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Thursday 31 March 2011

Belbin's perfect team

Dr Meredith Belbin put forth a hypothesis that for every problem to be solved by a team of people, there exist nine distinct roles that each team member would have a natural psychological leaning towards a subset of. Furthermore, Belbin postulated that for a given problem type/complexity and known make up of a team, the success of the team could be predicted.

Management Philosophy

I often beat myself up because time and again I fail to really solve the problems within and surrounding my team. What I try might go some towards my goal, other times the solution I come up with might make no discernible difference, and as a rare occurrence, even make the problem worse.

Tonight I'm feeling more generous towards myself, and the events of the day have helped me reach the following conclusion: Like in Philosophy, there is value in knowing the important questions, even if you cant yet see the answer. As in Philosophy, there is enlightenment to be found by peeling back the layers and dismissing those things that are definitely not the answer.


If you, like me, occasionally stumble your way through myriad ideas, concepts, tools and technologies (all of which purport to make team working more productive, more efficient or just more), then tonight - just tonight, give yourself a break and a pat on the back for giving a damn and never giving up.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

People matter

If I could offer one bit of advice to a software developer, nay anyone who works with other people towards a common goal, it would be that people matter.

What this blog is supposed to be

Having worked in software development for more than ten years, I have developed a lot of opinions & beliefs, but one stands out amongst the crowd: "You can have the best and latest tools in the business, but unless you have a group of people committed to a quality delivery, using processes that are comfortable and supportive, then your delivery is doomed."

With this in mind, my intention with this blog is to talk about the things that, over a ten year period, have made the difference. I'm not a guru, I dont have all the answers, but I do have opinions borne of experience, and I offer them freely for dissection and discussion.

Who am I? My background is in Microsoft bespoke development, latterly using .Net technologies. I have used many software development methodologies on projects ranging from tiny to Enterprise-ready and I now lead a small team of developers and continue to push for better and faster.