Ian Nock

Hammer and Nails

There is an analogy that says that to everyone who has a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

https://youtu.be/Rl-yszPdRTk

The analogy pushes on the view that for every tool, method or process approach that you have, you see the need to apply that to everything whether it was the right tool, method or process. For example there are those out there today who are taking agile methods and applying them to everything whether the method is suitable or not, which fits that analogy perfectly. Others can discuss this at length but contemplating this last night, I reversed the thought – that to people who see many nails, everything becomes a hammer.

What do I mean by this reverse? Well I mean that in many projects; software or otherwise, that whatever method or tool that is applied is altered to fit the project rather than the other way around. What I have seen in many ‘agile’ organisations, that the project and the previous experience of those involved alters the approach that is being applied rather too much, moving away from the principles of agile manifesto. What you then see is a process implementation that is built starting with agile delivery concepts but is constructed at the end in a way that is far from being agile and in many situations actually becomes very similar to many waterfall approaches, with all the bureaucracy and structure that slows things down. In other words, the company makes a hammer because they see only nails.

How does a company avoid this? Constant questioning and critical review of what they do – refactoring of the process to its minimum target, something that many delivery teams don’t find as much time to do as they should…

Fairmile West is a Consulting company focused on working in the Consumer Device and Video arena. We work with clients on technology strategy and product delivery through key practices in Consumer Devices and Video Services. If you are interested in learning more about what we do, please do get in touch via our website – Contact us. You can also keep track with what interests us in the industry by following our Link blog at TV Tech News, and you can specifically follow news on Ultra HD via the following link – Ultra HD News.

Published by Ian Nock

Ian Nock is the Managing Director of Fairmile West Consulting, and has over 25 years experience in high technology research, development, and operations. Since entering the TV industry in the late 1990s, he has worked in the delivery of many Satellite, Cable, IPTV and OTT video platforms across Europe in diverse roles that encompass technology and operations from production to consumption. Ian moved into consulting in 2004 working with some of the most innovative vendor and operator companies in the industry. He founded Fairmile West Consulting (www.fairmilewest.com) in 2012 as a multi-national, high expertise Digital TV and Media consulting and professional services company, working with large/small operators and technology vendors on product/technology strategy, architecture, and delivery. Taking an early interest in the development of Ultra HD, Fairmile West has been a member of the Ultra HD Forum since 2015 and Ian is the Chair of the Ultra HD Forum Interop Working Group. Ian is also the Chair of the IET Multimedia Communications Technical Professional Network. Ian graduated with a First Class Bachelors Degree in Engineering Technology in 1992 from Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), undertaking research into medical automation, flexible packaging dynamics and post graduate research into artificial intelligence based control systems with a number of published papers in those areas. He quickly jumped out of academia into the nascent Internet and Networking industry before moving into TV. He is a member of the IET, IEEE, RTS and Fellow of the SCTE: The Society for Broadband Professionals. He blogs at http://fairmilewest.com, on LinkedIn and can be found on Twitter at @iannock.