An Unexpected Development

Born in the second World War in London to UK working class parents without a book in the house, Derrick was not expected to do or be anything except a blue-collar worker. Most of his childhood was spent on the Essex coast where he enjoyed the seaside life. After a parental fight to remain at school into the sixth form he studied mechanical engineering and worked as an engineer before finding opportunities in the emerging computer age. He worked for four large engineering companies and the largest UK supermarket group of the time, and describes the change-over from primitive punchcard and paper tape equipment to leading edge systems from the viewpoint of a software developer, business analyst, project manager then manager of an I.T. Department with Plessey, a giant electrical engineering company in east London. He became a training instructor, consultant and partner in a UK I.T. training company and worked around the world before starting up his own training business in Australia. He relates amusing and insightful anecdotes of his work with many companies and in many countries and affords glimpses into the common mistakes that were, and still are made when organisations spend huge sums of money building large software systems.