Dilbert is not a cartoon strip. It’s reality!

I’ve been reading about “agile software development” as part of my preparation for a conference I’m planning to attend. Software development used to be my profession. (Today, I have two: 1 – Having fun. 2 – Writing. But number 2 is really just a subset of number 1.) Reading about “agile software development” both takes me back to the world I used to be in and takes me forward to the world we are all rushing toward.

I’ve been reading about “agile software development” because they’re still talking about it at the upcoming conference. They were talking about it back when I used to do software development full time. But nobody I knew ever actually tried to do it.

An explanation in order.

The people who invented this immensely hopeful title got together in a resort setting to do it and wrote “The Agile Manifesto”. Here’s the first “Prinicpal”.

“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.”

Not profits. Not power. Not even technology. Writing great software!

This was written ten years ago. And it’s still a headlined idea at a conference being held with Microsoft’s enthusiastic sponsorship. It certainly didn’t match any of my experience in the last 25 years of my working career.

Who are the guys who wrote this? As it turns out, they are all consultants, speakers and they write books. Does the phrase, “ivory tower” come to mind? No, I don’t claim that they never do any personal development. I’m sure they do. What I claim is that they don’t represent anything even close to what happens in the mainstream, day in and day out.

These ideas attracted as much attention then as they do now. Ever hear of W. Edwards Deming? When I was in management, it was easy to go to a conference and listen to speakers tell you how great his ideas were. (The power to be able to skip off to a conference was one of the perks of being in management.) What was hard was trying to get any of these ideas to be actually put to use once you got back.

Another view of Microsoft can be found in a very recent article in the New York Times by former Microsoft VP, Dick Brass. (Microsoft’s Creative Destruction, February 4, 2010). “… the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.” Unfortunately, Dick Brass’s view corresponds to the way I see Microsoft heading. And it matches my own personal experience perfectly.

In American corporations, there seem to be two kinds of people. People in power and people who need a job. And “power corrupts” still seems to be a law of nature. Steve Ballmer, the guy in charge of Microsoft now, has been there for a very long time, has always been “the marketing guy” and is thoroughly “in power” now. Bill Gates is gone. I watched IBM die from internal rot after career IBM salesmen like Opel and Akers put image and power way ahead of ideals.

And this brings me to the future. As I browse the “Agile Manifesto” web pages, I see that many … maybe even most … of the people now commenting and saying that they “believe” are from India, VietNam, Russia, Poland, Brazil …

Zombies are real and they are out to get you.

I got this one this morning in my email:

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Dear Customer,

Craiglist online department temporary disabled your account.
Your account was temporary disabled until further investigations.
You must reactivate your account at Craiglist immediately or will be deleted forever.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your cooperation.

To continue, please: Click Here

Craigslist Team. All Rights Reserved.

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It’s a fairly standard scam and I was just about to delete it when I noticed that the link did look interesting. The link pointed to the URL:

http://www.i-cast.co.kr/accounts.craiglist.org

First, the country code “kr” is South Korea. It’s really doubtful that Craigslist is doing anything there. But what was the domain “i-cast.co”? A quick check revealed that it’s a little iron casting company headquartered in Japan. This particular URL is probably a branch office.

What happened here is that somebody took over the server in the branch office and turned it into a “zombie”. The scum who create these viruses like to hide, so when they find an unguarded server they can take over, they install a system that makes the server send out the emails and collect the responses in a file. Then they download the file and see if there is anything in it they can exploit. That way, they don’t even have to leave any identifying tracks on the server. To collect the file, they just break into the server again. The trail ends there for anyone trying to track them down. (Fantasy computer science on TV cop shows notwithstanding.)

Just thought you might like to see a real-world example.

Why do I have to be part of one?

Springdale – my little town in Color Country – is pretty great, but they’re not perfect. One of the things they do is make it very, very difficult to own a home here without being part of a “homeowners association” – HOA. The reason is that Springdale simply chooses not to take any responsibility for a big chunk of the infrastructure … mainly roads. They do demand that roads be constructed up to some minimal standards – mainly width and grade restrictions to ensure that emergency vehicles can get their jobs done – but after that, its the responsibility of the HOA to maintain the road.

I have several gripes about this.

1 – I don’t get an equal share of the services that are provided to other residents.

A lot of Springdale residents live on roads that are owned and maintained by the Town. We all pay the same taxes. Why don’t we all get the same services? I’ve talked to HOA consultants about joining a lawsuit about this. But I just don’t like getting things done through lawsuits. It mainly makes the lawyers rich and “justice” very, very often has nothing to do with the outcome.

2 – Springdale maintains a “fiction” about the quality of roads as a result.

One of the objections to simply giving our roads to Springdale is that Springdale claims they are not up to the quality standards of the Town and would have to be improved to meet that standard first. News Flash! Neither are the other roads in Springdale. Step one of the “twelve steps to recovery” is to recognize and admit the truth.

3 – It costs us a lot more to do the same work than it would cost Springdale.

If my HOA fixes the roads, we have to work out a deal with a contractor individually. Springdale could bring a much higher economy of scale to the process and fix them a lot more economically. And they would do a better job of making sure the contractor did the right job. I work with the Town of Springdale on other things. They do a good job of the things I know about. I wish I could get them to take this one on.

But most importantly, I’m forced to devote time, effort, and money – a not inconsiderable amount of money – to an organization that really has only an artificial relationship to my life here. I can’t understand why I can’t just give the same amount of money to Springdale and let them fix the roads instead.

It’s not that I don’t like my neighbors. The occasional get-togethers that result from being part of an HOA are nice. They would be nicer if we didn’t have to talk business … but, Hey! – they’re still nice.