De-boomed!

[Smartie]

Turned on my LinkedIn 'Open to work' yesterday (only for recruiters). Got a call from an agent today for a role with a decent rate and mostly work at home. First call in ages.

[Smartie]

That's just basic project management and not incompatible with Agile.
Fixed deadline - reduce scope (deliver MVP), increase resource or reduce quality.
In your case, resource was increased by working longer hours....

[Smartie]

That's not my experience in any of the places I've worked.
It can and does work well, if the right people are in place. A (very) senior advocate for the methodology. A strong Product Owner to manage new and urgent requirements and question the priorities. A good Scrum Master to push back deiplomatically...

[Smartie]

This sort of hybrid methodology is very common especially in financial services.
Senior stakeholders often want classic milestones and reporting.
Pretty easy to do this by defining key features and priorities and staging deliveries with deadlines, then using agile within that framework....

[Smartie]

I've seen several ads recently where the requirement is for experience of both waterfall and agile....

[Smartie]

Buffet might be 40% in cash, but he's a huge fan of passive investing and historically cash makes poor returns. Also worth noting he had a really good start, which is documented here: https://monevator.com/how-did-warren-buffett-get-rich/

Also worth checking out:
60/40 portfolio issues...

[Smartie]

Looks like the squabbling has migrated to this thread anyway - maybe it will stay on topic....

[Smartie]

If you're investing for the long term and still accumulating, the evidence is that your best returns come from being mostly in equities and staying invested. Almost everyone in cash will miss the week or two period where equities jump after a crash and several false starts for the next bull run....

[Smartie]

A client I picked up freelance, but due to IR35 worries was eventually transferred to a consultancy perm contract working at the same client and at the same rates.

With all the complaints about the state of the market, I was entirely happy to let it run its course....

[Smartie]

Today is the last day of my almost 6 year permanent contract!
Couldn't give it up, but quite excited about it finishing and getting some time off to chill over summer.
The 'state of the market' post is now closed though - how am I to ponder/bemoan any lack of results in applying for new...

[Smartie]

Also a recent change to cash in a stocks & shares ISA to come in 2027.
22% tax on interest on cash in these https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ules-factsheet

Cash can form an important part of a diversified...

[Smartie]

It's clear that many will need to retire before 67 (or later) - heavy manual work, deprived low life expectancy areas etc.
As it's possible to defer the state pension to any age above 67 to get higher payments (5.8% per year delay), then logically it should be possible to take the pension early...