Is Life Waterfall or Agile

"I think that waterfall is the natural way we do things in our lives and that it is the best big picture approach."

In relation to the assertion above we can spin this out to show the pros & cons of Waterfall/Agile. I agree that we do split and plan our lives in a big picture way. When I was eighteen my phases were university, travelling, jobs in IT or banking, get hitched and have kids. (With partying along the way.) (Pretty much the way it turned out.)

If I had planned my life in Waterfall, my university days would have been done with MS Project in minute detail. Of course, life would have forced change on me, making the plan late and missing its objectives as stated at the start. Instead I took an agile approach, all the time looking at the big picture goals (1) getting a degree 2) enjoying myself.) I suppose in terms of iterations you would have 13 weeks (1 semester). That is what suited me. In project terms this suited me as a fresh eighteen year old.

Of course, others could opt for a more structured waterfall approach. Typically these were mature students, who had to take certain options fit university in with career/family.

When people denigrate Waterfall, it is done from a perception that it means, every requirement to the nth degree is described in mind numbing detail before a single line of code is cut. Similarly when the code moves from development to testing. Conversely, Agile is seen as ad-hoc. Hardly ever can you say a project was fully Agile or fully Waterfall.

In the example above, I had to meet coursework deadlines and exam dates. These elements required structure. Conversely the mature students had enough latitude to deviate from the plan (and have a beer!)

Bank Stress Tests to be Annual?

The Fed is looking for US banks to undergo annual stress tests. Failing, would allow the Fed to veto dividend payments, according to the FT

Financial Software Testing Update

European Finance ministers have ruled out permantly banning naked CDS shorting. Leaves a window though for temporary bans. The European Parliament however is pushing for an out right ban.

HP Registration

Finally managed to register with HP. No idea why it was not accepted first time.

There was one irritant though. On the registration form I selected UK as country. The form was not clever enough to remove the "State" field.

HP Registration

Finally managed to register with HP. No idea why it was not accepted first time.

There was one irritant though. On the registration form I selected UK as country. The form was not clever enough to remove the "State" field.

QTP Annoyance

Irritating annoyance of the week courtesy of HP. Yesterday I tried to download QTP as an evaluation copy. However that was before the failure of HP to handle my registration.

As usual when registering you have to give your life story. Duly did that and saved. The site happily accepted my user name/email.

Of course when trying to sign-in, the name/email was not recognized. To all intents and purposes I am non-existent.

Sure, there might be a logical explanation. That does not excuse a woeful user experience.

QTP/Quality Center Progress

Further progress in installing QTP/Quality Center from HP.

Yesterday I downloaded and installed VMWare's Fusion product. This is needed to run Windows programmes on the Mac. I used Windows Vista as I have two unused instances.

The whole process was very smooth, with not too much issue with keys etc. The installation was particularly seamless with installing Windows at the same time as creating a snapshot. The whole process took less than 5 keystrokes. Fusion even handled whether I wanted an installation of Windows isolated from the Mac or one in which files could flow between the two.

My impression is of an application that functionally it does what it says on the tin and no more. Non-functionally, the process showed a lot of effort has gone in to making the user experience as smooth as possible.