The No Whining Zone

How much of negativity do you see around when you sit on your desk? How much of those vibes hurt your development? How much it affects your moral and productivity? How much you start whining yourself? I am sure, answer to a lot of these questions are not known to you. A lot of us basically dont even...

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We love Unhappiness? Do we? Really?

One thing I have learnt in my 32 year life is that humans are most insecure, dissatisfied and whining fellows. We just don't know how to be Happy or rather we just don't want to be Happy. I mean a few days ago I was playing the Age of empire, a strategic game. You build farms, food, infrastructure, you build your empire, make friends, allies and what not. Eventually after I spent around 8 days building...

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Are bugs hurting your backlog?

I ended up in a discussion with the team last week on how bugs cause a unmanageable link to the Technical debt. The debate was how should bugs be treated. my argument laid with bugs that hurt the current development and the future backlog. As a agile team a product backlog is key driver in defining what we do for in every release, the known unknown here is the bugs that are generated out of the current...

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The Art of un-informing

Yesterday my day started on a bad note, heard news of passing off of my father's aunt (grand mother) and had several production issues that were waiting for me. During the funeral I realised that I had missed to inform at work, and by the time I did it was probably too late. Bunch of calls and last...

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Things to Know - Who owns the Technical Debt

A fresh release for us is due next week, have to say it has been put up with a serious effort of around 8 months with a lot of hard work and agility and comes with a lot of development contribution that is beyond coding and testing. Now that we are almost there, I have been reviewing the bugs created...

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Development : What does Quality mean? - 2

Continuing our efforts on working and understanding quality let's now focus on the other side of quality for developers and development teams. What we should do before, after and during the development cycle's is the bright known side of the coin, but to be honest you may be well equipped to write the best products, but quality is not just ensured by writing very good code, planning better, reviewing.....

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Development : What does Quality mean?

Let me begin by saying quality is over-rated and under utilized, under practised and over spoken. Most people do not understand the core meaning of quality.. for many quality means a bug free software, for others quality means anything working as expected.. it may be combinations of it, but been into...

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Things I learnt about Project Management

1. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn2. Projects success is dependant on executor's attitude's and not just effort3. Budget should be the last thing to think of4. Planning is over hyped, under utilized5. The only time quality comes into action is when you are not reviewed6. Manager's like engineers who fix things quickly.7. Between the release date and code freeze lot...

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How to find an angry employee

Do you have an angry employee at work? Do you know how to figure out one? Well here are the quickies to start with and with your help we can build a good list here, of course we can then use the list to figure out the reasons and also find answers and solutions to them but let's say that these symptoms don't need to be merely due to conflicts they can also be due to pure unhappiness, unwillingness...

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Working with Talents

I recently asked our leads a question "Who are your Star team members and who are your mediocre performers?" the objective of this question was to put a clear vision on how to map the average performers to be the star team members. I am very sure with your teams you may be facing the same issue, a whole...

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Happiness quotient, you and work

I had a classic debate a day ago with one of the colleagues talking about Happiness at work. He mentioned that the happiness drivers for him or anyone are good work, good company, good money. When I asked what is replaceable, he said as often 1 of them has to be compromised... Misery eh? So being into a renowned company, earning great money bring smiles to your professional face? I am not sure.. the...

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The Burning platform

You don't know where inspiration would come and strike you.. today it did to me through this post that talks about a memo from the Nokia CEO Stephen Elop . I read through the post and I read through the memo... let me be very honest and tell you that though I would not wish any of your company CEO's to write that It wont be a bad thing to get to read that... With the memo written in the post I don't...

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Product Roadmaps can be Dangerous

I had a long discussion today with a friend today over products and roadmaps, though I have to say I am not a big roadmap basher myself but I am not a big fan too of roadmaps in the state that they are usually presented. The discussion emerged when my friend explained how much trouble it is to meet...

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Want to learn Agile? Get to the source code

If you are confused with the title No I am not kidding here, and if you are making fun of my knowledge about Agile there are not many better ways of knowing what Agile is than watching this smart movie "Source code". My last weekend was busy, tied with flock, lot of work , shopping and busty busy release. Hence I picked time on Monday night (Yup a school night) and watched the Duncan Jones directed...

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When should I leave? When is the right time to quit?

There is never a right time, and nothing is ever too late.. You always are in a war of thoughts specially when it is about the thing that you are tied for most of your time.... yes Work, Your Job. Every bad day you have at work or every tiring day you spend once for a moment you have this thought triggering... "Am I doing the right thing being here?" sometimes "Is it time for me to leave?" With reference...

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Product Features are not research materials

Ani [Our Sr. Dev team member] and me had a conversation this weekend over our 129th release. The topic evolved on how we released a small but smart feature that can help our customers do something very easily. However Ani triggered something that I cannot stop myself from writing. "We have so many small...

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Why?

Why?What?When?How?Where?Where do these lead you to?What do these words signify?Why should we ask them?How best we can ask them?When is the right time to ask them?The Power of Why, When, How, Where and What... Go sit down, Look at what you are doing today , at this workplace, with this life and ask these questions to yourself... post the answer if possib...

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Is work building your lifestyle..

Sunday I had a terrific conversation with an old friend who now works with a school in eastern part of the country, precisely in Assam. The school recently provided them fullton access to Internet and they learnt to use Skye.. The conversation that started from how schools are progressing ended up on a critical topic that I would definitely want to pull up here.. Yes the question does your work help...

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New Joiner - Boot them, Board them

Booting up new members... a question that has been hitting for a while now...Since August 2010, we in Pune have doubled up the size of our development Team.. while it is a good thing for any team and is a sign of upcoming prosperity to the Team and Organization... There is certainly a bigger issue to handle . To ensure that the new Team carries old values, improvises what we have and ensure that the...

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The inspiring friday tale - How to be happy at work

The Friday that passed away last was highly inspiring, believe me not all Fridays are very good part of my days for a few reasons like I like to be in Office and work, I feel pressure to complete all those incomplete things I have left over the week to be completed on the weekend, I find Friday nights lazy and Saturday and Sunday mornings dead as kids have no school on the weekends and everyone at...

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