Just Express

Freedom Fight of the Next Decade and the 21st Century

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:24:00 +0000

As journalists and historians sit back and write down about the highs and lows of this decade, I sat back and reflected over this long Christmas weekend to come to single most critical aspect of this decade which is suffocating us, making us paranoid and fearful and above all putting us into a death spiral of human societal DNA. It is changing all of us at a subconscious level. We may not sense it and may be totally unaware of it but it is changing the direction of our human society. We need freedom from its shackles and stranglehold. We need freedom from Terrorism. It is in my view the fight of the century rest alone the coming decade. It is more significant than peak oil issue and equally pervasive if not more than the issue of global warming. We are slowly becoming slaves to its dictates. Our lives are being changed to accommodate the perils and the consequences of this phenomenon and we need to fight for our freedom. The whole world is experiencing this in some form or another. Unfortunately our approach to fight and attack this issue in my humble opinion is misplaced. We target nations or organizations but fail to acknowledge that it is a mind game. If the youth of today in different societies is being brain washed, how do you intend to fight that with the latest drone aircrafts. In fact if the education system is being polluted with all the events of today, rest assured the coming generations are going to be less accommodating and less patient. It applies to both the worlds (if there is a bipolar world of west and non-west, since China is going to be facing this challenge in this century). As Thomas Friedman put it in his article that the real challenge is to combat the vastness of internet media reaching out in every home with the same message of hatred, eye for an eye, use of violence for every wrong etc etc. I think the answer does not lie in more troops or for that matter remote controlled deployment of forces to avoid physical causalities since the damage is done mentally and at a subconscious level. Now the next time, we board the plane, everyone who takes a blanket during the flight is going to be stared at, we are going to be subconsciously make our judgments and place people who look different in to typical stereotypes. Responding acts of terrorism with force and violence (where ordinary citizens suffer and the issue is dusted under the term of collateral damage) actually creates a more long term mental damage in the minds of the people which in return comes back in form of terrorism. If we continue down this path( in fact the current events are a result of similar approach for decades) we are sure bound to further erode our basic fabric of human race. We will become another animal type who could do no better but killed each other to survive. Is there an answer? I don't know but all I can say is that success stories like Mahatma Gandhi gives us a hope. In his case acts of aggression were met with a smile and peaceful rebuttal. This could be an antidote to all of this. He gave Indians a way to undo the British where one seemed unlikely. Yes there had been numerous freedom fighters who had individual acts of heroism but he fundamentally altered the rules of the game.

We need to ensure that we have a strategy to address the health of minds of our next generation on both sides of the world. Today, it is being overly influenced my the internet media, the current acts portrayed as righteous and hence create an impression that world is filled with hatred or violence which is very damaging to the long term future of our society. But we as a society are not doing enough for the future since we are too occupied in winning the next battle and as a result we are loosing the war.

PS: I am an Indian, sikh by religion who is settled in USA for the last 10 years. I have had my share of experience when the Sikh community was attacked in 1984 by heinous acts of hate crime by its own fellow citizens

Means vs Individuals: Health Care Debate

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:03:00 +0000

This is how I like to think about the crux of this current debate on health care. It may appear strange to associate this kind of parallel to the health debate but it is true. We are having this town hall meetings and discussions with two parties coming from a totally different vantage points. The law makers/decision people are attempting to base their approach, direction on the basis of statistics, data points whereas each of the town hall community set up is challenging them with their individual experiences and stories. Yes critics will challenge the data points being used by the government to promote their legislation since statistics has always been subject to that scrutiny. Similarly the individual stories and folklore ( these are apparently individual stories from other countries (Britain, Canada) which are used to amplify the problems with the health care reform) are also sometimes biased since there is a lot of human emotions involved. But to cut to the chase given the two different vantage points for the two parties the debate becomes loud, unruly and unproductive. Thanks to the media you are streamed that 24*7 to make matters worse.
I am a proponent of the health care reform but cannot provide my preference to the current government proposal since I am not done enough homework (people tend to assume the legislation based on here-say and it is a Chinese whisper at this point of time). However I am pretty sure the current status quo needs to be changed and our healthcare system needs to be fixed. As someone said the devil is in the detail which is true but individual ownership of health is a must to solve the long term health care industry. In the interim, the healthcare system needs to avoid bankrupting the rest of the economy and anything to fix it is better than nothing. Yes the medians and the means will not line up with every individual case but that is what societies have always done. Work for the masses and masses are sure not 100%.

Neil Moore: You will remain in our minds and hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:50:00 +0000

Ever since I heard the news of shocking, untimely death of Neil Moore (our Project Manager in South Dakota), on Saturday evening, I have been in a state of disbelief. It was a tragic and an unfortunate day. It has been immensely challenging to come to grip with the fact that Neil is no more with us. Neil was a remarkable individual and a great personality with a lot of composure and self-belief. I developed a deep sense of appreciation for his demeanor and approach to work as I worked directly with him in the last 6 months. His candor and his openness to employees was a refreshing change and his uncanny ability to think through a problem or an issue was indeed commendable. As I reflect on this loss to the CNSI family, I want to extend my sincerest sympathies to Neil’s family and I wish them heart and courage to bear and overcome this huge loss.

I am sure the actual SD project team members will have tons of stories and events that they experienced working closely with Neil on ground in South Dakota. I strongly encourage each of them to share their stories as a remembrance to Neil and his unwavering commitment and dedication to State of South Dakota and SD MMIS project.

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Testing Blogger Widget for MAC
This will increase the number of posts that i make.

S2 New Year Resolutions: Personal Accountability and no procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:09:00 +0000

This year I have challenged myself! Challenged not to procrastinate ☺
I do procrastinate. More than I wish and I hope. Of course others who deal and engage with me will say I am even worse. Regardless, the goal this year is to hold myself accountable. And not lapse into a victims thinking mindset. I have reached a conclusion that procrastination is a friend of failure.
Each day as I walk through the unexplored world full of events, I have choices to make and I own full responsibility for those choices. That is personal accountability for me. Personal accountability is not about the other person or holding one other accountable. I believe that I need to focus on my thoughts and actions and use that as a measure since that is more fulfilling and enriching. I think every one (and more so a leader) needs to hold the wagon of personal accountability. As Mahatma Gandhi said “ You must be the change you want to see in the world”. I am planning to start with a small step in that direction by holding myself personally accountable in professional and personal lives and do that both in spirit and letter. I just need to remind myself of this goal every time I lapse into the world of procrastination.

S2 Muses on the technology potpourri i.e. SOA, Cloud Computing, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Mash-Ups

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:46:00 +0000

Today world is filled with the next big wave of technology solutions, frameworks and panacea. But as we are seeing with the financial sector creating fancy instruments, complex deals don't take away the inherent risk and complexity of the situation. The same applies to the technology market. From client server to now SOA the technology market has been churning these solutions like crazy and yet the situation has not fundamentally changed. For everything that Larry Ellison from Oracle says, this quote is a gem (was said in reference to cloud computing)

"The software industry is more fashion driven than ladies apparel!!!"

Recently on a Gartner blog, the State of the SOA was summarized in a letter which highlighed the following

"To the CIO, CEO, CFO, CTO and shareholders,

As a result of the following I can now only deduce that SOA is a failure and any attempts at SOA will result in failure. Under my direction:

* I have failed to associate our SOA initiatives with our business needs, therefore I cannot show any value for the hundreds of services we have created ,
* I have failed to properly create and support an SOA Center of Excellence, Steering Committee or Competency Center,
* I have failed to enlist the executive staff as true supporters and evangelistscfor our SOA efforts.
* I chose to buy an ESB prior to truly understanding our SOA infrastructure needs (In reality this wasn’t my fault, the vendor said it was super duper necessary)
* I have failed to provide my developers incentives to reuse artifacts,
* It was not my responsibility to follow what was going on next door where there was a separate team dealing with BPM, I mean they are two different initiatives,
* I firmly believe that SOA is nothing more than fancy CORBA or COM.

Despite all of the things I have NOT done, SOA has failed. My additional failure to recognize and implement best practices that have been proven successful in many other companies worldwide also play into the failure of SOA.

Oh well, we should move on and try something new. On the bright side 70% of our initiatives fail anyway. The failure of SOA is SOA’s fault not mine.

Thanks for understanding and I’d like to declare in advance that Cloud Computing, Virtualization and SaaS will be failures under my direction as well.

All I can say is the need to go back to fundamentals like the financial services sector and solve the underlying business problem (process or otherwise). So next time you hear about SOA, Cloud Computing just remember it is not about IT but business.

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S2: Review of White Tiger

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:34:00 +0000

I am not much of fiction reader but took some courage when I bought the book 'White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga. Well for starters it is written by an Indian. Well let me correct myself. Aravind is a journalist and author, who holds dual Indian and Australian citizenship. The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Quite an achievement for your first novel. Back to the novel. I am not a fiction reader so the very fact that I was hooked on to the book is a reflection of some good writing by the author. Let me clarify, I could relate better with the story since I come from India. I not only associated myself with the overall concept but literally visualized the characters in my real life from India. Yes it shows the inequality, political corruption, greed, disillusionment within the story but there is a lot of truth and substance to that. The rawness in description of certain settings and encounters between the protagonist and the cast of characters add more realness to the story. Its a must read for anyone who comes from Northern part of India and a good read for everyone else.

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Zero Sum Game : Debate Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:57:00 +0000

My last blog on stock market was commented to remind me of the fundamentals of capitalism and that I was drifting to the dark side. Further I was reminded of the following

Stocks on the other hand represent ownership in a company. Value is created as the company's value increases. Yes there are speculative runs on stocks that are not based on the underlying company value, but they are always corrected. In the end the value of the company is reflected in the value of the stock. By investing in the company you are providing much needed capital to increase productivity and create more value.

Well stocks represent ownership. Correct! Organizations create value. Correct! Stock market prices these organizations values. Correct! However the very fact that pricing the true value or judging the potential value becomes an issue. yes the market pundits say that the collective group wisdom establishes the right market price. Without getting into a debate on that the stock market in this process creates two parties. The first party who anticipates that the stock is over priced and the other who thinks otherwise. Subsequent to the initial IPO (for the most part), the subsequent trades and transactions are based on continuous betting on the potential movement of the stock market value. And there starts the zero sum game. Stock markets are definitely a mechanism to create a market of willing investors for the initial offering (may that's where it creates a value for the organization). However at that time and subsequent to the initial IPO event the average investor is not aware of the information to adequately price a stock and subsequently follows biased set of information to make ill conceived decisions. I am sure that the market correction in the recent months (Dow now sitting below 7500) makes every one reassess that the theory of acceptable multiples of P/E. Regardless the average player in this market is definitely playing with odds stack against him or her and more than likely is working against a similarly handicapped investor on the other side.

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S2 Muses the Stock Debacle : A Zero Sum Game has no winners...

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:59:00 +0000

A lot has been made about the recent Dow Jones crash in the last 30-45 days. I as like millions of others has observed and come with their own theories of this debacle (wasteful spending on wars, poor credit market, sub prime mortgage mess. But instead of thinking and justifying the events in retrospective, I thought and tried to analyze the crystal ball from a different perspective. It stuck me! Stock market is a zero sum game. By making that statement, I am challenging the premise that does stock market really create value? Because behind every transaction (profit or loss) there are two parties that offset each other ( one who sells more than the intrinsic value of the stock wins and the one who buys it is a looser). So technically there is no real value being created but a steady amount of movement of cash in different hands and hence giving a perception of wealth creation. The reason this is difficult to recognize this basic phenomenon, is the macro representation of the economy that there is potential growth involved and hence the potential upside movement of the stock. I am sure the converse is true in the bear market. I think the sooner we realize that stock market was created as a a mechanism for ensuring easy and cheap credit and not a value/money creation manufacturing plant the better of we all will be. Yes there are economist pundits that will belly this whole theory and tell me that this is a typical myth of the common man but I thought i wanted to challenge the so called day trader champions (you will make millions of dollar by following the technical analysis) who imply there is someone out there who is on the receiving end of this strategy. Also in the midst of all these transactions, the financial service companies eat their brokerage fees. Wow, on top of not creating value, we have just reduced the pie every time. In my mind the only thing that counters this zero sum equation is that future holds more potential than the current or let me say future is not the same as present and hence the potential of change. What is the time horizon? Where is the present ending and future beginning is a debate in itself but for now the next time you think you cracked the stock market movement and hence made a buck or two (thousands and millions for the big league) remember there is someone sitting on the other side of the world or coast loosing the same amount.

Long Time Coming: World has Changed

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:25:00 +0000

It has been only 3 months since I wrote my last blog entry and the world seems to have been turned upside down. I would have assumed that to be the case after presidential elections in November but the financial markets had a plan of their own.The financial market mess has shaken everybody from their ill conceived idea that we are going to always grow, and there is enough room of growth in the global economy. Not to say that the financial market mess is a contradiction to that assertion but definitely has gotten the world to a grinding halt and make it reassess its modus operandi. These last 3 months are going to be historical since they are going to be referenced in numerous writings, books and case studies for ages to come. The unflappable Alan Greenspan the most widely recognized messiah of free markets finally succumbed and finally admitted that he was wrong in his understanding of the self regulatory power of free markets. Let me correct myself. He said he was partially wrong. Either way, the Adam Smith school of thought has had a foreclosure and the Keynesian school of thought is the hottest commodity in the market. Sure there are plenty of prescriptive articles being published, smart authors catching on with writing books (from pen to print in 30 days) claiming the deep understanding and dissection of the whole mess (in fact more account of unfolding of events) and tons of new lines of business(America is creative with it service economy) addressing the financial mess( consultants to manage your debt, avoid foreclosure and of course numerous law suits on the Wall Street companies and executives). Also it is funny and ironical that the 'Socialism' word has been picked up in the media like crazy whether it is the unfortunate branding of Obama policies as socialism by Sarah Palin and /or the bail outs being termed as big socialism efforts. I guess it is going to be debated ad nauseam for the next couple of years. But what does it mean for me as an individual? Yes my tax money is going out to saving these banks and investment houses as some one will say, yes my future is more unknown than before and yes, I will be struggling to assess the impact of all of this on my mind set towards spending, investing and self growth. But I have to say one thing I will definitely cherish(cherish may not be an appropriate word) that I have experienced this in person. I was not living around the Great Depression and was too young to understand and decode the Black Monday in 1987 but this time around I have had the capacity to see and observe the the apocalypse. Tough times ahead for each one of us and during tough times, we need to work as a team. I am sure someone will say this is leaning towards socialism but even the capitalists cannot deny that after all 'Man is a social animal' and that is is what makes us different from the rest of the animals.

A Sad Day: Randy Pausch is no more

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:56:00 +0000

Randy Pausch, the professor whose “last lecture” made him a an inspirational speaker died Friday (July 25th) at his home in Chesapeake, Va after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer . He survived 6 more months than what the doctors told him so. And he did it in style, living every bit of it and sharing his ideas and thoughts in more than one way. Truly inspirational talks!! It made me realize that never give up one's passion and life is brief so enjoy it and relish every second . For those who are not aware of him, do listen and watch his last lecture; you will sit back and ponder and rethink yourself. I guarantee...

Managing Budgets and Costs: Life on the other side

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:32:00 +0000

In the last few days I had to send emails out as the head of my business unit to manage and control costs. Least to say it was a very interesting feeling as I send the email out. Previously when I used to receive this email from my boss, I used to get sometimes flustered, sometimes found it unacceptable and totally inappropriate. I am sure similar reactions must have been discussed by my team as well. It is a natural reaction. The few weeks have been an eye opener in terms of costs and managing budgets. These things are very trivial when looked in isolation but quickly add up to the bottom line. It is funny, as I read in light of the oil prices surge and impact on airlines, that the airlines are trying to reduce costs in creative ways. For instance, they are reducing the amount of water they carry in the aircrafts. Their cost reduction economics say that if they reduce the overall weight they carry by 25 pounds they save 440,000 per year. Now for a given flight it might be an insignificant amount but it is a reasonable cost savings in tough times for the airline. I am sure there are other ways of wasteful expenditure that can be controlled but sometimes is not seen in the same priority order as others would assume. Anyway, I am quickly learning the dark side of accounting and finance which has given me a new perspective on things. I cannot fully say it is the right guidance framework though the Wall St. and financial world will tell me it is a numbers game. All I am doing is playing a balancing act as of now before I either become a part of the dark side or quit the responsibility.

Status Reporting: To be or not to be

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:10:00 +0000

The recent weeks there have been conversations and discussion around Status Reporting. Both up and down the organization food there seems to be an inherent distaste for the status report. Sometimes it is around the content of the status report, sometimes frequency and sometimes the very existence of one is questioned. It made me think and ponder. So I did some reading and came across this perfect write up that summarizes in my mind how some of us feel around status reports and growing organizations. Thanks to Rands in Repose blog for the following paragraph

"

There are two organizational inflection points which drastically change communication within the organization. The first change occurs around fifty or so people — this is the moment when, if you’re an early employee, that you first see someone in he hallway that you do not recognize.

This is troubling to you because, until that point, not only knew everyone on a first name basis, but you also knew what they were about… what they were responsible for… what floated their boat. Now, there’s an unknown quantity in the building.

This awkward, but necessary evolution of the organization, passes. You accept the fact the company is growing and you decide to focus your attention just on your group… who cares what those schmoes over in the support group are doing, anyhow? You’ve got an engineering organization to build.

The second organization inflection point happens somewhere around two hundred… two hundred and fifty. The problems identified during the first inflection point are serious problems now. Fiefdoms have been created in your organization and they’re not talking to each other. What made your organization great early on, great communication, is still going on.. it’s just going on inside of each of your organizations and not across them.

Executives in these larger organizations may be the first to recognize this when they’re meeting with these different organizations and get the impression these individuals teams don’t work for the same company.

"

The context of this is at the end of the day communication is required to know what is happening in the organization. There is no better solution than a status report. Period.

So now comes the question around frequency and content of the status report. Two things are important in my mind. Producing a status report should not be a long drawn out process. The reason it ends up being is because as the information flows through the different levels it takes a change in format and style. Also after some time people don't take them seriously and it becomes a copy paste process.

Is there a solution or a fit all for this problem pool. I don't have a great answer but if people continue to be serious about thinking status report as a reflection of their quality of work, I think we can make this whole issue on status report more effective.

Like Churchill said, it's a horrible system but the alternatives are even worse. Why? Cause we don't have a good way to deal with decision making in complex systems.

Gosh , I need to complete and update my status report :)

Doing Increasingly More with Increasingly Less

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:43:00 +0000

As the US economies goes through a tough time and borders on the edge of recession, every organization is required to do a lot of soul searching of their business plans and their operational model. As experienced economists fantasize and visualize the world through their ideal world models the and seasoned politicians shmooze their their way with grandiose plans, what does an individual employee do as his part to support the organization. That's where the individual team member,developer, tester, middle manager and everyone can act like an entrepreneur.

What I've always believed in is that under ALL circumstances, we need to do increasingly more with increasingly less. Period.

This is not a call for beating one self up with more workload, more stress and less available time. It's just the opposite. On the contrary it is a mechanism to get through tough and trying times where one needs to trust the gut and follow the smarts and that is one can do more with less. That's what our American spirit is all about. It creates winners that produce better stuff using fewer resources.

This is a call for evaluating every small decision you make through the lens of operational and financial efficiency. Will developing a small utility help me operate more efficiently than the way I do today? Does it save time or rework for me? 100's of decisions by individual team members actually contribute to the success of any undertaking. By wearing this lens of operational and financial efficiency they can not only contribute to their immediate teams but also establish the spirit that yes we can do increasingly more with increasingly less.

S2 Appreciates Quiet Strength

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:36:00 +0000

I have been intrigued, motivated and impressed reading the book from Tony Dungy. This was a very powerful inspirational book from one of the well respected and revered coaches in the NFL. The most apt statement that has been resonating with me which I find most suited and apt to day to day work place environment is the following

Whatever it takes....

No excuses ,No explanations

Today's high stress, pressure projects (no different, no less than the NFL game time pressure) warrants to embrace this mind set. The theory is simple that there are no excuses and no explanations (justifications) and every team member needs to do whatever it takes. Yes there are the independency champions but nothing is more involved and interdependent than winning an NFL game. 53 people playing in different sets(offence, defense, special teams) contribute to winning the game. The offence can turn over the ball and put defense in a bad situation or the special teams can make the starting position for offence miserable. But there are no excuses, no explanations every individual has to do whatever it takes to win the game. The results may not be immediately available but this is such a fundamental mind shift that the long term benefits of this are immense.

I just hope, I can spark that in my team and as someone said charity starts at home so I need to embrace this first in letter and spirit. So I will do whatever it takes to succeed ...no excuses and no explanations. The results may not be immediate but they are going to improve over time period.....

S2 Muses: Leading Indicators of Project Success

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 04:07:00 +0000

I think one of the industry wide pain point is the continued lack of success of large complex IT projects. Post mortem reports galore, lessons learned plenty, infinite measurement points but the guaranteed success remains elusive. This makes me ponder what could be a leading indicator of a project success. A lot of the metrics are after the fact analysis like schedule slip, cost overruns, defect rate etc. For me a leading indicator will be pointers that identify critical aspects of the project even before a project is started. Well for example the need for a leader or a project champion. Increasingly in organizations the project champion is stripped of all powers to make some tough decisions or the project champion is constrained by a consensus decision making process. The need for a consensus decision making points to a lack of well defined vision, goal of the project. Also if a project has a long life cycle it has little chance of complete success. More than likely at the end of the project battle will emerge a wounded tired bloody survivor and not a victorious soldier. Anyway I would like to listen for these leading indicators. For one of them I believe is to establish before the start of the project that there will never be a increase in the budget and /or a change in the timeline once started. The only thing that would happen is a trade-off requirements.

S2 : Life is lonely on top

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:30:00 +0000

The last month has been least to say eventful. There have been a few changes in my workplace and I have been a part of the roller coaster ride. I guess we are still going through the bumpy ride though I hope we are no longer in for any flips or deep drops. Well you never know since as you go up the food chain, the air is thin, its lonely and things happen. There are more procrastinators than well wishers. There is little to gain but a lot to loose. Yet, I chose to go for the ride up the top since I wanted to experience the phenomenon. I hope in my attempt to perform, I do the right things. It may not be the desired final outcome and applauded by the world but it will be an honest and sincere attempt to do the right things. The first thing is to have a participative process of decision making. People construe participative decision making sometimes as consensus based approach but that is not the case. Participative decision making requires active participation from the right stakeholders in a decision (from top to bottom) but final decision making lies with the person in charge. It implies that the rational and the approach behind the final decision is understood by all the participants I recognize my limitations and limitations of my position in the overall context of the organization but I see that as typical of any situation of life. My self grade will involve assessing myself how well I did within those constraints. The second aspect is to have the right team around me. The key aspect of any team is trust and the ability for the players to line up behind the captain and support each other in the most productive way. People may think they are supporting and very participative in the organization activities but that is not the case. One should read the five dysfunctions of the team for an eye opener. Star performers of the past assume that they are not to perform day in day out. On the contrary, the star performers are expected to perform at the same high level day in day out. Like any professional team,a star performer gets the necessary limelight when the team does well and gets severely dinged when the performance takes a nose dive. Well all it warrants is a lot of soul searching? Do I have that team? Maybe or maybe not but I believe that I need to trust the team first before they can trust me. I have to give them my vote of confidence before expecting them to trust me. I am ready to do that. However if things don't change for the good in the immediate future there will be changes in the team or if need to at the captain level? The expectations are high, challenges galore and odds stacked up against me. However I have trust in my God, my skills and my team.

S2 Muses: Star Players and Dysfunctions of a Team

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:32:00 +0000

I believe this is often discussed, spoken and written subject on the subtleties of team dynamics. You don't appreciate the phenom till it impacts your bottom line. An analogy from the world of sports. The indian cricket team has all time star players who will be remembered in the cricketing history books. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid are recognized, established stars and they continue and continue to deliver stellar individual performances but the Indian team fails to reach any greatness. They are medicore at best sprinkled with real bad and glory days. That points to the inherent difficulty in assessing the complexity of the solution. (Note : the indian team has come together as a team to back one of their players who has been recently banned showing some unified spirit). Who is responsible for the team to act/play like a team? The obvious answer lies in the team leadership which is the coach and captain. However, I believe on the contrary that it is the resposibility for each and every individual player. Better said than done. The team's cohesiveness and coherene is orchestrated by the mastero and he needs to be constantly engaged in ensuring that players are alinged since a single player who is not mentally and goal wise aligned can ruin the show. Yes, we do tend to sack captains and coaches whenever a team fails without addressing the root cause. This is not necessarily bad since it is better than not making any change or making changes that just do lip service and hope for a miracle to rescue the ship for yet another time.

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What would you have Mobile Phone or Electricity?

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:34:00 +0000

With the political stage heating in the US for the next presidential elections, I thought this might be one of the crazy ideas to the potential candidates.
Politicians in India text (read SMS on mobile phones) to plead for votes on the election day. While some remote locales of the nation still don't have electricity -- but that doesn't mean the politicians cannot reach them on their newly distributed cell phone freebes come election day and request their vote using the power of SMS. Reportedly, about 30 to 40 individuals living in a Dalit village some 50 miles from Sagar in Madhya Pradesh are trudging around 12 miles per day just to get their mobile phones juiced back up for the next 24 hours .

I am not sure if they are getting their value worth since I don't assume they expect informational messages other than the latest cricket scores ( India got thrashed by Australia in the first test match) and latest bollywood movie releases. Everyone wants their attention. And I am sure Nokia is happy since they get to add yet another set of client to their customer base.(Nokia has 90+% market share). Well I guess we are not going to see any sign of electricity being piped out to this remote region in the foreseeable future. But as politicans will like to tell you what counts is for the public to first get them those necessary votes and then only they can bring in the changes. After all what can be more important than to gather support and mass for a leader running short of votes
This may appear rather amusing but it is an interesting aspect to the amazing growth of cellphones in India. The facts of this are courtesy of site (Engadget).

High Road to happiness in life

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:54:00 +0000

This is the best way to go about leading your way through daily ups and downs. This is truly the high road approach to life. Thank you Mother Teresa.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered ... forgive them anyway
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives... be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies... succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may cheat you... be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight... build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous... be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow... do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it will never be enough... give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God...
It was never between you and them anyway.

S2 Personal Challenge : Wish My Dad Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 07:55:00 +0000

It is a testing time for me as I come to grips with a personal crisis. My Dad had a massive heart attack this Sunday (India Monday morning), was rushed to the hospital and went under a heart operation. He is on life support as I write this blog waiting to board my flight from Frankfurt to Delhi. I pray and hope that God is merciful and gives my family the courage to come through this testing time. I am confident about it and I am sure he will recover for he has been an inspiration to me in terms of his sheer will power and defiance of any form of defeat. He is a fighter and he is going to fight this out too. But the events in the last couple of days were a humbling experience from two perspectives. One is on the personal front where sitting 8000 miles away, I could not provide any comfort and care to my mom and dad in the difficult time. Your success as an individual in terms of professional achievements and personal assets is naught when it could not help your very parents who are fundamentally responsible for your success Second is a more philosophical in context. The very fact that we as humans have created this illusion that we are in control of our environment and surroundings. Scientists and doctors make us feel that we know more about our human body workings than ever before. It is true in one respect since we can control many life threatening events from the past but we are far from conquering the body and its working. I have a suspicion that we will never conquer the uncertainty of life and we just need to learn to accept it, adapt to it. As I close this blog write-up, I just hope that my Dad is recovering fast and furious since I expect no less from him since he inspires me every second with his energy in life at his age and his zealousness to his work (he teaches kids physics these days).

Halo Effect: Delusions and Critical Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:06:00 +0000

After a very long time I completed a book end to end. The book title was ‘The Halo Effect’. Many of you may already observed that on my IM personal message few days ago. I was intrigued by the book only because it started with assertion which closely lined with my personal thinking. The very thought all books whether self help books (rich dad, poor dad), business mantras (Good to Great) make success sound a simple prescription of certain core principles. It is a good story to tell but as we have all experienced, life is not that simple and success not that easy. You can follow and apply to heart the 7 habits of effective people and still may not be effective. As an organization you can follow all the tenets of Great companies and still be struggling to sustain your business. The reason lies in our attempt to simplify things in a framework model. We as human beings cannot handle continued chaos around us and need to develop a plausible hypothesis for every event. However we forgot our unique context (environment, people social interactions and culture since every organization is unique in its setup) and apply these so called seduced theories (like applying ‘Best Practices) as instant cures to the problems. I always believed that books should only be read to simulate one’s thinking. One should use them to invigorate new ideas, invoke new thoughts, assess and evaluate situations critically. I guess the very fact that we need to respect that life is uncertain, business is influenced by variables and forces beyond an organization and /or an indivuals control, recognition that decision making is all about trade-offs and nothing in life and business is absolute is highly unnerving. Today outcomes drive the assessment of the execution and our decisions. Decision making and execution is excellent and the management team phenomenal if you meet the desired metrics (Wall Street quarterly earnings at one end to meeting your deliverable on a simple software project at the other end). On the contrary the decision is flawed and management team are a bunch of losers if the output is not in line with the expectations. This mindset is the root cause of those fleeting Wall Street darling companies and is at the heart of the flip flop stories covered by the various business journals and magazines. Outcomes driving the assessment of the situation is by its very nature flawed (surprising to many). This applies to personal frame of reference as well. We like to create a semblance of order within the chaos that surrounds us. We create simple decision models that help us evaluate and assess a given situation or a problem. However our individual decision making framework models is influenced negatively by flawed facts collection (skewed by our predispositions and/or existing haloed data)and simple but inaccurate cause and effect theories. As the author of the book outlined, we need to respect the uncertainty and account for inherent risk of failure in every decision whether it is personal or otherwise. The failure does not necessary imply that we need to change our decision making model but makes us recognize that luck,chance and probability of bad events exists and is fundamental to our sane and continued existence in the world.

Customer Anthropology: Next Steps: S2 is Intrigued

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:23:00 +0000

Welcome to the world of social sensors. I had briefly mentioned the concept of customer anthropology in one of my previous blogs. Just a quick reminder: Customer Anthropology is the act of observing customers in their natural habitat is definitely a powerful framework. But the challenge lies in that observations by the most diligent social analyst is filled with objectivity and relies on human recall with all its inherent weaknesses. It is not quantitative. Now the research being done at the MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics group is working with series of smart sensors (yet another smart kit) that will help track the unconscious and instinctual side of human behavior. The intend to provide more data on subtle personal cues and social interactions never available before. Yes there are all privacy lawyers waiting in the wings to kill this thing down but it definitely looks like a way to gather more empirical data which may finally give managers, marketers critical input intothe hidden web of social interactions that determine the effectiveness of organizations, product launches.

Releasing Big Software Systems: Just do It

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 11:01:00 +0000

This blog entry is a result of a WSJ article dated 09/25/2007. The article was covering the release of Oracle Payroll ERP in the Arizona State University where the information technology department decided it will be more effective to stick to rigid deadlines, releasing the software on schedule even if all the kinks hadn't been worked out- and try to fix the problems on fly. The software was released in an unconventional way but painful approach. The approach was Admit from the start that there will be mistakes and hten work through with glitches in production with the actual users.

Every large system implementation is mired with schedule, cost and scope issues. It has become a question of whether it will happen or not but when it will happen. The software industry and the project management thought gurus continue to be baffled by the continuous lack of maturity of the software system implementations. Project management outline of processes, tasks, measures are all modes of reducing the risk but do not eliminate the inevitable. Every time a project encounters a miscue, process mania creates more controls and communication models that suffocate the individual output and productivity. But there is no one on the project team (customer, vendor, and other stakeholders) to challenge the process overkill. The progress and the output are measured on project charts and schedules. There is often a quote ‘We will finish this project on Microsoft Project’. The ability to see the big picture is increasingly lost and every issue is deemed detrimental and becomes a stalemate. Subsequently the project team morale goes south since things are not going as planned and finger pointing and CYA mindset sets in. It is tragic and highly debilitating to all the parties involved that no one can see beyond the petty issues. I guess the root cause of this malaise is the expectation setting at the start of any project. The projects are sold as the next best thing after the slice of bread. It is not that the system and solution are not going to improve the overall business process efficiency but the bar is too high. The yardstick is contradictory to the ground reality. The systems take time to mature and they are not right in the first go round. (The fact is that most of the software system/solutions take 3-4 versions before they deliver the actual desired benefits and their design goals. The earlier versions of windows were dismal and it took almost the 4 version to get it to an acceptable and desired threshold of acceptance among the user community. Today it is the age of perpetual beta software’s (Google Gmail continues to be a beta product after 4 years in existence). But somehow that reality check is missing in the business community and the message from the software community gets distorted by the time it reaches the business community. The funny part of the story is that key drivers of the project understand this challenge but they choose to ignore reality. It is either under the aegis of ‘not my problem’ or ‘we are bound contractual boundaries’ that people shy away from facing the brutal reality. As we ignore reality we are actually caught in a downward spiral. The occasional messiahs are shot down by reference to historical facts. The players become so risk averse to the point of negative returns.

Is there a way out of this rut? I guess it takes some individual champions who have the political and leadership clout to ignore the noise. Yes it will ruffle people since you ignoring the cynics, it takes political and mental fortitude to call the shots and make progress. For software implementation you can choose the University of Arizona route of implementation (albeit some will see that as political suicide) or never come out of the vicious cycle of over planning, feature creep, scope change, schedule slippages and risk multiplication effect. I am in the doer category of things whose motto is ‘ Just do it’. I will like to leave you with two quotes from two respected entities in the business world

“We have a ‘strategic plan.’ It’s called doing things.”—Herb Kelleher

“We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were omissions we didn’t think of when we initially wrote the software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and again. We do the same today. While our competitors are still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design perfect, we’re already on prototype version #5. By the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we are on version #10. It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how to plan—for months.”—Bloomberg by Bloomberg

S2 and India Trip: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Arvinder Singh) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:17:00 +0000

The trip to Chennai started with me making some assumptions about my flight time from DC. Not to anybody’s surprise, I assumed my flight was scheduled at 5:50 pm EST when in fact was 4:45 pm EST. What followed was the typical S2 2 hours mayhem.. dumpster style packing, race to the airport and plead the way through security etc. As someone said your past experience not only makes you war-ready (clock ready in this case) but creates that semblance of confidence which is actually false since it rests on a very fine line. Anyway, I reached ahead of time with plenty to spare. In fact my travel partner was surprised. Hmm.. let me introduce him here, referred to as SP going forward. He was going to experience his ex motherland (I did not know motherland could change, he is now a proud US citizen) after 35 years. I wonder how old is he??

Anyway the flight experience was marked by this clumsy user interface tool for the seats and the audio/video equipment. In fact it clearly demonstrates what is lacking with today system designers of user interface. They make it so unwieldy and complicated and think they have worked out a cool device. I wish they dispel the assumption that people know computers and browsing for them is like a child’s play. Maybe 25 years from now but the money people (remember the baby boomers) like it simple and easy. For it was not easy, it gave you the opportunity to strike a conversation with the air hostess. Well she may think you are a looser but it is entirely on the individual creativity to use this opportunity and make the best of the situation J

The stay at the Frankfurt was not that much fun even though we used our United Card to be in a Lufthansa lounge. I sucked up good when I choose to spend euros on t-mobile hotspot. Yet another bad decision. The flight to India become interesting since all I could see was Chennai Software engineers in different shapes and forms (mind you I am one of the ugly specimens though not from South India) and the scene at the Frankfurt gate was pretty much reminiscent of a typical India international airport. So SP was anticipating his time in India and was getting mentally prepared for some cultural shock. Wonder why he chose the land of Rajnikanth (people who don’t know him its Ok, he is the Tom cruise of the South Indian cinema though some proclaim him to be more popular than Princess Diana), idlis and dosas ( fanatic Tamilians may claim dosas are legacy from adjacent rival state Karnataka). All I could say to SP was…What a choice!!!.

The immigration line at Chennai airport was long and stay there was protracted as I say my US citizen partner breeze past me (when would India respect their own citizens more…Hold on don’t do it now for I hope to become US citizen in the near future.

SP experienced his first rude awakening of the Indianism (new term coined by me) when no one stopped for him as he crossed a road to the parking lot. He was treated with couple of horns and Tamil stares. SP, the brave soul chose to sit up front and experience the chaotic driving in India on our rental chauffeur driven car ( Mind you ‘In chaos lies Creativity’). His first reaction was ‘ Looks like Egypt’. Poor guy had only experienced Egypt as a non developed country in his lifetime. Think about it, we as Indians project such an image of disorder that we are compared to Egypt even though we are miles ahead in all economic progress metrics. I wonder why J

The Hotel reception was interesting least to say. We were staying at ‘The Park’. The hotel was a decent attempt to copy Modern architecture based hotels. We as Indians do a decent job on copying. So the room had the right modern architectural elements in term of the bed, the study, the plasma but at the same time had pillows that were stained. We had modern bathroom elements but an interesting implementation of multi-headed shower (see the picture). Actually the hotel used to be an ex movie studio (Gemini). Wow a theme hotel in India. But all in all a decent hotel.

We experienced the Chennai traffic next morning when we headed to our office. We observed the creativity of Indians in action in how they leverage the width of a road. On a given three lane road, there were 6-7 vehicles. We support a heterogeneous mode of travel( cars, trucks, buses, motor bikes, rickshaw, scooter) apart from occasional animal rides (bullock cart). It appeared as a gridlock to any layman but everything was moving with unspoken rules and processes. Do we have a solution for the US gridlocks? I did forget to mention that horns (an unused tool in US automobile circle) were effectively deployed with great success. The Indian roads reflect one of the nature’s basic principles of food chain hierarchy. The bigger vehicle gets it right to way and the more agile (bikes, scooters) maneuvers their way. Law of Natural Survival in practice on Indian roads. The margin of error is very low and occasionally when a bike scratches the car on the side, the stares and occasional bad mouthing is met with a plastic ‘Sorry’.

Our CNSI office was nice and looked all crowded. In fact there was a specialist for every job. You had a specialist for ‘making and serving tea’, a specialist for ‘photo copying’, a specialist for closing and opening doors. Interesting when we tried to photo copy ourselves it was met with astonishment, concern and fear of job. No matter which way you look, the ancillary support organization was impressive. I think it leaves the engineers to just focus on the work in hand. I hope all this ancillary man force means better productivity and higher throughput from the India office. If it was not enough, we experienced a special check processing service where we did not leave our seat and our antiquated check (check with no MICR code and double the size of our current day check) was deposited and processed within 1 hour. Talk about customer experience. Well customer delight in this case.

As days progressed we chose to come to the office all by ourselves. We tried to reach the office at 9:00 AM in the morning. Well no jokes on IST time Ok but the fun was that we were dropped by our car in front of the elevator called lift in India (this is called chauffeur service). Well to our surprise, the lift did not operate before 9:30 AM. The reason was that the lift operator (specialist job) did not show up before 9:30 AM. (Remember JS experience in SD where going up and down the lift was no rocket science, Well in India it is some science for it needed a specialist whose job was to take the lift up and down almost 1000 times in a day). Well yet another curious observation that SP made was the tendency of Indians to form groups of people (2-5) and stand and observe. He was intrigued by it. It is definitely not a gay thing but Indians are very social and this chit chat keeps us sane in the midst of all the chaos and humdrum. One last incident was the little shopping experience. Yes we haggled for prices and even though we felt good about reducing the price by 20% it left us with a hollow feeling of how much more we have been cheated. And of course our beloved head of India operations picked up something for the most important person on the US office. Guess who!!

Anyway enough said about our interesting encounters there but on a final note before I close the blog entry, the Indian team in Chennai was very hospitable, pleasant, courteous and hungry for work. I wish them success!!!