Corona virus and the new normal

First of all big shout out to Bill Gates, he called out the fact that the world wasnt ready for a pandemic and they were right... so here we all are at home, either working remotely , furloughed or worrying about our financial future.

I have been lucky, Deloitte has always been a strong advocate of working from home and i have been able to continue all be it with personal development because my projected  got cancelled because of the virus.

We are all facing a new Normal, what does this look like? No one knows or will speculate on what is coming.
if we take away the virus measures themselves i think business will evolve, i think remote working will increase, the real question is how long will it be til we can trust a handshake or want to get back to a hug?
in terms of the reatil busienss i have always been a firm believer in having an online prescence. Toys R Us didnt believe in online retail and i beleive that was a factor in their demise.
Obviously manufacturing will have to go back to some sort of normal, because of the special machinery required, but not all of the office staff will need to be in the office, this could reduce the factory footprint and increase peoples working flexibility.

I guess time will tell, meanwhile we are all locked down for another three weeks minimum, but on a good note its really nice to hear birdsong in the city again,  if ntohing else it has given us time out to smell the roses,,,,stay safe readers , stay at home, use the internet to shop.... til next time

Update on my Deloitte journey

Hello readers

there have been alot of defects resolved since our last contact!. so the project I was on has finally gone live.
 I was the lead defect generator on that project and it reminded me why I am a tester.
I like breaking things, the cooler the better. The last project integrated to an amazon dot and would provision a pension purely by voice. It would launch an app the team had built ( which i had tested) and take the customer thru this process . To see it demoed and know I had tested it and the demo went smooth with no visible defects or problems for the demo person was a really special feeling.

The first team retrospective ( before my time on the project) was at the Gleneagles Hotel , and so it was fitting that the very last retrospective of this iteration of the project should take place there.

I just realised this post never got published, so to round this off, i was really proud to help this client go live and whilst my contribution is now over i have had a lasting effect on this project. i was told at the go live party for example that a defect was found, that was not discovered in the test phase ( it was one i had previously tested, but a different iteration of code so the defect had regressed) and at triage it was said that had i still been there i would discovered that defect... it made me smile

so now im on the next... a large manufacturing client in the midlands.

This engagement lasted 10 months, mostly because their residual income strategy for the lifetime support of their products in the customer environment doesnt really work, and when corona virus hit, that residual income ceased and the project had to be mothballed due to insufficient funds. The role itself was awesome.  i became the lead tester, managing resources including an offshore team and being client facing and implementing defect lifecycle management, and demonstrating value that testing was bringing to the quality output. This was the busiest i have ever been in my life ( seriously) but i loved it. It still gave me the flexibility to attend the military events that the firm hold and attend a veterans work debate , which invoked a government response.

Unfortunately with the outbreak of corona virus this was shelved to initiate the nations response. the overall goal was to make the UK the best place to be a veteran in the world and highlight to the wider world of business that veterans have skills and you can take the people out of the miltary but never the military out of the people..

Ill give an update on this jus tas soon as there is something to report