Are you a good Parent?

Are you a good parent? The answer of this question would give your son or daughter when he or she becomes a parent himself or herself.

Recently, I was reading a post written by business consultant Peter Bragman.

He was on an old, rustic train at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida when he noticed a majestic lion sitting on a rock on top of a hill, in perfect view.

“Aren’t we lucky the lion is out,” He mused to the “ranger” on the train with him.

“He’s always out there, sitting on that rock,” The Ranger responded.

“Really?” Peter said. “How do you get him to stay in that exact spot?”

The ranger smiled and answered “ The rock on top of which the lion is sitting royally, for all the park visitors to see is temperature controlled. It is warm on cold days,  and cool on hot days. No need to train the lion or tie him to the rock or hope he likes the view. They just make the rock a place the lion wants to sit.”

This triggered a bell in my head. Our parents played a similar role in our life. Just like that theme park, our parents made our study room the place we wanted to be in. Like a role model, our parents, proactively took care of all our day-to-day needs so that we only had to focus on our studies and overall development. Our parents also set reasonable and age-appropriate expectations with us. They empowered us to excel in each area whether studies, sports, engaging in social environment, and helped us reach our maximum potential. Rather than focusing on discipline, our parents created the right environment to get the results we needed to become competitive and successful.

It’s no secret that children can be cold or absolutely unresponsive to change, especially if the change comes from an external force. After all, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” In the case of parenting, we often see this adage put into practice when parents hire an external tutor to scrutinize their children’s way of learning, identify the problems and propose new ideas.

Leveraging an outside point of view is often a logical approach because children are too young to prefect their learning pattern; they tend to stuck in their own habits and can’t see the forest for the trees. However, this outside-in approach often leads to resentment among the children, resulting in increasing lack of cooperation and inevitably rendering new changes null and void.

This may sound like an odd analogy, but “save the children” an international organization that provides aid to impoverished children faced a problem in 1990 when it opened an office in Vietnam. Resentful of having a foreign entity on its soil, the Vietnamese ministry gave “Save the Children” representatives Jerry and Monique Sternin only six months to solve the problem of malnutrition among millions of children. Faced with a virtually impossible task, the Sternins decided to try something no one else had before: they asked the Vietnamese people themselves how to solve the problem.

The Sternins enlisted the help of the mothers at a local village to identify children who were bigger and healthier than average and discover what the families of these children were doing differently. Working together, they found that the parents of the healthy children were serving smaller meals more frequently and using different ingredients that had more proteins and vitamins. The Sternins and the village mothers used this knowledge to collaboratively design a program to combat malnutrition that, six months later, improved the health of 65% of that village’s children. The program eventually spread to other villages, and overall it helped more than 2 million Vietnamese children overcome the malnutrition problem.

So why were the Sternins so successful? Because they searched for the bright spots and cloned them. The mere existence of healthy children provided a ray of hope to the village mothers. The mothers then provided the momentum necessary to change their village’s cooking and eating habits. The Sternin’s role as ‘outside expert’ was to simply ensure that these women were able to conquer malnutrition on their own.

Why this analogy is so relevant and powerful. Our parents searched for bright spots in us ‘all the time’ and help us clone them. I remember I was very good in mathematics but not that good in many other subjects. Our parents worked with us, asked us ’how to solve a particular problem’ and took the benefit of inside-out approach.  Rather than focusing on what was wrong in our learning pattern, they focused more on what was right. The found what was working well in a particular area, and helped us duplicate the same pattern again and again. By cloning these small successes, our parents created a permanent change in our life right from our childhood.

I am so proud of my parents. Their efforts succeeded; I got admission in one of the best engineering college in India, got a good job, and happy a family. I have two loving daughters. Now the burning question is - Am I a good parent? The answer of this question would give my daughters when they become a parent themselves.

Malala: The True Hero!

Last week we read a lot about Malala Yousafzai. Malala was a strong contender for Nobel Peace Prize which she highly deserved. After all she was shot in the face at a close range, lived through it and all this did not dissuade her from spreading the message of peace.

I am amazed by the response this sixteen-year-old girl made to a question in a recent talk show. When Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily talk show asked her how she reacted when she learned that the Taliban wanted her dead.

I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, 'If he comes, what would you do Malala?' then I would reply to myself, 'Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.'  But then I said, 'If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.' Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that 'I even want education for your children as well.' And I will tell him, 'That's what I want to tell you, now do what you want.'

No doubt that Malala is brave. More than what she said, it is the conviction with which she spoke that matters. It is well understood why she is such a terror for Taliban. She is attacking Taliban’s fundamentals and its thought process; and by becoming an advocate of girl's education she is giving hope to millions of children; a hope that is about a better future and a better world.

I commend her courage and resolve. At such a tender age, she has more wisdom than vast majority of people on this globe. I wish I was 10% as brave and cool as Malala. In this world full of artificial heroes, she is the real hero!

I am looking forward to read more about about her in the book 'I am Malala'. 

When will you start your Retirement Planning?

It is an interesting topic. Is not it? I know you disagree with me. We all in thirties-to-forties believe that it is too early to think about retirement. It is many years away. True but is it really that away? I have a friend who wants to retire at 55, pursue a hobby and he is already 38 now. Last week, we met over dinner and suddenly topic turned to retirement planning. He was reluctant due to same old reason. Come on! It is too early! This time, we spent a little more than nanoseconds on the topic and he was quick to realize that is fast approaching. Another common friend who is elder of both of us was as if thunderstruck. We asked him, “Hey buddy, what happened?” He felt that he is left with too little time to plan for his retirement.

That is the hard reality! We wake up when it is too late.

I have recently learnt that it has become extremely difficult to do retirement planning, primarily due to following reasons:

Mortality Rates are low – Should that not be good news? Yes, the life expectancy is increasing with time, thanks to advancement in medical technology and increased general awareness toward healthcare. But that means more money is required to plan for additional years. Let me make it simple. Imagine retiring at 60 and expect to live till 90 years of age. For that, you need money to live 30 years without a regular source of income. Is not that a long period to plan for?

Low current interest rates – When I first realized this one, it acted like a bummer. I wish I would not have been that stupid. But I am. I always felt that low interest rates are good.  For example, low interest rates mean low monthly mortgage installment. Is not it? But Low interest rates also mean that low income on your investments including the ones that belong to retirement segment. You need much more money to save to maintain a similar living standard after retirement.

Do you agree?

Your life is Your MESSAGE to the world, Make sure It's INSPIRING

I had just returned to my home after an eventful day at work, when my wife broke the news of Steve Job’s demise. My first reaction was that it can’t be true, but as soon as I realized that it might be, my heart felt as if it skipped a beat. I sat on the couch, picked iPad, and clicked Washington Post app to verify whether it is really true or another one form the rumor mill. Sad, it was true! The world had lost a visionary and an inspiration to millions of us.

Deeply saddened, I spent next few hours reading about Steve Jobs on my beloved iPad. I read about his early years, how he was adopted, his struggles around education, sleeping on the floor in friend’s room, returning coke bottles for food money, getting free meals at the local Krishna temple, and how he was fired from the company he created. Listening to his iPhone and iPad launch keynotes (2007 and 2010) was a mesmerizing experience that makes one realize that Steve Jobs and his team were far ahead in understanding what customers want and deliver. During iPad keynote address, Steve mentioned that there existed a gap between laptops and mobiles that iPad is smartly going to fill. A tsunami of criticism followed but Steve’s team has proved everybody wrong. Today, there are multiple options available in the market, but the only tablet computer customers want is Apple’s iPad.

I listened to Steve Jobs’s commencement address to graduating students at Stanford University (2005) in which he mused on life, love and death. He told stories from his own life, and gave a message that was full of inspirations: Few excerpts from his speech:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

This speech is close to my heart and holds much more significance today. Innovations such as iMac, iPhone, iPad and others are truly phenomenal but the inspiring and heartfelt words he said to a new generation of youths were worth more than all of those. Despite being diagnosed for pancreatic cancer, he lived what he preached about and gave evidence that it is possible to do so. It was the human defiance in the face of known certainty of an imminent death and the way he challenged the status-quo and lived the time before the death arrived made him truly great. The message is clear: “Your life is Your MESSAGE to the world, Make sure It's INSPIRING”

It was 4AM when I went to sleep, still tears in my eyes!

Is there a Santa Claus?

I have recently moved to Virginia with my whole family. We along with my daughters (5 and 3 years old) are learning about the festivals out here. First we learnt about the Halloween and enjoyed it very well. We went to the Fashion mall in pentagon on the day of Halloween and my daughters liked the concept (obviously because they got candies). Christmas is around the corner now. We were expecting to do some shopping on the weekend but there was a surprise in store for us. It was all snow this weekend and at the time of writing there is at least 18 inches of snow outside our home. My kids loved it again, as they got a chance to play in snow and refresh their memories of Manali and Gulmarg in India.

My kids are eagerly waiting for Christmas now. They believe that the Santa Claus will bring many gifts (toys and chocolates) for them. It is an interesting feeling but at the same time, I thought to learn more about Christmas. I am not saying that I am not aware of Christmas but at the moment I am curious to know more about it. While reading, I stumbled upon a question asked by a little girl (eight year old) to the “The New York Sun” in 1897. She was curious to know whether Santa Claus really existed.

The query found its way into the hands of the veteran editor “Francis P. Church” who , amazed with the simplicity in which this question was asked” made a reply which later became one of the most memorable editorials of the newspaper history.

Here I am reproducing the question asked by the little girl and the response from the veteran editor [look at reference]. This is simply amazing

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Reference: http://beebo.org/smackerels/yes-virginia.html This was published in The New York Sun, 1897 "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus,"

When a candidate looses his Security Deposit

This morning, while reading the daily newspaper, I noticed news which mentioned that during the current Lok Sabha Elections, as many as 1155 out 1368 candidates, who were in fray in 80 constituencies from Uttar Pradesh, lost their security deposits.

We all know about this term ‘Security Deposit’ but very few know what does it mean and what are the terms and conditions when a candidate looses his security deposit.

I was more curious because I found that many stalwarts from UP have lost their security deposits. Therefore, I thought to explore a little on what it is all about.

So what does it mean by Security Deposit?
Each candidate has to deposit a certain amount as a security deposit at the time of filing papers for an election.

For Lok Sabha Election:
As per Section 34 1 (a) of R. P. Act, 1951, every candidate is required to make a security deposit of Rs. 10,000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand Only) for Lok Sabha elections. A candidate belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe is required to make a security deposit of Rs. 5,000 (Rupees Five Thousand Only).

For Assembly Election:
As per Sec. 34 (1) (b) of the R. P. Act 1951, a general candidate for contesting an Assembly election will have to make a security deposit of Rs. 5,000/-. A candidate belonging to Scheduled Caste / Tribe will have to make a security deposit of Rs. 2,500/- (Two Thousand and Five Hundred Only).
The amount deposited will either be returned back to the depositor or forfeited to the Government of India according to some conditions.
Following are the conditions when the amount would be returned back to the candidate

• The candidate lost the polls but secured 1/6th (and at least one more vote) of the total number of valid votes polled in that election.
• The candidate has won the election.
• The candidate has won the election even if he/she has not secured 1/6th of the total valid votes.

Apart from this there are other general conditions in which security deposit is refunded to the candidate. For ex. if his nomination paper are found to be invalid, if he takes his name back etc.

IPL Tournament – an exciting moment

After 2 weeks of intense cricket between 8 wildly distributed teams, IPL tournament has come down to an interesting moment where it is difficult to find which four teams would reach the final four. Look at the following points table.

Delhi Daredevils and Deccan chargers started with a bang, ran through each fixture in style and showcased that they are hard to beat. But Deccan has been beaten twice and Delhi has tasted defeat at least once so far.

Mumbai team looks equally good and apart from loosing two close games they have not done anything wrong but with 7 points in 6 matches they are not certainly sure of a birth in final four.

Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and Bangalore have their positive and negative moments in the tournament and they need to do the hard work if they have to reach the final four.

For Chennai Supper Kings, it is simple, they have to win few big matches to remain in the tournament otherwise they should consider themselves out.

Some might not agree with me but with such a lackluster performance so far, I consider that Kolkata Night riders are out of the race and would not be in the final four. Obviously this is just a personal thought and I do not want to hurt any feelings.

I would bet that following is the equation emerging for the final four, though I should agree that it is too early to say all this:
Four teams which are most likely to reach the final four are Deccan Chargers, Delhi Daredevils, Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab. Obviously, this equation might change if other four teams can show the grit to make a turnaround.

While, I am writing this, the match between Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super kings is on and the result would have a big impact on the fortunes of Chennai Super kings. This is sort of a must win match for Chennai team. Let us find out!

How Satan (devil) became successful in his schemes

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons.
In his opening address he said,

"We can't keep devotees from going to Temples/Churches/Mosques."

"We can't keep them from reading their holy books and knowing the truth."

"We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their saviour."

"Once they gain that connection with God, our power over them is broken."

"So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a relationship with God."

"This is what I want you to do," said the devil: "Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"

"How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered.

"Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow."

"Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles."

"Keep them from spending time with their children."

"As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!"

"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice from God."

"Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive." To keep the TV, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-devotional music constantly."

"This will jam their minds and break that union with God."

"Fill the drink tables with magazines and newspapers."

"Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Introduce more and more news channels."

"Invade their driving moments with billboards. When they go home, they should see advertisement of different home gadgets & appliances. When they go office, the bill boards should show about different policies. Keep there minds engaged."

"Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.."

"Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives."

"Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night."

"Give them headaches too! "

"If they don't give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere."

"That will fragment their families quickly!"

"Give them tear flooding mega serials in TV to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of God's message."

"Give them illusion in attractive label so they won't talk about his resurrection and power over sin and death."

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive."

"Have them return from their recreation exhausted."

"Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead."

"Keep them busy, busy, busy!"

"Send them mobile calls and SMS of variety of products. Let these satanic sound vibrations enter there ears rather than trancedental sound vibrations of the Holy Names of God."

"And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talks so that they leave with troubled consciences."

"Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from God."

"Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause."

"It will work!"

"It will work!"

It was quite a plan!

The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing the disciples of God everywhere to get busier and more rushed, going here and there.

Having little time for their Master or their families.

Having no time to tell others about the power of God to change lives.

I guess the question is, has the devil been successful in his schemes?

You be the judge!!!!!

Does "BUSY" mean:

B-eing U-nder S-atan's Y-oke?

Life Makes You think !!!

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Distributed Development and Agile – Best Practices by Mayank Gupta

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Productivity - A myth

What is productivity?

If you ask me, I would say that productivity is the most confused term I have ever heard. If you ask three people what do they mean by productivity you would probably get three different replies. Many people try to keep productivity and efficiency in the same boat. This is an attempt clear the air around what Productivity is. Do not mind if this adds a little more the confusion. Share your ideas and I would to learn from you.

Productivity in economics refers to the measures of output from production processes, per unit of input. Productivity is different from Efficiency which takes into account both the value of what is produced and the cost of inputs used.

In software product engineering, Productivity is the number of lines of code generated by a programmer in a given time period.

Do you agree with this? If you agree than it is important to read further. Time to clear some doubts.

If you disagree, you are welcome. Read on till the end and let us know if you still disagree.

Actually this definition is wrong. If this is true, I can use a code generator which would produce 50 times more code which I normally produce on a business day and I would be the most productive developer on that day. That is why most of the matrices related to lines of code are useful for nothing.

Let us think ahead. What about the following definition.

Productivity is the rate at which the end users enjoy new features. Looks interesting! Let us elaborate it using Agile methodology.

In Agile Software Development world, the productivity would be the business value delivered per unit. Here Unit can be iteration/release depending on at what level we are trying to measure productivity. Productivity and team's velocity would go hand in hand. The Velocity as measured in story points would be the productivity of that iteration.

But this is not as easy as data can be easily manipulated. Here we are considering story points as a measure of productivity. But it is easy to manipulate the story points and the team can show that the velocity a.k.a productivity is increasing iteration by iteration. The same case is with business value. Who would ensure that business value associated with easy story is correct. This can neither be measured nor validated.

Let us think further. Productivity is the rate at which the teams increase partner's (end users’) profits. What about this?

This would again be wrong. It is not the programmer's job to make the users profitable. Too many other departments are involved in between and too many actors who do not want to increase profits in any way.

The closest possible answer to what productivity is that no one has managed in 50 years of trying to define productivity in programming in any way that can't be corrupted by some means.

Collocated team vs. Distributed team – which is more productive?

Is there really any difference in working in a collocated team vs. working in a distributed team? I have worked in teams which were completely collocated as well as worked in teams which were so distributed that no two members were collocated. In my experience working in a collocated team is easy because of the effective and quick communication which is possible because all team members are sitting together but at the same time it would be wrong to say that there is a major difference in the productivity of collocated and distributed teams.

It is easy to claim that Productivity of collocated teams is more. This claim is based on the easiness and effectiveness of face to face communication. But the distance is not a barrier to those who want to communicate. Instant messengers, wiki or forums provide a quick and easy way to communicate even in a distributed environment. In the end it all comes down to how the team members communicate with each other.

In the following paragraphs, I have tried to share the challenges of collocated and distributed teams and how some of those can be addressed. Read on to go through my views and feel free to rave and rant through your comments.

It is easy to talk about the difficulties of distributed teams. Let us start with that. First and foremost, it is difficult to achieve the alignment and commitment of the whole team to the same goal and purpose. People do not really know each other and it is hard to build personal relationships.

Not everyone can perform well in a distributed team environment. The members should be self motivated, cross-functional and able to work independently. They need to be able to keep working effectively without much of big brother watching.

Some people feel isolated while working alone and therefore not able to remain focused.

To overcome these challenges, distributed teams rely heavily on communication and information technologies, such as internet, conference calls, e-mail, video conferencing, and various networking applications like instant messengers to tap into the intelligence expertise of team members.

It is time to move to challenges of collocated teams. Some people might think that there are no issues in collocated teams but that is not true. Face to face communication can bring issues if we are working in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual team. It is sometimes difficult to realize that we are getting affected by body language or other factors like hair style, clothing, smell, accent or whatever. Most of the communication in a collocated team goes undocumented and teams have to discuss the previously discussed topics again and again. If some key members miss the discussion then revisiting of same topics becomes more prevalent, obviously because of no formal documentation of previous discussions. People are more informal and they speak in their local language (slang, code words etc) in formal meetings too which is another problem. The body language might not support the words spoken during a conversation thereby reducing the effectiveness of what is being communicated.

Another interesting problem which is observed in collocated teams is that people avoid dropping emails and notes but rather waiting for other person to become free for a discussion. They continue to wait and sometimes it happens that the issue waits endlessly.

All the impediments whether working in collocated and distributed mode would impact productivity. Since I've had the opportunity to learn about agile methods I have realized that it’s literally a matter of choosing the communication methods that are suited to our environment.

To summarize, I’m not trying to claim that the potential problems of collocated teams outweigh the benefits. I prefer collocated teams, but I also acknowledge the benefits of distributed teams and distributed teams supported by the tools supporting effective communication can be equally productive. Distance would not be a barrier anymore!

Is Business Continuity Management a priority in the Software Development Industry?

44% of the Companies in India have faced some form of disaster since 2006. Companies that promise 24*7 services, are heavily dependent on IT and data management. Let us look at a survey to get more information

In April 2007, Market Pulse, on behalf of Business continuity Management Institute, conducted a Survey. This survey gives us an insight into BCM practices in fifty-four organizations, having the most progressive BCM programs in India. Let us look at some of the findings.

More than half the respondents reported at least one significant business disruption in the last year.


Over half the respondents felt that their organizations were not sufficiently prepared to face business disruptions.



Following are few more stats:
• As many as 17% of the respondents report that their organizations do not have Business Continuity Plans. Most of these expect plans to be formalized within a year.
• The maximum loss reported due to a single disruption was Rs 100 crores (USD 24.4 million) and the average reported loss due to disruptions was Rs 7.7 crores (USD 1.89 million).
• Most organizations do not feel secure about their level of BCM preparedness. More than 80% have not planned for all four of these situations - loss of facility, prolonged power or communication breakdown, disruptions from service providers/suppliers and mass absenteeism due to reasons affecting the masses (like strikes, bandhs, epidemic situations etc).
Conclusion: It makes common sense to implement business continuity management solutions.

What is ideal tester versus developer ratio?

There would not be one single answer to this question. It depends on many factors namely environment, culture and intended use of software. For a gaming software the tester verses developer ratio would be low while for critical medial equipment software it would be high.

Let us look at what can be a possible ratio for a software development project which is neither a mission critical nor just gaming software.

Project needs both black box and while box testers. The testing activities to happen include functional testing, regression testing, acceptance testing and performance testing.

- One black box tester to test the source code developed by 3 engineers
- One tester to write the functional & regression (automated) test cases for the code developed by 3 engineers
- One tester to write the performance test cases for the code developed by 4 engineers
- One tester to write the acceptance test cases for the code developed by 6 engineers

The final ratio which comes out from the above is 13 testers for 12 developers. This is not an ideal ratio but certainly one which can be used to ensure that various quality controls are in place.

Why Greene is gone?

The unexpected exit of Diane Greene, co-founder and CEO of VMware, is one of the biggest events of the year. This is end of an era. VMware is at such a big stage in virtualization market because of Diane Greene.

Diane is considered by many as one of the greatest visionaries of last 20 years and a great leader. Many of us might not know about her but a quick reading would be good enough. Read the following link to know about Diane Greene.
http://www.networkworld.com/includes/ads-pre.html

I too was one of those who did not know about Diane Greene and VMware but the recent event created enough curiosity in me to dig further.

I found that the departure of Diane is not a small event but would make a big impact. It has already made a big negative impact on the company’s share price. The share price has already moved down by a big margin in two days. While reading, I also learnt that VMware IPO was one of the most talked IPO in recent past (only second to Google IPO).

Diane is technology freak and gave birth to a new wave called virtualization by starting VMware in 1998. VMware’s first product “VMware workstation” was almost magical. It was amazing to run an operating system on a virtual machine. It was not heard before. VMware went ahead with their further offerings called GSX and ESX servers which consolidated on server consolidation and service isolation.

By bringing such products, VMware became not only the front runner in the virtualization market but became so big that it had more than 100000 customers and nearly 14000 partners which made it one of the fastest growing companies on the globe.

Now with the time, competition increases in every business and VMware too started to feel it. Few major competitors of VMware in virtualization market are Microsoft, Sun and Citrix.

In technology space when luxury becomes the basic need you never know? In last few years virtualization has become such a buzz word that every company wants to virtualize. Linux now has a virtualization support in the name of KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine). Intel and AMD made sure that hardware platforms are compatible and even thinking further whether virtualization can become part of the platform itself. This new thinking is so radical that would change the face of virtualization at all.

Microsoft is already planning to ensure that its recently launched Hyper-V hypervisor is part of Windows server 2008. And who is not aware of aggressive marketing campaigns of Microsoft.

Oops, you might be thinking that I am digressing from the topic. But I thought to give you a brief of Virtualization market before coming back to current event.

Now Greene is removed from VMware’s top post at a time when the company needed her most. She, being the technology champion, could find ways to consolidate company’s position in such a competitive world.

She has been replaced by a business person, Paul Maritz who spent most of his time with Microsoft and was crucial contributor in the aggressive marketing of Windows 95 and NT. I would not talk about his accomplishments in detail J

EMC has around 85% of the stake in VMware therefore it can take such aggressive decisions but I seriously doubt whether such moves ever help. If we agree with what market forces are talking about, VMware (or Greene) was not able to take certain forward looking decisions because the decision makers (board of directors) were not willing to cooperate. Diane was looking for a free hand while EMC chief Joe Tucci was against such freedom.

I have few doubts in the entire event

- Is it justified to remove somebody like Diane who is not just a founder of the company but ensured that VMware is such a big name in the market?
- Is it justified to replace her by a person who is new to virtualization market?
- What would be morale of VMware’s executives who are so closely associated with humble natured Greene?
- Did this change happen on the personal grounds?
- Would there be further consolidation between EMC and VMware?
- EMC and Microsoft maintain a healthy relationship. EMC even won the 2008 Microsoft partner of the year award. Did this partnership trigger this move?

We have not heard anything from Greene or her husband on the turn of events and when they share their side of story (if they?) we would get more clarity. Eagerly waiting!

I would like to end my thoughts on a funny note. When such an event happens anyone can quickly refer to the following joke

Joke:
The new CEO is given three letters by his ousted predecessor, and told to open them in times of crisis. Six months later, when things are not falling in place, new leader opens the first letter which reads 'blame everything on your predecessor'. So he issues a press release denouncing the former director and disaster is averted.
The following six months brings more problems, so he reads the second letter which tells him to reorganize the company, and he promptly fires a lot of staff making shareholders happy again.
A year later analysts and press are still demanding his blood, so he opens the last letter and reads 'time to write out three letters'.

Business requirement specification document?

Following question was raised in one of the forums on LinkedIn.

What do you expect to see in a business requirement specification document?

Here is what my reply was:
As per the 2003 metagroup report (later on metagroup was acquired by Gartner), 60-70% of the projects fail because of poor requirement gathering. In other words these projects fail because the Business requirement specification documents do not describe what they are supposed to. Or may be this is what happens
- SRS is written the way customer described the requirement
- Project manager reads this document and understands it in his own way
- Architects take inputs from project manager and SRS document and design it in their own way
- Programmer takes the design documents as inputs and program it in their own way

At all the above mentioned stages humans are involved!

Humans involved?
Two different people would understand and interpret a document in a different manner. This happens to requirement specification documents and therefore to software being developed rarely meets customer’s need.

Keep in mind that the customer does not want software. Customer needs a system which would help him in solving a business problem. It is always hard to articulate on paper what type of software would help customer.

More statistics – On an average 20% of the features described in SRS document would carry more than 80% of business value. Why not work on these 20% features first? How to come to know about those features? Would customer involvement help?

In most of the cases customers too do not know what they want. But because they have only one chance to mention (through SRS), they would write about everything which might be helpful even if not mandatory. Most of these features are nice to have but not must have.

Most of the time, when we look at SRS document, it looks like these requirements are fixed, while should not be so… Requirements evolve with time and there SRS document should not be written in blood.

Customer collaboration?
For me, the more than SRS document, involvement of customer (or customer representative) is important who can really keep a check on whatever is being developed is usable. This involvement should be from the beginning because changes at a later stage are difficult to absorb.

It is better to have SRS document having clarity of user stories which can be evolved by the continuous involvement of product owner. On high level, product owner would be responsible for the following:

- He would be the voice of the customer
- He would describe, prioritize and refine the requirements continuously
- He would be with the team and would ensure that the development team understands his (or customer’s) needs
- He would be responsible for the ROI and release plan

Opps, I gave the discussion a totally different direction but I thought to mention what came to my mind.

Vikas Hazrati , who is an active figure in Agile community in india, has come up with his thoughts on the effectiveness of seminars and webinars conducted to create Agile awareness. Please read his views at http://vikashazrati.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/spreading-agile-awareness/

Here is my point of view:
I agree with Vikas's thoughts. Whatever awareness we can create by conducting seminars and workshops would reach mostly to “decision followers” and to some extent to “decision influencers”.

But situation is not as bad. “Decision makers” are well aware with the fact that Agile is need of the hour. These days’ Venture capital firms are hesitant to invest in firms not using agile development. Decision makes are facing this fundamental change and are working towards that.

Agile is a revolution (revolution?) and mass public has to play a significant role for the success of it. A grassroots movement, motivated by these seminars and workshops, is required to increase the agile awareness level. I believe that not more than 20% of software world is aware of agile methodology at present.

As it happens with every good change, people first embrace the easiest part of it. The organizations (which started to follow agile) have gone through the agile methodology and started using it in parts. Therefore they do struggle and not able to see the real value behind it.

These seminars and workshops would ensure that the grass root level is very much aware of Agile methodology and would help in embracing methodology in its full form.

On using word revolution:
For me Agile is a revolution against those practices or rules which ensured that companies deliver what is written in requirement specification document but rarely delivered what customer actually wanted.

The Nokia Test - Are you doing SCRUM?

One of the most popular methods to understand if a team is doing SCRUM or not is through the use of what is called “Nokia Test”. It is a very simple yet very strict test and almost 80% of teams who claim to be doing SCRUM do not pass even Level 1.

Here is an overview of the test:

LEVEL 1
- Iterations must be time-boxed to less than six weeks / Do your sprints start and end on planned dates
- Is the software completely tested and working at the end of an iteration
- Can the iteration start before specification is complete

LEVEL 2
- Does the team know who the product owner is
- Is there a product backlog prioritized by business value
- Does the product backlog have estimates created by the team
- Does the team generate its burndown charts and knows its velocity
- Does the team have outside people disrupting the work of the team during the sprint

Dividend vs Growth?

Investors can have an endless debate on what should be given the priority - Dividend or Growth?
In my opinion, the answers lies in the economy. In an emerging market like BRIC where growth is the key, the wise decision would be to choose a growth oriented company. The companies which reinvest their earnings become highly successful in the growing market. Reinvesting the money is better than giving it back to shareholders as dividends.