Not in code

I’ve missed my weekly dose of pre-packaged knowledge since finishing my Masters degree so I was pleased when I discovered that several universities now offer free podcasts.

In particular I enjoyed listening to the first episode of the Marketing Podcast by Peter Wagstaff. It appears to be designed to accompany MKF1120 a marketing subject taught at Monash University in Melbourne. The first episode is arranged as a conversation between Peter and a guy called Julian Cole (the “good looking” one apparently). They discuss product placement as an alternative to traditional advertising which they say consumers have lost interest in for the most part. They use Big Brother Australia as a case study as it seems almost entirely a product placement or advertising exercise.

If you’d like to learn a little about marketing and share my propensity for laziness I suggest you give this podcast a whirl. All in all I think it’s pretty well made and I will probably continue listening to the remaining and any future episodes.

Finally, a few universities with free podcasts are:

• University of Sydney
• University of Melbourne
• Stanford University
• University of California, Berkley (one isn’t enough!)

If you know of any other good, university podcasts please let me know by emailing me. Comments are still broken, sorry.

I could tell straight away that I will enjoy learning about this topic! I relish opportunities to expand and enrich my vocabulary and already this course has introduced me to a few new concepts.

A couple that stand out as I recollect the first two lectures are the distinction between data, information and knowledge; and the classification of knowledge into explicit and tacit knowledge. Colin�s discussion of Generation Y was also intriguing, appealing even – I need to research this some more.

I agreed with his comments about the disconnect between IT and business, this is something that agile methods like eXtreme Programming (XP) recognise and work actively to address; in XP this is via the practice of an Onsite Customer. I am however curious to see how this relates to KM and if and how it is addressed.

A challenge I face professionally relates to the question of how to achieve effective knowledge transfer in a rapidly growing team. We have grown from ~8 to ~32 developers and several business analysts and testers in a short period. So far we have relied on the XP practice of Pair Programming and other forms of face-to-face communication while attempting to manipulate team structure and size by breaking into smaller sub-teams.

My own experience has been that informal, face-to-face communication is an excellent means of knowledge transfer when the team size is still small (5-10 people), however as the team grows so do the associated costs. I hope this course lends some clues about how to manage knowledge transfer in larger rapidly changing teams especially those that keep growing and where limiting this growth isn�t really an option.

What are the tools, techniques and principles that have worked for others? Why?

I also look forward to contrasting and comparing some of the views which have been and will be put forward with familiar values and principles of XP and the agile software development community. Colin made a comment about software development being composed of 80% explicit knowledge and 20% tacit knowledge when discussing the hybrid model. Many proponents of agile methods, including myself, would probably state the ratio differently with tacit knowledge being 80%. In fact many agilists, refer to themselves as craftsmen not engineers. I am curious to further explore the basis of his assertion as at least on the surface I feel it contradicts my own views.

Finally, I can tell that there will be plenty an opportunity to apply what I will learn in this course: at my current job, in my personal learning, and in future roles – particularly if (when) I succeed in my ambition of running my own software firm one day.

This new year see’s a few very hectic months draw to a close. I’m now half way through my Masters degree. The Agile project was an eye-opener and a chance to try out things that I’d only read about. The contrast between this project & Software Process Improvement (with CMMI)was interesting, though I’m not sure I fully appreciate how they may be applied together as yet. The biggest gap between the two in my opinion lies in their motivations, Agile aims to address the software development lifecycle only, while CMMI is focused on the bigger picture or the software organisation as a whole. This is probably why one tends to find that Agile is driven by developers, while the implementation of a more formal model like CMMI would invariably be initiated by middle to high management (I’m generalising heavily, please feel free to comment if you disagree here).

Getting back to the title of my post, the new year has brought a major change to my life. I will be moving on from cvMail after 2 very exciting years.

I’ve accepted a position at a company that’s into Agile Development in a big way, specifically they use Extreme Programming. This comes on the heels of the Agile Project and it’s the perfect opportunity to keep learning more about the area. It’s also an opportunity to work with and learn from some of the best. As you might guess, I’m positively ecstatic!

Of course saying goodbye is never easy, especially as my role at cvMail is my first full-time position out of uni and I’ve grown incredibly attached to the wonderful people at this young & energetic company. I’ve learnt many things while at cvMail, some expected and others unexpected. I’ve learnt how much one can achieve if they are passionate about what they do and I’ve learnt to push myself harder and further than I previously thought I could. Most importantly though, I have made many friends here and they have in a way been like a family away from home.

I find it difficult to articulate reasons for choosing the new opportunity without making an unfair and in my opinion unneccesary comparison between the two organisations. The new opportunity offers a chance to learn about things that I feel passionately about right now and that too directly from people who share this passion and know so much more about these things than I.

I believe relationships exist between people so in a sense I’m not moving on at all, just moving forward.

Sure, we all know that tooting my own horn is possible but that’s now what I’m talking about. When I first started this blog I complained about the challenge of managing study while working full time. I know that a lot of other people have managed this and done very well at both, I just wasn’t sure how I’d go in this situation.

I just got my first semester results and I’m absolutely stoked!! I did much better than I expected with a lot less effort. I’m not gonna analyse it, I’m just gonna enjoy it :o)

Only 3 days and my exams will finally be over… for this semester that is. I can’t wait.

My last subject’s called Software Quality Management. In case I haven’t mentioned this before – I decided to return to uni to study a Masters of Science in Computing this year.

I also work full time as a Software Development Engineer at cvMail an e-recruitment software provider.

I probably should add an “About me” section soon. I’m working on a new cosmetic template for this website so maybe I’ll add this when I set the new template up.

Gosh – look at the time! I’d better get back to my study…

Ok so it’s been 3 weeks since I installed textpattern and I still haven’t posted anything significant. The site is still bare and I haven’t really given anyone who’s been here a good reason to come back.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have been consumed by assignments in recent days and this is my major excuse. I’m finally done with my assignments for the semester but exams start next week so it looks like I won’t be able to address the appearance of the site till mid-June.

Sigh…

I have been working on an assignment each weekend for the last 9 weeks. Working full-time and being at uni is not easy. I have to keep reminding myself that’s it all worth it, that there will be rewards, that I will be better off in the end. I hope this is true.

I’m really looking forward to the 18th of June, the day after my last exam.

I’m meant to be working on a couple of assignments for uni… instead I’ve been stuffing around all day with various blogging tools..

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day and I’ll actually be able to tell you a little about myself…

Finally, thanks for the inspiration fish. I’m nearly swimming.