Reply to: Prince 2 what a load of XXXX

[Francko]

Just goes to show what I have thought for years - developers think they are the mutt's nuts and everyone else is an idiot; testers think they are the mutt's nuts and everyone else is an idiot; support folk think they are the mutt's nuts and everyone else is an idiot and managers think that without them nobody else would be able to lift a finger. It's like a bunch of school kids arguing in a playground.

Is it any wonder IT has such a grim reputation in the business world?

Not really. I think managers do have the same reputation across most fields. True that there are some good ones but the overall majority gives them a bad name for a good reason. Try asking some NHS doctors what's their opinion about NHS managers as an example...

The reality is that often management is a way of removing unproductive people from the chain in the least painful way.

[PM-Junkie]

Just goes to show what I have thought for years - developers think they are the mutt's nuts and everyone else is an idiot; testers think they are the mutt's nuts and everyone else is an idiot; support folk think they are the mutt's nuts and everyone else is an idiot and managers think that without them nobody else would be able to lift a finger. It's like a bunch of school kids arguing in a playground.

Is it any wonder IT has such a grim reputation in the business world?

[Ardesco]

I'd like to see a tester perform a unit test!

Never met any white box testers??

[swamp]

An automated test is only as good as the developer that writes it. If you accept that your code is going to be 50% correct ( and that is why you are asked to write tests ) then what chance will your 50% correct developer be right in developing the tests?

Give me a good tester over a unit test anyday of the week.

I'd like to see a tester perform a unit test!

[Francko]

Truth be told is that she failed as a lawyer and as a developer, got a prince exam and now is in charge of a bunch of developers.

Sounds about right within the proverb. Those who can do the job, they work and those who can't work, they manage.

And those who can neither manage nor work, they teach.

[minestrone]

The GF's friend was a lawyer and quite frankly not a very good one, she sorted out child cases for the council, hardly a Petrocelli. When she found out what I earned she went to do a masters in IT and got a gig with an IT firm doing law software. She recently passed a Prince exam and the last time I spoke to her she was demanding a developer to be sacked. Truth be told is that she failed as a lawyer and as a developer, got a prince exam and now is in charge of a bunch of developers.

[minestrone]

Give me a clear, well written automated test over a stuffy document any day.

An automated test is only as good as the developer that writes it. If you accept that your code is going to be 50% correct ( and that is why you are asked to write tests ) then what chance will your 50% correct developer be right in developing the tests?

Give me a good tester over a unit test anyday of the week.

[Mich the Tester]

Give me a clear, well written automated test over a stuffy document any day.

Even better; an expertly conducted exploratory test session.

[swamp]

You mean there's an object to Agile? I thought it was just dreamt up by a load of lazy developers as a way to avoid writing documentation!

Give me a clear, well written automated test over a stuffy document any day.

[deckster]

That rather defeats the object of Agile.

You mean there's an object to Agile? I thought it was just dreamt up by a load of lazy developers as a way to avoid writing documentation!

[Mich the Tester]

That said Agile projects I've been on have been obsessed with estimating and micro managing tasks to try and measure the 'velocity' of the team. Also burn down charts etc. Big waste of time.

That rather defeats the object of Agile.

[swamp]

Agile methodologies are good but you need senior developers. You can't refactor everything so people have to take an intelligent punt on the design in the early code base. Not many people can do this very well.

That said Agile projects I've been on have been obsessed with estimating and micro managing tasks to try and measure the 'velocity' of the team. Also burn down charts etc. Big waste of time.

[chris79]

It's just a standard which helps people talk the same language on a project, it's not there to teach you how to be a project manager.. that's more an individual skill perhaps combined with a bit of experience.

I've done P2 and found it quite useful (even though I'm not a project manager) and having had dealings with projects at various stages and it's nice to understand what I'm being asked, how I can input into it, and why certain things are done, etc.

It's only really a load of crap if you don't care much for it, which you should be then asking yourself why you are doing it in the first place?

[TykeMerc]

Methodologies can be useful in the hands of a skilled person. What I've noticed though is that in an absence of knowledge to select skilled people, clients will choose the person who has the certificate for a particular methodology, without reckoning on the fact that crap people can pass exams too. If I'm selecting testers I know what kind of questions to ask to find out if they have the right mindset and critical thinking skills to test, so I don't need to worry about the pieces of paper. But a personel manager or purchasing manager or for that matter an agent who knows nothing about testing has no other means for judging competence than asking if someone's got a particular certificate.

That's the blessing and curse of professional qualifications, when they become "industry standard" then every bloke and his dog gets them with the benefit of hothouse courses, before they're widely recognised the only holders are the actual experts in the field.
MCSE is a prime example, in the NT3.51 and early NT4 days the only people that had an MCSE were real Systems Engineers, these days you can practically get one from a cornflakes packet.
Prince2 methodology is actually useful to a real PM as you can use a commonly understood framework and get the job done. However a Prince2 Practitioner cert is no indication that the holder has the foggiest idea how to manage any or all parts of a project.

As Mitch said certs are what recruitment people look for in their bin filtering operations, it's a bit sad really, but quite understandable.

[Mich the Tester]

There are lots of incompetent developers and testers too, but I wouldn't be so foolish as to suggest that that makes developers and tests unnecessary. When you get someone who knows what they are doing you realise how valuable those skills are.

Methodologies can be useful in the hands of a skilled person. What I've noticed though is that in an absence of knowledge to select skilled people, clients will choose the person who has the certificate for a particular methodology, without reckoning on the fact that crap people can pass exams too. If I'm selecting testers I know what kind of questions to ask to find out if they have the right mindset and critical thinking skills to test, so I don't need to worry about the pieces of paper. But a personel manager or purchasing manager or for that matter an agent who knows nothing about testing has no other means for judging competence than asking if someone's got a particular certificate.