Steps for buying anything

How do you ensure that you are getting the best deals when you buy anything?
Following steps will help you achieve that!

Meaning of Saam Daam Dand Bhed [ साम दाम दंड भेद ]

This is the advise given in ancient Hindu scriptures. 

1.   Saam  - the policy of getting work done through peaceful negotiation

2.   Daam - the policy of getting work done through money or allurement

3.   Dand - the policy of getting work done through punishment or fear

4.    Bhed - the policy of getting work done through creating differences or divide and rule policy.

How to make a choice?

People often don't make any choice if presented with too many options!

50% of all decicions made by average CEOs take less than 9 minutes.

An average person (in USA) makes around 70 choices per week.

Following 4 steps are believed to help individual to make a better choice for each decision.

1. Cut - Less is more, make only fewer options available.
2. Concretize - Make consequences vivid. Try to understand real consequence of each option.
3. Categorize - In a way that it suits choosers' needs rather than choice maker's!
4. Condition - Go from fewer choices to more choices as you go on decision making process.

Source: TED talks

The true color of IT projects

Can you imagine someone placing you on a cockpit of a plane. Then you are asked to fly and the plane.

You have been selected as pilot based on your physics degree and understanding of aerodynamics.

You have also flown a plane before but not like this plate and the controls on that plane were very much different. For example, the throttle control on previous plane is same as landing gear in current plane.

There is no manual defining your controls. Your manager asked just to operate each lever, switch and discover what it is used for.

Will you be a passenger on that plane? Probably not.

This situation analogous to what happens in thousands of complex IT projects. There are no documentations and code which was supposed to be an agile testing proof of concept, becomes live version. The original developers left the company with the knowledge in their heads.

The passengers (end users/customers) are still being served (flown) by pilots (developers) who don't really understand what they are doing.

The IT projects still seriously lack any standardization. People still expect adding wings to a car will make it a plane.

Black Swan Event

How did Black Swan name came into picture?

For a long time, people used to think all swans are white only. It was only when black swans were found in Australia, a long-time notion was changed!

Taleb tries to explain how Black Swan events happen in real life and what are the impacts of it.


Identifying a black swan event

Based on the author's criteria:

1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
2. The event has a major impact.
3. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it had been expected.

Taleb suggests that since most Black Swan events are without any precedence, it is almost impossible to predict such events.

So, one can only accept the events after they have happened.
The main idea in Taleb's book is not to attempt to predict Black Swan Events, but to build robustness against negative ones that occur and being able to exploit positive ones. Taleb contends that banks and trading firms are very vulnerable to hazardous Black Swan Events and are exposed to
losses beyond that predicted by their defective models.

See Wikipedia for more.

The McKinsey Way

Recently I read this book. I thought of writing down the salient points so that I do not forget.

Building the solution

• Fact based
• Rigidly structured
• Hypothesis driven

The problem is not always the problem.

Don’t reinvent wheel but every client is unique.

Follow 80/20 rule. Work smarter not harder.

Find key drivers in business.

Know your solution so that you can precisely explain to your client in 30 seconds.

Break the problem into small bits and try to solve each part instead of trying to solve whole thing in one go. But don’t lose focus from big picture.

Say “I don’t know” if necessary.

A little team bonding goes a long way. Make your boss look good.

When you go for an interview, be prepared. During an interview, listen and guide.

Display data with charts.

A good business message will have – brevity, thoroughness and structure.

Maintain confidentially whenever appropriate.

Keep client team on your side. Work around liability client team members.

Engage client in solution process.

Be rigorous about implementation steps of your solution.

A good assistant is a lifeline.

If you want a life, lay down some rules.

Our Iceberg is Melting - a fable on change management

Today I went to a bookstore and browsed several books in management section.

Then I found a book titled "Our iceberg is melting" which seemed quite thin and I decided, well I can finish it in the store itself.

So, within half an hour, I managed to finish the book off!

It was a fable about penguins in Antarctica. But funny part is, authors managed to highlight how change management can be implemented through this fable.

The fable naturally draws on eight steps for leading change which I have paraphrased below into seven to make them easier to understand:

1. Get peoples' attention.


2. Establish a change-leading team.


3. Agree on the results you want



4. Allow needed changes.


5. Show regular progress.


6. Stay focused.
7. Build new habits that will serve you well after the change is done
8. Make changes stick



This book is by no means a bible on change management, but definitely a good reading on steps how to deal with it.

What is a BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY?

The relevant book where the idea came from - http://bit.ly/c55AK1

First what is red (opposite of blue here) ocean? It is the tradional market place where firms compete with each other.

Blue ocean is a new marketspace, yet to be explored. Since it is new, competitions are irrelevant there.

What is a BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY? The authors explain it by comparing it to a red ocean strategy (traditional strategic thinking):

1. DO NOT compete in existing market space. INSTEAD you should create uncontested market space.

2. DO NOT beat the competition. INSTEAD you should make the competition irrelevant.

3. DO NOT exploit existing demand. INSTEAD you should create and capture new demand.

4. DO NOT make the value/cost trade-off. INSTEAD you should break the value/cost trade-off.

5. DO NOT align the whole system of a company's activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost. INSTEAD you should align the whole system of a company's activities in pursuit of both differentiation and low cost.

Wikipedia link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy

Measurement of Depression

I searched for a scale how to measure depression but could find nothing on the internet! Which is pretty strange as I thought in modern era, almost everyone becomes depressed every now and often.

So I took the pain of defining a scale myself (time pass - eh?).

This is how the scale stands. Please note that the scale is logarithmic (like Richter scale) rather than linear!

Highest to lowest

[9] Lost off sight/limbs, permanent disablement, loss of children, spouse, life threatening illness (eg cancer) to self or loved ones

[8] Divorce (including setback in relationship)

[7] Chronic illness (not life threatening but hampers daily life)

[6] Loss of job/business [including imminent loss which is almost certain]

Set back in professional career - denied promotion, did not get the job wanted, demotion, unable to start a business venture, unable to find date/spouse etc. [ie something you want but can not get it - you feel you deserve it - but you never got it so far], Bankruptcy etc.

[5] Acute monetary shortage - not being able to buy basic necessities like food, clothes, shelter etc.

[4] Loss of large amount [relative] of money/reputation/social status or something which has psychological equivalent of money to the depressed person

[3] Unfortunate incident - accident but no bodily injury or massive monetary/reputation/etc. loss, being robbed off, pick pocketing, burglary etc.

[2] Inconvenience, water leaking from roof, broken down on road etc.

[1] Trivial - food was cold, could have saved £1 by buying from elsewhere, got drenched because didn't carry umbrella, camera I wanted is out of stock etc.

Note: This is measurement of initial depression, as time passes, the depression level usually goes down as people become accoustommed with deperssed condition gradually.

Rise and fall of Microsoft

During 1990 to 2000 - following paragraph was relevant. In fact, this is what I wrote in my blog in 2000.

Most people nowadays when buying new computers use Windows as OS. Some of them are even unaware that there are dozens of other operating systems. For example, Apple's Macintosh, IBM OS/2, Linux etc. These are for PCs. For main frames there are AS/400, Windows NT, Unix etc. It's not that Windows is the best of all, but it is really the most popular. Windows graphical user interface is not at all intimidating. In fact, it is the Microsoft's business strategy, which has made Windows #1 OS. Back in the seventies, Microsoft & IBM jointly developed DOS. At that time Microsoft envisages that computer industry will revolve around PCs rather than main frames as thought by IBM. So, in an attempt to dominate PC market Microsoft launched Windows. And it was a quick success. However, Microsoft is not the pioneer in developing GUI. Apple Macintosh developed a GUI OS longer ago when people were using DOS 3.0! Experts believe that MacOS is still superior to Windows. But, Apple made a blunder by trying to say customers what they offer than to listening what they want. Very recently, Apple is selling their most advanced PC without a floppy drive! They have included a CD writer instead. They argue that floppy disk backdated. I think that most potential buyer will stay aside form the product. Another wrong step of Apple's was that they patented their programs as well as their design. But IBM did not. When you buy an IBM compatible computer from market, IBM does not get any royalty. This is perhaps one major reason behind such widespread success of selling PCs. Among all OS Windows is perhaps the most forgiving. The IBM OS/2 may be more powerful than Windows, but it won't run if there is a slightest discrepancy in you computer's hardware.

In 2009, the above scenario has changed a lot!

Today Microsoft is quickly being replaced from #1 software giant on earth. It's now head to head between Microsoft and Google. So far, Microsoft got most its revenue from its ubiquitous operating system, Windows (various flavours) and Office products. At this very moment, both have serious alternatives. Open Office is nearly 90% as good as Microsoft Office. It is free! Linux has become more matured and one can even run it from USB disks directly. This is free too and you are encouraged to copy and distribute. All products, where Microsoft were a pioneer a decade back, has now either free or very cheap similar alternatives. Be it Microsoft Encarta encyclopaedia ( = Wikipedia), Microsoft Encarta Atlas ( = Google Earth), Microsoft Train/Flight Simulator (actually developed by Kuju which Microsoft bought later), Visio (= free flow chart editor) or whatever - you name it and we have a free alternative!

I know you're going to shout that I missed two important candidates, Visual Studio and SQL Server. Yes, Visual Studio does not have any equivalent because it runs only on Microsoft platform! On other hand, Express version of Visual Studios is freely downloadable and perfectly serves amateur developers. SQL Server still has a good market as low cost database with good features but MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle lite editions are not far away.

Very recently Microsoft announced that they will launch web editions of Office software. Alas, too little too late. We already have competing products like Google Docs, Zoho office, Editgrid etc. Still, most computers are sold as Windows pre-installed. But as time goes by, we shall see several others of being offered with Linux.

Windows Mobile was launched with much fanfare. Yet, it is now dying smart phone OS - facing stiff competition from open source systems like Symbian, Android, Linux Maemo etc.

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, failed to make a dent in Google or Yahoo's dominance.

Windows Live is a flop! Hotmail users are migrating to Gmail, Yahoo or other places.

Interestingly, Microsoft's arch rival Apple is rather going stronger!

I personally disliked Apple for their closed architectural approach to everything (including iPhone). To use an iPhone to its full potential, one needs to jail break it - which is not supported by Apple. Also, you can't use it without involving iTunes! What a rubbish concept.

Yet, Apple was successful making iPhone make a desirable item to millions around the globe.

Microsoft's Zune never managed to compete with iPod. Windows mobile is struggling where iPhone is flourishing!

I always admired Microsoft. Unlike Apple, they never crippled their software and they encouraged piracy of their product. That's why it their products got such a big market share today. I myself learned computer on DOS (and then Windows) and Visual Basic was first programming language I mastered.

So what did Microsoft do wrong?

They failed to see the power of crowd sourcing. Wiki is today's power. Voluntary collaborative approach gave birth to Linux, Firefox, Wikipedia and much more.

Bill Gates also could not comprehend power of cloud computing. He tried to stick with 1 computer 1 license revenue concept - which is now becoming obsolete.

Microsoft never invested properly to their database business, that's why SQL Server could never become true competitor to Oracle. Microsoft always targeted mass market via Windows and Office. But after World Wide Web, people every where has so much choice.

Windows 7 is a desperate attempt to get some people back to Windows. But again it is going to fail. I now like to see Linux in my computer rather than Windows.

Why offshoring works

Contrary to the popular believe in developed world, the outsourcing actually works quite well.
Let's face it - if all companies were worse of after outsourcing, then the practice would have died long time ago. But it didn't. In fact, now even more companies are outsourcing their work to offshore companies (most to India and other parts of Asia). Nowadays, not just IT but every other sector like law, education, engineering etc. being outsource regularly.
Since I am on IT sector, I can only vouch what is happening in this segment.
The traditional IT jobs in UK are very much based on imposed responsibilities. It means, employees are designated to work particular task – like developer will only develop the code, tester will only test, support personnel will just execute (without much thinking) and Business Analysts will only look at Excel charts. Moreover, managers won't have a clue what their development team is working and System Architects will have no idea of what it feels like working in a particular technology.
Most UK IT firms refuse to accept the fact that IT sector works based on role based responsibilities rather than designated based ones!
In Indian IT companies, same person invariably works like developer, designer or even in project manager roles. Not only it helps to understand issues faced by other team members, it also avoids boredom.
Support jobs are always boring. Testing is like necessary evil – not many people want to do it yet it is absolute critical for any application to undergo rigorous testing. I hate the typical project manager's question – how much percentage of the work is actually completed. Gosh, when will they understand that it is not a linear relationship? For first few months, there may be only 10% of work done. But in last month alone 90% work can be completed. How is that possible? Quite easy. When a project begins, lots of questions are left unanswered. The application is developed with voids in between. Now that application is as such worthless as it can't be put on practice for its desired role. But, when the voids are fixed, then application becomes fit for purpose. Till it happens, it is very difficult to give a percentage completion report.
I remember, one of my former project manager stopped asking me this question when I replied – it is just 43.3976% done and progressing on a logarithmic scale.
Ok, coming back to our off-shoring topic. So far we covered boredom and role rotation philosophy. But that is not all.
In India, most development work is done by fresh graduates (out of universities). They are quite happy to work at lesser salary (even on local standard compared to experienced people there) but with not unacceptable quality – because most of them are quite eager to show their expertise in programming logic.
However, on western economies, since people tend to do same work for decades, they usually attract higher salaries (local standard) with out much quality improvement. One reason here is that you can't discriminated based on age – which is quite the opposite in outsourced countries.
Since off shoring companies employ fresh candidates without real life experience, there is always a chance that they will produce junk output. However, this is taken care by strict adherence to standards. It is shame that many UK companies just don't follow any standards at all – almost everything is ad hoc!
The managers probably here don't recognize that just by implementing rigorous standards alone, a lot of time and money can be saved.
Standard implementation is complemented via documentation. Since people working in project are separated by several hours of difference time zone and no face to face interaction is possible – the onsite system architects have to be extra cautious to avoid any ambiguity in design documents.
Yes, sometimes it means spoon feeding everything to offshore team. But it works in longer run. The design document becomes so much fool proof that anyone can just blindly follow them and get things done.
Of course, there is cost advantage as well. But what I discussed here are just some other aspects of off shoring.
I shall continue this discussion later.