Matthew Hutchinson

Some of you may know that I work for the BBC, on a little (£150m) e-learning site, BBC Jam. It was with great frustration last week, that I learned of the BBC Trust’s decision to suspend the service, pending the outcome of a public value test – Here lies the official press release describing just that.

Along with some harsh conditions placed on the production of this service (brought about by the same complaints that have caused this suspension), the site has seen its share of challenges. But the quality of e-learning content over the last year has been outstanding, and a great deal of it (more than 80%) has still to see the light of day.

There is a story worth reporting here. Years ago £150m was awarded to the BBC for the production of Jam. The government also granted £530m in e-learning credits (over 4 years) to bolster the e-learning education industry here in the UK. Along with these grants, a set of conditions was imposed on BBC Jam, including terms stating the BBC could only cover 50% of the UK curriculum. Some questions worth asking here;

• Where did the £530m go? How is the spending of this money by schools regulated?
• Why is e-learning content in the UK still so droll? (in comparison with the richer interactive (flash-based) offerings from the BBC)
• How can some companies claim they have lost business/revenue since BBC Jam had (until now) only launched about 15% of it’s content with only a small advertising campaign?
• Why does most of the UK’s educational software market revolve around the adoption of VLE’s in schools (and locking them into a platform) – rather than content and great learning experiences?
• Should the suspension of a free e-learning service for kids ever be celebrated? and who does this really benefit?

Reaction across the web has proved BBC Jam has a lot of support. Even on sites claiming this suspension is a good idea. commentaries have quickly shot down the authors post. There is some more good discussion on the matter here and here.

Here comes the disclaimer: the views expressed above do not necessarily correspond with those of the BBC.

Heard of PRojects IN Controlled Environments aka. Prince ? If you’re in the UK you’ve probably seen it, asked for on job descriptions, listed in expense reports and generally talked up among those in the project management industry. Outside of Europe Prince2 holds little clout. Most people have never heard of it, (including Mr. Joel on Software)

Prince2 is essentially a project management framework, that claims it can be applied to (or modified to fit) any project. It is great theory – but that’s pretty much all it is. In reality it’s rarely the right methodology to choose for a software project.

The problem is some large (often bureaucratic) companies place a strong emphasis on having a Prince2 qualification, even in the software industry. Year on year, it seems to make a regular appearance on training expense reports.

To make things worse, whatever good intentions Prince2 had to begin with, have faded away. What’s left now is a money making training industry (with loyal repeat customers). Having to re-take the same training and sit the exam every year or so, just to keep the accreditation. Speaking to those who have taken the course, it doesn’t seem to offer anything more than ‘how to pass the exam’ – and is scant on the underlying principles of project management using the framework (including how you might want to tailor it).

Simply put, Prince2 is too rigid to fit with the complexity involved in managing software projects, especially those with small teams. The amount of work you would have to do, moulding Prince2 into a more agile solution, would offset any benefit in using the framework.

If you’re still not convinced, I’d suggest have a good read through ‘Why Software Projects Fail’ , ‘Getting Real’ and ‘The Agile Manifesto’

Heads up, I know which one I prefer in the Agile Manifesto vs. Prince2 debate.

I’ve actually blogged more in the last 12 months than I thought I would. So rather than rant on about how crazy a year this has been for me, (working for the BBC, moving to London, leaving Belfast, travelling to Japan) – here are a few nostalgic links from 2006;

• The Move – the whole shift from Belfast to London was smoother than you’d think (except for some Fun with Banks)
• Shameless Bragging – Its only a little Taschen web book, but I was proud to see a little portfolio site I had built in it
• Prepping for a MacBook Pro – after years of using Windows I stepped into the world ‘o Mac, and it has been nothing but plain sailing since (almost)
• I made an effort to attend @media 2006 and RailsConf Europe this year, both very enjoyable, upbeat and worthwhile events.
• All kinds of ‘newness’ when I got myself a new Debian VPS to play with, for Rails applications and other fun stuff.
• Finally, having not had a solid 2 weeks time-off in almost 4 years I decided to take a break and visit Japan & Hong Kong

Reflecting back, I am sure a lot more happened than this… Notable mention also goes to the closure of Raffles – which provided quality, affordable sandwiches to most of Belfast’s top web talent. And to Skribe a project which has struggled to get off the ground all year and now looks back on track for 2007.

• #cabal
• [12:00] @matt: ive just got the best response ever from our sys admin here; i asked him a rather tricky question – the answer was;
• [12:00] @matt: It is possible to do what we’ve done in much the same way that it’s possible to build a house; I wouldn’t want to try to explain how to do it in an email, because a) it would take an awfully long time, b) I’d never get the whole concept across, c) someone would end up dead under a pile of bricks, in a pool of electrified mains water.

Back from holidays Ive lined up a fair bit of work for myself. Some ASP, some Rails and some PHP – There wont be posts here for a while – As always the link feed (over there ->) will continue to grow. To summarise a few things around the web I’ve paid attention to recently;

• A Rails Toolbox – Err the Blog has listed some dead handy plugins they’ve been using, and their ‘Cheat Sheet’ gem looks helpful, a command line wiki based cheatsheet
• List of states with nuclear weapons – whos got what
• Active Collab – a (decent) free alternative to Basecamp for your own server. I’m working on a little ruby script to import Basecamp messgaes/comments etc. using their API, directly into ActiveCollab – I’ll distribute it when its done, if I remember
• “30 Apple Cinema Display – according to UPS it should be sitting for me when I get home – whether my productivity will increase with this monster is something to be seen [update]

• The Goonies Soundtrack long out-of-stock, its now available as an import from Amazon (US) – I’m not embarrassed to say – mine’s in the post
• Sniper in Iraq US military use bullet proof windows from busted Hum-vees
• Oh, and I’m selling a little camera , get it while its hot