Every once in a way

The good part about being in India is that you toss your clothes into a basket & back they come washed & pressed. In the US, you can still toss your clothes into a basket but in this country, they just sit there looking dirty & crumpled. So you'll have to demean yourself by washing your own clothes. And while you're at it, you might as well be reading a book by the hotel's poolside, if listening to the washer & dryer is not exactly an eclectic practice of leisure as far as you're concerned.

So there I was sitting in my most nerdy pose looking absorbed & boring when a sweet woman came by & said that I'll have to excuse her for lunch. I figured that she was in charge of looking after the guests by the poolside & the gymnasium. I quickly assured her that I had no intentions of jumping into the water or out of the building, & she could bet a hundred dollars that I wouldn't touch the gymnasium with a barge pole.

Now I carried on reading & in the absolute solitude of the poolside, it occurred to me that I should tell the woman about how she is working for a "visionary" company. I say this because the book I was reading was "Built To Last - By Jim Collins", & it spoke about these great companies which have been exemplary in both their commercial & social aspects - so much so as to be treated as icons in their respective industries. Marriott, the hotel I was staying at, was one of them.

So I read for a while more before the woman came back. I calculated that my clothes must have dried by now. So on the way out, I excused myself & explained to the woman what I had read about Marriott & asked her how she felt about working here in the light of what I had just told her. Here is what she had to say in her slightly Hispanic flavoured English:

“Thank you, Sir. I have not read the book. But it does not surprise me. I know that I am working for a great company. I know because I see it on the face of everyone that works here.”

Diwali

Maala pherat jug bhaya, phira na man ka pher
Kar ka manka chhod de, man ka manka pher

Question, examine, do not be institutionalized. A slightly bird's eye view of this Kabir doha learnt decades back. And decades later, the same lessons put down in print by a New Yorker. Edward Said & Kabir. Eons apart, aren't they?

Traditions of yore. Continuation for the sake of it. Unconditional acceptance of the has been.

What will you burn this Diwali? What will you illuminate?

Us and them

Among one of the things which is sometimes not addressed by managers while they are forming a team or when a project is starting off is the team or role specific bifurcation of goals which at times leads to the warping of the overall business goal. So the testing team does just testing, the development team does just development, the manager does not really care too much about the business domain and technologies, except perhaps a 35000 foot level summary of the entire solution space.

Add to this, the volatile nature of requirements and stiff timelines - and what you really have is an attitude of "how do I get out of this?". Next comes the strict delineation of responsibilities at a micro level, & therefore it becomes nobody's' responsibility to oversee that the solution as whole is the way it should be.

That everybody is a stakeholder in the project in her own right, is a notion that is neither marketed nor ever sold. Especially in the Indian environment, the drive to get certifications, define and collect metrics, & documentation heavy process models mean that you have just a lot of data ( though I doubt how representative or true these data are), & perhaps a lot accountabilities fixed - but these aren't necessarily contributing to the ultimate business goal i.e. solving the business problem. What this is doing however, is taking focus away at a managerial level from the solution to the solution delivery process. At the same time, such data is important as it is used in future sales pitches.

It is important to revisit and reunderstand the following:

1. That, irrespective of well defined granular responsibilities, it is ultimately the product that is the most important.
2. How the team is helping: If actual numbers are not too sensitive, percentages can definitely be exposed. Numbers apart from money can be shared. This will go a long way in cementing a tangible picture of the ultimate business goal that the engagement is helping with.
3. Encourage communication and personal interaction - Change is inevitable and the turnaround time is of critical importance. It is okay to bypass change management system in the favour of speed & product quality. Increased communication helps build trust and solidarity & helps catalyze such actions.
4. Look to fix the problem & not the blame/responsibility.