I was looking through some back issues of Director magazine today, and stumbled across an article that was written in March 2008 entitled Terminal 5 Comes Alive. It is an interesting read that discusses the leadership approach taken when BAA built Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport.

The first thing that struck me are some of the numbers. The total cost of the project was £4.3 billion. There were 147 sub-projects, clustered into 18 main projects. These in turn fell under four project components – civils, rail and tunnels, buildings, and systems. The 8,000 people who worked on the project were moved around by 60 buses, ate in 18 canteens, and used 18,000km of toilet roll! At its height, the project was costing £3-£4 million per day. A huge project, by all counts.

The article talks about the dismal record that most large construction projects have, and cites the Jubilee Line extension (London Underground), the Millennium Dome and the British Library as a few examples. Yet Terminal 5, vast project that it was, managed to stay on time and budget. Incredible.

As I read the rest of the article (which I encourage you to do yourself here: Terminal 5 Comes Alive), I started to recognise many of the values that are a key part of agile software development philosophy. Sharon Doherty, the article’s author, calls out three key ingredients for success: an intelligent client, integrated teams, and courageous and determined leaders.

Collaboration over Contract Negotiation: BAA created the T5 Agreement, a contract that saw most of the risk fall on BAA’s shoulders, with incentive plans devised to reward exceptional performance across stakeholder teams. This meant that stakeholders were not continually covering themselves against potential risks, and in fact were encouraged to find ways to ensure “exceptional performance”.

The article quotes one construction firm employee as saying (emphasis mine) “we received incentives to perform at exceptional levels, which normally meant having to work with other teams in a more collaborative way, solving problems together and worrying about getting the job finished”. Another passage of the article describes people working “in the spirit of collaborative problem-solving instead of protecting their company interests; and always working to deliver, at a minimum, industry best practice and striving to achieve exceptional performance”.

Sharon summarizes the key leadership lessons as:

1. Think Big Picture: the whole project was complex and lengthy with a changing set of stakeholders. Keeping the big picture in mind at all times was crucial.
2. Engender And Operate With Vigilant Trust.
3. Drive For Success Despite The Odds: the date and budget were set early on, and very made public. The commitment was made. Everyone knew that they had to hit those targets, and worked together in times of trouble to ensure they did.
4. Keep Stakeholders On-Side And Aligned With Objectives: the T5 Agreement went a long way to creating an environment where this could happen.
5. Get The Best Out Of The Integrated Team: they created a “one team” mentality across all of the contractors.

Seeing some of the key agile software development philosophies that make so much sense to me applied at a scale I can barely comprehend and in a totally different industry just further underscores my belief in the way I choose to approach software development projects – common sense really does work.

I’ve owned a pair of Bose QC2 Headphones for a long time now, and I’ve blogged about the great Bose customer service before.  A few weeks ago, I noticed that the padding around the left ear-cup had started to come loose.  At first it wasn’t too bad, but with continued use it got progressively worse.  Before too long, it ended up looking like this:

The material had completely come apart from the assembly and the foam of the ear-cup was coming out.  They were still just about wearable if you fiddled with the foam before putting them on, but a lot of the noise cancelling properties of the left headphone had disappeared.

I called Bose Customer Service and explained the problem, expecting that I would have to send them back for repair.  It turns out that replacing the ear-cups is a cheap self-service option.  For £23, I had two new ear-cups delivered to me with simple instructions for fitting them.

What I hadn’t realised before calling is that the ear-cups just pop off if pulled gently; there is a plastic ring that the cushioned part is attached to, and this just snaps in under some tiny plastic wedges.

Once the package from Bose arrived, it was a matter of a couple of minutes before I had two brand new ear-cups fixed on to my headphones.  I hadn’t realised just how soft the original ones had become and the new ones feel nice and firm, creating a really comfortable fit again.

So, if you’re struggling with your QC2’s ear-cups, call Bose and give your headphones a new lease of life.

I've been a big fan of the Lego games for a while now – Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman.  They are all fairly simple games on the surface, yet can be challenging when you dig into them.  My young son (who is now 9, but started playing the Star Wars game when he was 6 or 7) was able to play two player games with me, and contribute to winning (unlike some other games where he was just a burden due to his limited skills).

In Lego Batman, we easily managed to get about 85% of the game finished between us, just playing through the levels in Story Mode and then Free Play mode.  Once we hit 85%, it became a concerted effort to collect everything and reach 100%; something we'd never quite managed with Star Wars or Indiana Jones.  We played every level, became "True Hero/Villain" everywhere, rescued all the hostages, gathered all the post boxes and artefacts, and played the "special levels".  Despite that, we were stuck at 98.8% and there were still some data items that weren't unlocked.  I couldn't figure out why; there was nothing left to find, no levels left to play.

Turns out, according to various web searches, this is pretty common.  I saw a lot of "98.8% complete – help!" items in forum posts, and many seemed frustrated by what folks were assuming was a bug or glitch.  I was definitely in the "frustrated" bucket myself.  However, I don't think it is a bug.

I went back at the weekend and replayed the "special levels" – Wayne's Manor and Arkham Asylum.  I played Wayne's Manor (and due to some issues finding items), finished it in about 40 minutes.  Nothing changed in my completion status.  So I played it again, this time focussing on getting things done quickly.  19 minutes and a completed Wayne's Manor later, and suddenly I was at 99.4% complete.  Hmm, 0.6% extra for completing the level quickly.  Also, 0.6% shy of 100%.

Assuming that the elusive 0.6% could be gotten in the other "special level" by completing it quickly, I headed over to Arkham Asylum and zoomed through it as best I could.  Imagine my joy when the final 50G message immediately popped up, and the completion percentage went up to 100%!

So, hopefully this post will help some of the other folks on the internet who have been frustrated by this situation.  It isn't only about getting everything in the game, certain things need to be done quickly too.

[Oh, by the way, if anyone is reading this who can influence the right folks at the video game company, creating "Lego Back To The Future – The Video Game" would be completely AWESOME…]

I have been a subscriber to the MLB.TV Premium service for a number of years (I think this year will be my fourth season), and I have been consistently impressed with their service.  As a subscriber, I have access to every single game played throughout both the regular and post seasons, both live-as-they-are-played and as archive games after the fact.  I can also watch 30 minutes "condensed" games that include just the scoring plays without having to watch the full 3+ hours.  This year, I can even choose "home" versus "away" coverage of any given game.  As a fan of Don and Jerry, I like to watch the Red Sox on NESN when I can…

One things that really stands out this year though is the quality of the streaming video.  It has taken quite a leap forward in my opinion.  Using a browser plugin called "NexDef", they are now streaming super-high quality video.  While I was watching the Red Sox beat the Orioles this morning, I thought I'd take a snapshot of the difference between the "old" service and the "new" service – you can really see the difference in the crispness of the text.

The NexDef plugin also includes adaptive streaming, so that it can deal with temporary bandwidth issues gracefully.  It does seem to eat a little processor when running full screen, but I suppose that is expected given the video quality.

Anyway, if you're a baseball fan and you don't live in the USA, get yourself a subscription to MLB.TV; you won't regret it.

There is a chain of coffee shops in Shanghai (maybe all of China?) called SPR Coffee.  I really like the slogan that they use on their paper cups - "No Full Stops In Quality".  It reminds me that, no matter how high your quality is now, or how good your processes and practices are that help achieve and ensure good quality, there is always something more you can do.

As if to underscore this, the last time I was in Shanghai I purchased an Americano coffee from the SPR in our office building.  It was super-hot.  The cardboard sleeve that was supposed to protect me got super-hot too, the glue holding it together melted and the sleeve fell off.  So, even SPR Coffee still has some work to do to improve in the quality space!  :-)

So, what is your team doing to increase the quality of your product?  What practices are you changing to push the quality in to your product, or even to design the quality in up-front?  What issues are your retrospectives revealing that will lead you to make changes that will support new quality initiatives?

On February 24th of 2008, I started a project on Flickr called the 365 Days project.  Well, 366 days later (2008 was a leap year), I completed the challenge I had set myself.  I had taken 366 photos somehow featuring myself and uploaded them for all to see.  And most likely laugh at.

Some random statistics about my year of self-portraiture:

• 18 involved musical instruments of some kind.
• 22 were taken in Shanghai (23 if you include day 366).
• 22 were taken in the USA (including 10 in Seattle, 8 in Boston).
• 17 were taken in other countries.
• 10 featured one or both of my kids, 3 included our puppy Ruby.
• 2 were pictures of my butt.
• 16 had something to do with the Boston Red Sox.
• 44 were in black and white, or had some selective colouring.
• 5 featured Apple products or themes.
• 2 were taken in the snow.
• 1 day featured a photo that I didn't think I'd taken, but found in my recycle bin 3 days later to prevent the "fail" (day 239).
• 1 had me wearing a wig.
• Day 127 (Red Sox Tickets) got the most views, followed by Day 207 (Out Back) and then Day 232 (Shanghai World Financial Centre).

You can see the whole set of pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phammond/sets/72157603977922609/

I had great fun doing it, although some days were a real chore.  The ideas well ran fairly dry early on in the project.  There are a number of pictures I am really happy with, and quite a few that were just terrible!  Along the way I met some cool Flickr users.  My Photoshop skills certainly improved during the year too.

Try it, it's fun!

Late last year I got a FlickrMail from the people at schmap.com asking for permission to use a photo I took of the Rogers Centre in Toronto as part of their Schmap Toronto Guide.  Of course I readily gave permission, it was fantastic to have been picked!

You can see the schmap.com guide by clicking this link – my photo appears (albeit very small) in the top right hand corner among a collection of other photos of the Rogers Centre.  Despite the size, I still find its inclusion fulfilling.  :-)

As an aside, the schmap.com site is actually an excellent source of information when you travel.  I had actually discovered it a while before they mailed me, when I was testing an iPhone.  As well as being a great resource for “normal” internet browsers, it works really well as an iPhone site – the information is shown in text format when the phone is held in portrait mode, and it re-orients the page to add mapping when you rotate the phone to landscape mode.  Check it out at http://www.schmap.com/.

A long while ago, I posted about the fact that every office has a Kevin, and that ours was called Paul.  Well, Paul has moved on from my team now, but apparently he hasn’t moved on from his inate Kevin-ness.  Here is a transcript from an IM conversation I had with him the other day.

Paul says (16:11):
  I've just outdone any accident that I've ever done before (in an office).
Paul says (16:12):
  New contract, been here 2 weeks.. I'm the Scrum admin this week. I open the scrum draw,
  and there is what looks a toy gun with soft balls in it.  I pick it up and as i do so, 
  I manage to actually, non-intentionally pull the trigger.
  Turns out, it's a high powered professional paint ball gun.
Paul says (16:13):
  I shot the team secretary the other side of the office!!
Paul says (16:15):
  So, I'm new here... and second week I nail the secretary in the back with a paintball.

Honestly, I have so many questions about why there was a loaded paintball gun in an office drawer, but that’s another blog post...

The best bit was when he finished up with this comment:

Paul says (16:16):
  Still, at least I haven't spilt anything yet...

Fantastic.  But not for the secretary.

I was in our local grocery store on the 29th of December, and this section stood out as potentially a little premature:

What on earth?  I know shops like to get their displays out early for the holidays, but the 29th of December 2008 for Easter 2009?  I think that might be a record.

Well, 2008 has almost gone.  In just a few short hours I will be welcoming in 2009 with my family and friends.  So now seemed to be a good time to reflect on 2008, and to look forward to 2009.  I am not one for New Year’s Resolutions as such, but there are definitely a few things I’d like to try and do this coming year.

But First, 2008.

Well, as with most years, I travelled a fair amount, some for pleasure but mostly for work.  According to my TripIt.com profile, I made 16 trips and spent 93 days on the road.  I visited 8 countries and 19 cities.  I travelled a total of 93,307 miles on aircraft.  I started the year with a trip to Las Vegas with my wife.  In the summer, my family took a long vacation in which we visited Toronto, Niagara Falls, Lake George NY and Boston MA.  Laura and I then returned to Boston in October for a long weekend in order to attend the fabulous wedding of Tee and Troy.  For work, in between those personal trips, I slotted in 3 trips to Seattle, 3 trips to Shanghai, 5 to Dublin, 1 to Iceland and 1 to Paris.  Phew.

On February 24th, I started a new Photography project after I saw some pictures on an acquaintance’s Flickr account.  It involves taking a self-portrait every day for a year.  As of right now, I have taken 311 pictures without missing a day.  Today’s will be 312.  My Photoshop skills have definitely improved throughout the course of the project, but I am not sure my eye for a picture has!  Wish me luck for the last 54 pictures.

A selection of other things that happened include:

• I had a hard disk failure in April that made me thankful for my backup strategy.  Did you all get your own backups in place yet?
• 2008 was a poor year for live music, but I was lucky enough to see Sara Bareilles live in September.
• I caught a live Red Sox game while I was in Boston.  Boston didn’t win the World Series this year.
• I went skiing at Crystal Mountain in Washington State.
• I grew a Mo for Movember.
• My iPod disk failed, and Apple delighted me with an instant replacement.
• My kids started music lessons – both playing the Steel Pans, Niamh starting Piano, Dylan playing the drums and both of them very recently starting to learn to play Horns (Tenor and Baritone).  I hope they enjoy it and continue on with it.
• I read around 40 books.
• I played way too much Rock Band.  I play guitar on Expert most of the time.
• We had 5 Christmas trees in our house this year.

So, what about 2009?

Well, to be honest, I am not sure what 2009 is going to bring.  Isn’t that half the fun?  As I mentioned, I do have a few things I’d like to try and do this year.  Here are a few of them:

• I’ll almost certainly being visiting Chicago in August for the Agile 2009 conference that I am involved in organizing.
• I have a semi-firm plan for a Shanghai trip in March.
• I have a STACK of business and leadership books that I need to really knuckle down and read (or re-read in some cases).  The fiction books seem to get in the way!
• I’d like to retry learning both Spanish and Mandarin.  I need to figure out a rhythm that will allow me to spend a little time every day on both of these things.  Maybe I should just pick one at first…?
• I’d also like to get some formal jazz piano and spanish guitar lessons, if time and budget permits.
• I’ll probably attempt to write a novel in November again this year (like I did in 2007), for NaNoWriMo.  It will be another novel using the same characters as for my last one.
• I WILL write and record some songs this year.  I’ll plan on an albums worth…
• I have a thought for an alternative Photography project this year, called 100 Strangers.
• I’ll try and actually blog more!

Other than that, I’ll look forward to spending time with my family and friends, watching my kids continue to grow up (too fast) in front of my very eyes, and enjoying the time we all spend together.

Leave me a comment, let me know what your resolutions will be for 2009.

Happy New Year to all. May your 2009 be a hugely exciting, enormously joy-filled and very prosperous year.

I love theme parks.  In particular, I am a big fan of the Disney theme parks.  Their attention to detail is amazing, and their approach to customer service is exemplary.  I try to visit regularly to get a fix of Disney park fun.

As a cheaper alternative, this past year I decided that I would buy a Merlin Annual pass for the family.  This would allow us 365 days of unlimited access to Chessington World of Adventures, Thorpe Park, Alton Towers, Legoland, Madame Tussaud's, The London Dungeons, Warwick Castle, the London Eye, the London Aquarium and the many UK Sealife Centres.  Since Chessington is less than 5 miles from my house, it seemed like a really good idea – we could drop by and ride the rides whenever we wanted.

We've certainly had our money's worth at Chessington over the past few months, and that is before we even visited any other attractions.  It has been great to see the kids riding all of the rides, and I think it has help them overcome some of the trepidation and fear they both felt about riding attractions when we went to Walt Disney World in Florida back in 2006.  The pass is definitely money well spent, and I will definitely consider it again when renewal time comes.

But I guess I have been very spoiled by Disney.  Despite having some fun thrill rides, I feel let down by the experience at Chessington.  The decor seems tired and feels like it lacks the love and attention it needs to sparkle.  Many of the "side" attractions require more money (on top of the entrance fee) to be spent to play; this gives the park more of a fairground feel.  The employees feel like they are simply "employees" going through the motions, rather than Disney's "cast members" who are there to bring the fantasy alive.

The final straw for me was when I was queuing for the Vampire Ride the other day.  All along the queue line are fun props that try and create some sort of Vampire fantasy as you queue; most of these require some attention. Even just some weeding of the overgrown areas would help enormously.  I could forgive this.  But, also situated along the queue line were a number of TV monitors.  Instead of showing pre-ride film, heightening the excitement for the attraction and drawing in the audience, they were showing adverts!  In our case, mostly for Kellogg's Frosties.  Emblazoned underneath the advert was a big message saying "TO ADVERTISE CALL XXXXX XXXXXX".  Such a shame.  I can't help feeling that more attention to the experience would bring more guests, and negate the need to make money from advertising.

[Click the image to the right for a larger view.]

I’ve posted before about Sara Bareilles and how much I love her music.  Last night, I had the chance to see her perform live at Scala in London.

The evening was opened by a guy called Rod Thomas.  He played solo, and used looped recordings of various instruments to build up songs as he went, recording each one live, there and then.  Rod’s a great singer with some very well written songs, and I am always impressed with a solo act who can create such a full sound all by himself.  I particularly liked his layered harmonies in some of the later songs.  Actually, he reminded me of a singer I saw when I was on vacation in Lake George, NY this summer – Rich Ortiz – who did similar things with looped and layered recordings.

Anyway, on to the main event – Sara and her band.

Let’s start with the sound quality.  It was awesome.  Everything was the perfect volume and the sound guys created a great mix that made every instrument and vocal nice and clear.  The only criticism was that the band’s microphones were a little too quiet for the harmonies to cut through like they do on the record.  The drums were mic’ed superbly, with a huge bass drum that you could feel in your chest, and excellent clarity from the snare and cymbals.  Usually I am left disappointed by the drum sound or mix, but not on this occasion.  The bass levels matched those of the bass drum perfectly to create a nice fat bottom end.  The guitar stack was on the same side of the stage that we were standing so very occasionally the guitar was too high in the mix, but that didn’t matter at all.

The set list was a little shorter than I would have liked, but was excellent.  Most of the tracks were from the album, with one Beatles song thrown in for good measure.  The songs are so well written; they sound great on the CD, and easily as good live.

The band was awesome.  Sara was backed by Javier Dunn on guitar, Josh Day on drums and (I think) Brian Allen on bass.  All three are excellent musicians, and I particularly liked Josh’s work on the drums.

And Sara.  Well, what can I say?  Sara has such a fantastic voice.  She has complete control, singing subtly in the sensitive phrases, open up to be strong and powerful when the songs build.  There aren’t many artists today who sound this good outside of the protection of a studio, with all of its sound tools and multiple takes.  There were certainly moments in the show where I had goose-bumps…

If Sara Bareilles tours in a town near you, do yourself a favour and go see her.  You’ll love it.