Codefest

FNB Codefest and Agile: Collaboration

FNB Codefest is an Innovation contest run annually by FNB which includes a 48 hour coding marathon during which developers build innovative solutions to business problems. Three codefests have been held, two in 2015 and the third one in October 2016 which attracted over 250 participants who created over 30 working prototypes. A total of …

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FNB Codefest: Agile culture matters, brilliance follows

The Agile Manifesto provides useful principles for improving software projects; the Codefest demonstrates some of these quite effectively. At the recent Africa DevOps Day hosted by Standard Bank I spoke about our journey in setting up an Agile-supportive culture. I shared seven lessons, three of which correlate strongly with the environment that emerges in the Codefest “play space”; …

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FNB Codefest: “Reminds us why we do what we do”

Anthony Hugo, a software programmer from RMB made this comment at last year’s event; it shows why the new models of motivation really work. Autonomy, mastery and purpose; these are the intrinsic factors of true motivation that Daniel Pink proposes in his excellent book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”. He also argues …

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Technology and Banking Disruption: Level playing fields or new rules?

The EY Strategic Growth Forum in Johannesburg grappled with how technology is disrupting banking; as a panelist in the forum I offered insights on some key questions. New entrants, new tech, new thinking – what does this mean for the industry and how well are banks responding? FNB’s Innovators Programme continues to drive a successful culture of disruptive thinking …

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FNB CodeFest: Highlights from the coolest IT sprint in the FirstRand Group – Part 2

Three more ingredients for the secret sauce of a “mind blowing” event; team coaching through the night, exec sponsorship (and exec dragons) and world class tech support. Last week the second FNB Codefest saw 250 developers converge for a multi-day sprint to work on over 40 business sponsored ideas of which the winner was a kids …

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FNB CodeFest: Highlights from the coolest IT sprint in the FirstRand Group – Part 1

“I was blown away by the energy and progressive thinking … world leading … streets ahead”; these comments from a business colleague after our second FNB CodeFest last week, read on to see why he felt that way. No matter how well you plan something or bring an expert team together, there’s a special magic …

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