Goodbye Comcast !!

It all started cause I needed to access “My Account” on comcast.com to view some info. Since I had not accessed the account in months, I had some trouble signing in (to put it mildly) with my password (which I had obviously forgotten).

What ensued was not just funny but a classic example of how a large corporation just simply loses customers due to poor (read crappy) support/service.Comcast has tried to provide every tool on the planet to help you with issues, suggestive help, call a number, chat with a rep online blah blah blah. Sadly none of them worked for a simple problem of resetting my password.

So I try logging in a few times and then realize I’ve obviously forgotten my password. I click the very friendly “Forgot your password” link and this is what it shows me.

Its telling me that my secret question has expired (whatever that means, since I had never set one) and then actually wants me to still submit one to proceed.

After giving up on forgot password I roam the site a little more to see if I can call them.

So I see this posted prominently on the site.

We're here for you 24/7. Just Ask Comcast 1-800-COMCAST (1-800-266-2278)

Mind you this is at 10:00pm US Pacific time. I hit the IVR at Comcast the options available are;

- Issues with your service

- Billing inquiries

- Upgrade Service

- Downgrade Service

- Pay-per-View

So I hang up since neither of these options relate to website “My Account” login issues.

Then I see this tool which suggests that I chat with someone online right now. That sounds simple so I click it, enter literally 15 fields and then am presented with a set of pre-canned FAQ’s .. so no live chat :-(

Not to give up yet, I click one of the FAQ’s that looks really promising and here’s what it says.

https://www.comcastsupport.com/sdccommon/asp/defcontent_view.asp

Error Message: "Incorrect Password. Please try again. OR We do not have a

reminder question on file for this User Name.

To restore your account access, please

re-create your User Profile."

If you have forgotten your password, simpl

y answer your reminder question correctly and you will be allowed to

reset your password. If there is not a reminder question on file in our databa

se to retrieve your forgotten password, you need to re-create your profile. This is for security purp

oses as passwords are encrypted and cannot be retrieved.

To re-create your profile and overwrite the existing profile with that User

Name:

1. Click here to create a new profile.

2. Complete appropriate fields

3. Ensure Account Number and your Phone Number match the

information

on your Comcast Account

4. Click the Submit button

5. Your account access should now be restored

Adding/removing/changing account numbers tied to your profile.

In some areas, multiple

Comcast accounts can be viewed by logging into one profile. In these areas, simply login to your accou

nt and select UPDATE MY PROFILE from the bottom right. From here, use the drop-down menu to add and

remove accounts.

In other areas, only one Comcast account is allowed for each profile. In th

ese areas, you will need to cancel your existing profile and re-create it with your new account information.

To do so, follow the steps below.

1. Log in to your account and select the UPDATE

MY PROFILE section

from the bottom right

2. From here, select the CANCEL option on

the bottom of the screen

3. Follow steps to cancel profile

4. From the successful cancel screen, select the re-c

reate profile link

5. Follow the steps to create your profile

When I try all the crap that's been mentioned above I get the message below saying your account already exists …. Please login or call us

At this point I’m ready to move from Comcast … seriously. This is the second time they've pained me as a customer. The first was a ridiculous excuse for not being able to exchange my set top box for a HDMI one even though I had bought the HD service from them and was paying every month for it.

Now getting ready to send this to their VP of Customer Service. Who has a picture and profile posted online. See if he can really help.

The only question I really have for him is, have you ever used your own system Mr Germano??

Does a SW Product Managers job change with Agile/Scrum?

What is an Agile PM?

To me an Agile PM is quite simply an individual that understands and possesses fundamental PM skills and is aware of Agile principles, frameworks and tools and can be applied to his/her domain.

There is a very interesting conversation going on around this that I stumbled into and wanted to write a quick post about. I'll use my comments to those posts to convey my POV.

It started when I stumbled into the Enthiosys blog (which I've now bookmarked ;-)


How To Sound Smart (But Be Really Naive) About Dramatic Changes in Technology

Randomly stumbled into this blog, so writing this comment without complete context of your other posts. I disagree with the assumptions in this post or the industrial designer, assembly lang programmer, cook analogy.
The job of an industrial engineer hasnt changed. The tools have. An industrial engineer with good fundamental skills would be just as effective in the 1950’s as today. A good cook will be just as effective regardless of the tools, cause cooking is all about understand the fundamentals of how ingredients mix/blend/cook at various temperatures rather than the hi-tech gas range and ovens.

A good analogy might be an architect, has the job of an architect changed ever since man has been building wonderful structures? No, but the tools sure have.

Job skills are based on fundamentals and tools augment them. That’s why education is based mostly on fundamentals and add some applied perspective with tools.

I believe the skills and tools aspect of PM should not be mixed up. I’d take a PM with good fundamental skills any day and train them to use the latest and greatest tools/frameworks rather than have someone very fast on the tools/frameworks but weak in fundamentals.

So now to tie it back to your post, I think there are fundamental skills that a Product Manager should understand and possess and tools/frameworks like Agile/Scrum just augment them. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying you don’t have to acquire additional newer skills to learn these new tools/frameworks to make your self more efficient/effective in what you do.
However to me it’s a layer that you put on top of the core skill set.

Then I went to the "Are agile PMs Baloney?" blog post they were referring to and here's what I think about it.

Came here from a on the Enthiosys site "How To Sound Smart (But Be Really Naive) ..." Loving the conversation here. I think the job of a PM is somewhere in the middle, not as skewed towards tools/frameworks as indicated on the Enthiosys blog and not as insulated from newer tools/frameworks as this post is trying to suggest. But I do agree with the gist of this post that the core of the PM job has not really changed, the tools have.

Job skills are based on fundamentals and tools augment them. That's why education is based mostly on fundamentals and add some applied perspective with tools.

I believe the skills and tools aspect of PM should not be mixed up. I'd take a PM with good fundamental skills any day and train them to use the latest and greatest tools/frameworks rather than have someone very fast on the tools/frameworks but weak in fundamentals.

I think there are fundamental skills that a Product Manager should understand and possess and good tools/frameworks like Agile/Scrum just augment them. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying you don't have to acquire additional newer skills to learn these new tools/frameworks to make your self more efficient/effective in what you do.

However to me it's a layer that you put on top of the core skill set.

Very interested in your thoughts.

This is not "pure" Scrum

Just some background. I've been doing traditional Product Mgmt and Marketing for some time now. Over the last few years I've transitioned to Agile Product Management and my posts here will mostly reflect my journey from traditional to Agile.

We are currently Scrumming, but not in its purest sense and keep hearing comments like "thats not pure Scrum".

Well from what I've seen Scrum is very contextual and a framework that leaves a lot of the details for the team to decide on how they want to do things. So there is nothing like pure Scrum.

And by the way saying that User Stories not written in the now famous Mike Cohn format of "As a type of user, I want some goal so that some reason" is not Scrum .. is ridiculous at best.
I respect Mike and his writing a lot, especially his "User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development" book that's kinda like a bible for Product Owners. However I do believe that some stories have to be contorted to meet this format and sometimes there is a lot of redundancy in this format as well. Imagine 40 stories starting with "As a Sales Rep ...". So well written user stories in any format (user stories, use cases etc) should do for Scrum. Tyner Blain has a wonderful blog posted on this that I would recommend to any team transitioning from WF to Agile.

I'd like to hear more from people who are doing "pure" Scrum .. have large product lines in the enterprise software space with legacy code, bug fixes and globally distributed teams.

3 .. 2 .. 1 We have liftoff

Hello and welcome to this blog. This is my attempt that sharing thoughts, having conversations and reflecting on all things that are product related.

3 LinkedIn Tell's to look out for

A tell in poker is a subtle but detectable change in a player's behavior or demeanor that gives clues to that player's assessment of his hand. A player gains an advantage if he observes and understands the meaning of another player's tell, particularly if the tell is unconscious and reliable

Off late I've detecting a number of tell's through LinkedIn so wanted to share my top three and see if others have noticed it and agree. Or am I reading too much into the LinkedIn body language.

#1 - LinkedIn profile updated to 100%.

#2 - Posting status updates that read like " ... looking for newer challenges ..."

#3 - Adding recruiter to network. Evaluate and appraise or departure from company usually occurs in a few weeks or months.