Tuesday 29 September 2009

Monday 28 September 2009

Winning habits # 2

With reference to the Winning Habits Series the second in the row.. is around the negativity...Yes the Looser within you like I said is always active and waiting.. not only that, the looser within you also has a close ally... A close ally that some people call

NEGATIVITY

Yes.. the same old negativity that takes over your mind when you are successful or a looser...

I would say that as a pessimistic guy I am... I wont make a winning habit number 2 with WHAT TO DO.. instead I would put it as what not to do.. Yes.. the winning habit number 2 is

KILL THE NEGATIVITY

Kill it, Bury It... I know you cant... because I cant, no one can... In fact the source of negativity never dies.. it stays within, it is like the looser that would wait for you to succeed, and the moment you are successful it would erupt... so when you say Kill it what exactly do we do????

I cant teach or coach you in this.. I always tried to come out of it.. but I dont know if I was always successful in it.. anyways.. this is habit that can take you to success eternal or not is upto you.. but yes success guaranteed :P

So what to do to adapt this winning habit # 2 Kill the Negativity ???

1. Depend and be Dependant???? Say No

I come to you and I ask for an advice "Hey I am tired of XXXX , he is my collegue yet acts smart" or "I am tired of my Boss, I do everything and he just takes the cream"

You advise "Yes he is like that, I faced the same issue" darnnnnn... now you have become a platform... next time on you would be targeted for every query, complain, grievance... it doesnt end here.. you will also be the soft friend who knows who I hate and who not. The skilled Manager would always listen... Listen yet not advice..., wouldn't agree to a suggestion that you posted in front of him with the only answer that would make you happy... He will not drive you away and he will not agree to what you just postered.... he would instead say..."Thats a part of the job, you would love a few and hate a few" but tell me whats the guarantee that even if you change you wont get the same situation???

Depending on others and making others Dependant on you for shooting their grievances is a killer.. a negativity killer..the law of attraction... Negativity attracts negativity... dont expect 2 people blaming a common person would mean a positive effect

2. Complaining is my birth right, and I shall have it???? No way

A lot of us crib, complain, whinn.. about everyone , everything.. we blame our bosses, we blame our colleugues, we blame everyone who can be blamed for everything possible.. this definitely is a killer looser habit... throws a lot of negativity and demands a lot of it... You keep whinning and you attract a lot of other whinners around you.. who would do nothing but blame the situations around you and do nothing... why not take a step ahead and set to fix it? A handful of people always believe in doing things... the rest in complaining about things... so next time when you have a lot to complain about.. why not ask a question to yourself??? What part of my complains can I fix????

3. I hate everyone of those who are bad to me, I hate everyone of those who are good to me ????

You are a hater. If you are jealous within about people, things you are a hater.. When you hate someone you start talking more about them. Every now and then, every while or other. I realised I did this sometime ago. It takes a toll on your mind and then you start gossiping about things. These gossips then make you a gossiper and then you are surrounded by those losers who want to throw their part of the negativity at you. Remember easy way to be out of this is stop gossiping. Never fall to gossip about something, someone, somehow.

So a few tips on how you can cover negativity. Remember one thing.. we all are humans and it is a part of our nature... negativity is within all of us, you accept or deny. It doesn’t matter on how much of negativity you have or carry.. what matters is the amount of it that you make to good use by not throwing at others...

Friday 25 September 2009

Does your Boss love you more than sex?

Well I am yet again getting into the mode... but the mood is very provocative, I happen to ask this question as sitting in various chairs you realize what you expect in each of these seats... As a Junior I always expect appreciation for the hard work done, I always expect to be told about my mistakes in private, I always like to not hear bad about me, I always like to get big bonuses and big salary increments.

When I sit in the leaders chair I demand a different thing... I always like if somebody takes initiative and takes it to end, I always like people on time and target, I always like everything to be nice and perfect and I always want the best to done at the less most cost.. Anyways this is how each of us see it... from different sides... however that's not the reason why I write this... I write this to mention that a few things if taken care can actually make life of each of us very easier.. as bosses and as their employees...

A few tips on how your Boss can like you better, but at the same time how your life can be easier in understanding your own expectations as bosses :P

1. Passion... do you have it in you?
Keep the interest at work. Keep your passion level up. Most of the times we get non passionate.. we think what should get done today would be OK even if it gets done tomorrow. You are on a critical task and you leave for the day without even dropping a note to your boss? Your boss is as hard working as you, the only difference is that he has himself to keep him motivated, you have several others. Keep the passion at the peak and see how best you can do your task.. finally its not about pleasing your boss... but instead doing your own things correctly which in turn would ease life of everyone.


2. Loyalty.. does it reflect?
He protects you, you don't know.. but he stands for you. He does his part and is always following up with you if you have everything to do yours. He stands in with you in emergencies, he lets you take your leaves in time of critical importance. In turn what does he expect? a little bit of loyalty... the loyalty demands you do your work in time and as per expectation and do not demand a blame "My boss doesn't do anything????"


3. Do you want to replace him?
80% of employees think that they can do better than their bosses. They think, sometimes they do... but Management is not a task, it is not something that starts on day 1 and finishes on day X, its different .. its ever lasting and is not as easy as it appears... Each one of us want to grow... but the growth is different based on how you want to grow???? If you want to replace your Boss and if that is visible.. its not working well...Last thing your boss would love about you...


4. You Bluff , You get away?
People tend to bluff, its easy to get away... a few bluffs I have heard used to be funny... you laugh on it specially when you know the truth behind... Its hard, Bluff is the easy way to get away in a short run, long run it sucks... Once your boss knows that you are a Bluff master, your future is on toss... you can depend on bluffs not for work items.. above all its the truth what will bring you closer to your task.. bluff takes the trust away..

5. Are you a friend?
You are a friend to your boss? Are you kidding? No its a plain professional relationship, it has a caring touch because that's what your boss role demands...be a friend but don't behave like one... that's the last thing your boss and you would want.

6. Too much of it or too less of it? Yes I talk of initiatives
Less initiatives.. kills, Too many initiatives over kill.. yes when you have no initiatives they cause a block to the work.. your boss wants you to do some things that he always wanted to get done... if you don take initiatives h falls behind...

Too many initiatives???? overkill why??? well you wont be happy if those initiatives cannot be implemented or ideas getting rejected or initiatives not getting justification.. your Boss would be in a situation because he may not be in a state to implement them all...
Initiatives be balanced... they work well then ;)

So a few tips on what bosses like , and what we as employees should think of... Got any views????

Thursday 24 September 2009

Where is the Social Networking going?

Whats happening with the social networking world and where are we ending up? Is this world finally going to end on Google? Or a Head on Head fight between Google and every one else? Well I don't care much... eventually over the last few years the way things have changed is amazing, not to forget disturbing...

Previously I had one email account to check, One social networking site to manage and one blog account to maintain, now I am jumbled between several. I have Ning, Stumble, Seesmic, Tumblr, hi5, Tagged, orkut , FB... darn it when is the list ending? Well I am using the collaboration of Better and bitter networks here.. so please don't mind if I am not using your best of the world Social networking site...

With the life changing micro blogging concept twitter and several like usage sites are taking on the toll... billions and billions of micro blogs rushing every where, people started to feel the need of managing all their networks so they can log into one place and manage everything (OpenID), some of them go further .... move cloud concepts have better interfacing between systems... so when this convenience is coming to you why is it going to be Dangerous?????

Well Well... Lets take example of the hospitality services.... Previously people had their own web sites... Hotel XYZ.com where you would go an book your hotels at attractive rates... but that wasnt enough.. a consolidation was needed? Yes it was to tackle the bigger Internet market and increase what Aaron Cohen called as Reach , it succeeded.. yes millions of SEO work and consolidators found good way of business , websites like travelex etc were a good example of such thing? things changed.. consolidation demanded more bigger level of consolidation, globalization and real time interfaces... Companies like Amadeus. Pegasus several other leading consolidating products started bringing in bigger set of data , cheaper rates , easy availability and so many other things....

Wow... its really working great.... but what happens next? Hotels start realizing that they should sell a set of rates on consolidating sites but have cheaper rates on their own? People would go to consolidating interfaces find rates and compare it with the hotel rates directly and book it as it is cheaper? Markups I mean? Of course.. what males money for consolidators? Now with all the interfacing going on... Did someone say that consolidators are doing good but the graph not so better? a brief trend showing link is here for the top 3-4 websites so finally we end up with better results for individual players? and consolidators in a long run would run out of ideas and money?

So those several other websites though popular and giving a consolidation of social platforms really running to block the Internet future?

Well Imagine if consolidating networks would wind up having same features across social platforms, what will these individual players bring out? Wouldn't the add revenue slow down? wouldn't monopoly promoted?

2 years ago when everyone was "Wow FB, what next????" twitter bought a revolution...today we face the lull coming to us already... "Wow Twitter, what next???" I am sure some brains are working there to bring revolutions in Internet world... but where is the social of the social networking going? haven't FB and several others changed the meaning of Social networking? Good or Bad but they have changed it. Ain't some celebs running the race to have maximum (millions and millions) of twitter followers and friends? And people call celebs get stalked? Is the social world going to become public world? Get one account and trace the past and future of a person?

Scared... I am really scared...anyways I am not dying with the way social networking is dying.. The famous quote by the famous person stated below says it

"Growth when unorganized leads to downfall - Sameer"

;) (That was a JOKE)

But I have a question for the drivers of Internet world...

Where are we going with the Social networking world?

Wednesday 23 September 2009

My Five on Agile and the famous Myths

4 events today and I end up writing the famous Agile Myths....

Event 1 : Developer walks to me and asks me to change a requirement, Quick decision expected
Event 2 : Someone emails me over and says "Do you know any Developer who knows Agile?"
Event 3 : Back home I have a guest who turns to be a IT Pro and says "Our company is going Agile now, I need to learn it now"
Event 4: I hear that a scrum has to be only 5 minutes.

So I thought I would write something about the myths that people carry when they enter the Agile arena... Eventually I faced the same issues when I first moved Agile way and had similar myths in mind....

So to start the post I would like to say..

1. Change of requirement across the development cycle is must, As long as the developer is in the area of development he can accommodate that change, many times we hear the changes and put them into the iteration plans immediately or in further releases...

2. Agile is a methodology, A Principle.. not a technology.. somebody can know what Agile is.. but not as a technology but as a foundation to a process..Agile Developers are expected to be Independent, Intelligent brains that can take things up on their own, split them to some level and build it iteratively to be accurate (Remember Code , Test , Code and Refactor algorithm)

3. Please don't learn Agile. Read it , adapt it , evolve it.. but never try to fit what is written on Agile web sites to what you do... instead fit what you do into the Agile principles... e.g. Agile says iterative development , break up items that can be released frequently... But what if your product doesn't demand it? for instance if you have a thick client that needs to be rolled out every release, would a clear agile help you? No it would add overheads.. OVERHEADS do you hear me?

4. Scrum maybe of 5 minutes.. but imagine if I say

"I worked on Java yesterday, I work on Java today and I have no obstacles" I am sure you would know as much enough as the word says and nothing more... A standup to me is a place where the Project Manager really gets to know whats going on with each of the developer.. , what blocks is good to know but not necessary that what not blocks you may not block others... moreover it is important if the PM knows what can potentially affect others too?

So in a chocolate wrapper if I have to say this I would say that Go Agile, Not by books.. take the Lean principles and then start putting them in the flow, evolve, learn and evolve. Eventually I gather it may be interesting for you to know the myths I had when I got into the Agile principle adoption...

My List of Myths I had

1. Agile, Where is the process?
What I learnt over years : In a Agile mode you are into the process, every day , every hour... You dont start doing the design at first and then start development, instead you define your design iteratively.

You don't run into the age old Initiation, Planning , Executing, Controlling and closing phases... instead you get into a combined phase into shorter periods which in short term is a working feature and in long term becomes a working product.

You dont write a 10 page document to define a requirement, instead you write a one line behavior .

You dont log a change request, you adapt the change in the Iterative feedback.

2. Agile? where is the Project Plan?
There is nothing called a Project Plan... your story board is your Project plan, your story chart is your project plan. We define a master list with members allocated and thats the high level plan. Every thing that we code is in some form of user story, sometimes functional sometimes technical.

3. Agile? Chaotic Development?
Yes.. Indeed. It is to all those who are not involved. Agile demands involvement and ownership. If you own something and are involved, you wont feel chaotic. Read the famous Chicken and Pig story.

4. For any development methodology , there has to be a minimum process
Agile is a value system. Care about the values and principles. Take inputs from the manifesto... but NO there is set of rules / processes that would make you agile. Agility comes with the principles, not with processes.

5. Not Co-Located ? Not Agile?
Agile works well distributed. If you just have the right set of people. it just works well with co-located teams.. but can work better with distributed teams too :P

Now shall I leave you to go visit the Agile Manifesto and ask yourself one question if you really want to be Agile...

WHAT MAKES ME AGILE?

If you dont get an answer.... Lets talk!!!!

Thursday 17 September 2009

The Winning Habits # 1

It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up - Vince Lombardi

My earlier post on Killing the Looser within you was oriented towards the Looser that is invisible and sits within you... a few more thoughts made me write this post on what really it takes to be a True winner. Over the last few years of my interaction with several people , and I mean those several people who I call "B Factored" (they are the same variety who want to follow the path already taken, they believe in the "This is what it says" and I would only do what is told ....) though I am not going to criticize them here.. it is important to know that Success is defined by them as "What Others did that I can copy or how much I made in $$" ... for Some it is "How many hardships I went through to be WHAT I AM" for some it is "How many people know my Status".... I am not going to define Success for you... because the definition and the process of Definition of Success is going to be your

Winning habit # 1.

I categorized myself earlier into the B Factored to start with.. I know I have evolved now and I am changing ever since... Why I say so???? Well I read 9 Autobiographies and Biographies of some famous people like Mahatma Gandhi (My Experiment with Truth) , Nelson Mandela (Walk for Freedom) , Khan Abdul gaffar Khan, Narayan Murthy and of course the published article on Dhirubhai Ambani... The major objective being to learn what they did and follow the path... I realized that's not what brings you to success...Why???????


A majority of us believe in Success... yet a few of us know what it is actually... Success has different levels and applies to you at different times.. but have you being able to define Success for you? The path written about the hard ships , challenges faced by someone in their book is the path of execution... in other words what is done and how it is done.. You read through lives and learn execution... eventually a lot of us believe in Execution.. We are successful based on how well we do things isn't it???


We think every day on how best we can do things?

Every day we think of how we can succeed and by doing what?

Every day we think of how we can stand out of the crowd?

We always think of HOW..

Yes we are more concerned about the HOW than the What.. and that is what really kills us...


So what is the Winning Habit # 1 ???

It is the Attitude..

Yes your Attitude towards everything... It's the attitude that defines your Winning Ladder, its your attitude that makes you look the divine future better, its your attitude that would help you achieve what you have not thought of..

And what is this Attitude?

Ask yourself a question, why you are doing what you are doing? and are you happy doing it?
Answer it, Yes Right here...
How many times you admit your mistakes?
Go On, Answer it
What do you do when somebody criticizes you?
How do you treat your Peers, Bosses and Colleagues?
How do you treat the people who serve you at Hotels, Restaurants?
What is failure for you?
How important is Winning for you?

The answers to these and many such questions define your attitude.... and believe me this is what will define your definition of Success.. This is what will define the next habit in the hierarchy of Success...

Work on it.. Cause in the ladder to be a True Winner this is going to be your First Step ;)

A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change - Earl Nightingale

Tuesday 15 September 2009

1 Month and Refactor!!!!

Yes.. we are exactly 1 month today. We started our development for Our Future exactly 1 month ago and now where we stand, it looks already an amazing journey... The turnkeys, the slides and roll-a-coasters we had sounds nice.. What amazes me me is that the Team is already talking about refactoring the code that they did in the last few weeks. Well the misconceptions of agility let several implementers think that agile is just about doing it right... well its not.. It is about doing it better every time you do it and iterating the same thing till it reaches the best of its end (I am sure there is no end to it)

I have worked with development teams who never wanted to touch there code, NEVER EVER CHANGE this were some of the comments I have seen in the VSS and CVS systems that I worked with... I have seen people being over protective about their code, not wanting anyone to introduce anything. I have seen people wanting to shut down everything and write it from scratch. But none of this is really of help... it makes sense when you do one thing and over a period of time improvise it... Is it not what we call EXPERIENCE ?

Well eventually in one of the technical interviews I jammed one Sr. Engineer with a question "How much experience does the code you have written has?".. The question was not understood and neither was there any attempt to understand it... Anyways, when we say how much of experience your code has tells that you are closer to it and on it every now and then and have bought your code from all possible roll-a-coasters in the time span it is LIVE. The amount of refactoring would determine the actual experience of your code.

Over the years the Team we have worked with always showed sense in this part I think it flows because the Technical leadership has always introduced this to the new generation that took over the code. I am glad that the Team always bring this part and wants to spend time on refactoring, not always but many times...

Refactoring has always being considered AS Re-Work by any non-involved agile technician... if you are a Project Manager you understand this well... specially when you are new to this and when a developer comes to you next day he wrote the code that he wants to refactor.....

I am glad that the Team is moving towards the CODE-TEST-REFACTOR approach.. though we are running behind on the Unit testing for the UI Framework for the time being.. I think we are getting closer to a safer development approach. I am sure at the end of the release we would have some good amount of TEST , CODE and Refactored code ;)

I believe refactoring is good.. the time period is important.. I have seen refactoring working well when done in parts starting the next release at times same release. The earlier part the quality weeks were best parts of the release for refactoring.. eventually when the discipline broke developers started abusing the Quality weeks.

What benefit does refactoring bring?
1. Build a House and Stay in it the next day
If you move into a brand new house, you see no issues the next day you move in... let it run for a while and see some rains and you know what you missed. Code is similar.. you see problems when it is LIVE or even in QA, and believe me they are not BUGS.

2. Run your 10 Year old car in a F1
Can you? How can your code run then? You need to revisit it.. not only to make it faster but at times to make it smoother. Cover potential bugs, performances etc.

3. Can you have more kids with same salary as you had in 1901?
Law of scalability. Improvise and scale.

Over and Over... We are Happy that we are shaping well.

Sunday 6 September 2009

The SEX part of this blog

I was asked yesterday "Why do you think P* Management is better than sex"... brings me to write about the topic that is worth and honestly I never mentioned why the hell is this blog titled as Better than Sex, eventually I never justified this reason on why I think Project Management, People Management is really better than sex... Honestly I never compare it with Sex...

The title is inspired by the statement Jessi from Bolt made..she was the one I heard this from... And I was not too ignorant to not choose this...
Another reason to have this was SRK the famous Bollywood star said "Sex and SRK sell" I cannot sell SRK , Nor Sex .. but I can definitely sell this blog as better as Sex ;)


Why??? OK so here you go.....

Answer these questions for me.. Options are Something else or Sex? and you know it better....

Q.1 : What gives you immense pleasure with your partner?

Q.2 : What demands the most concentration when you are doing it?

Q.3 : What requires you to stay connected and involved?

Q.4 : What makes you feel better, while you do it and after you have done it?

I bet all the answers somewhere resulted in this word???? SEX?

While I go and compare.. here is what and why of it....

Sex gives me pleasure , immense pleasure...
The Adventures that People Management gives you are out of world, interesting and long lasting, The Pleasure is desirable and vulnerable... Imagine how much of pleasure you would take to guide someone to success not only for himself but for you. Imagine the pain you take to explain someone on how he is doing/not doing good and how he should do it better. Imagine handling a conflict where 2 people dont even want to look at each other and you strive to make them buddies for life time.

Sex demands concentration and then gives Ignorance ....
Read the husband/wife sex columns in the bunch of magazines... a common question is My spouse turns over to the other side when he / she is done...
Project , People Management demands concentration, focus and dedication but it ends up into the most required attention. It demands more and more of concentration and it results in more and more of dedication.

It lasts long!!!!
Sex doesnt, unless you are a Pig... The people management practices lasts long.... when you are having wild management sessions with your Bosses or Teams they never end, its pain to begin but at the end Joy .... Joy of convincing , Joy of success...

You are allowed to experiment and make mistakes
With Management you would make mistakes and learn, you would make same mistakes and learn different things each time... With Sex can you afford so? ;)

You get bored, but you don't turn down!!!

With Sex you sleep, With Management you are expected to be Awake ;)

Alright Alright!!!!! I am getting to sexist and the blog would have more porn referrers than ever... And the usual google trick may ask me to change this blog to "Adult Content"... I stop here to let you Do the former and think of the later


Tuesday 1 September 2009

Change # 2 : A Thank You a day, keeps distances Away


Not that I wanted to be a PR personnel for myself.. but over a period of time I have realised that we miss to remember those people who have done Good and Bad to you. These people definitely need some level of appreciation from you for what they have done to you. They are the same ones who have mattered in your life and will matter many times in future... The first day of the change when I called my long time associate who I never spoke to since last 9 yrs and thanked him for helping me generate a better career path for myself, he was glad. He liked it, he liked it very much. I think it bonded our relationship and improvised it a bit. Since August 16th I have heard from him atleast 7 times and all of those conversations have helped me groom our friendship well.

The second Thank You was to someone who had tried to be as bad to me as he could have being.. amazingly the person commits to his sins, wanted to tell me why he did that to me and also covered a lot of things that I never knew about... Good Deal. Anyways the idea of bringing in this change is to Appreciate those thankful figures in my life (personal or professional) who have made my life better or worse.

I have hit around 17 Thank You's so far and I intend to migrate myself from 1 thank you per day to 1 Thank You per week(I definitely dont want to spend my time reforming friends and foes if I do one per day ;))


So now for all those of you blog readers and feed readers I want to Thank you for reading what I write around... I never know if anytime with google analytics I would be able to trace out who you are and where you from.. unless you reveal yourself through comments on a not so good usable comments model.