Category Archives: 2010 World Cup

Football and Software Development are both team sports

Posted on by
2

by Prof Barry Dwolatzky

 

Bafana Bafana

The 2010 World Cup started on June 11th with the mouth-watering prospect of seeing the greatest players on earth doing battle on the football fields of South Africa. Who would be the star of the tournament? Would it be Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? As we enter the last week of the tournament all of these stars and many more have returned home, having failed to make much of an impression.

One of the problems with modern football, and how it is marketed, is that the focus is on the star players – the heroes. This is wrong because football is a team sport. Each one of the 11 players has a role to play and the team will only succeed if all players work together on the dual objectives of scoring goals and defending their own goal posts.  At Manchester United Wayne Rooney is an inventive and exciting player. Wearing his England jersey Rooney at the 2010 World Cup was anything but exciting. The same can be said for most of the other football super-stars.

At club level the players work together every day for months and years in training and in matches learning to play as a team. Within the team each player is able to shine in a particular role, but the team provides the environment allowing each player to succeed. At the international level there is very little time for players to work together at becoming teams. It is therefore not surprising that individual skill and excellence doesn’t count for much at the World Cup.

There is a similar lesson to learn in the field of software development. Developing software is, like football, a team sport. Individual developers need to play specific roles in support of the project and its goals. There is – or should be – no room for heroes.

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about teams, both in the context of football and of software development. In terms of software I’ve been involved in coordinating a Team Software Process (TSP) pilot programme in South Africa. TSP is a teaming methodology developed at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in the USA. A TSP team focuses on defining and achieving goals together. There is a focus on individual performance, but as inputs to the team’s objectives. TSP teams also work – like a football team – with a skilled and professional coach. While the team works to deliver the project, the TSP coach works to develop the team.

There is a lot of commonality between a game of football and a software development project. I believe that football and software engineering can learn from each other. I wonder if FIFA or some of the national teams have thought about running TSP training for their players and coaches?

If Bafana Bafana are still looking for a new coach I would like to suggest myself! I know very little about football, but I know a lot about teams!

How things have changed since Geoff Hurst scored his 1966 hat-trick!

Posted on by
3

by Prof Barry Dwolatzky

Barry at World Cup

My first memory of the FIFA World Cup was in 1966 when I heard news on the radio about England beating West Germany 4-2 at Wembley. I was 14 years old and living in Johannesburg. Since TV hadn’t yet been introduced in South Africa, I received details of England’s victory from Springbok Radio (or possibly the BBC World Service broadcasting on shortwave). In the days that followed I read news reports about the game in The Rand Daily Mail, and was able to see blurry black-and-white photographs of England’s hat-trick scorer, Geoff Hurst, in action. A week or two after the event I eventually saw some of the action filmed by British Movietone News – in those days the news in pictures came in the form of a weekly news-reel shown in cinemas before the main attraction.

I recently read some of the details of the 1966 World Cup, and was fascinated to see that in the first round of that competition England, the host nation, played in a group of 4 with Mexico, Uruguay and France. Forty four years later at the 2010 World Cup, the first round sees South Africa, the host nation, playing in a group of 4 with – you guessed it! – Mexico, Uruguay and France. England went on to win. Is there an omen here for South Africa’s chances?

When one compares the 1966 tournament with the 2010 Cup taking place in South Africa, the amazing developments that we have witnessed in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) become clear.

Yesterday I went to watch Spain play Honduras at Ellis Park. I bought my tickets a few months ago on the Internet, paying for it online with my Visa credit card. I collected the ticket a few weeks ago by swiping my credit card at a ticket printing machine in Sandton. At the game my ticket – with a range of security features – was validated at a turnstile.

For those millions (or is it billions) of football fans unable to be at the match, it was broadcast live in high-definition to almost every country in the world. People are also able to have it streamed live to their PC, iPad or smart phone.

At the game a giant screen showed lots of fascinating statistics and great visual images. I was able to take 10 megapixel photographs with my pocket camera and email them to my friends from my cellphone.

Would I ever have imagined, as a 14 year old boy, sitting in Johannesburg listening to a distorted radio broadcast from London, that 44 years later I would be experiencing the World Cup – in Johannesburg – via all of this amazing technology. I definitely wouldn’t have expected that I would be rushing to publish this blog posting before settling down to watch South Africa play France on a flat-screen TV via my HD PVR!

In the distance I hear the blast of a vuvuzela. Not all progress is good!