Gatesworld

Welcome to my website and blog.

My name is Sean Gates I am a Psychology and Organisational Communications graduate who seized the opportunity to abandon a senior management career in 1990 and turn my hobby (software development) into my new career. Throughout this career I have been driven by two questions: What makes good software?, and why are some development teams more successful than others? These questions sparked dual interests in application architecture and development processes and methodologies.

In 2003 I flicked the agile light switch and have never looked back. I have subsequently returned to senior management and consultancy roles – this time in the software industry - and continue to be driven by the same two questions which have merged into one: How can we do this better?

Today I spend my time helping software teams be the best they can by sharing the experience and the knowledge that I have acquired over the years. I am an advocate for Scrum and do not wear a T shirt that says I'd rather be coding - but will admit to several development environments at home.

If you are looking for the family website it can be found here.

For the past 2 years my only phone has been an iPhone. I know this because my 24 month contract has just come to an end.

My bike and I left London a bit early yesterday afternoon to miss the rush hour. Once we’d negotiated the Hammersmith bridge the traffic was flowing steadily with no major problems and the roads were at less than half of their capacity. We headed off towards Richmond. Shortly before Richmond, while waiting for the lights to change, I heard the gentle blip of a siren behind me.

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

This is the first principle behind the agile manifesto. Most organisations claim to be customer focused and driven by the needs of their customers. But are they really? It is interesting to look at the measures these organisations use. Who do these measures actually serve? Do they answer the question are we satisfying our customers, or do they provide management information?

Today I joined many London based workers in working from home. Using the bike would make me too vulnerable and public transport meant changing trains at Clapham, one of yesterday’s scenes of violence. Like many others I had a 24 hour news channel going in the background. For the past 24 hours the usual media blame game had been diluted by the shock and outrage of the last few days events.