Stuff I collect and throw back at you...

I recently decided that it was about time I separate my portfolio work from the amount of other rubbish I store on my flickr account.

There’s still much curation that needs to be done, which is something I struggle with, but hopefully the set will evolve into something I can be proud of over the next few weeks and months.

So without further ado, I hope you enjoy my portfolio of portraits.

Levent Ali · 2 May 2010

Recently I’ve been using the Sleep Cycle alarm clock iPhone application. The app uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to analyse your sleep and wake you up when you are in a light sleep phase (near your specified alarm time).

This morning I noticed some amusing patterns based on my state prior to going to bed.

It’s worth noting that I have a broken clavicle so I do not move too much whilst resting.

A regular night

Speaks for itself and most of my graphs look like this.

After a dose of paracetamol+codeine and muscle relaxants

I was in a lot of pain one evening so took the prescription medication before retiring.

Out cold!

After having a bit too much to drink

It was a friend’s 30th birthday last night so I had a few alcoholic beverages.

I woke up lying on my broken side with the duvet lying on the floor.

Levent Ali · 18 March 2010

Serenade me with Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know” and I’m yours.

Levent Ali · 17 February 2010

After months of O2 broadband woes I decided to leave. Their final attempt at resolution was to reduce my bandwidth to such a low level that dropped connections became rare (a couple of times a day as opposed to several times a minute whilst at 8Mb). Of course they lied about this and I was still paying for 8Mb.

After years of dissatisfation with O2’s mobile phone network coverage I decided to request my PAC Code and return to my old operator.

• Hi, could you send me my PAC Code please.
• May I ask why you are leaving?
• I'm unhappy with your network coverage and have had a bitter experience with O2 broadband as well.
• Have you opened a case with us and had us help you with your problems? After all it's our job to support you. Besides, broadband is a separate franchise.
• There's no point because everyone I know on O2 has the same coverage issues across the same locations. It's not the handset, it's definitely the network. Besides, you're all O2 to me regardless of the franchise structure.
• Attempts to convince me to let them 'have a go'
• No thanks. I just want to leave.
• I find your behaviour to be bizarre. Do you turn your back on all relationships at the first sign of conflict without allowing any attempt at resolution?
• Give me my PAC Code now.

Joke is on me?

Levent Ali · 17 February 2010

Eben Halford nominated me to be today’s contributor to Yves Hanoulle’s Agile Retroflection of the Day series. This is quite exciting, scary and a massive honour! Today’s question is this:

“What are the advantages and disadvantages of a coach having practical experience of all the key responsibilities they coach?”

Just to be clear, I am not a coach/trainer or certified in anyway. In fact I sit on the receiving end as a developer. However I do have the pleasure of working with Eben on a daily basis who is an Agile Coach, our CTO and my friend.

I’ve interpreted this question as relating to a coach’s experience performing the day job of one or more of their students. Apologies if I misinterpreted.

The first thought that entered my head was that you don’t need to be good at every discipline within your organisation to be a good CEO. Much in the same way I believe the most important attribute of a coach is their personality, their charisma and a creative approach to problem solving to help you create your own path and guide you down it. Every situation is different so there is no exact science for becoming Agile.

This leads me onto my realm which is within engineering teams. Developers are clearly far more intelligent than their peers. We know more (actually we know everything about everything), our jobs are much more difficult and most people are only here to get in our way and make our lives even harder. We also do not make mistakes.

Joking aside, the feeling that “nobody gets us” is so common in small to medium companies that the them versus us rift that forms between developers and the rest of the company is a tremendous problem and a topic unto itself.

Let’s imagine a team of middle-aged .NET developers. Think sandals, beards, “127.0.0.1 is home” t-shirts and been “doing waterfall” since punch cards were in fashion. You’re either one of them or you’re clearly not. Now if management had sent the following memo:

Dear Team,

Please report to meeting room 167 at 6am next Thursday for your Agile training. Tea, coffee and one biscuit each will be served.

The Management

As a developer my reaction could be to take offence and turn defensive.

In this situation a coach with a background as a jaded software developer will make a much greater impact than any other. The coach’s talent must lie with gaining the respect and support of the team they are training and without understanding them, genuinely convincing them and being part of them I’m afraid you could end up conducting many a failed session.

Levent Ali · 6 January 2010