Comments on: The new BBC homepage - website credits

By: Paul Nicholls

Paul Nicholls — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:44:48 +0000

Hi James, I’m reading and sending this from my ipod touch.

Adrian tells me you successfully added a mail app to your unit. How did you do it?

Many thanks

Paul Nicholls

By: Matt (BBC)

Matt (BBC) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:57:29 +0000

Signs of Life published an extensive credits page when it launched this Autumn, as did Wannabes.

By: Alan Connor

Alan Connor — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:27:16 +0000

There’s an early example of online credits here.

By: R. Titus

R. Titus — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:42:31 +0000

This is Richard Titus, and I’m relatively sure that without either Anthony Heath OR our fantastic implementation of Agile there’s not a chance this project would have met its deadline.

As for credit, I think attribution and appreciation are the two most IMPORTANT forms of team currency.

I would propose more of that would lead to better accountability and better quality.

best

By: almost witty

almost witty — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:42:09 +0000

I’m fairly sure I’ve seen credits elsewhere on the BBC websites, although I can’t point to them offhand. There may have been some cunningly hidden on the BBC Wales or the BBC Doctor Who websites…

By: Anthony Heath

Anthony Heath — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:24:39 +0000

Hi All!

This is Anthony Heath, the Project Manager for the BBC Homepage.

I read you point on credits with interest and can see both sides to the argument. Why shouldn’t the internet teams get a little more recognition that TV has been experiencing for years? The credits for a programme are clearly visible at the end, is the license fee payer interested?

However I have a completely separate reason for my team members being mentioned and that relates to my methodology. The BBC homepage team adopted pure agile and as you may or may not be aware this approach is extremely team centric. Coming from a traditional PM background I completely understand your thoughts on Brook’s Law; however that wasn’t the case here. More people equalled greater velocity which in turn meant a greatly reduced time to market. We’re not playing around with agile, or half baking it… we’re leading it within our team, and thus hope to transfer this experience throughout the BBC as time goes by.

In summary, I’m quite convinced that had we adopted a more traditional SDLC this wouldn’t have been delivered in the time frame that it was. If we had 10 people on this project it would have taken twice as long and thus cost the same, it’s that simple… agile works and certainly did for us.

“If people are coming to work excited . . . if they’re making mistakes freely and fearlessly . . . if they’re having fun . . . if they’re concentrating doing things, rather than preparing reports and going to meetings - then somewhere you have leaders”. - Robert Townsend

By: William T

William T — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:24:06 +0000

Of course, the other danger is that if you publish a list of that size, you risk getting responses of “What? You spent my license fee on 20 people to redesign one sodding page? I know a bloke who could have put that together in a couple of hours….” etc etc.

Not that I’m saying that. Although I am curious if the BBC is doing anything clever with regards to project management these days, and if so perhaps we might get to hear about it on the internet or radio blogs. Extra points if you can relate it to Brooks’ Law.

Incidentally Interactive TV have always had credits for their big projects (Wimbledon, Olympics and so on)

By: Nick Reynolds (BBC)

Nick Reynolds (BBC) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:12:50 +0000

Credits are an interesting one. On the one hand people at the BBC don’t say “you’ve done a good job” often enough, on the other licence fee payers probably don’t need to know the detail of BBC people doing their jobs.

This might seem odd but I think the best place for BBC people to thank their teams is on their personal blogs (if they have them).