Not good

[joe90]

8 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Selfbuilders pursue a dream full of bells and whistles when instead they should aim for a minimum viable product.

 

This could not be more wrong for my build and some others I have come across. Mine is simple, no automation (apart from timers etc to run the ASHP) I have adopted the fabric first ideal, lots of insulation and attention to detailing (air tightness) I firmly believe the more tech you have the more it can (and will) go wrong. I do find that now I am retired (tired!) I am becoming a Luddite. 

[epsilonGreedy]

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Seems to me, and taking @Ferdinand's approach to it, that all it is really doing is getting rid of unnecessary layers of management.

This allows mistakes to be made, and quickly rectified, without reprimand.

 

 

Nope you still don't get it. There is a subtle difference between period purges of management as a gardener would prune a rose bush. Agile in software is about producing without a management hierarchy i.e. zero management until there is a demonstrable need for a minimum of inter team coordination.. 

[epsilonGreedy]

31 minutes ago, Tennentslager said:

Now @epsilonGreedy you could have worded that differently don'tcha think?

 

 

I could but then meaning might have been lost in the obfuscation.

 

@Ferdinand's post was the software equivalent of saying here "I spent 20 minutes speed reading the material on a PassivHouse web site and concluded it is just a rehash and rebranding of what we have been doing in the mainstream building industry for 30 years".

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Nope you still don't get it.

I think you don't get it.

You can dress methods up with meaningless words and acronyms, but, as usual, it comes down to communication between the person who wants the work done and the person doing it.

 

[epsilonGreedy]

11 minutes ago, joe90 said:

This could not be more wrong for my build and some others I have come across. Mine is simple, no automation (apart from timers etc to run the ASHP) I have adopted the fabric first ideal, lots of insulation and attention to detailing (air tightness) I firmly believe the more tech you have the more it can (and will) go wrong. I do find that now I am retired (tired!) I am becoming a Luddite. 

 

 

This is not about in-house technology. I am talking about the approach to creating a habitable home.

 

I claim that the mainstream building industry is more Agile than the typical self builder. Commercial self builders pursue their minimum viable product goal with ruthless efficiency and do so in clearly scheduled sprints. Their trade sprint teams operate with light touch management.

 

Self builders often amble along with highly elastic schedules and delivery dates slipping forever over the horizon. To compensate for slipping delivery, aspirations and dreams mount up to compensate. Such a process is highly analogous with many a failing software project in the old pre agile days. 

[epsilonGreedy]

13 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

You can dress methods up with meaningless words and acronyms, but, as usual, it comes down to communication between the person who wants the work done and the person doing it.

 

 

Which is such a generic observation on human social interaction it conveys zero benefit to a beleaguered software product manager or self builder contemplating another winter in the static caravan.

 

When a stone age wife harangued her partner to go hunting or when a 21st century wife yells at her husband to switch off match of the day and take her shopping list off to Tesco, it is all just communication about need and delivery. However between the scenarios, humans advanced through two little things known as the agricultural revolution and the invention of money.

[Declan52]

55 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

Yeah cos I go to work every day wondering if I’m sat next to a terrorist ?

 

 

Working on different sites here in NI I in the past was always an adventure. Depending on what side of the Street  in Belfast you where building on had a direct correlation to what 3 letter words where tattooed on the "community representative" who would be working on site with you. And when I say working I mean arrive on site every Fri to just lift the brown envelope and ask you was everything ok and no locals messing with your cars.

[newhome]

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Selfbuilders pursue a dream full of bells and whistles when instead they should aim for a minimum viable product. 

 

Why should they? That may be your choice but it’s not the choice of many who are building. People build the house they want. Why? Because they can, and it’s one of the biggest motivators for a self build. Not everyone wants to build the minimum viable. There are people here who would far rather spend a bit longer in a caravan to get the house they want than go for ‘minimum viable’ and live with regret. And the people who concentrate on the detail that is important to them end up with the house they want, not the house someone else thinks they should have built. 

[PeterW]

2 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Agile in software is about producing without a management hierarchy i.e. zero management until there is a demonstrable need for a minimum of inter team coordination..

 

So you don’t think scrum masters are managers then..??

[Declan52]

2 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Selfbuilders pursue a dream full of bells and whistles when instead they should aim for a minimum viable product. 

You are sort of correct up to a point. When starting a self build everyone has their wish list of things they would really want in their forever home. But once the calculator comes out and you start going through different quotes for the build you soon realise that unless you have a Grand designs type budget then tough decisions have to be made.

Anyone that puts themselves through a self build and I mean being hands on doing some of the work or being a project manger and running the build will have worked many many hundreds of hrs and had many a difficult day to deal with. To go through all that and end up the min standard of a build would be madness in my view. You would be better off just buying a new build on some site and the most you have to worry about is the colour of the kitchen door and tiles for the shower.

[divorcingjack]

 I work in an agile environment too! Having moved over from a traditional waterfall company, the difference in attitude alone is astonishing. I do try to apply some of the principles in my build - mostly regular stand-up type meetings with all contributors, identification of targets, sharing of progress. 

 

I do think IT attracts a different kind of person - often those that embrace change and challenge. Perhaps that's a generalisation too far, but it's been my experience so far. 

 

 

[LA3222]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I think you don't get it.

You can dress methods up with meaningless words and acronyms, but, as usual, it comes down to communication between the person who wants the work done and the person doing it.

 

+1.

 

This thread seems to have gone a right tangent now!

 

FWIW I despise concepts such as Agile - not the working practices behind, more the fact that society seems obsessed with assigning names/brands to things that people have been doing for thousands of years.

 

Someone looks at a bunch of good working practices, flowers it up, gives it and name and then sells it as a whole new concept.

 

Pretty sure you could look at how the Romans were building roads etc. back in the day and find 'examples' or where the concepts within Agile were being applied.  Introducing/sharing good workings practices is always a good thing, but why do we need to pretend these are new concepts.

 

As for self builders wanting all the bells and whistles - seems only natural to me.  However it would seem to me that self builders are a pragmatic bunch - there's a list of wants and a list of must haves.  The list of wants always get pruned upon first contact with budget realities, but the list of must haves seems uncannily similar, airtightness and thermal performance are two common themes throughout this forum.

 

Self builders are a hard working bunch to have got to the point where they can:

 

a. Afford to do a self build.

b. Have the determination to actually do so.

 

Demographics is an interesting one.  I get the impression it's generally speaking a more mature bunch on here and usually with a higher than average education level.

 

Myself, I'm just a lowly soldier and reasonably young.  I do have an engineering degree - unfortunately I've forgotten more than I remember now, a pity because I was a dab hand at CAD/Solidworks etc. back then.....feel positively thick now when I see some of the kids maths homework!!

[Hecateh]

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/mar/11/why-are-britains-new-homes-built-so-badly

[LA3222]

Whilst on the subject of dodgy house building, my father in law bought a new build about 17 years ago and is still finding problems now.

 

Last year he found that one of his SVP was just venting into his loft space....he assumed the periodic dodgy smell was a dead bird or some such until he stumbled upon it.

 

The other day he said he's just found that the SVP running up the outside of his house terminated at eaves level with no cap of any kind on it.  It's a really tight gap between his and the neighbours hence he never realised - the unusual hot weather has made the odour noticeable now.

 

A couple of years ago he changed the fire and just found a massive hole in the wall behind it....always wondered why the lounge was so cold until then.

 

Theirs was the show home!!

 

Built crap then, build crap now and will continue to build crap.

 

I've noticed that eve  self builders are fighting uphill in trying to ensure a high build standard is adhered to by tradesman and these are people who want that high standard.

 

When the big developers are only interested in the bottom line the standard of output is inevitable.

 

It's not helped by the desperate people who have no choice but to buy them, move in and then commence with the snagging battle.

 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, LA3222 said:

[...]

I get the impression it's generally speaking a more mature bunch on here and usually with a higher than average education level.

[...]

 

?

We're all friggin mad mate, mad. 

How many people do you hear gushing about wanting to self build when they hear you are self building? And then how many actually do so?

That's right: none. They are the sensible ones.

 

[LA3222]

25 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

?

We're all friggin mad mate, mad. 

How many people do you hear gushing about wanting to self build when they hear you are self building? And then how many actually do so?

That's right: none. They are the sensible ones.

 

You may be onto something about the madness of self builders.  May be that self building attracts people of a masochistic nature - I read all the horror stories on here such as your wall falling down and some of the members here have had some severe challenges to overcome and rather than put me off it just makes me more keen to crack on with my own build!

 

Walls collapsing, 'level' floors not being level, extortionate quotes for an electric supply.....just puzzles to be solved.

 

The great thing about this forum is that although in body you are doing the work yourself, in mind there is a collective will to aid/assist in these challenges.  Problem solving without the collective wisdom/experience here would be bloody hard work.

 

I'm slowly working my way through all the posts....reading about steels and rsj' s at the minute - I've learnt a lot! 

 

Read a lot of your posts Ian and it has been interesting reading your progress from when the forum started so long with all the others.

[epsilonGreedy]

On 26/07/2018 at 12:29, PeterW said:

So you don’t think scrum masters are managers then..??

 

 

No. The ideal scrum team size is between 4 and 7 so no place for a manager in such  small team. Such small teams could not incorporate a dedicated manager hence the scrum master will juggle another hands-on role within the team.