Happy new year 2007

Wishing you and your family a very happy and prosperous new year 2007.

Thank you (you know who you all are) for your wishes. I am really grateful especially for all those who have become friends in this cyber world thru this blog. Thanks for taking time to let me know your comments either via e-mail or by leaving right on the blog. I have learnt a great deal from your many insights. Continue to keep them coming. It's win-win to share and learn.

Hope your resolutions stick for the new year and beyond and help you to achieve whatever you are aiming to achieve. Use right means towards right ends and you will be successful. Wrong means do not justify even right ends. As Gandhi said "full effort, full victory."

Cheers for the new year 2007!

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Software schedule

"I suspect the typical software engineer doesn't work overtime to make the schedule, but in order not to feel so bad about not making it."

--- Tom Demacro in "Why Does Software Cost So Much?: And Other Puzzles of the Information Age (Paperback)by Tom Demarco

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Agile Estimating and Planning

Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series) [Paperback]
By: Mike Cohn

A lot of books on agile do a lot 'talk the talk' and fall short on 'walk the talk'. This book is rich from practical standpoint and is indispensable for all interested professional especially if you have the hard job of selling agile development to your management.

Mike Kohn, as the author, is simply a master in teaching 'how to' behind whole agile development methodology. He does not take any particular fancy to any one methodology ( be it XP or SCRUM or Crystal) but drives towards an unified view of the principles and delivers practices that can be put to use directly.

Agile does not ignore planning. It is just advocates adaptive planning and execution. Knowing the fact that you can only foresee to the extent, it provides a formula ( literally a math formula to determine your visibility in literal sense) for how often to plan, how to refine, how to setup a release plan, how to engage the team and whole gamut of release management from agile standpoint.

One book that should be read before jumping on agile bandwagon before putting 'pedal to the metal'.

The book is one of the finest books on agile in the world that has been flooded with many books on the subject. This stands out as a real jewel.

Cheers!

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Lean Software Development

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers... [Paperback]
By: Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck

This is a very informative book which looks at best practices that revolutionized manufacturing industry and how they can be intelligently applied to software engineering.

Sometimes in our zeal to bring engineering discipline to software engineering, we strive to make software development like a true engineering profession. However, often times, key distinction that is exists very clearly is  missed. The key distinction is product development v/s product manufacturing. We  miss out product development part of it and try to discipline software development like manufacturing. This book address that distinction very well and gives some nice ways to adopt successful principles of lean development which were pioneered by Toyota.

Authors who have had extensive experience with manufacturing and software development combine their in-depth knowledge of both fields to provide many best practices that can be directly applied to software engineering. 'Avoid wastage', 'Kanban' (JIT) etc. are easy to understand from manufacturing standpoint but translating them into software engineering requires a lot ingenuity. Authors bring this out very well.

'Innovation can not be scheduled' is probably the best punch line of the book. If we get just this out of this book, it's worth it.

Nice perspective and support for agile development practices.

Cheers!

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Wisdom

"Common sense in uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom."
                                            -- Sam Coleridge

Probably the best definition of WISDOM.

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Snakes in Suits

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (Hardcover)
by Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare


Psychopaths, sociopath, asocial, antisocial - these are all the terms, many times used interchangeably and many times irresponsibly to brand people. Many time even a small displeasure may prompt us to brand someone as a psychopath. But, who exactly qualifies to be a psychopath, what are their characteristics, what are they trying to achieve etc. etc. are burning questions. This book attempts to answer many of them.

Full thumbs-up to authors for being successful at presenting dry psychology in a very interesting and captivating manner so as to appeal even to a common reader with some interest in understanding interesting terms such as psychopath. Very well woven with day-to-day examples and a case study which runs parallel to the main theme of the book. That case study makes this more like corporate thriller than a book on psychology. What a page-turner? Simply an excellent book.

Authors, quite rightly, caution users not to jump into conclusion and brand someone as a psychopath. No untrained person can determine with certainty if someone is a psychopath merely based on observing some behaviors and some characteristics which seem to resemble the characteristics of psychopath. Authors use a very good analogy to drive home the point. All of us have blood pressure. Without which humans do not survive. But, just because we have blood pressure does not mean we have high or low blood pressure and related diseases. Similarly many characteristics, such as deceit, cold bloodedness, treachery, back stabbing etc. etc. are present in everybody in different amounts. What makes psychopath is the presence of these negative qualities in abnormally high levels. We can not determine the levels by mere observation of certain behaviors. Even if these qualities show up in an individual at some point in time, they may not be lasting to make him or her a psychopath.

After reading this book, the risk of identifying oneself or others with psychopath and related symptoms are very high. Especially in these paranoid times of ours and world full of paranoia. That's the big risk if readers selectively absorb the material in this books and do not take into account of the cautionary message that authors are trying to drive home. That's really bothersome. If people in key areas of responsibility read the book with paranoia, they might start branding everyone as a psychopath at the slightest display of negative tendencies.

It is good to know about the theory behind psychopath and that psychopaths exists and they many times come to work along with us. However, let that not make us become paranoid and start viewing every other human being with suspicion. Trust, as such, is very hard to come by and cultivate. But, trust is the bedrock of successful career or for that matter any relationship or endeavor requiring team work.

Psychopath has become more of curse word in the hands of untrained mind. This book attempts to set that straight with its honest plea to understanding the term and giving up its usage in common sense as it not meant to be used in common vocabulary because of the rigorous discipline that is required to understand and use it professionally.

Excellent book.

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Future

"There is no future in any job. Future is in the person doing the job."

Nice quote.

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Six sigma green belt training from www.6sigmastudy.com

Six Sigma Quality Program has become a very respectable quality improvement program all over the world after renowned companies such as Motorola, Allied Signals, GE embraced it and made it a defacto corporate-wide initiative. Motorola has publicly acknowledged that it has saved more than 13 billion dollars directly due to its focus on six sigma quality. Jack Welch, legendary CEO of GE, who does not get influenced by fads, thoroughly researched this program and was so influenced by it that he championed it at GE.

6 Sigma concept is very simple at the core. Reduce the variability, deliver consistency. Excellent goal for manufacturing, call centers etc. Not sure how it has been used in software engineering.  How effectively defects are fixed in a software release may probably benefit from six sigma.

A nice framework of knowledge, similar to PMBOK by PMI, is built around six sigma to help practitioners . Different "color" belts are awarded to practitioners with different levels of proficiency with six sigma program. Starting point is "Green belt". A person with "Green belt" is expected to "talk the talk and be in a position to learn to walk the walk". Different organization offer six sigma certification on completion of certain hours of classroom or self study followed by a test to measure fundamental understanding of six sigma.

For PMI certified professionals, getting certified in Six sigma is a good thing to do. Six sigma embraces PMI provided project management framework to run a six sigma projects. Thus, PMPs who develop increasing knowledge of six sigma make themselves very useful to organizations which embark on six sigma. Depending upon further interest, one can gain further expertise and become PMP equivalent in six sigma by acquiring "black belt" which is the ultimate certification in six sigma. Very demanding certification as one has to have done a lot of practical and real life six sigma work.

www.6sigmastudy.com provides a very economical and effective way to get green belt certification. The course and the examination cost only USD 225. Course material is very useful. To get all that material, you probably have to scour dozens of books. Certification process is simple but not something one can get without putting adequate effort. Every module has a test at the end which one has to pass with 80% before moving on to the next module. Although there is no restriction on the number of times you can take a test or no controls on being able to "cheat", the amount of time it forces one to go over the study material itself  makes one get at least surface level understanding of six sigma. After all, that is the goal of six sigma.

This web based certification is very well administered. Once you pay the fee using PayPal, the course becomes available and you can complete the certification anytime within 3 months. Realistically it takes only 3-4 days at the rate of 2-3 hours per day. Each case study and the test based on the case study is better attempted on a new day.

This web site is the sister company of www.pmstudy.com. I have a lot of good things to say about them as well. Their sample tests for PMP certification are probably one of the best. Very close to the PMP exam. Once again very reasonably priced compared to other training programs. PMStudy.com also has several courses which provide PDUs once you become a PMP. Overall an indispensable resource for PMPs and wannabe PMPs.

Another good thing about getting six sigma certification from this company is that you get 25 PDUs that you can use to meet professional development and continuous learning requirement for PMPs.

Cheers!

Speed is Life by Bob Davis

Speed Is Life: Street Smart Lessons from the Front Lines of Business (Hardcover)
by Bob Davis

Before "Google"  became the defacto search engine, Lycos was quite popular as a search engine and as a web portal. With its acquisition of popular web sites such as Tripod, it was a force to reckon with. Lycos was one of the early internet startups which shaped the internet and search as we know today. It competed with Yahoo and many other search engines. In fact, before Google came to prominence, it was quite good and did a nice job of web search.

Bob Davis, who founded and ran the company for 6 years till its merger with Spanish media giant Terra, is the author of this book. In this book, he shares details about himself, his time with Lycos and business knowledge he gained while running the book. By any means, a passionate account from a passionate business executive.

Well written. Fast read.

The author regrets that his efforts to merge Lycos with USA Interactive (of Barry Diller) did not succeed and sighs that if it were to go through it would have been "as or more successful" than the merge of AOL and Time Warner. I think his crystal ball was colored more with personal regret than anything else. As the whole world came to know about, AOL and Time Warner merger was a marriage made in "hell" and Time Warner which was "acquired" by AOL had to try hard to get rid of AOL and a lot of stigma attached the whole deal and its affect on the value of the company. It was a big mess which the current CEO Dick Parson is still trying to clean up. "Fools Rush In" is a great book capturing the drama behind the merger of AOL and Time Warner and the comedy it became.

Anyway, good read. A lot of business insight.

It is interesting to research what happened after Lycos merged with Terra. Did anything similar to what happened with AOL/ TW followed here as well? Not heard of. But, Lycos is no more a name it used to be. Google has put all search engines behind. Lycos portal exists. Tripod still lets people build nice home pages, blogs etc. But, what happened to stock holders and their money? Needs some investigation.

Cheers!

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Magic Formula Investing

This is the accompanying web site based tool for much acclaimed book -"The little book that beats the market".

Good book and a simple web based tool showing the results of the calculations and formula described in the book.

I have not been a big fan of get-rich-quick formulas to buy and sell stocks. But, once you carefully read this book, a lot of what is said in the book is based on solid fundamental analysis which takes you closer to valuing the company well. It is no brainer that if you can value the company reasonably well, buy the stock when it is trading well below the value and time your trades well, you are going to be better off the market. Thus this book puts basic value investing to good practice.

The author, a well acclaimed professor of finance, has gone ahead and made available the tool at http://www.magicformulainvesting.com/ absolutely free of cost. Certainly deserves some praise here. Interesting thing is that the list of stock recommendations generated by the tool are pretty neat. Most of them are trading well below P/E of 15 which should be one of the criteria to base your trading on. That way you do not end up paying more than a reasonable price. The formula also takes into account other things such as return on capital etc. to make it a more sound investment.

5 stars.

Even if you do not want to use the formula and practice as recommended by the book, you can use the tool to eliminate many companies which would have taken substantial time if you were to do the research using other means.

Cheers!

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Dor

Dor - hindi movie starring Gul Panag, Ayesha Takia, Shreyas Talpade, Girish Karnad. Directed by Nagesh Kuknoor.

After a long time, a good movie. Kuknoor who has created a genre of his own with his creative movies delivers a simple yet one with deep emotions. Refreshing to see actresses such as Ayesh Takia, written off as glamour dolls, delivering some good performance. Also good to see is people like Girish Karnad coming back although in a very small role.

Movie is about two women. Husband of one is allegedly killed by the husband of the other when they are working together in Saudi Arabia. The accused is going to be executed. Only way to save him is if the widow forgives the killer and explicitly instructs the court to release him. So, the determined wife of the accused resolves to get what she desperately needs from the wife of the dead. Does she succeed? How does she manage to do what she does when she does not even know where the wife of the dead lives? Answers to these questions forms the heart of the movie.

Gul Panag as the wife of the accused and Ayesha Takia as the wife of the dead are excellent. The chemistry is unmistakable and perfect for two women who go thru emotional roller coaster. Shreyas Talpade's performance is good too. Nagesh Kuknoor and Girish Karnand take small roles and do justice.

Very well picturized in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Beautiful folk music for background is a nice one. No unnecessary songs or boring dialogs. After a long time one nice movie.

Cheers!

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Thumbs up for http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com

Received good service from http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com.

Was searching for a place to buy printer ink cartridges. This store had good prices. Their customer service shone when I had to make some changes to the order. When you order online, it is many time hard to change it without confusing the seller. But, with this company, it was a breeze here. Just sent an e-mail to make the change and ship the order accordingly. Did not really hope that it would be taken care of and order would be shipped correctly. But, I was pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail confirmation from customer service to that effect, a new bill with prices correctly adjusted to reflect changes and the products shipped in no time and on my door steps in less than a week. That being shipped from the west coast.

I have not yet used the cartridges. So, can not say anything if the inexpensive cartridges cut the mustard. But, it was refreshing to see an Internet business operating smoothly and having some intelligent people who can understand customer requests and process them accordingly. With so many businesses full of workers whose stacks would overflow if you ask them to do little different than their prescribed regiment. Try "water without ice" instead of what they are used to "water with no ice". And you will cause the stack overflow.

Thumbs up for - http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com

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Practical Product Management

There are not many training courses or training companies which impart training in Product Management.

Product Management is not covered in adequate detail in MBA programs. Even those who specialize in 'Marketing' get to learn more about 'Marketing' which is only a piece of the product management. For any role in software development, exposure to product management can be helpful because what we develop or help get developed is a product or service which is owned by someone with designation of 'product manager'. It does not matter if anyone understands what that role is meant to be.

Pragmatic Marketing a niche training organizations which provides several training courses meant for product managers. The most useful and generic one which aims to provide good basic foundation in 'real' product management is 'Practical Product Management'. This 2 day course taught by experienced trainers is a good place to start and depending on your interest you can choose to do additional courses in requirements, marketing etc.

Pragmatic Marketing also offers a certification which tests applicants on the basics learnt in their course. It is a certification that is gaining credibility in the market. With everything being equal, employers certainly prefer someone with such credentials because that shows that the person has gone an extra mile to augment his/her knowledge.

I took PPM course recently in Boston taught by Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing, Outstanding class and outstanding instructor. There is a lot of material which is covered. So, it's fast paced class without unnecessary role plays or similar such rituals which many such soft training programs suffer from. Steve Johnson as an instructor is excellent. He draws from his diverse experience and delivers good training in his inimitable style packed with a punch of humor. 2 days well spent.

Certification test is also well developed which aims to test fundamentals learnt in the course.

Course material is good. Not bulky. Meant for frequent referring. Many pointers to where to find additional information. Tonnes of templates. A lot supporting material on their web site.

All in all a great training program. Worth the money. These classes are held all thru the US often. Try if you want to get a head start in product management. Even if you do not do product management you can teach a thing or two to people who are doing something totally different in the name of 'product management'. That's the tragedy of software engineering. Anyone can become anyone without formal training. Try that in electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. Unless we develop a sense of professionalism in software engineering with clear focus on development, product management, project management, our field is going to continue to much maligned. But trends are indeed changing. It is heartening to see employers insisting on PMI certification for project managers and SCRUM certification for all those who claim to do agile development and other technical certifications for technical experts. Way to go...

Cheers!

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Run v/s stand

"Sometimes, good run is better than a bad stand."

What it means is that sometimes giving up on things that are not important is better than fighting for them. Saying - you win, I lose and then moving on is better many times. It is which battle which we choose to fight and which we try to give up and yield small victories to the other party.

Remember - "Life is a war won by carefully choosing all the battles not to fight. And many battles are not worth fighting anyway." "Do not sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff."

Cheers!

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Run v/s stand

"Sometimes, good run is better than a bad stand."

What it means is that sometimes giving up on things that are not important is better than fighting for them. Saying - you win, I lose and then moving on is better many times. It is which battle which we choose to fight and which we try to give up and yield small victories to the other party.

Remember - "Life is a war won by carefully choosing all the battles not to fight. And many battles are not worth fighting anyway." "Do not sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff."

Cheers!

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Wheel

"Don't reinvent the wheel." I will buy that. IMO, there is only and one thing that needs reinventing. That is 'YOU' and you alone. I would rather term it as discovery than invention. It is the  discovery of  all that we never knew we had in us. In many cases, we would need someone else to steer us in the right direction of self discovery.

We also need new situations and circumstances which will force us to think out of box. In order to go after new situations and circumstances we need to get out of comfort zone and stick our neck out. Remember - "tortoise may be safe when its neck is drawn in its shell. But, tortoise can move only when it sticks its neck out."

Good luck with your self discovery.

Cheers!

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Honey v/s Vinegar

"You can attract more flies using a drop of honey than a gallon of vinegar."


Very nice put quotation. Often used in Dale Carnige's books.


So, does 'honey' in the above quotation mean sweet talking someone into doing something they may not want to do? No  leader worth their salt ever try to manipulate people. "You may fool some people some times. You may fool some people all times. You will not be able to fool all people all time."


What this quote means is that we can take empathetic approach to any argument and first make the other party understand that we fully understand or trying to understand their point of view. People are willing to give up certain things  after they are satisfied that they have been listened to. People are reasonable and do not stick to their opinions stubbornly. They will yield but only when treated with respect, empathy and more importantly listened to with full attention.


'Honey' in the above quotation means all the above. Being nice to people, making them comfortable, diffusing all their defensiveness by being very approachable. Of course, you also have to understand that you also can not get everything your way. Both the parties have to meet somewhere in the middle and be happy about doing so.


Don't think that this approach works best only when you do not have power over the person you are dealing with. You can use the same principle even with people reporting directly to you on whom you have officially granted (however ineffective it may be) control. Using your power may be able to coerce people to doing something they hate to do but it come back to bite you. Defense mechanism of people is triggered as soon as you approach them. Very soon you will end up having a team which you have destructed so well to be of no use.


Tom Demacro, in his book 'Slack', says something like - "in order to have real control, you have to give up false control." What Demacro is saying is that by giving up the control over people and putting them in charge, you are automatically making them feel empowered and protect your best interests. Isn't that better control than being able to crack the whip for no good results?


So, use honey often. Not the term. Not the material. But, the concept.

Cheers!

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Red light

Have you ever crossed a traffic junction with red light on? I mean inadvertently. Without any intention to run thru a red signal.


If you have, can you remember the most important thing about that incident? In all likelihood, you ran thru a red traffic light when there was no traffic at all.


It brings up a very interesting question. What is more influencing a red light or the sight of other cars at the junction which make us slow down and follow rules?


There may not be one right answer here. But, the fact that moving traffic in and around your car provide a strong feedback to your driving as much or more than the traffic lights.


Same thing is true when you miss strop signs. Sound of oncoming traffic, even a flicker of light etc, are more poignant reminder than the actual stop sign.


Cheers!

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Peopleware

Peopleware by Tom Demacro and Tim Lister.


One of the classics of software engineering. This addresses much ignored 'soft' side of software engineering. Focused on people, organizations, organization behavior, how organizations help or hurt good software development, people management and how old type 'task managers'  hurt more than they help.


Tom Demacro is one author who has latched on to 'soft' side of software engineering and has developed very valuable insights. It is very important that we benefit from his insight from long drawn experience.


Another thing that makes his books interesting are his style. Very simple, conversational and to the point. His books are organized as a collection of small essays. You can read 1-3 essays in one sitting and you are not overloaded or unde loaded.


I am glad to reverse my original impression about Demacro. My first exposure Demacro was thru one of his books which was prescribed for the project management course I had done as part of my graduate degree way back in 1999. The book was written as novel and set in some imaginary land. It did not appeal to me that much.


But, 'Peopleware' and the other book 'Slack' that I am reading now have really changed my impressions. I am only glad. Otherwise I would have missed out on treasure of valuable insights.


Cheers!

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Peopleware

Peopleware by Tom Demacro and Tim Lister.


One of the classics of software engineering. This addresses much ignored 'soft' side of software engineering. Focused on people, organizations, organization behavior, how organizations help or hurt good software development, people management and how old type 'task managers'  hurt more than they help.


Tom Demacro is one author who has latched on to 'soft' side of software engineering and has developed very valuable insights. It is very important that we benefit from his insight from long drawn experience.


Another thing that makes his books interesting are his style. Very simple, conversational and to the point. His books are organized as a collection of small essays. You can read 1-3 essays in one sitting and you are not overloaded or unde loaded.


I am glad to reverse my original impression about Demacro. My first exposure Demacro was thru one of his books which was prescribed for the project management course I had done as part of my graduate degree way back in 1999. The book was written as novel and set in some imaginary land. It did not appeal to me that much.


But, 'Peopleware' and the other book 'Slack' that I am reading now have really changed my impressions. I am only glad. Otherwise I would have missed out on treasure of valuable insights.


Cheers!

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