Help required - Feature Teams

[tpbury]

I wonder if any of you have experience of this.

 

I work in 'software' (loose description) in a fairly staid bank here in Oz. Management is looking to implement a 'Google' style working method which involves re-arranging the way we work along the lines of how Google people work.

 

Does anybody have any experience of this stuff? In many ways it can be described as same p1ss, different bottles, in any case if 'we' don't buy into the method, then we're toast. Problem is, we're being asked to reinvent ourselves (don't have a problem with that) in a way where we have no actual paradigm to follow! Basically - we're told 'Change!', but we have to figure out how to change

 

It's all terribly exciting, but the fact is we have to come up with ideas of how to change (for change's sake) and I don't really have any.

 

This is why I am asking you guys to contribute to my career (or ending of it).

 

And we're called 'Feature Teams', although we don't have a public 'feature' interface, we're basically back-end (nurse).

 

Your suggestions please!

[Big Bad Bob]

I wonder if any of you have experience of this.

 

I work in 'software' (loose description) in a fairly staid bank here in Oz. Management is looking to implement a 'Google' style working method which involves re-arranging the way we work along the lines of how Google people work.

 

Does anybody have any experience of this stuff? In many ways it can be described as same p1ss, different bottles, in any case if 'we' don't buy into the method, then we're toast. Problem is, we're being asked to reinvent ourselves (don't have a problem with that) in a way where we have no actual paradigm to follow! Basically - we're told 'Change!', but we have to figure out how to change

 

It's all terribly exciting, but the fact is we have to come up with ideas of how to change (for change's sake) and I don't really have any.

 

This is why I am asking you guys to contribute to my career (or ending of it).

 

And we're called 'Feature Teams', although we don't have a public 'feature' interface, we're basically back-end (nurse).

 

Your suggestions please!

 

Ah feck, agile/scrum methodology, you're fecked.....

 

I work as a DBA and they tried to foist scrum/agile/whatever it wants to be called on my team. It didn't work because we don't work that way.

 

I was very resistant to the idea and made my resistance known (in a proper constructive way), didn't take long for my worries to be proved right.

 

Agile works in a very rapid development environment, if you're not developing it doesn't work.

 

You could say the google working way is having nice furniture for you to sit down and discuss "work" with your colleagues, also a cool slide between floors is a must.

[tpbury]

Ha - we've been 'Agile' for a couple of years - this is the step beyond - I'm not sure whether the bean bags come first or last.

[Big Bad Bob]

Well what "features" do you "programme" (or not) for the Bank??

[tpbury]

That's exactly the point as far as I can see - the 'features' we do are in the data warehouse. We're being encouraged, rightly so, to see the end-to end benefit of 'new' data being presented to the customers and this makes us work more closely with our 'Front End' team (ie Cognos). We're to migrate to Nitezza - great!

 

The difficulty is - we have to 'work like google', but no fkr has told us how google works. We can cope with the fact that we're not really 'rapid', we can cope with the fact that we're fairly 'Agile' (equates to making last minute changes), what we (I) can't cope with is we're tasked with having to invent an entire new organisational structure with no reference basis. I'm looking for other people who may have been through the same. Obviously SaintsWeb came to mind - this is probably my last since I can't do PayPal - bring on Google Wallet!!!!