Meh. Send user story back to user for additional info. Can't estimate time required, nor are any valid done conditions discernable. How much upkeep is user willing to do? Are other colors okay besides green (how about a lilac)? Does user prefer coniferous, or deciduous trees? Fruit or nut bearing? Any HOA or zoning restrictions? Shade-bearing, or decorative?


... end of sprint ...

But I'm allergic to apples!

I'm not really very patient either but with trees I don't think you have a choice. Even if I thought getting mature trees was better the budget does not allow it. Plus I would be worried about spending thousands on a couple trees and having them die for some reason.

Then UK government politics, then trees.


Um..... If that's how the software development industry works, let me continue to keep my distance.


Does anyone, Bruno especially (we need your fierce civil liberty), know how Americans can take a stand against these traffic light cameras? In my great (corrupt) state, traffic light cameras were apparently snuck through the legislature in the 11th hour without any public notice. Now they are a spreading infestation. The state and federal governments have no clue about data security. Their public security cameras can not be trusted in their hands, and thus should not exist. Perhaps I need to practice with a good slingshot...

Really? All of those questions are focused on making sure you deliver what the user really wants, or needs. If I tell a landscape architect "I want a nice green yard with trees," I expect the person to ask me a lot of questions to figure out what my taste is. Who is it benefiting, if he plants a bunch of pine trees, and I hate pine trees because the sap drips all over everything, and have to rip out all his work to start over?

Current software development is kind of split into two camps -- one is to specify everything up front, go off for a few years, and come back with the end result. The other is to iterate incrementally, with each iteration adding some feature that adds business value. The problem with the first is that things change between the time you gather requirements and write the specification, and the time the final project is delivered. The problem with the latter, is that so many people get hung up on the "oh, we incrementally add features" that they forget that you still need to have some idea of why you're adding all those features, and what your end goal is.

I'd design something completely different for someone who wants a large open space in their yard, so they can host weekly BBQs/raves, than I will for someone who's enamoured with British garden mazes. Yet both styles fit the description of "a lovely green backyard with a variety of trees." Both can be done incrementally, but you have to know what you're incrementing towards. It's no different for software development.

That's a good point. If you do what the Agile community calls Big Design Up Front -- if you go out and buy a truckload of little trees and plant them all over -- then in 20 years' time what you'll have is a stand of trees all of which are 20 years old. If your intended style is "formal English parkland", then that's fair enough -- but if you were more after "natural-looking woodland" then what you need to do is stagger the planting so that you have trees of all ages at any one time. Plant early, plant often.

Peter

Most software development methodologies spend most of their effort in dealing with a customer who cannot communicate what he wants effectively, largely by requiring feedback from the customer as the project progresses. When final code gets written varies, and there are varying levels of optimization for disposable work, but they all depend on the customer providing feedback.

But where this all falls down is that all of the development paradigms, at some point, assume that the customer knows what he wants. In many cases, the customer simply doesn't know with any sort of detail and you'll get positive feedback up until the end, when they then determine that it's all wrong. Or marketroids get in the way and corrupt communications from the customer to the developer, vice versa, or both.

I'm not saying that there's a solution for this problem; I'm saying that you're expending a lot of effort to reduce the effects of a similar, but distinct, problem, assuming that it will solve both.

It's like trying to herd cats.

My example above was just a very quick slice of the entire agile development model. In this particular case, the user story lacked acceptance criteria ensuring everyone understood the goal. The proper action was to reject it, instead of wasting a sprint of time going the wrong direction.

My personal preference for development is the agile method. If it is done properly, it can bring a lot of benefits to the process. Openness is a big part of it, allowing everyone a chance to ensure they are on the same page. It was actively encouraged that everyone participate in the review days to see how the game was progressing at my previous place of work.

You just described a large number of normal interactions between business and customers. The majority of my customers don't know exactly what they need and the first part of the process is helping them figure out what they need, then the methodology we'd use to get there.

How about cameras (not yours) in your own home, with private security firms monitoring everything you and your family do? Every now and then they'll also come around to check up on you.

The Sin Bins... I couldn't have made this up if I tried.

Maybe not, but apparently someone else did:

Damn, that's good to hear. So was this a complete fabrication or has some minister backed down due to backlash? Is the "Daily Express" paper noted for messing up their fact checking when they publish stories?

I'd say that they never bothered about facts getting in the way of a good story!
(I'd attribute that to whoever first said it, but I can't google it!)

It seems to be related to this (page 6):

Apparently in severe cases, they will temporarily move a family into a supervised housing project. There's no mention of cameras, only "supervision from staff". (Though it seems unlikely that there wouldn't be some cameras, at least in common areas.)

I won't comment on the quality of the paper. I don't know, despite my suspicions.

It's too hard to wipe your arse with, can't think of any other use for it or the Daily Mail.

Thought this was relevant today-

1,000 cameras 'solve one crime' (BBC)


Found on slashdot.

Wow, I wonder who else said something along these lines...



Interesting tidbits...



1 Million. London. Wow.



I'm sure that doesn't include expenditures by local municipalities/counsels.

Last bit...



I wonder if they'd feel the same knowing only 8 out of 269 suspected robbers (London stat?) were captured with the aid of CCTV.

Sorry, did someone say something?

An alternative take on the matter....

1 Million cameras in London. Are there actually any areas without cameras? Look, let your tax man spend your money on as many cameras as they like.

I'd be happy to see a study or report indicating an increase in crime in the 2 or three dark alleys in London not monitored by a camera. Also mentioned in the article is a little tidbit about the images from those cameras not being used effectively for crime prevention/solving.

It would be a lot cheaper to just put up dummy cameras if all crooks care about is seeing a box with a lens. Or maybe just some signs that say thee are cameras watching.

These reports are beautiful ammunition for the argument against CCTV here in Canada and in the US, afaic.

As I'm sure you have guessed there aren't likely to be 1 million CCTV cameras in London.

The totally flawed "report" that we talked about earlier in this thread estimated (very badly) a figure for the UK of 4.5 million or about 1 camera per 14 people. Anyone who has thought about this "report" for more than a few seconds knows that the figure is not far from just being made up. The figure was made by counting cameras in a busy urban area and multiplying out to the whole country.

Using the 1 in 14 figure, London with a population of 7.5 million would have 0.5 million cameras. And that is from and extremely dubious starting point.

If there really were 1 million cameras that would mean that across Great London (600 sq miles) there would be 1600 cameras per square mile. Given that there are significant areas of Great London that are fields and parks, the actual figure for the populated bits would in fact have to be much higher.

So, does anyone who spends any time in London actually believe that there are 2000+ cameras per square mile ?

And to answer the "are there any areas without cameras", the answer is yes. Most of the residential areas in London don't have any cameras. Given that most of London is residential areas, it makes the 1 million figure look even more ridiculous.

That BBC report says:

"The internal police report found the million-plus cameras in London rarely help catch criminals.

In one month CCTV helped capture just eight out of 269 suspected robbers."

I'll bet that the 1 million cameras figure isn't in that police report at all. The journalist has taken the 8 out of 269 bit and added it to a dodgy estimate with the end result that it makes it look like the police have said that London has 1,000,000 CCTV cameras

Over here they quote 7,431, which does appear to be the result of asking all 33 London borough councils how many they have. Those numbers don't include privately-owned cameras (in shops, for instance) whose views include public areas, but it's hard to believe that there's 993,000 such.

Peter

I finally found the report in question.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.urbaneye.net%2Fresults%2Fue_wp6.pdf&ei=TLmTSpeYGM2OjAeg-OnnDQ&usg=AFQjCNF_9yjlzfqr3FLnhUaQOiWLHHXM2g&sig2=pCh8-yftX5AAfgYR-L7ysA

The section that all these numbers come from is:



(sorry about the image, the PDF doesn't allow copying)

They basically surveyed 269 shops/offices on a busy London high street.

Even by their figures, of the 500,000 CCTV cameras they think London has, 85% of them are in private businesses. Elsewhere in the report they reveal that the London Borough of Wandsworth has just 210 open street cameras, which equates to 1 open street government operated camera per 1338 residents.

I should point out for those that don't know, Putney High Street is a small single road of shops (with one small shopping mall) surrounded by a huge area of residential streets that almost certainly have bugger all CCTV cameras.

I've just surveyed the immediate area around my house and not found any CCTV cameras. Therefore, by extrapolating from that data I can reasonably assume that there are no CCTV cameras at all in the UK that are attached to houses.

Making the data fit your story is an understatement for this. I guess its served their purposes though because the story has gotten quite a bit of publicity.

I'll bet when most people read about CCTV cameras in the press they immediately think about the on street cameras. The articles that quote the 4+ million cameras never take the time to point out that 85% (according the original report) of those mythical cameras would be inside private businesses.

We've got a dummy one at work, does that count? One at home too, looks real, maybe it was once hooked up to something.

Are you trying to tell us that a journalist/analyst used dodgy figures and methodology to come up with a story/report? I'm shocked!

We have nearly a dozen CCTV cameras in the offices at work. Really helped to figure out which of the cleaners were stealing TFT's.

I was going to do some cheesy calculation based on extrapolating out to the entire world from the data in that report but I've found something more interesting. The US Census Bureau publishes that the world has an estimated population of 6,779,885,336 at the time I looked. They have a note to say that they don't actually know the population down to the last person but it is still a little silly to publish it like that. Each time you refresh, the number slowly increments.

According to that site we hit 6 billion in 1999 and will hit 7 billion in 2012. Now that is scary.