Javapolis 2008

Did a talk at Javapolis 2008 in Antwerp in December. As I stood in last minute for Andy Mulholland, group CTO at Capgemini, who was ill, I had little time to prepare a sound talk. That’s why I used a golden oldie, but still very valid!

Project anti-patterns. How to make your projects fail
Software development is hard. Many software development projects fail to meet their goals. Although nobody deliberately thrives to make our projects fail, being successful in software development projects is just plain tough. However, making a project fail is easy. In his ironic and entertaining style the speaker Sander Hoogendoorn demonstrates how each of us can contribute in making our projects fail.

Presenting a collection of patterns, Sander zooms in on all roles in projects, such as project managers, architects, designers, developers and even testers (the poor guys who get to slash the work of other people at the end of projects). For each of you he has tips & tricks that will help you make your project fail miserably. Low cost, high impact!

This talk presents you with patterns such as: Titanic projects, Dead fish projects, the new kid on the block, Death by planning, Architects-don’t-code, Powerpoint Architecture, use case worst case, the Truck Factor, and the Bob the Builder Syndrome.

I had a talk with Stephan Janssen, chief organiser of Javapolis, and still a geek for gadgets, who told me my talk was taped and will be made available soon. I’m very curious to what it (and I) looks like on film. More on Javapolis shortly – met a lot of interesting people and gained some new insights as well.