random ramblings

Was reading this :- Take the September 24-30 issue of The Economist. Page 76, opened at random, offers some startling statistics about how companies work inside. According to a study commissioned by Dov Seidman, author of "How," 43% of American employees surveyed say their company works on a command-and-control culture–management by coercion. Another 54% say their employers are top-down, but with a dollop of carrots and sticks, and talented leaders who try to inspire followership–a category Seidman calls "informed acquiescence." Only 3% actually practice employee self-governance, where a shared set of values and principles guide employees in their work and align them with the company’s larger purpose. The Economist goes on to report that, unlike the employees in the belly of the beast, the bosses at the tops of companies who were interviewed saw a very different picture. Bosses, according to the study, are 8 times more likely than the average to say that their...

I was looking for what is recommended as the must reads for an “IT Professional”. Below is the most recommended ones I came across, not in any particular order. If you know any other must read, do leave a comment. Code Complete – Steve McConnell The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master – Andrew Hunt, David Thomas Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code – Martin Fowler Introduction to algorithms – Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs – Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software – Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides (Gang of Four) The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering – Fred Brooks Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams – DeMarco and Lister The design of everyday things – Donald Norman The Timeless Way of Building – Christopher Alexander Psychology of Computer of Programming – Gerald Weinberg ...

I went for a walk/run today morning, after maybe 3 years break – was able to complete one round of a football field. Incidentally the field was in the same college where I had gone to collect application forms around 18 years back (time does fly). We need to cross this field to reach the office, it was deserted that day. I got robbed while returning after collecting the forms and being my first experience in a college campus, I didn’t know that one should keep the mouth shut – I said something sarcastically, the guy punched me hard in the stomach, I lost my breath and he kicked me for a good measure. That was it, I never set foot in that college afterwards and didn’t apply there as well. About a year ago we moved into a house right across that college, so now from the living room, my view is of this football field. It is now a morning walk destination for residents around the place, so today I decided to start. College had changed, but the field and the broken steps, overgrown bushes ...

Slow and steady wins the race. Being very fast wins it too. You should be confident. But have humility and don’t be arrogant. Be practical, but stick to principles. Have rules, but not too many. Be obedient, but nobody great was ever obedient. Get a degree, but college education is a waste of time. Earn money, but too much money means no life. Have passion for the job, but being too passionate about your job could lead to being a workaholic. Always move forward. Never look back and wonder. But history repeats itself and one should learn from the mistakes. Be honest, but too much honesty could cost you. Talk to enemies, but get your job done. Satisfy the customer, but not at a cost. Make a profit, but don’t be greedy. Be transparent, except when it can hurt you or someone else. Have a great career, but give time to family, don’t stress too much. Be ambitious, but be ethical. All we want is peace of mind and being comfortable, but don’t be in your comfort zone, push yourself. Be a capit...

8 days, 1400 kilometers, 4 hotels, one burst tire – had a great trip to wayanad and ooty. Wayanad was on our list for so long and it didn’t disappoint at all. We visited Tirunelli temple, Banasura Sagar Dam, Pookode Lake, drove to the base of Chembra peak, Soochipara waterfalls and stayed at Vythiri resort for one day. Drives were great – way to Lakkidi, Tirunelli temple, drive through Meppadi to Ooty, way to Chembra peak. Wayanad roads were pretty bad at stretches. It must be in one of those ditches, my tire was torn, not punctured. I found that I didn’t have the wrench, but luckily found help – there were multiple tire repair shops in that town. It was like déjà vu – I had seen a comedy clip from a movie a week back, it was about three people who called themselves “Puncture Brothers”. They would put some nails on the road, someone will wait around for a car to go over them and then they will be around for help. This town was just like that – with such roads around, they must be gett...

I had attended an Agile Project Management session this week. I have never executed project in agile mode yet, but have read/evaluated methodologies for quite some time. I think the fundamental philosophies (better collaboration, prototyping / visible working software, customer involvement, prioritized requirements, self managed team taking responsibility without assignment, just enough documentation and processes, adaptability) is something that should be practiced irrespective of the methodologies used, even if it is waterfall. One thing though – there was one statement that “people don’t know what they want, until they see it”. Maybe corollary is that “when they see it, they would want something changed still”. It is so true in real life. I am going to go off on a tangent. I keep hearing so many things from people about what they want to do – one thing is common, most of people want to do something other than what they are doing, but don’t know exactly what. I feel those who kn...

Once more, people are writing off Obama – there are articles about how he could be one term president (he said he would rather be good one term president one and half years back). So the story continues with another twist. I have been following Obama’s story since almost four years. I first heard about Obama through a Time magazine article when he was a senator – it was portraying him as potential presidential candidate. From then, I have watched the speech at DNC which made him a contender overnight, read the profiles of everyone associated with him – his mother, father, wife, advisers like Plouffe, Axelrod, Jarret, Gibbs, signed up on his election website to receive news, followed primary by primary, every debate, elections, through every up and down, inauguration and state of the union addresses and got familiar with sites such as TPM, DailyKos and even know which columnists are his fans and which are not. It is a fascinating story – or the media and his PR sells it like it is ...

Good quote Everyone can look perfect or they can look terrible. And it’s true for every job, as well. Every boss. Every co-worker. It’s a pretty safe bet that we all live our lives somewhere between the perfect and the terrible. And nothing is really really good always. But there is still sometimes. Because the really really good parts exist only in brief moments. So when you think you need to switch jobs, or switch cities, or switch spouses, or switch any of the other bazillion things that you might feel are not as good as they should be, remind yourself that your job, your family, and even your dinners are probably pretty much the same as everyone else’s. And remind yourself to enjoy those brief, really, really good parts. Count your blessings kind of thing. But mainly I thought it is interesting about balance between perfect and terrible.

There was a library newsletter with list of new books acquired. It had books like “25 Stupid Mistakes, Stock Market”and “SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS -The Birbal Way” – so I asked them what is the criteria of selecting books to buy since the library don’t have books like Mythical Man Month, Making Things Happen, Design of Everyday Things etc. They replied promptly (happily surprised) to send a book recommendation and they will consider. I use this reading list as one reference. What would be a good list? Two quotes:- about winging it without reading the masters of the field How dare we, then, decide to just wing it? To skip class. To make up history. To imagine that science is a matter of opinion, something optional, a diversion for the leisure classes… How can we work in the marketing tech field, for example, without knowing about David Ogilvy and Lester Wunderman and Claude Hopkins? Or Kaushik and Shirky? in similar lines, about learning the history of your chosen field Learn all o...

At lunch, we were discussing about Dhoni persisting with Piyush Chawla and leaving out Ashwin saying he is more stable character. Similarly read the criticisms of Kamran Akmal and why five Pakistan captains have carried him so far. It may be too simplistic to think that these are simply captains’s choices alone, but still. I think the question is how far do you support someone with the hope that he will rectify his mistakes, find his form and ride this blip? How do you know that by giving someone a chance to not let him down is actually putting him a bad position of having to perform something he cannot at the moment? How do you know if your ultimate support for someone who is underperforming is not bordering on cronyism? Sometimes letting someone down may be good for both the parties, but it is a hard thing to do. The reason these resonated so much with me is, once I had persisted with a team mate thinking he will improve, by trying to mentor until customer asked to remove him f...

1. There is a standing debate on whether to become a specialist or generalist. I guess sitting on the fence on that is called versatilist . I had an option once to move into a package specific group after working on it for years, but decided against it since I didn’t want to do that alone for rest of my life. Gaining enough depth is some things and enough breadth was more appealing – trick probably is to know what is enough depth/breadth and not end up knowing nothing. Jack of some trades and master of few? 2. My current project is doing a transition for 3 months and moved on from knowledge transfer to secondary support, we were discussing today morning about subtle differences in the way things were explained in classroom vs how they are actually done. Happened to see this article today on procedural knowledge – obvious stuff, but it is expressed well. Article quotes from the book The Design of Everyday Things by David Norman (had this book in my list for too long – ordered today...

"They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around." — Bill Watterson I have saved this strip – I think it follows where Calvin hopes if the right place is a comic book store, so you can hang around in front of that. I was thinking about this initial advantage. Heard this in Radiolab podcast On Success with Malcolm Gladwell as well – about a random initial advantage maximized over a period of time. Of course, small things like hardwork, passion, attitude and a little bit of genius helps. It is not about the initial advantage through quirks such as which year you were born etc, but advantage created by people with own initiative. I have been involved in setting up a new team recently – given everybody gets same chance and starts from same place, looking at how people come up differently. I have seen people becoming go...

One of the blogs I follow regularly is Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. Her stories of startups, suffering from Asperger’s syndrome , weird mix of seemingly unrelated anecdotes, personal references and thoughts on career is interesting and often thought provoking. Like this one that Prom is a career stepping stone . Excerpts:- The thing that is most difficult in work life is adjusting to different cultures as seamlessly as possible. People do not lose jobs because they don’t get the job done. People generally lose jobs because of poor cultural fit. If people think you fit on the team, they’ll cut you slack even when you don’t get the job done. In fact, the Harvard Business Review reports that people don’t even care if you don’t get the job done if they like you. It’s the getting people to like you part that is so hard. .. Asians are kicking everyone’s butt in academics. But.. Asians don’t do as well in the workplace. Because the skills that you need to do well in school are no...

Three perspectives on "the boss" from my friends.. – One who quit Infosys to start his own company – he said the best part was "having no boss and being nobody’s boss". – Second (also ex-Infy) says "They are trying to promote me. I am an excellent programmer. Why would I want to be a mediocre manager?" – Third feels he should look for a good boss to work with in future, that careers are made by following good bosses in their ventures and growing with them. It could be called "sucking up", but if you are indeed good, working with a good leader can be a learning experience. Like this quote "The advice I give people all the time is pick your manager first. A great manager will negate most other work problems, whereas an awful manager will negate most other work pleasures." So I guess the choices are don’t be/have a boss or find a good one to work with..

"When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’" —Lao-Tsu This could be the same response from people working for a worst leader also.

I was thinking about what creates a community and holds them together. Specifically communities which are formed naturally by people who are interested rather than a formal organization – like an open source community which works on a problem. Some thoughts Shared cause – which can excite / inspire / motivate people, something that can make people automatically follow. Irony usually is, such cause cannot be manufactured – it should be naturally (passionately) felt by the leaders, enough to articulate honestly why we should do something. Clear, concise articulation of problem and solution – common cause should be explained in a simple, understandable way, something that can stay in people’s minds. Discussion / contribution – if it is information coming from leaders with little contribution from the group, it cannot grow. People should feel it is their baby too who needs to nurtured and grown. There should be opportunities for anyone in the group to take a lead and suggest a change ...

a good quote – for whenever we are stuck in perfect problems. so hard to do. The only problems you have left are the perfect ones. The imperfect ones, the ones with a clearly evident solution, well, if they were important, you’ve solved them already. It’s the perfect problems that keep us stuck. Perfect because they have constraints, unbendable constraints, constraints that keep us trapped. I hate my job, I need this job, there’s no way to quit, to get a promotion or to get a new boss, no way to move, my family is in town, etc. We’re human, that’s what we do–we erect boundaries, constraints we can’t ease, and we get trapped. Or perhaps it’s your product or service or brand. Our factory is only organized to make X, but the market doesn’t want X as much, or there is regulation, or a new competitor is now offering X at half the price and the board won’t do anything, etc. There’s no way to solve the perfect problem because every solution involves breaking an unbreakable constraint. And ...

After a long time of reading only non-fiction, read two fictions in a row – Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse and L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy. Steppenwolf had a very interesting beginning, somewhat Ayn Rand/John Galt style, but it all went crazy after that. It was a struggle finishing it. L.A. Confidential somehow didn’t meet expectations at end – film was better than the book I think. But I had hard time putting it down. I would love to read a book which is “unputdownable” – but less gore, more of life and experiences. With British Library closing in TVM, there are fewer options now. My library charges 10% per book, so experimentation is limited. The best library experience was in US – 10 public libraries connected, with a decent online catalog which allows taking a book from any one of the connected libraries and you go to your local library when it is ready. You may take up to 100 books at a time, for free (they depend on public donations to an extent). It was rare to not find a ...