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.

The city dwellers

When I tell you that a Banyan tree is about my idea of wilderness, & a crow is about how much I care about ornithology, you can make out exactly how much of an city person I am. And Venkat, I do not think has made it too much beyond the borders of Chennai, to start with and Bangalore lately, for anything more than a weekend. For him, if a place does not sell Scotch you can safely call it uncivilized, or wild. SA, of course, does not care much one way or the other as long as he is getting his sixteen hours supine & the remaining watching NDTV. SC, well, let's not go there...

Contrast this to Manoj, a one time wannabe vet & now a passionate technology professional, whose home in distant Sagar, then, was destination weekend for this bunch of gentlemen and a lady, reluctantly slipping away from their twenties.

And thankful though we all are to him and his folks for being such endearing hosts, for those cups of fantastic filter coffee, for the simple delicacies of their kitchen and for the warmth and heartiness of their hospitality, I look back with yearning at the rain soaking incessantly the ubiquitous green earth, the lake with a carefree litter of lotus leaves, the roads bending around the water gushing in the perennially inundated canals, the raindrops lingering on the arecanuts, & the mountain in the distance and finally at the summit, past a long, at times treacherous, drenching walk, the wind too strong for umbrellas, the elation too much to contain, the clouds cleared for one brief moment revealing in a dreamlike manner behind the curtains of still heavy rains, the tiny inconsequential bits of life we define ourselves by, so that the only, almost inevitable, thing to do was to stretch your arms and say, "Let there be light!"

The city pulsates, but it is incapable of making magic.

Nukes, America and India

Published: July 24, 2005, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush in effect legitimized India's nuclear arsenal last week, offering to sell it technology that has long been forbidden to anyone who played outside the world's nuclear rules. So what will senior officials say on Tuesday morning when North Korea opens its long-delayed negotiations with the West? "I can just see it now," said one of those officials, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the talks. "They come in, throw a newspaper from the other day on the table, and bellow: 'How can America demand that we give up all our nukes, while you just let the Indians keep all of theirs?' "

It's not an unreasonable question. The long-term implications of Mr. Bush's decision may not be clear for years, and some short-term risks seem evident to critics now. The timing is particularly awkward, in a summer of extraordinary tension with North Korea and Iran. "Asia is the continent with just about the most complicated nuclear problems we have: India and Pakistan, North Korea and Iran," said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "And by accepting India as a de facto nuclear weapons state, you are telling other countries that if they just hang tough, and put up with sanctions for a while, sooner or later they will be rewarded with status and military power. Is that the message the Bush administration wants to send?" India is no North Korea. It is a democracy. And unlike Pakistan, which gave rise to the biggest nuclear proliferation ring in history, it has kept strict control of its nuclear stockpile and its bomb-making technology. But the fact remains that for decades India flouted the world's nuclear safeguards. It ran a huge, secret nuclear weapons program, made easier by its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It built its weapons by diverting material from civilian nuclear plants - just what the United States says Iran is doing. Iran denies it, but so did India - until it conducted nuclear tests. Still, as a matter of realpolitik, the administration argued, it has become silly not to acknowledge, at least implicitly, that India is a nuclear-armed state. "Our national interests have been intersecting," said R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, who spent months working out elements of the deal, including India's commitment to allow inspectors to visit its civilian nuclear facilities (but not its military stockpiles) and to adhere to provisions of the non-proliferation treaty that are designed to prevent further leakage of nuclear technology.

"India needs energy and prefers clean energy, which means nuclear," he said. "It is worried about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and it is worried about terrorism. Those are our interests as well. And we know what kind of country India will be 25 years from now: A pluralistic democracy." That last point is telling. Washington is far from certain what China - India's nuclear-armed neighbor - will look like in a quarter of a century. So even while embracing the Chinese as the key to solving the North Korean crisis, Mr. Bush appeared to be bolstering China's longtime rival.

The administration hopes to sell that to the Chinese by noting the deal includes Indian support for a new global treaty that would cut off the production of all new fissile material, the stuff of bombs. Eventually that could cap India's nuclear program. The counterargument is that Mr. Bush has again divided the world into America's friends and its enemies, giving the first a pass and showing the second the stick.

It is unclear how he will deal with Pakistan; not long ago, he declared it a "major non-NATO ally," but administration officials say its proliferation record means it won't be seeing a deal like this anytime soon. Nor, the administration insists, will the North Koreans.