IT education in India

One of the top IT training providers in the country is trying to set up India's only IT university, a large one with a mission of producing employable students.

So far so good !

The VP of the company asked for a slot to talk to me y'day on what are the stuff missing in the existing PG courses in India that industry would like to see taught in school.

It was a good discussion - I applaud their ambition to set up a curriculum based on feedback from the industry people.

To summerize my thoughts on this topic -

1. PG courses do need to expose students to large development with the entire one class (24 students) working in a team and developing and testing and integrating together.

2. PG courses do need to expose students to "incremental work" on large established systems. This is what 90% of the Indian IT Companies do.

3. The casteism around Dev vs. Test need to go. There should be specialized Test courses.

4. The impact of IT on socio-political environment, and the implications of the digital divide in a country like India

Creative cost cutting ..

The IT companies have one big cost - IT cost !

And this is what some of them do to reduce it.
I was talking to a few friends from different IT companies. They get USD 700 allowance for computing. Meaning, they can choose their laptop and buy on their own. Upto $700 is covered by the company.

Company just mandates the minimum specifications. Now, when you have your laptop, company will provide a few apps to connect to work and standard anti-virus.

Warranty is employees headache on hardware and OS. Employee treats the laptop as his own, and thus the care is better. This makes the laptop last 3 yrs, instead of standard 2 yrs. Thats where the savings come from.

I feel like saying - "What an idea sirjee ! " ;)

Odd Battles - update !

People do find new ways - work around, when pushed with motivation and compassion !

Refer to older post "Odd Battles". The insurance company has come back to me with a mechanism to achieve what I wanted.

Here, I did not push these people, who could not help me within the frame work of current policies.

I just excited them, that during a slow down, if they do not think differently and break mundane policies of yesteryears, they will hurt.

All amicable discussion. No screaming or pushing !

Don't stand under the bridge built by you !!

This is an Indira era slogan, that opposition used, to highlight corruption in India. Civil engineers, in charge of building India's infrastructure, used everything to pocket as much money from the project and nothing to look for the quality of the infrastructure they built.

Hence the slogan !

Fast forward - 20 years gone by ! A global networking giant that wants to change the world by allowing people to work from anywhere, and blend it with life, instructed all its employees to not use the networking technolgy !

Jai Ho !

Fair distribution ..

When a big org and set of new tasks up from grab, there is a lot of attentions from all managers to own the big chunk and take the proven good employees

in their team.

Big chunk should include sexy chunks also. All task is important to business, thats why they are there. But certain sexy works, will need less work for the managers keep the employees motivated.

So the wish list - big chunk of org in terms on employee number, good work and best of best employees !

Now, how would the entire org function this way :)

All the top 2nd lines, setting up 1;1s to put hand kerchiefs, reserve the right chunk for them.

And as a new comer - I only know each employees by name. Not by their true desirability (read a performance and alignment to business).

So, to solve the complex request for all the 2nd lines, devised a new plan !

Told, currently no one owns any of the new pieces. List all the employees, their experience level, their performance rating, their expertise and best fit across all the dozens of managers in the org.

Broken all the new tasks to related 4 major buckets.

Then took the org experience and perfomanace ratio and told the 2nd lines to devide in to those four buckets !

Ground rules -

1. The org experience and performance ratio to be same across all 4 BIG buckets

2. Dont think who is the current manager

3. And none of they know which big bucket they will OWN after this exercise - THIS is the key part

Then I let them lose on allocation and distribution of engineers in to buckets.

Now, because no one knows which bucket they would end up owning, they have all been fair. Say they desperately like few folks. But once in a bucket, they dont know if they would get the bucket.

This seemed to work like a charm. Every bucket for a fair distribution and every task is well funded. Nothing more that required in any bucket !

Its so easy now to go ahead tell who gets which bucket :) My inherent weakness of not knowing each ones capability in the new team is mitigated by combined efforts of my 2nd lines.

Simplest negotiation ..

Part of moving to a new org with a new team, is knowing their pleasure and pain.
While trying to get an inventory of such emotions, I came across some top pains.

Someone form US, bad mouthing their hard work over nit-picks !

It was a consistent theme ! And I know for sure - perception of a remote site is its oxygen.

So, I called this person. And the negotiation was simple. Ultra simple. Going ahead he highlights the good stuff that the team does in India, and we return the favor.

It is a win-win ! Both trying to grow. And both will !

Let it fizzle out !!

I learnt it as a corporate damage control topic from my boss ! Although not sure, whether it was done by design.

There was a sensitive announcement that was supposed to be made. A month ago. The announcement could have been a distraction for current operations.

This is what happened. My boss did not make any announcement. Rather, kept on pushing the date of announcement out. While letting the news sneak out in smaller forums through the month, under the vows of confidentiality.

Now, almost everyone knows it. Deals with it for a month. And then the announcement comes. The surprise factor is gone and hence the shock which could have caused org distractions.

This can be a very effective tool for me to use in future :)

So, to my boss, if you did it by design or not, it was great !

Questioning - simplified !

I started meeting a few second line managers of the new org.

My intention was to bring out the level of bonding between them. High level - who is in whose camp. Who likes whom. Who is singled out etc.

And of course, the only way to get this done is in 1:1s. I ve been toiling with what should be my questioning way of getting this awkward information from anyone.

So, when came the time, I asked the question this way - "So who are the other leaders that you do not like ?" pretty straight and up front question out of no where, middle of a harmless discussion - followed by a long silence until the person talks something. Followed by more silence. Until s/he talks all and stops.

I think I ve the so called "affiliation map" of the org now.

Basics from BC ..

Some ground level management basics have not changed in thousands of years !

Interesting and concise read -

http://specials.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/12slide1-management-lessons-from-chanakya.htm

Going back to white board

Being in a transition brings its own set of anxious moments !

New technologies to learn. New people to work with. New process to learn and influence !

So, I started formally my preparation for the new job ! From a scratch pad. A white board !

Put buckets - technology, people and their preferences and cribs, process and pitfalls, customers and their wishes and whining ! All on a whiteboard. The old set and the new set.

Then started deep dive on each one. There it was in front of me ! A lot of similarities.

Same customers ! Same set of expectations !

Similar people - different names ! Same set of emotions and passion ! Same set of complains.

That left the technology and process parts. Which I spent few hours reading up ! Interestingly, new jargons - same theme !

Good that I went to the white board. In a way - I declared end of my own jobless-ness !

I am sure, it will be a U turn to busy street from here.

"Odd" battles ..

Being so hopelessly jobless - I am fighting odd battles !

One of those is worth mentioning. I had a life insurance policy for company X, issued 4 years ago.

And that time I was of unhealthier proportion. Vital stats as well as internal fluid counts - all the metrics were out of shape. So was the real visible shape ;)

Last few months of focus on health, has changed some of that. Of course a lot of work has gone in to it.

So, I decided to write to my insurance company to re-examine me medically and reduce the mortality charges they take away every year (currently a high percentage) from my insurance contribution.

I was prepared to hear that there is no such process. Which they did tell. My answer was simple.
"GO CREATE ONE".

Today, they sent a sr. mgr to my office to talk to me.... !

I ve a feeling, it will result in something more that sweet talk :)

Internalizatoin ...

Whenever there is a problem, bothering anyone from our closed group, Dr. Das has the words of wisdom to calm him/her down.

One of his ageless advices have been, "internalize" the cause of the problem.

Problem - "You not getting a promotion ?"
Internalization - "What am I doing wrong ?"
Externalization - "Why is not my boss being fair ?"

Dr. Das would always advice to focus on Internalize part. As that's what one can control.

The application of this technique went too far this weekend, when few of us were enjoying an usual gossiping evening at Dr. Das's place.

One of us said, this terrorism thing is beginning to bother now ! The attacks don't stop. They grow wide and high profile. Formula for peace in kashmir and middle east is eluding the best of brains !

And all asked Dr. Das, how can we internalize this ? Are we even causing this problem to avert it ? In a way, challenging his theory of internalization of any problem troubling one.

In his own cool manner, he said - if it troubles you, you are a part of it. And if you are the part of it, you can play a role to avert it.

Moments later, on CNN playing the back ground - there was a program on how the terrorists of Pakistan get their funds to operate. And how it was coming all from India. Us !

All the pirated DVDs / movies on the streets that we buy, all the software engineers going to commercial street to exchange their foreign currencies to get 2 rupees extra, are funding the terrorists.

There the theory of internalization - proved !

Orchestration ... can be an effective tool !

" A villager was carrying a newly bought goat on his shoulder and walking back home, quite a distance. There are three miscreants, who wanted the goat.

One of them, met him while crossing the fields, and told him - "Hey brother ! It is a nice dog".

The man said - "No ! Its a goat. " and kept on walking.

The second miscreant, met him near the meadows before the village and told him - "Beautiful Dog man !". The man got confused but kept on walking.

Then the third prankster, met him as he was entering the village after the long walk with the goat on his shoulders. And said "Cute doggie".

That was it for him. He dropped the goat and went home !

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Say you want someone to believe something, that they are in denial with. Say, you need him to believe it for overall good ! Then orchestrating the same news via. multiple faces, might just do the trick ! And a whole lot good if the original idea of doing so was good to start with.

Penny wise, dollar foolish !!!

It is not unexpected to get a meeting invite from a VP to discuss cost cutting in this economic condition.

What was unexpected was, why again ? why now ? Did not we have this just a few weeks ago and before that one more time few more weeks ago ?

Cost cutting comes down to cutting working population of a company. Reducing investment in products that market is not ready to buy in next 2-3 years.

Now, what in my opinion we have got completely wrong this time is, we cancelled a few products that were ready to develop and ship but exepenses to put them in production line got constrained. But when it comes to people, we did not cut DEEP and cut ONCE. We let few people go in Oct, few again in Feb and doing the

cost cutting meeting again in March first week now with a target percentage cut in working population across the globe.

There is yet another target to meet, and that does not look BIG or something that will suffice going through the recession.

A slow and continuous cutting, it very demoralizing for people who come to work everyday. Doing one once deep, and with compassion, is better. People who are left behind know that they will hang around and focus. Now they are not sure. They just feel lucky that they went by a month. Not the recession.

When products could be shelved swiftly, and not the people, extra people hang around the company. They are not all optimally busy. And from this excess mass, slowly every month letting small amounts go, spreads the poison to rest.

So, while we are trying to save the penny from minor cuts here and there, the big dollars riding on motivation and focus are slipping away !

We were much wiser in the last recession.. were not we ?