in C without any training at all) will always fail no matter how good the communication is.

Given a level playing field, regular (very regular) communication is the key to project success. It's all about managing change in tiny increments. In all projects (and, indeed, all aspects of human endeavour), the devil is in the detail and we ignore that detail at our peril. Thus, matching the atomicity of communication with the atomicity of the detail in tasks at hand is crucial. Daily communication between the members of the project team and (where necessary) other stakeholders serves to keep that detail under constant illumination. It also keeps all members of the project team within their comfort zones by helping them to understand exactly where the project is.

Beyond effective and timely completion of the project, there are many other advantages. This understanding provides control and a sense of control reduces stress. The corollary of course is that little or no control can cause great stress within the workplace. I often wonder whether organisations that "enjoy" high levels of sickness absence due to stress and its related maladies are failing at their communications and inadvertently robbing their staff of a sense of control (this is a complex issue though - there are many other factors to consider here). Notwithstanding, perhaps another simple equation could be increasing control = happier employees, thus happier employees = more engagement, and more engagement = higher productivity and a better end result.

Interestingly, the whole communications thing is just as applicable to ongoing operational issues as it is to work that is happening in the context of a project.

Race for Life Lister Park

Helen has run the race for life for her mum in Lister Park Bradford this afternoon. She did the 5KM in 32 minutes and has now retired with her friends for drinks in Saltaire and a curry at Mumtaz. This picture is from race for Life 2006 with 3 generations of the family and this is Helen's mum (and dad). Helen's mum beat breast cancer over 5 years ago.

Another online community

The recent event that I attended also included an "online communities" site which allowed you to submit some information about yourself which then allowed connections to others with similar interests. I suppose a kind of speed dating but the neat thing was a dartboard format that had you at the bullseye and then like a set of rings the people who had ticked similar interests with closest matches nearer the bullseye. It also showed delegates versus suppliers in a different colour. In the spirit of that I am planning to post a more detailed Q&A on facebook and also a pen profile here. In the past I've not been keen on this sort of thing (don't know why) but this is what I posted on that other community site:
I am fortunate to work with a great team of people in a very diverse and distinctive University. My favourite times combine my interests in great engineering and technology with improving the ways we support and educate current and future generations of students. That will soon include our three children which may allow even more time for mountain biking, classic cars and travelling the world.
The pictures are of Megan, Jacob and Joseph in Costa Brava Spain Summer 2007, the classic car outside Paradise, the Lads and Dads mountain biking tour of Derbyshire 2008 and an immigrant entering Ellis Island for the first time in February 2007 (not learnt how to label photos yet!)