April 2007
Monthly Archive
First Five Slides and Requirements Management
Posted by georgemc on 30 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: PowerPoint, business, requirements, presentations
I just watched Cliff Atkinson’s webinar “First Five Slides” and was struck by the resonance it has with some best practices in requirements engineering. Essentially Cliff suggests that the first five slides of a presentation should be about:
- setting
- role (of the audience)
- point A (where the audience starts)
- point B (where the audience needs to be)
- solution (to make that happen)
I recommend watching the webinar to get the whole story - it is very well done. In requirements speak these slides correspond to:
- context
- stakeholder descriptions
- problem pre-condition
- problem post-condition
- solution
The problem can also be characterized as a “capability gap”.
A common mistake in poorly written requirements is to ignore the problem and dive straight into a solution; it takes real discipline to keep the problem separated from the solution (or even to recognise that the problem should be analysed), but folks procuring massive systems like aircraft carriers have figured this one out.
What Cliff does is show the power of resisting the presenter’s natural inclination to focus on the solution, but rather to start by focusing on what the audience (the stakeholders) need to hear, which is why they should care in terms of their world being changed. This is what engages the audience’s emotions and keeps them around for the pitch.
(I updated this posting in August to use the word “audience” rather than “user” in the first set of bullets - hard to shake the RM mindset!)
Setting up a blog with “AN Hosting”
Posted by georgemc on 29 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: blog
I started my blogging adventure on the marvelous www.wordpress.com site; their software is really easy to learn and use, certainly not bad for free! However, as I became more aware of the wonderful world of blogging, I decided to investigate what it would take to host a blog on my own site. I like the idea of being my own independent publisher and I had a hunch the technical aspects would not be beyond me, since a lot of folks have already blazed the trail.
It’s turned out even smoother than I expected. First thing that surprised me is how much cheaper hosting services are compared with last time I looked 3 years or so ago. I’ve signed up with AN Hosting, with a deal that is costing me $69.50 for the first year, including the exemplaryvisions.com domain name registration and free renewal of that registration “for life”! That’s a very clever sales hook, especially as grabbing a new domain name is all part of the signing up process.
I went with “AN Hosting” without too much research. I got their name from the wordpress.org hosting page, and with further surfing I found some good and some bad reviews. For $69.50 and a very impressive list of features, I figured it was worth just going for it. Maybe you can find cheaper and better - I was keen to get started.
Signing up is easy, unless you have a UK phone number; there is an automated anti-fraud stage that wants to check your identity by phoning you back - however, it failed to make sense of my UK number. This somewhat spoiled the experience for me - no instant gratification. The other alternative is faxing or phoning their support number. I did the latter, and ended up in a queue for 20minutes until being told the person I am trying to reach has a full mailbox, followed by a long beep and disconnection. Not an ideal introduction to a new business partner!
Turns out my money was good anyway and my application had been accepted. Subsequent email support enquiries have been responded to very quickly and helpfully, so I forgive them.
The next hitch and cause of mild “what have I done” panic was when I couldn’t find any reference to blogging in “cpanel” which is the administration interface from which you manage your shiny new linux box nestling in a Chicago data centre. This was very frustrating - after an age of looking I fired off a missive to their customer support. Quickly a reply came back saying it’s all in “Fantastico”.
Well - pardon me - but I’ve never heard of Fantastico - here is what you see in cpanel:
I humbly submit that this could do with having a bit of an HCI overhaul. Before users care about the “how” to do something they need to find the something. In my case the something is “blogging” and “Fantastico” is about “how” to do that. This is what the Microsoft Office 2007 GUI makeover is all about - no use having a zillion features if 99% of customers can’t find them.
Anyway, their email support is fast and helpful - so no great problem. Their only blindspot seems to be when it comes to constructive criticism; their obviously technically competent email support staff completely ignored my helpful if somewhat pained comments about their telephone automation service, full phone mailbox and the cpanel user interface. Oh well.
Installing wordpress is an automated process - it is very easy to do (no small plaudit from me - I can and do break most things with almost casual ineptness). Even transferring my posts from wordpress.com was easy, via the export/import xml file facility. The only thing that was tricky with the transfer was finding and figuring out the .htaccess file requirements for permalinking and indeed even finding the wordpress permalink options (doh - look for the Permalinks subitem in Options!) - but of course, that is all documented by wordpress. Just take your time and surf about - lots of people have done this stuff before you.
I am very impressed and look forward to playing with some of the other “Fantastico” shiny toys - if only I knew what they did!
Raan
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: food and drink
I’m a fan of curries, and I’ve had some success over the years making a few. My party piece is Raan, which is basically a “marinade a leg of lamb in a bit of this and that for 48hrs” job which makes a miracle. This web recipe is very close to the one in my old (i.e. 80s) curry cook book.
Takes a bit of time to make the marinade, but then it’s just a case of waiting for it to do its stuff and then putting it in an oven.
Wild Boar
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: food and drink
Being in agreement with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (I’m not a telly person but I am a proud owner of his meat book, and he is a star of BBC radio4), I do try to eschew the taste lacking offerings on parade at my local supermarket meat isles, preferring to give a more sparse but enjoyed business to excellent local butchers such as Crombies and Saundersons (the latter being where I have bought the family Christmas ham for the last 13 years).
Yet the star of this posting is a local raiser of finest wild boar, Northwood Wild Boar, whose shoulder of wild boar I bought at the Castle Street Farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago. I’d already tasted their splendid wild boar bacon courtesy of pals who live in East Lothian, and my anticipation was rising!
Using our friend the Internet, I found an ace recipe, whose success I attribute to the marinading process (duh - top tip - use marinades!). On my own initiative I also food processed the marinade into a slurry - it didn’t look to me that it would work otherwise?
Not a cheap piece of meat, but then again, it was the star culinary event for that week, all the more enjoyed by sharing it with friends and employing the assistance of a damn fine Portuguese red recommended by another star in the firmament, James Wrobel of Cornelius.
East less meat, buy better meat!
Beer
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: food and drink
Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised to see a posting about beer. As an initial foray into the sensational world of beer, it is my mission to share the wonder and joy that is Weiss beer, one of my favourites being Erdinger. It’s worth following the link just to hear their corporate song. Their Franz Beckenbauer adverts are good fun (contrast and compare with a former UK footballer choosing to endorse zit inducing crisped potatoes rather than a nectar fit for gods).
Drumming
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: drumming
Last year I took the plunge and bought a drum kit. This is an ambition which I believe is primeval; drumming is a necessary response to some deep imperative. It is all very well having had piano lessons as a boy, clocking up Associated Board Grade 6 and a Scottish Higher Grade music qualification at school, and playing with keyboard/synth/midi/computer toys throughout my extended childhood (no sign of that ending), but there is something visceral about thumping a drum kit which no end of Bach inversions can get near to. I’m not against the sublime (as someone like Murray Perahia playing Bach can achieve), but drumming ROCKS!
Ever since I knew who the Who were, and I am blessed in having seen Keith Moon play at the Who gig at Celtic Park in 1976, I’ve been acutely aware of the pleasure drumming gives an audience. Only recently have I had the presence of mind to realise that I could try to be a drummer too. Early days yet, but as Lao Tzu always used to say, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, or in this case, a single paradiddle….
Obsessive Reading
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: books
While priming my new blog with a set of posts on my reading habits, I noticed a bit of a trend. If I am recommended or otherwise discover a new author, I like to read their work in chronological order and completely, unless, obviously, I take a scunner to them during that process. This has been an alarming trend in my last few years of reading (it can be quite time consuming to scratch a 19 book itch); I am pleased with my serial forays into Price, Dibdin and (so far) Connelly, and a bit less happy with my consumption of Cornwell (though I admit to being strangely compelled by Patricia’s Scarpetta saga, even when it went weird in the more recent books). For some authors it is easier for they have written less; Mo Hayder is impressive - some scary subject matter, but interesting nevertheless, especially the Nanking back-story for Tokyo (I cheated though, I read Tokyo first as part of a 3 for 2 Watersone’s gamble - you can’t always start at the beginning!).
Some of my literary obsessions are more easily controlled because I have been reading them more or less in sync with their publication; probably no surprise that a Scot of my time and place awaits with relish each new book by Banks, Rankin, MacLeod and Brookmyre. My latest Sci Fi serial addiction is the work of Richard K Morgan - great stuff!
The other category is authors you’ve read out of order who you know you have to complete. In this category falls Val McDemird (I blame Radio4’s bookclub for hooking me on the Mermaids Singing - seriously nasty and compelling - so I read all her other Tony Hill books and now have to figure out a strategy for reading the rest of her work).
I’ve also read Jeffrey Deaver out of order, but having read a couple of his early ones trawled out of Amazon’s long tail, I’m not convinced I’ll get around to reading all his stuff. The Lincoln Rhyme series is mandatory of course. The computer non-science content of “The Blue Nowhere” made we wince (I hate when that happens - I bet cops wince when they read lousy depictions of police procedure even though the rest of us go quite happily with the flow).
In summary - if you have any clue that an author may be good - start at the beginning and work your way through (works for me when I so choose!).
Kurt Vonnegut
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: books
As a young teen reader I read Vonnegut avidly, along with my other faves of Philip José Farmer and Philip K Dick. I belatedly realised on the news of his death that I owe the man some serious re-reading, as I probably missed 90% of what he was on about at the time; I remember my mind being tickled, stretched and entertained, but I can’t remember why - I need to report back!
A recent pleasant memory is hearing him on my beloved BBC Radio 4 telling Mark Lawson about his crapness as a Saab salesman.
Hierarchy Diagrams
Posted by georgemc on 20 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: graphics, Google Earth, Perspector, IDEF0, hierarchy, PowerPoint, business, 3D, presentations
One of the main goals achieved by Perspector is to enable users to quickly and easily construct layered hierarchy diagrams like the following:
This is from a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation which I managed to find a copy of today (it’s in better quality and at slide 38 here, but there is 10 Megs to download) - I remember seeing it or something similar at the 2003 PDC. This diagram was not built using Perspector; it uses only PowerPoint drawing shapes - an amazing bit of work if it was done by hand.
These kind of diagrams crop up again and again in technical papers - but they always look to have been hand crafted. Just try a Google search for “hierarchy diagram filetype:ppt”. You will find lots of examples like:
The diagram above shows how the “Premix Production Process” decomposes into 3 steps using an IDEF0 diagram, well, actually two diagrams with a hierarchical relationship. Doing 3D diagrams with a 2D tool is difficult. I remember when working with CASE tools like CADRE’s Teamwork and Aonix’s Software Through Pictures in the early 90s that the user manuals for the tools would have splendid pictures of the hierarchical relationship between diagrams, but the tools themselves would never offer an automated 3D view of the same.
In Perspector you can do these diagrams very quickly. Start with normal 2D slides for each of the layers, e.g.:
Create a new slide, insert a new Perspector image, and then insert a 2 placeholder vertical stack layout. Now just insert/link each 2D slide into the stack:
put a connector between the layers, tweak a few colors and transparencies, and you are done. If you have to change the content of any layer, the composite image will be rebuilt with the changes made to the linked slide. This is a very powerful way of working - decompose a scene into 2D parts and then assemble them in a 3D layout. You can hide the 2D slides if they are no longer needed for the presentation.
Here is our first DSI example done with Perspector:
I was able to play about with different camera angles and shift things about until I thought they looked good.
And finally, some fun locating a building using Google Earth:
Michael Dibdin
Posted by georgemc on 17 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: books
I was sad to hear of the death of Michael Dibdin, another author it has been my pleasure to discover in recent years and whose oeuvre I read obsessively from start to finish.
His main protagonist, Aurelio Zen, who if they ever film this stuff must be played by Giancarlo Giannini, is my kind of anti-hero. A great series, with a wit the arid side of dry, Bravo Michael!