Agile design and development in large orgs - some practical fallacies

Traditionally the agile story says that the pigs make all the decision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_and_the_Pig). But this step is really hard, especially for the organizations where hierarchy exists.

Apart from this fallacy, one more thing that is left unsaid is the thing where we decide when to stop or when to make decisions. It is really an art to close on some thing or let some thing remain open. I think the addition to the eight fold path(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path) has to be right timing.

The real deal is when the decisions are made by committee and by hierarchy. but the worst of it are decisions made by hierarchy and enforced by committee.

This is the place where sunshine never reaches and middle management thrives. The places where decisions needs to be made are pushed to the top. Which gives the top execs some sense of ownership and control. Also such decisions are easy to force on to the teams which are actually executing it. where as the control remains with the middle management. Who are most of the times just chicken (all the puns intended )

I think the  problem is systemic and all middle to large orgs can not run a truly agile project. This is because the definition of agile and large are almost opposite to each other.

Are there any stories which prove me wrong? The caveat is that being agile is not equivalent to being successful, neither is true the opposite way. So is the case with being quick. you can be quick and still not be actually agile - follow all the points mentioned here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_Manifesto#Agile_Manifesto

NOSQL and ACID : NoSQL == Not(only) SQL

Freedom for the tyranny of schemas!!!

As mentioned earlier, my main reason for venturing in to the data was the (preceived)democratization of the field because of the terms NoSQL. Which basically means that I need not have to learn a completely new language, technology as well as methodology to understand this. In a span of a week, I am already proving myself wrong again on this one: but I will explain a bit more in another post !! 

But still it makes sense to actually understand the things as well as the two parties before taking sides .

When the noSQL proponents mention SQL, it is actually a strict RDBMS they are referring to. One of the things that these systems follow is ACID properties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID. NOSQL thinks it is not necessary to make the data store follow all these properties. in fact adherence to these properties actually makes their solutions difficult to implement and maintain and scale. So they selectively choose some of the features of the data, depending on the properties that are important semantically for the data.

Having data completely separate from the implementation looks like a great idea from a high altitude. But this has just ended up in making database development as a completely different and an independent branch of software engineering. with the DB having its own tiers and the development team being split in two far early in the development cycle. This compartmentalization is definitely not acceptable where agility and cost are major considerations i.e. with the startups. in my not-so-educated opinion that is the reason for emergence of NOSQL.

It is definitely attractive if all the code looks almost similar for every thing instead of having a different partition and technology for maintaining the database. The ACID properties at least are used as and when they are actually necessary.

There are definite technical differences and advantages but in my opinion that is not the major reason for the emergence of nosql. The reason also has cultural and economy related shades.
This really means that there can not be a single solution that works for any context but there will be implementation dependent behavior of the data store. This really helps the edges and fringes where these things really matter because of multiple reasons. The usage where economy and speed matter most – the startups - is in my opinion one of the biggest validators of practicalities of this approach.
here are some of the reasons that I cam think of. (caveat: As I am still a novice, definitely I am either misinterpreting some of these or missing a lot more)

1. Exceptionally large size of data where the concept of a normal relational data base break.
2. Monochromatic behavior of data(remember I coined this word here ) : meaning the unique way data is generated, stored and its relevance calculated. These can be: data which comes only in append mode, data which comes from real-time streams,data where age changes the relevance etc
3. Geographic location where data is stored as well as the speed and method the computing nodes use to reach it.

But the biggest take away for me from all this is really this:
NoSQL is a loosely coupled way of thinking about your data. There are techniques which you use along with the strictly relational ACID data. That’s why most of the high scale data startups use both the approaches, depending on need. Any further advocacy of one way over other is just fanboism  
 

Seven

This is an apt picture to depict the feelings (thanks bing !!). This is deeper than just pointing seven, as it also means that stop at two kids .
There is a joke/reality/anecdote which goes like this:
In the first year of marriage, the husband speaks and the wife listens.
In the second year of marriage, the wife speaks and the husband listens.
From the third year, both of the them speak and the neighbors listen.

We are celebrating successful completion of five such years of depriving our neighbors of this particular pleasure.
We are firmly in to the zone where things are completely natural. it seems the time without each other in lives is some distant forgotten dream sequence that happened to some one else.
As Kelly puts really well in  “What technology Wants”, an all pervasive technology makes itself invisible. (e.g. how many electric motors are there in your house). We are almost there where we are so integral to each other that we are almost invisible to each other.
We can sit together for hours with out speaking, each one doing his/her own stuff and still feel this to be the best conversation in the day. Mere presence lending comfort, joy, support and criticism as and when required in the required dosages.
Like every thing interesting there is also a duality. The picture in that case some times looks like this( thankoo bing):


Only debate currently is who is Freeman ( we both have a claim there)

Even if the sum total of our time together is this, we would have exceeded our expectations:

But we definitely have much more than these to show for last seven years.



So, you are not the person who makes life worth while, you *are* life.
Why would I thank you? it will be like thanking the mirror .


But in this fit of PDA, I can definitely say one thing:

I love you .
 

Data, Data here I come :)

 

I have been trained only for being a software engineer. Though my branch in my graduation is called computer science and engineering, it was mainly geared towards the engineering part by design and also by practice. That really suited me well. I have always worked on different areas and have enjoyed solving problems in these areas.  Though I have worked on very interesting problems and I am proud of a lot of them and I think solving day to day problems and working with great people and friends is the thing that drives me most. But it is also true that I have definitely skimmed the surface as far as theory of computer science goes. But it is one of things that I want to do and I think I will enjoy it.

Also mainly my work has always been related to the code and algorithms part. Frequently I have worked with bunch of protocols but definitely I have been away from the data part almost always. The interesting stuff in public domain till that time was always related to relational data model which being ACID never really appealed me much. Actually it was the case that I had active dislike for the area. 

The cloud has changed things quiet a bit. We have actually used the concept to solve significant issues and provide definite value. This was done at very less cost. Even having incremental improvements inside the box would definitely have taken more skill and definitely more time. A separate blog post for this in the pipe line definitely .

I think the same thing is happening with data currently. Where once you have a good deal of data, it is really easy to work on it. The flexibility and scale that is afforded by the approaches definitely put me squarely in the NOSQL camp.

But I am truly a novice here.

This is the first post in the explorations of the field that I am going to start. I am planning to start a weekly post series where I am planning to dive deep in to the field and have a post for your perusal .

I am currently starting at a novice level so at some angle this can also be a fiasco to happen publicly. I have tried multiple approaches where I can maintain a sustained flow of studies and have failed. I want to try out public commitment and public shame this time. At the best it can be a measure of my internal drive as well as talent which prove how much time/energy I can afford here and how much of expertise I can show respectively. At its worst, it won’t damage much, hopefully.

New ring road

This is almost a sequel to my earlier post. it mainly tells two things, I am a sucker for the route to work if it is scenic. another is that I am an sentimental lotus eater who suddenly can find any thing romantic.

This is the way I take to work, when I am riding my bike. My bike is a Bajaj Avenger and I upgraded from my earlier scootie to it. it also has a good(!) story behind how I jumped from a scootie which could barely pull my weight to the hunk of a machine, but it is material for a completely different post.

Also I have found that I have turned less verbose (compared to earlier. But unanimous feedback is that this is for the greater good). So saying a lot of things with photographs and hiding my poor sukhangiri behind these.

More over most of these photographs are also not mine but just flicked from the net. But the feeling are genuine (hopefully )

So here is the the route I take it to work

 

Stepping stone to heaven. This stretch looks like it is ending up in the sky. For time and again I have forgotten that I am riding at all. I have definitely forgotten the speed I am going. Either I go too fast where the wind in the eyes drags me back to reality or I am going too slow and the gears scream and scrunch (N.B.  I will be the niche customer for a powerful but gearless bike )

And we all love it. But do not like when we stop to take photographs instead of speeding on the empty road

 

It has almost every thing:  it has the stone arrangements Hyderabad is (was) famous for. It has fantastic view of course and greenery: as much as is possible in hot and dry place like Hyderabad. it has roads almost going no where like the famous roads of Inca.

 

I especially like the cold evening/late night rides through it. The orbs of light exists together with all pervasive darkness. Both make each other soft and dreamy. People are in their own shell riding their own orbs. I am on my own lightening goblet, the road streaks beneath. Every thing exists without a reason: independent, irrelevant, disconnected, agamya, anaadee.

 

But of course, the best view is when it rains. and mostly when in rains in Hyderabad, it is rarely completely dark. There is beautiful hide and seek happening behind the bright blue of the clouds and stray rays of sunlight streaking through the gaps shine and make uninteresting objects like even a bulldozer resplendent with eternal glory.

Some deviations also take us to interesting places where we made some really interesting friends.

The city ensures that its beauty queen gets new curves every often. One such virgin stretch.

We some times found not frequented parts of the road and rolled down the slope (note: father does not need wheels )

And the destination (photograph from my office looking back)

.

O Mario

 

The last year have been of different influences in life withering away before father time. It is surprising that so many people who you have never met can have so much influence on your lives. Today I am going to talk about one of the quietest influences.

As the article here points out, Mario impacted me before I know what cartoon is and what Mario's distinct style means. These influences stick and life is better for not even knowing that. I always love that when I get to see and enjoy works of the genius and then I am introduced to the person behind it rather than the other way where I know the person first and then his work.

His style was pretty simple, humour most of the times wry but never deprecating. He always looked for good in people and situations and pointed out the ironies and idiosyncrasies along the way. Most of the times his punch line is pretty simple and straight forward.

But he would have filled so many nuggets in the spread that I would spend time looking to each individual characters and locating prototypes in the crowd. He is the one who would draw a cartoon with hundred people and  each of those will have unique characteristics.

One of the eulogy says: Goa have him to the world and he gave Goa to the world. This is a definite truth. He also represented the unique Govanize culture. a link between the Catholic colony of a fledging European power and a tourist hub sandwiched between and representing people from both powerful Indian states: Maharashtra and Karnataka.
A state in search of an icon and identity of its own.

And it was provided by Mario and how.
Here are some of the works of Mario. It is the time to words to seize space to the visual glory. Do enjoy these.

 

[All images from google image search …. Hope I am not breaking any laws ]

Review : Lahiri Resorts

 

Verdict: 3.5 out of 5. Staff could have been more friendly though we had no complaints. A little bit overpriced though in sync with all other such resorts. Selling point is reach-ability from the city and the swimming pools. food is alright. Good kids' play area.

Lahiri is one of the very few resorts which is very reachable (at least from my side of the time). The ring roads and the radial roads (all curiously named after the same person - Jawahar Lal Nehru by some co incidence which is helped by continuous congress rule in this state) make sure that even if the distance is increased, it is very pleasant to drive. Our designated driver (which takes on the role of wife and mother when she is not driving) was so happy to cross the three digit barrier, that too near shouting distance from the city. She maneuvered our old rickety chariot very well and ensured that we hit the desired location within fifty minutes of confirmation of the booking. Our main criterion was that this should be the high light of kids' one week vacation. Because of this the target was ( as always, though because of some solid reason this time) kids' having fun. And with that perspective it went pretty well, though not completely according to plan, you will know as you read on. After the heavenly ride on the outer ring road and some non entirely unlike Holmes investigation about the directions after we got off the ring road, we reached the desired location. with all the diversions because of our decision to not ask for directions and to take the most risky roads, it measured nearly fifty kilometres. First activity was the room selection. As usual we request them to give us a royal tour of all the possible accommodations.

Here it involved following options:

Deluxe room (like any other hotel room), queen's room - which is almost the same size of the deluxe room with a sit out thrown in.

King's room - this has an independent and private entrance and a balcony stout overlooking the lazy river(my guess is that the size is same as the queen's room)

Emperor's room: This we did not get a chance to see. As we as well as the staff figured out that it will be completely off the budget and did not explore further.

One of the most interesting thing that happened was that the elder one ( also known for his aversion from water more than a water-jug deep) suddenly took to water. This resort also was the most ideal place for it. I mean if it could have happened any where near Hyderabad, this would be the place for it. And that brings me to the best selling point of this resort. The piece de resistance if you would of this resort is its swimming pool. This is basically according the me and my family and what fit us best. You may have your views :).

They have a fantastic pool with trees bending over clean blue waters. The pool is shaped so that it gets some aesthetic elegance, at least from my point of view. Kids have their shallow pool connected to the main pool, apart from that there is also a gentle slope where you can watch your kids and let them take the learning part of swimming on. As this was the first time both my kids were in the water and the elder one was just getting used to it whereas the younger one is too young to understand swimming, we took it slow and never left the kids' pool. The elder one tried a dive and took in good dose of water. According to the way I was taught swimming, this is the real start of any learning.

Once you are in and out of water twice, gulping good quantity in the process, you really know what water is. You understand it as well as respect it. You know the joys as well as the dangers that lurk. I do not think he got it all ,but hopefully it would have registered some where in his sub conscious for sure. We spend most of our time there swimming, either in the water slides or in the pool. The other attractions of the resort contain a good kids' playing area, a treetop (more or less so) restaurant still under construction and spacious artificial river where we can use some pedal boats and a hanging bridge on top of this river.

We had a small trouble with the room service where the water was not hot during rush hours. but I think after staying for so much time in water, the last thing you want is another bath :). Though this irked missus cum driver a lot as she did not swim at all. In the end, it was a wonderful getaway which I think is enough to put a good punctuation mark to kids's Ugadi holidays :)

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew East
One flew West
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest

This is how I felt while writing this. So beware

    

This is a queer book that has got me thinking and really has got my goat. This breaks all the stereotypes. The success lies in the fact that it bares all the facts of life in plain black and white. It also shows the real nature of success and taboos that the society builds around it.
It is in fact a stark book, a tragedy where the hero is killed by the narrator before the narrator runs away from the asylum. But the writing is so powerful that you keep on agreeing that that's how it should have ended.
This is a very well put allegory where the writer never ever comes out and explains his points. But it really hits the centre of the soul. It is an effort the portray the struggle between the independent spirit of a man and the decadent ever present system that are fighting. Man is just a conduit for the spirit to rage its battle. This particular man has given his spirit on to a number of other inmates and now what is left of him is just an imitation. A man is alive by what he has done and what he could do. McMurphy is killed because in his vegetable stage, he can not be used as a victory symbol by the system.

Let me start where it all begins, the story is told by a Red Indian who is son of a very powerful Indian chief. The Adobe Indians are made to lose their way of life. They live their live by spear fishing on the falls from rickety scaffoldings. But the government wants to build a dam and pays them handsomely. But the question is how much is the cost of a man, of his way of life. The chief denies all this but then he is brow bitten by the whole system in to accepting this deal. The money ensures that the Indians have stopped being the men they were. The narrator feels the person growing in size when ever he sees the spirit living with in him. This makes more sense than the actual feeling. In fact I was feeling pretty nutty myself when I was reading this :)

So all his life the narrator has been looked at as an outsider and ignored. This is when he grows depressed and acts as a dumb and deaf, starts hallucinating. The ward is full of other social rejects and most of the cases they are there not because they have some serious psychiatric problem but they are there because they were week and were defeated by the society and were forced to accept their defeat and still exist.
The society is represented by the strict nurse who lords it over every one, including the doctor. She is very good and ensuring that every one complies and she rules her kingdom ruthlessly. The problem is that her kingdom is based on fear and compliance. The depressed patients are further pushed in to more depression and need the therapy more and more. She ensures that people are more and more dependant on her rather than on each other. Even the group therapy sessions are turned in to a game of self loathing and finger pointing.

In such a situation comes in McMurphy will full of independent spirit and going forward he wins the hearts of the people by openly rebelling against the rule of the nurse. The nurse tries to get him to tow the line.
McMurphy tries different things to get the people understand the meaning of freedom and laughter and pleasure. He gets them on a fishing expedition, gets to change the television timings,gets the restrictions on cigarettes revoked. Gets in to fist fights with the ward boys, breaks the glass of the watch station and ensures that it remains broken.
But the nurse keeps coming back. He tries to get her humanness and fallibility out in the open. He is given repeated shock treatment and is made to suffer physically. But he rises to challenge again and again.
It all goes out of hand when he brings some whores to the dorm and they spend the whole night revelling. At the end, the nurse catches them and tries her old formula of attacking a man's self esteem. She manages to trouble on of the weaklings so much that he commits suicide. McMurphy assaults her and show that he can make her human by showing her fear.
From this point onward, the establishment has a winning streak. Though the spirit is kindled in the folks and a good number of them move out of the hospital, unafraid of the real world.
They perform lobotomy and McMurphy and turn him into a vegetable state. The Indian denies the system the final victory though by killing him by suffocating him with a pillow. He then runs away, wild again in the open in the element his people so revered.
He plans to visit the place where the Adobe Indians are again building the scaffolding around the wall of the dam, trying to fight the system, trying to live their live the way they want to, despite all odds. Even if it may look mindless to others, this is what they want to do, as this is their way of life!!!

Next steps. If you are not impressed enough about the book, I urge you to watch the movie (same name as the book). Though the book is more haunting, the movie with Jack Nicholson is fantastic.

If you are more interested in the actual facts: here they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(film)

The world bids adieu to anon …

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fy6yz/51_hours_left_to_live/

Continuing with the somehow uncomfortable subject of death, here is another.

This person, after undergoing all the pains and indignities of suffering from an incurable cancer, decides to go for a well deserved death with dignity.

From the exchanges, looks like he’s lost almost everything while fighting for survival. The medicines and procedures have bought nothing but pain.

He takes his chances going public and the internet responds. They take him in his fold and brighten his end. The most moving part is where across the globe they explain the surroundings and make him travel the whole globe.

Here is a man, who does not have money,health or even time to do any of these things, but he bids farewell to a bunch of strangers who give him more than his own life has given him.

Talk about being a global village, this is actually a global family !!

Eulogy to a stranger

 

Dear stranger,

we have never talked before. Neither do I know your name. I did see you but you would definitely have not seen me. I saw your perfectly clean shiny bike, your perfectly ironed shirt neatly tucked in to your trousers. Even the death throes did not hide the fact that you did most of the things very well and perfectly. Even the way the accident opened your head was almost clinical. The newly laid black tar road spotless under you.

 

The city bus parked half-hazardly just a few feet from your body made it clear whose fault it really was.

 

You must have been a caring son, a loving father and an understanding husband, a trusted friend and a smiling stranger. All that brought to the end by one mistake. I do not want to say that the end was unnecessary and tragic. It is just Karma and it happened because it was supposed to happen this way.

What else is life but a dewdrop within a dewdrop, a dream within a dream? And you might have dreamt well. At least my religious belief says that death is not a full stop. It is merely a reset and you get a chance to do every thing all over again and again. What did yours say?

I definitely imagine your near ones’ uncontrollable grief. No words can describe or comfort them, at least I do not have those words. so you are the only one I can address. Because you would have already gone to the next step in your life and all this would not matter much to you. Does it?

I think there is only one way to know, and I will know when I will know. There is still time for that. There is still time I dream this dream within dream.

My unseen, unmet friend. Adieu. Well lived and all the best for the next turn. Let’s hope we meet in these cycles again. Would we remember then?

Who knows?

Notes to a development lead–part 2

The rule of the thumb to follow is that he should be able to say no to both the sides, up as well down. One measurable way it to count how many times you have said no to crazy ideas. From up and from down. You should be just while saying no to things that come from below. You should be stubborn when you say no to things that come from above. You should be political when things are coming from the same level.

Emotions generally do ruin things for you. But it is always ok to be emotional in control. Some times strong emotions take you faster to a desired goal. Strong emotions leave back deeper impressions. So it is ok to throw tantrums at the right moment. You should be using tantrum as one in a year kind of tool. In moderation and used at a right place, a tantrum is the best approach. But all this is only exception to the rule. As a lead, you should be empathetic to every one around. Even a worst idea should be given equal importance. Because an idea means a person is trying to think and that he is invested. This is pretty rare. But it can really be faked very very easily. A lead should be able to figure out the fake and even the extent of the fake. It is really interesting that the same thing is applicable from the other side also. A lead *will* throw some rubbish ideas up. He *will* enforce some random policies. He will have to and some times he will fake. But any down to earth person will always do it in proportion.

I think not faking it is not an answer, not for the lead at least. This is really important if you are in a people game to be ready for randomization and loads of bullshit. If you are too principled for that, do stay out of the role.

 

While doing all this, there is a high probability that a lead will just be running in the same place forever. There are so many urgent and important things coming on his plate, there are so many distractions, so many new technical and non technical areas to keep up with - that you may really lose sight of the original goal, to make progress - individually as well as as the team. So a lead should always ensure that things are moving. A lead should have either documented or mind-mapped milestones. He should have complete idea of the situation, at least view of the situation at his level. He should also play out possible variations in his mind.

 

This is more of a game than a nine to five job. If you are doing it really well, you will enjoy it more than any thing in life. At least in the country I am working on, the lead has a young family or just starting one. This required time and emotional investment. It will not fare well in future if you do not get a good foundation of your family and social life set up. In fact doing this will save a lot of time later. These are the most hectic and productive years in a developers life. So it should not also affect the time, effort and concentration at work. This means that a lead should pack more than any thing in any given twenty four hours. Time management is a very important skill here. A lead also should understand that it is more of an emotional activity than a planned one. any plan on paper is obsolete before the ink on it dries (or the file written on it is written to disk and out of cache :) ). This is some thing you should do by the ear. As you progress further, you get a feel for this.Managing your own time, your non work / work time, time of your team and time of your hierarchy for which you are responsible all falls in time management. It also should be noted that taking well placed breaks where you rejuvenate yourselves and the team is more important than it is credited for. Writing software is kind of a soft science. If you are doing any thing even a little involve that cookie cutting, it is going to be in intensely psychological activity. The state of mind of the reportees is very important.

 

So when we talk about time management, it is more of a productivity management. It is not necessary that you and your team is working more hours or getting more things done in given hours. It is also important that the activities are the most meaningful. It is imperative to say no to a lot of things. To find out ways of doing other things in a better way. A lead should always be skeptical of the incremental demands on time and how he ensures that the team is not dragged in to chasing the expanding requirement without any change in the time limits as well as in the deadlines.

On the other hand, a lead also should know that work expands to fill the time. So a normal team when given choice of what they choose will always end up being less productive then when the deadlines are pushed and enforced. The best way a lead deals with this is that he has two faces. He shows the upper layers one face where he is part of the team. He is talking as a developer and a team member when he is facing the upper layers. But when he is talking to the team, he should act as the management. He is ruthless with the deadlines and work assignments. Handing out them as opportunities and baits. Ensuring what ticks people and manipulating that to get the work done. While doing all this, he should also be tracking the actual time spent. So the time management as the traditional concept also should be implemented. In fact it makes a big difference if the lead individually is not managing his time well enough. He should also ensure that he inspires the team to follow his lead in managing the time better.

Notes to a development lead–part I

Last two days I have been feeling expansively self-expressive and affectionate. Here is the proof

http://750words.com/entries/stats/439809

and http://750words.com/entries/stats/442646

and this means that there is yet another barrage on the way, and here it is:

 

Today I will like to talk about the leads. I am kind of an self proclaimed expert about this if you think measuring just the time spent in a position is the criterion for experience gained. Though my experience is limited to established services or product companies. In my opinion in a start up or smaller companies, leads' role is more challenging than not but I have not experience about these.This is specific about technical leads in a product org. I do not have any experience about leading a semi OR non technical project. I am grateful that this is the case. Looking at the ambiguity involved in a well defined and measurable technical product itself, it is completely unimaginable to even fathom the challenges that a lead goes through in a non tech project.

 

In a technical project / product / module, Leads are really in a special position.Transition to a lead position most of the times comes when you are just evolving from being one of the best OR the most senior individual contributor in the team (caveat: Unfortunately it is measured as the number of years spent in the team and the availability of the individual in the lead role - both are not valid criterion in my opinion). As compared to higher management, they have pretty good control and understanding of the project. They generally own some particular piece as individual contributor as a team and are involved in most of the technical decisions of the team. They also have good veto powers on the implementation decisions. Typically they are also technical leads/consultants. I think this is the right position to be in. A lead should be and if he is not, should try to be the most knowledgeable person about the complete module or a project. If this is not the case, he at least should try and setup a confidant group who actually is knowledgeable and can decide future directions. As compared to any higher level managers, lead really knows what is going on in the team.

 

As compared to the team, the lead also knows what is going on in the general scene in the company. He knows the political undercurrents and the way changes are happening in the company better than the individual members of the team. This means that he should set up his network with important people in the org at his and higher level. There are a lot of trainings and events organized by a typical company to arrange this. But in my opinion they rarely work. And it is not also advisable to make this kind of networking a very formal activity. A lead has to be an extrovert and come out of his shell. Even if he is an introvert, he should ensure that he gets to be part of such a group. The challenge is to make such a group not a clique of all the "haves" and the big boys' exclusive club. The challenge is to ensure that it happens seamlessly and happens while not damaging the day to day schedule. They should have the unique ability to think and work at both the levels, the individual contributors of the team as well as the higher ladders. Most effective leads have access to multiple layers up. Of these even more successful are those who do not use this access to speed up things. This is again like an influence which diminishes as soon as you uses it. These two things, horizontal networking as well as upward influence are generally considered with aversion. I think this is a right approach to all this. There are so many ways these things can be misused and can have bad impact on your day to day activities that it is always advisable to treat these with all the skepticism possible. But a long term successful and fast growing lead seems to have these two traits in them.

 

The lead is always in a great dilemma. It is always drilled in to him that he is now part of the management and not a group of friends. He should be able to take unpleasant decisions, enforce certain things in the team, rule out the people he wants to be peers with. Be strict and firm and occasionally say no to people. The rule of the thumb to follow is that he should be able to say no to both the sides, up as well down.

Diggi Raja, shut up or open up

Digvijay Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and one of the top influential people in UPA 2 has made it a habit of being in the news. Most of the times for the wrong reason. And whenever there is controversy related to terrorism he takes keen interest.

Diggi Raja has an interesting history. He led congress in Madhya Pradesh for two consecutive terms. The media impression during his rule were that he is a progressive chief minister. It was one of the marquee state governments of Indira Congress. It was portrayed as poster child. And even after his rule is over, media always glorified his years at the helm. On the back of being a successful chief minister, he was pretty powerful inside congress party. Though the generic idea that I got was that once he lost power, he slowly started moving away from the main stream of congress party. historically this was pretty much  the fate of any one in congress who grows too powerful to be comfortable. He has been assigned multiple posts within the party. But his performance has been kind of away from the public glare. I think Congress at least in theory works in one person one post mode. He is one of the second rung leaders who are hand picked for ensuring that the party grows in future. So he will never participate in any government but will work on brining the party. He was one of the people working with Rahul Gandhi in UP. The luke warm response from Congress there again is being portrayed as a success by congress. This is because they can not afford to show that their prince - next - in - line - to - hereditary - stone has lost some thing. But they definitely could not achieve the internal goals they would have set for themselves. I do not have any problem with a party looking deep and planning for further in future rather than concentrating on the immediate elections at hand. For stability of India, the most national parties should have good presence in the Hindi heart lands. This will ensure that unity of the country is maintained. One of the short term approaches applied by Congress in general and Digvijay Singh in particular has been appeasement of terrorists from the district of Azamgarh. Most of the activities that are taken up by Diggy Raja there are bordering on supporting the terrorists and their families. But they have played their cards nicely till now and Diggy has always maintained that he was just talking to families and acting against alienation of the entire region where as congress has kept its distance from all this.

Diggi Raja recently has performed completely opposite to his history. He who once was known for his administration and long term decisions for the benefit of his states has stooped down to playing the religious politics and playing with fire using terrorists for these. And he has gone and done this again, this time it is the Mumbai 26/11 carnage.

There was always some thing burning. It is very interesting how he always finds himself in the middle of one controversy after another. Even when there are two independent events, he has managed to involve himself in both these.

There can be multiple reasons for this. It can be because congress is playing a very dangerous game of minority appeasement and Digvijay is the actor. And congress is silently trying to reap the benefits. If this turns sour, congress can always pull its card out and let all the blame fall on Diggy. This way he is one of the most important pieces in their strategy. The other angle can be that Diggi Raja has already been pushed to the long list of has-beens and it is his last bid to relevance. The party as such can not do much but stay completely neutral lest it can be considered to be supporting the fanatics.
But a has - been should only ensure that he takes up what he can handle. This can definitely blow up in congress's face pretty badly. So if it is Diggy's own game,his problem is that he is taking some thing up which he may not have strength to handle.

The worst part of all these is that this has hurt the cause of the martyrs, defeats the pressure on Pak and muddles already dirty picture. I am not sure whether the congress as well as Diggy knows the long term harm they are causing to the already torn fabric of the nation.

This particular approach, along with the inaction raises multiple questions. In the bigger picture the government has not done almost any thing about the terrorism issue. The security hawks in the government have been completely silenced or they have agreed to the general direction of using these events for appeasement and vote gathering.

This is deeply shameful. The country's integrity and sovereignty is at stake. At some level the reactions of then Maharashtra CM and deputy CM to the carnage can be attributed to short sightedness and political and national immaturity. But now there are signs that the congress party think tank has decided to use these events to their own goals.

But for a politician it is nothing new. Politics being art of the possible. But there is always a limit. Of all the failures of this version of UPA, the most biting is this change in strategy. Unfortunately the alternative to all this is equally bad and I see a very bleak picture for the nation ahead. There is not viable alternative to congress, which itself is completely collapsing under its own weight, when it is not crossing boundaries which it should not cross.

It is about time calmer heads and deeper thinkers prevailed.

Working at the speed of trust

Some time back I had this training from my organization. This was not necessarily the training I like to attend. But this was kind of a different training in a crazy way. It was really a lotus eaters delight. And as I am one such nut case, I really liked it.

Here are some thoughts on it

I definitely agree to the maxim that speed travels faster than light. If there is any thing that is going to cause a huge jump in productivity, it is basically trust that gets us to jump multiple levels in productivity. In software business, it is the next thing to the smart design and work allocation and tracking.

The training was by Franklin Covey institute and they have a book also along with it. I do not want to break their copyright by giving excerpts of their work here. So there are just some random musings inspired by the book and training. I am not even saying that you should go for that training or should buy that book. None of these two things have ever worked for me. Even if I am a self confessed self-help book junkie, the books that affect me most are the ones which are not written for doing so. So here is the divorce from the training and the book.

I think there is an interesting perspective of looking at trust, trust can be both directions, outward and inward. trust in others and trust in yourselves to achieve the desired goals. First thing that needs to be done when you want to trust some one is that you should build up that trust in others. It is a strange thing that comes back as much as you give it out.

The training really brings up this fact completely. Building trust is a very lengthy process. Losing it may not be. There are scientific steps which can be taken to build up trust. It needs the relationship to go through a set of levels before trust is built. It needs both the parties to be mature and winning. There is a high chance that trust can be broken and then it takes you down a very bad slippery slope. Inherently trust means that you would not have spent time building alternate solutions. If that happens, then once your trust-party fails you, you can never recover.

If this has to be a “fail-safe scenario” , this means that there is another angle to trust. It is of interdependence. There is another angle of making your dependencies soft. If your dependencies are soft, this means that you can still survive when everything else fails. And if every thing succeeds, you are at the pinnacle of success.

Trusting some one also means that the person you are dealing with should not have any exterior motives about your failure. If some one is fully inclined to make you a failure, it is very difficult to trust him. That's why trusting people is an issue in case of an environment where you are competing for survival. In an environment where you are losing ten percent of people annually you will be most probably collaborating with, it is really difficult not to think about stabbing people in the back when the opportunity provides. Some one trying to build trust is exactly giving the same opportunity to your competitors.

But in the long run, trust is the best way to achieve some semblance of justice in all this process is to be yourselves and ensure that people are always supported and helped. Working towards a greater goal and benefits of the collective may look like a day dream. but people have been achieving this even in case of worse situations than this. There are proofs of such behavior in extreme situations like the concentration camps. Then it should not so difficult to put it to use in normal office scenarios. You need not be a saint to reach there. As man is a social animal, soft power has been built by normal people and more competitive scenarios tackled effectively.

So we are just being our natural self when we behave in a collaborative manner. Only people with a deep sense of lack of confidence in their own abilities can rule this out. What is done is always more important than what is seen. If you do really stellar work, it can not be kept in cage because of just incompetence.

As a leader, the lead should ensure that the same thing happens in the team as well. Being the lead of my team, I am the owner of the direction, culture and success of it. My success should be measured with the ease with which I setup the culture of initiative, ownership, belonging and achievement in my team. In that sense, every team member should be like one to me. This is again some thing that is contradictory. How can I behave exactly same with all the reportees if I am the one who is going to differentiate between these two times a year. Or as the thing goes, I may be asking some of these to leave. but that is completely different track and I should be able to behave independently in both these situations. I think I need to do a bunch of stuff to track these things.

 

The TED talk that introduced me to myself

 

This is based on the TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

This really rang a bell some where. It made some thing in my life clear to me. It rarely happens at my age and at my stage. that's why I am thankful that it has happened and I would like other people to know about this.

750words.com, the site I use for writing my diary, rates this writing as self important. I am sure, it feels like that so take the things below with a pinch of salt. But I think these thoughts are important for some people I want to reach. Especially some of the dear friends who have been with me and really know me. I want to get them thinking in the same direction. I am just hoping they will find this at some point in time in some dusty unvisited corners of the web and then they will understand and learn. So I am daring to publish this .

Expressing myself has always been a passion to me. This was from a young age. I found myself to be an excellent performer when I found that the subject mattered to me. At this point, I would be so involved with the subject, that it will be one for me to think about myself OR think about the subject.
One such thing happened today which took me back in to the early days of stand up mimicry in my school. I just built on day to day stories I was exposed to. I used material which I found on my way to school or day to day materials in use in school or at home. I took the Belan, I took car lining and built wonderful stories out of these. Most of the stories were impromptu. In fact I failed when I tried to practice before. Those were the days I was blessed by the stage goddess. The audience danced at my fingertips. If I remember it correctly, I continued doing this for around three years. It could have been a speech competition, it could have been an one act play or any thing else to do with standing in front of people and doing my stuff.
One thing I know now that I was always considering the forth wall to be opaque. That means that I would never consider and work for the forth wall, which in performing arts jargon is the spectators. I would be in the bubble of my own in front of a crowd of multitudes. And that was my key to success.
Several important things happened in life. These included matriculation, cut throat competition in college, movement from a small town atmosphere to a fully cosmopolitan environment like my engineering college.
The fun of performing and the ability to succeed has been visiting me on and off. On my best day, I would be the best programmer, I would be the best thinker, I would be the best designer and the best student. Thankfully for me some times it happened at the right times. I was at my puzzle solving and thinking best when these two opportunities arose, in terms of my first job and in terms of my most important jobs till now, that is MS. I did so well in the projects I liked. I sucked royally in the project which did not please me. Apart from far basic, physical limitations: for example, my pronunciation in case of English theater and enunciation and lack of thoroughness in understanding the interplay of emotions and convey them properly in my body language in case of Marathi theater; it was always my intentions and involvement that decided the extent of success or failure.
So I notice that my pleasure and my expectations have a great part to play in my success. Any thing, however easy it may be, can fail if it is not pleasing to me OR I am not interested in doing these.
But the most important thing I notice is that  I always failed when I did things to impress or please some one. Even theater gave me less pleasure when it was done to impress some one. Only when I did it for myself I liked it a lot. It is something like the TED talk I am referring to. Some higher entity would stay in the abode of my body and soul for these moments.In all these cases, I now notice that I never played to the gallery. The best / the ideal came to inhabit me for some fleeting seconds when I was the most dissolved in satisfying myself with the pursuit.
Now that this thought is complete, I am relieved. I am not a software engineer who draws a huge salary. I am not even the best coder and designer. I am not the best actor that ever was there. I am not the best stand up comic.
This is what I am. I am just a conduit to all these higher forms. My day to day life is blessed with comfort because I allow all these entity to reside in me from time to time. I keep my body and my thoughts clean for these higher life forms, which may be mine, but are short lived. I should do every thing in my capabilities to ensure that my body,mind and thoughts are clean to receive these. I should always ensure that my body is flexible,supple and strong enough to achieve greatness when the greatness comes to it.
Otherwise I am just a middle class small town boy. That is the reality and I should live this reality as profoundly and clearly as possible. Any deviation from this reality will not achieve anything else but just drive the djinns away who perform through me.

movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

 

This is the third Narnia movie I am watching and I think the interest level is going down by each version. This is not a very interesting situation to be in. The best face saving this has always been the lion. Aslan is very much real to the fiction.

It suits really well to the lofty designs that C L Lewis may have.
But apart from that the movie has been a disappointment. This disappointment was completely overshadowed by many firsts and achievements. The best thing about it is that two of the three kids managed to keep the three dimensional glasses on (the third one was sleeping) and watched a fair bit of movie quietly (around half an hour) before being lulled in to sleep. This is an achievement because generally they convert the movie hall in to their play ground and do quiet a bit of shouting and distracting other people. But this movie some how changed that.

The second achievement is that they really liked the part that they saw. This was the sword fight by  the rat and the lion talking to the kids. They really like the majestic lion. This means that the film maker has done some thing winning here. Apart from the lion and the funny bits about the cousin turning in to a dragon, the movie was a bore. Either it does not have any thing to put OR it tried to fit too much in to a single movie.
A bit about the story line, in my opinion seven conquests is in fact a dangerous number of conquests to have in a two hour movie. It becomes one too many. So it looked like most of the swords are won without much efforts. They were just to be taken without any specific challenges. Even the last sword was actually captured and then the dilemmas started. By the way, it bodes not well on the imagination of a bunch of crew if the only thing that is most fearful to them is the huge slithery worm.
The other visuals and dilemmas also came in and went away without any context. I think the story did not do justice to the hard work put through by the graphics crew etc. The good point there was that the target audience, the kids and preschoolers could not have cared less about the story. They got what they wanted from the movie and thus it was successful.
But as I am reading the novel currently, it does not do any justice to the novel as such. I went to the movie with my parents, wife and kids plus nephew. all of them really liked it. Along with my wife who also watched her first 3-D movie with glasses on.
I tried to get her to watch the earlier three D block buster, Avatar but I had to hear about my weird choices of the movies for quiet some time since that time on. But this time it was a good family fare, not too jerky, the good won over the evil easily, which in turn was just a itsy bitsy evil at all. Put this together with good swords fights, a bit of comedy, a touch of brouhaha about human fallibility etc and we have a family entertainer right there.
I have not yet reached this part in the novel so I am not sure whether they have been very truthful to the novel. But the seven adventures looks a bit curtailed to me. I think the best way to look at these would be at least two full length feature films where the back ground is set in one movie an with first three challenges. The second movie could have contained the next four challenges and then the victory celebrations.
But for all said and done, it looked like the directors also wanted to get over this tedium of movies and go ahead to more meatier part of the stories.
I do not buy in to the talks of this being the last movie in the Narnia stories. In fact this is the part from which the lion does not figure in the stories. But the franchise is still on and I think has done enough to prepare for one more movie.
I think the next movie will definitely decide whether there is any life in the franchise at all. I think the story line and presentation will matter the most.
Thankfully my kids did not need to think about this. They were very happy playing the lion, the dragon and the rat alternately. And if the next movie also gets them to do the same, you have a winner at hands.