Conductor, Coach, Commander

There is a difference between Information Technology (IT) and established industries in terms of maturity in operations. Producing IT outputs is still treated as a knowledge-intensive activity, while in other industries the production is labor-intensive. IT is slowly moving from knowledge-intensive to labor-intensive, and innovations such as software factory model are trying to replicate the best practices of labor-intensive operations in IT projects and operations. However, not all areas in IT are ready to adapt the best practices of labor-intensive industries. One such area is project management.

There is a general perception among software engineers, at least among the people I know, that project managers are usually disconnected from technology. This perception then implies a casual disrespect towards the project managers who are supposed to lead the project team. A common trend is to have a technical lead to lead the team in techncial affairs and the project manager “restricts” himself or herself to balancing the project variables and ensuring the process compliance. In a knowledge-intensive industry that’s a dangerous practice.

There is a difference between leading a team where individual talent is more important than training. Research and arts are two examples where talent is more important than training. Modern manufacturing and military are two examples where training is important. A good manager, in my opinion, should be able to balance himself or herself between the extremes. He or she is then like a conductor, a coach and a commander, under different situations.

A conductor knows his work – the music – thoroughly. He may not have written it, but knows every detail of it. He can sense the composition, it’s expression, nuances, consistency and occasional mistakes. The musicians in an orchestra are individually talented and trained, and the conductor guides them to produce something that cannot be individually attained.

A coach knows his team. He is able to relate individually with the members of the team and build them into the roles that they must perform. He knows the skills, form and temperament of his players and is able to place them on or off the field.

A commander knows his enemy; a corporate “commander” knows his customer. In a sense the enemy is a customer for the commander – he delivers them missiles and bullets!. He is able to strategize the operation and instructs his officers to carry out the mission. Once they are in a mission, they are bound to it.

These leaders command respect through their knowledge, interactions and strategies. When team members are somewhere between researchers and laborers, artists and soldiers it is important for the leaders – or managers – to have a little bits of conductors, coaches and commanders in them.

Architecture

Years ago, I architected a house. Being a Civil Engineer by qualification architecture is something that I was always fascinated with. Today I architect software, at least that’s what they say I do.

Architecture is one of the most misused terms in today’s software industry. There is an architect for everything – one for user interface, one for data, one for solution and one for the entire system. Then there are numerous technical architects who do all kinds of job – from design to coding. Then there are those obscure ones – lead architect, consultant architect, principal architect and so on.

In 1987 John Zachman complained that the words “information systems architecture” were losing the meaning. He then looks at classical architecture and draws an analogy in his famous paper A Framework for Information Systems Architecture. Through the introduction he describes the term architecture as some logical construct, and some kind of structure. Probably, that’s what we really want through the process or architecture – a logical construct, a structure to the system. Zachman then goes on to explain how architect lays out the drawings in different perspectives. And that’s it – that’s what an architect does.

An architect is someone who sees things and concepts in its final state – buildings, bridges, automobiles, hardware, software, process, enterprise and so on. He is able to visualize the solution and translate that into drawings; drawings from different perspectives. In classical architecture those drawings are usually elevations, plans, and sections. Three perspectives, those define the building completely. Then there can be details of all these. Everything else is design – structural design, interior design, landscape design and so on.

Architect defines the construct of the concept in an integral manner. Designers adapt different perspectives of it and design. Builders use the design to build different pieces. And it all comes together to something that the architect envisioned, before it even existed.

“Most people,” Roark says, “build as they live — as a matter of routine and senseless accident. But a few understand that building is a great symbol. We live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form.”

Sweet Dreams Little One

It’s hard for us to conceive,
Why on earth you had to leave.
But if we listen, we’ll hear God say,
“Here is where he at peace shall lay”.
You’re already in beautiful heaven above,
And can see nothing but God’s love.
Even though we may not understand,
We can be sure Jesus is holding your hand.
You were the most beautiful baby, and though we despair
We know God will look after you with tender loving care.

You are safe in His hands now. Sweet dreams Little One.

(Nupur Pathak)

Beta

Recently I built a website that used beta version of an open source software. Obviously, I ran into problems and I had to contact the community to get help. One response I got was that the software is in beta and should not be used in production. I replied back, “my site is in beta version too!”

A lot of changes have taken place in the past few years. Traditionally software solutions were born in academic and research institutions and then brought to commercial and enterprise space. Once it is established it was adopted or made accessible to individual users or mass consumers. For example, email was born in research labs, which found its way into academic institutions and then to enterprises. Today it is accessible to everyone. Another example could be business intelligence and analytics which were researched in the academic world and found its way to enterprises. Today it is available to everyone in the form or different analytic applicaitons and tools such as Google Analytics.

Coming back to the subject, it is a new world out there today. Innovations are now born is communities, who typically constitute of mass consumers. It is then matured and stablized in communities before enterprises adopt. It is a common practice to distribute beta releases early so that the software is well-tested and moreover understood by end-users.

Strangely, academic institutions come last in the new world of software engineering. They tend to analyze how the solutions or phenomenon evolved, detect and understand patterns and provide best practices. Purists may question this widespread use of beta software and applications, and even term as a compromise to quality. But amateurs and beta are conquering new heights in online landscape.

Investing in Time

Time is money. It’s much more than that. Money if not invested shrinks over a period of time. Time vanishes.

Like money, time is another resource which is limited and cannot be accumulated. Investment typically converts a resource into another form, which can be preserved, accumulated and grown – look at how money is invested. In the same way time can be invested by converting it into something that can be preserved.

To me investing time is to best utilize time to build up knowledge, skills, relationships etc. Now the economy is down. There is little money to invest, and there is a lot of uncertainty too. But strangely when the economy is down I see people having a lot of time – without many projects at work and not engaging in many activities outside. This time can be invested into something that builds up, that can be grown later, which can be converted into money. And yes! Time is money (and much more than that).

An Introspection

Here is Google’s Marissa Mayer, how she went on building her team. “I like to hire people who have two traits. They’re smart, and they get things done.”

That comes from Joel Spolsky’s The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing. Today I just asked myself again – am I getting things done smartly?

Certain Uncertainties

It has been a long time since I posted last. These were busy days with a lot of changes happening in the personal and work lives. I have written about changes earlier, but this time I observed something different. A change unsettles, it creates uncertainty, ambiguity and at the core of it these uncertain, ambiguous times and situations makes people difficult to accept change.

Some of us dealt with changes from young ages – changes in school, friends, house, cities – especially those who moved around a lot. But some of us did not. Whether we faced changing situations or not, most of us were not much exposed to ambiguity and uncertainty. Our parents took care of it. As we grew we started facing these situations more and more and we were not taught how to deal with those. We resist, oppose, fight every change, because we do not know how to deal with uncertainties.

Then at some point we give in, we reconcile with the changes and it takes a while to adjust and start enjoying the changed life. Another change is on the way, and then the cycle repeats. What I observed during these days is that as we go through a series of changes we build experience, we build tolerance to uncertain times and ambiguous situations and we learn to walk independent of the hands that were holding us through.

As we walk, as we learn, we become mature.

As Late As Possible

The early bird gets the worm! Common wisdom suggests to get things done as early as possible. Everyday I see people – tuned to this wisdom – rushing on the road, into the elevators, around the vending machines, fretting and fidgeting about the seconds lost. I used to have a manager who was obsessed about every minute in the schedule which ultimately caused huge reworks and led to exhaustion of the team in all sense.

As late as possible is not a new strategy. It is well-known, documented, implemented and practised. However, many of us do not see it as an option because we are not taught to delay work. We all know procrastination is the thief of time!

There are times when delaying is the best course of action. It could be during a negotiation, dealing with uncertainties, or even when booking a flight ticket! This may seem adventurous, but with careful judgement of circumstances, acting as late as possible will be eventually beneficial.

So, next time before you step into a crowded elevator, before booking that off-season flight ticket, before ramping up the team when you think requirements are not clear, consider the strategy – As Late As Possible.

No Risk, No Glory!

During a recent discussion on risk management, I suddenly realized that we tend to see risks too negatively. We were trying to enumerate risks and it was easy for everyone to come up with negative risks (threats) and not so in exploring positive risks. May be we do not want to call it risks; we prefer the word opportunities – it sounds a lot more positive.

But, isn’t there an inherent threat in every opportunity? Isn’t there an opportunity in every threat? There is, and this is not something new! A little search in the internet gave me some food for thought. Risk management is not just avoid – transfer – mitigate – accept strategies to deal with threats, its also exploit – share – explore – ignore to work on opportunities.

What struck me most is that there are two sides to every risk – positive and negative. In other words, every risk is an opportunity and a threat, however small each may be. Clinching that opportunity wisely is the road to glory!

Time and Talent

The two basic questions in any project/task are – are we doing it in time, using the estimated/allocated effort? Most of the important metrics are then derived out of these parameters – time & talent, as I like to call it. Time & talent are curiously unique while being the very basic parameters of any project.

The most intriguing aspect of time is that we cannot save time. We may be able to – in the most simplistic sense – if our project does not have any dependencies on anything in the world, which is not real. The other option to save time is to underestimate – estimate very stringent timelines, which is not a good practice. If we attempt to do a project under normal circumstances, pushing for an early completion of a task creates wastage of time down the line. The best way to save time is by spending it wisely, by creating and sustaining a flow, a rhythm in work.

Talent fulfils the allocated effort in a way that completes the task. In practice, talent is not generic, it is very specific – everyone cannot do every job. That brings out the uniqueness of this parameter – unlike other inanimate parameters. Everything remains the same, the best way to get the most out of a talent pool is to give. Give information get better interpretation/implementation, give training get better productivity. It does not stop there – recognition, empowerment, compensation etc. – there are many variables in this equation. The challenge is to balance the equation – across variables, across the team.

Many a times we try to meet the challenges in managing time and talent using unintelligent, inanimate processes and tools. But managing is both art and science. A little art, a little creativity in these areas will make the manager, the team and the project distinct.

The All-rounders

As today’s professional world is adopting a knowledge-intensive culture, it is tough to find a right combination that covers the depth and the breadth of a specific area of knowledge. Conventionally, we relied on deep, explicit, documented knowledge as in the case of research and development projects. But in recent times knowledge acquisition has become broader because of mainly two reasons.

Firstly, technology has helped distributing information wide and far and power of knowledge has become evident in activities beyond research and development. People then needed to acquire knowledge from more than one domain and were restricted in the depth while expanding their breadth of knowledge. Secondly, people who followed the rapid advancements in technology made shallow impressions everywhere while spreading over larger area.

We have two sets of people now: the specialists and the generalists. Generalists existed even before the above-mentioned reasons forced many and that was because of personal traits – some people find it easier to deal with multiple subjects while others like to dig deeper in one subject. I find J Scott Armstrong’s description of specialists and generalists very striking. According to him a specialist is the one who knows more and more about less and less until eventually he knows everything about nothing! A generalist is the one who knows less and less about more and more until eventually he knows nothing about everything!

Today’s world needs both specialists and generalists, and the challenge is to find the right balance between the two. Certainly a team of generalists is not going to be of much help. A team of specialists may lack creativity or may miss out the inter-relationships between multiple parts.

There are various hypotheses and propositions on structuring a team with specialists and generalists. But I like to draw an analogy from sports in this matter. In all the team-sports, there are some people who are all-rounders or playmakers; though they are not many. A generalist holds this position in a project team. This is especially true when the environment/scope is not too small. Obviously in a very small team/project, specialists always dominate.

Value Addition

Howard Artrip – a manager in Toyota – knows what he does. He knows when he gets up, how long he takes to get ready and get to work. He smiles when he says “I’ve maximized my sleep time”. Toyota’s philosophy of continuous improvement is his personal statement.

Sometime back, I was talking to an engineer from a highly capable and mature company about what he thinks about quality. At the end of a very colorful description about the practices and processes, he confessed that it is difficult to follow them all. It was a burden on him, and in his opinion an overhead to the system.

It is a fashion to adapt and implement the processes and techniques that are proven in some organizations. In a frenzy to implement and report the return-on-investments, most managers fail to get the spirit – and most importantly the thinking – behind these processes. One of the common mistakes is that we try to replicate the processes without understanding the context and culture in which these were set and became successful.

Value addition is the promise of most processes and techniques. At the end of the day we search for added value in the process, in the end-product, in the pile of documentation, reports, and presenations. What I find often is that we miss out in searching for the added value in our people. It may be that we think they are just techies or skilled workers, we think they appreciate the processes themselves, we think the processes have nothing to do with people and vice versa!

People need to understand the reason behind every activity, the benefits and a bit of history to enjoy their work. It is important to infuse the spirit behind the process into people, so that value is first added to them – and they realize it. They will in turn add value to products and even back to those processes.

Well Begun Is Half Done

It is a very old saying of Aristotle – well begun is half done. We find this true in many fields, especially when it comes to accomplish a certain goal – whether it is in studies, sports or projects.

We have developed and mastered many techniques and processes to execute a project. But we deal with project initiation with a bit of laxity. In the height of dramatic events involved in realizing a project, we sometimes fail to see the fine cracks that are being developed – in terms of missing out details, under-estimating functionalities, setting aggressive timelines etc. It then becomes a fight for the team to hold the project from falling apart during its course to completion.

It is good to estimate, and it is better to re-estimate. There are many techniques which are developed to encourage multiple estimates – quick/detailed estimates, optimistic/pessimistic estimates, low-confidence/high-confidence estimates and so on. It is also important to work out estimation parameters from the final estimate that is used to win the project. One aspect which is overlooked frequently in estimation is dependency. The project dependencies normally drive the schedules and idle-times and it is crucial to understand it early on. A good work-breakdown-structure can solve this easily.

It is also good to create a visual representation of the project and its environment, something like a map. Words can be hazy; numbers can become tough to follow; visual representations are easy to comprehend and remember. It is good to note that all military operations start with a study the area to be conquered, usually represented by a map. It is good if the project map includes not only the deliverables, but also other details such as schedule, size, assignment, risk etc.

Training and team-building are some aspects that are taken lightly. It is important for the team to understand the terrain – environment, existing systems, work-flow, domain knowledge, business rules, tools, techniques, limitations of technology – before starting a project. Building a knowledge-base is a best-practice in most of the execution frameworks. The earlier and faster we build it, the easier will be the project execution.

If we take Aristotle’s words literally, it is fine to devote half the project duration just to initiate. If you are worried about a possible time-crunch, return to some past projects and see the productivity during the last few weeks.

Manufacturing Software

Various books about software engineering usually compares software development to manufacturing. The comparisons often highlight the differences so as to establish a separate set of processes and methodologies for software development. While it is true to a larger extent in the current scenario, the future of software development may blur the line between manufacturing goods and manufacturing software. What makes software unique could be the replicable nature of end products.

The common conception (or misconception) on the difference between software development and manufacturing is that software development is more intellectual than manufacturing. This was true in the nascent and adolescent stages of software industry. In the current mature scenario, industry recognizes right aptitude and training as the most important qualifiers for software workforce – as it is in manufacturing.

Mature tools and processes enable software to be created and managed with less sophistication from the developers. In my opinion, this brings out the most striking similarity between software development and manufacturing. Manufactured goods are often differentiated by the company or location. There is also a certain brand value generated from the quality and process of manufacturing (take the classic example – Toyota). As the software industry is also growing into a similar mould, the tools and processes will be key differentiators in coming days. A mature software company is more likely to produce quality work-products than others, consistently.

The grey areas in the above statement cannot be overlooked. While the weightings of the words likely and consistently are important in decision making the key challenge will be in assessing the maturity of a company. Certainly software has been following manufacturing in establishing maturity levels (refer Quality Management Maturity Grid). As the awareness builds, customers will be more equipped to discern maturity and there is more to learn then.

Qualify Qualitatively

Quality is one of the evergreen topics for discussion in business world. I attended yet another session on quality a few days back and that made me think a bit deeper – more on concept and perceptions. Our instructor described quality as conformance to requirements and fitness for use, the common definitions from Philip Crosby and Joseph Juran. Next, our instructor mentioned that the need for quality is to survive in competition and to get repeat business – with heavy overtones from sales and marketing.

Many talk about product and process qualities further complicating the matter. They point out the competing objectives in product and process qualities (e.g. beyond a point an increase in efficiency of product decreases efficiency of process). It is much easier consider quality of product alone, and create a scope based on limitations in the process – such as budget, schedule, resources or techniques. The concept cost of quality is more useful than dealing with multiple perspectives of quality. I also prefer the word maturity over quality when talking about processes.

In my opinion, the word qualification suits better to the descriptions of quality mentioned above. It’s high time we should differentiate quality and ‘quality management/control/assurance’. The latter is more associated with qualification – ensuring that the product/process is qualified according to the requirements.

The dictionary defines quality as An essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone, A degree or grade of excellence or worth, A characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something or Of superior grade. A few synonyms for quality are caliber, character and select. These phrases and words give a more accurate definition – devoid of sales and marketing pressures – making us understand that quality is more of a character of products and processes than a set of methodologies and tools. ISO defines quality as degree to which a set of inherent characteristic fulfills requirements.

In my opinion, achieving quality thus becomes part of work-culture. Methods and tools are important because it is difficult and time-consuming to permeate the concepts and organizational philosophies into individuals. However, those are just some means to and end, and the importance of quality as part of organization’s culture should not be overlooked. The success of Toyota is not their methods or lean tools, but the quality that is instilled into organization’s culture.

Thus I would say, “make quality as the character of your organization or product and qualify your services (and products) to suit customer’s requirements”.

Systems Approach

Currently I am reading a book named Long-Range Forecasting – From Crystal Ball To Computer (LRF). The author – J Scott Armstrong – begins by introducing a simple idea which he calls systems approach as the first lesson to be learned in forecasting. The approach is an elementary technique for analysis and planning. Many such important techniques in management have been known for decades or even centuries. We keep reinventing, repackaging and reselling!!!

The systems approach helps in developing, evaluating & implementing projects (programs) with a holistic perspective. Quoting from LRF:

“The systems approach uses two basic ideas. First, one should examine objective before considering ways of solving a problem; and second, one should begin by describing the system in general terms before proceeding to the specific.”

It helps to break down a problem into four generic steps: 1. Identify objectives, 2. Develop indicators of success, 3. Generate alternative strategies, and 4. Develop and select programs.

It is often found that the projects are executed without finalizing or understanding the objectives, postponing the definition of validation mechanisms and not considering the alternative strategies and designs. I have seen this happening among managers while estimation and planning, designers while creating systems architectures, and software developers while coding the foundation modules (I was also a partaker). I have worked in a couple of projects that did not have any purpose but to exhaust the budget or justify some previous mistakes/investment.

These real experiences helped me to appreciate the basic steps illustrated by Armstrong in a very simple, but striking manner. Here’s an analogy for easy recollection.

• Rainmaker Theory Number One: “The rainmaker gets so involved with the dance that he sometimes forgets that he has to make rain.”
• Rainmaker Theory Number Two: “Yes, I know it didn’t rain – but didn’t you like the dance?” In other words, the successful rainmaker is the one who can convince his client that he really didn’t want rain – he wanted to watch the dance.
• Rainmaker Theory Number Three: “Who cares why it rains?” The science of rainmaking evolves into the science of rainmaking dances.

Negotiate The Value

One of the confounding terms in the business world is value. Outside the business world the term poses difficult questions to philosophers, economists, religious thinkers in the sense it matters to them. One of the main challenges is to define whether the value of an object/service is absolute or relative. For example, neoclassical economists perceive value as relative while classical folks try to measure it as innate worth, and an objectivist acknowledges the worth, but play it down with reason.

In a world, where value seems to be driven by perceptions of individuals, it is difficult to assess the true value of anything – that too, only if a true value exists for one! And, we often come to the table negotiating our perceptions of value. We have created processes, methodologies and systems to minimize the negotiations; especially to save the carps from negotiation sharks. But these systems are not foolproof, and loopholes are easily exploited.

In most of our day-to-day transactions value of a substance/service is often understood by its objective and subjective elements. It helps if we separate objective and subjective elements and their contributions to the assessed value, with the context of subjectivity well understood. There could be some delicate inter-dependencies between these elements, which may need to be dealt with care and tact.

When the systems fail, processes become inadequate, value tilts out of balance. At that point negotiation starts and fairness of the deal depends a lot on the parties involved. A good and principled negotiation helps in establishing value in a realistic manner. It is also good to remember that there is value in building relationships as well, through healthy negotiations.

Learn from Ignorance

What prompts a person to learn? I have been trying to find an answer, especially in the context of work. For many, once out of educational system, learning becomes almost a matter of choice. The highest hurdle in making this choice is the refusal to accept ignorance. We have built a culture around us where ignorance is considered a shame.

Look around! Many of us are trying to convince ourselves that we know, especially in the areas of our specialty or work. Seldom we realize that those confidence-boosters become obstacles in our learning process. The first step in learning is to learn of our ignorance, and to accept it. That’s when we beat the hurdle and choose to learn.

I wonder whether Sir Isaac Newton realized it when he remarked, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”!

Say Cheese!

A few years back, when the book Who Moved My Cheese? was in the list of top-sellers, everyone talked about change frequently and daringly. Change is inevitable in the universe and life, that we all must be prepared to deal with. But all changes need not bring desirable results. Success of a change depends on the current situation, our knowledge on it, and the acceptation of it’s results.

Along with change comes the restraint to change – which is good. In life, the restraint to change is often a mental block, or a fear that the change may not work, or some emotional ties. While many ask us to suppress these restraints, I would say, these can be used wisely to evaluate the situation objectively, to analyze the new or changed situation.

Another aspect of change is the courage to change. First it requires courage to accept the situation, conquer the fear and destroy the barriers. Then it requires courage to accept the change and live with it. I guess this is where all the inspirational books and speakers concentrate – threatening us to make the move, preparing us to face the unknown. Just remember only this – courage is different from daring!

Everything flows, nothing stands still. Change is inevitable. If you know your restraints well, if you have the courage to accept the change, you can always remain “Say Cheese”.

Circle of Trust

Since I joined the Orkut community, I have been noticing a lot of hits coming to this site from Orkut. I couldn’t help, but thinking and searching about Orkut.

Orkut is a social networking site designed by Orkut Büyükkökten – a turkish software engineer – as a personal project in Google. It has grown into a phenomenon with the help of netizens, dedicating their time and “relationships”. But I was particularly intrigued by one of the most important aspect of any social network. Privacy!

Reading through the fine-print, I understand the privacy of our personal information (date of birth, address, phone etc.) is safe with Google (unless we choose to publish it – then there is no question of ‘privacy’). After going through many articles, and spending some time in Orkut, my opinion is that privacy in Orkut depends on one of the basic elements of social networks – trust.

There is a new feature in Orkut – mutual friends – which is something worth looking at. It creates inexplicit communities. You can traverse through this ‘mutual friends’ to get a complete picture of the community you are interested in. I am reminded of the efforts we spent in ‘customer grouping’, ‘householding’ activities in many Customer Relations Management (CRM) projects. Again, this feature works only in our friend circles, and that’s good.

For these reasons, whenever I logon to Orkut, I imagine the O as a circle, a circle of trust, and that it comes first.

Venn Diagrams

“Go ahead”, she said.

“I don’t understand you. This is not the girl I loved…”, his words ended abruptly. He felt as if he were in the middle of a desert. He did not know how to proceed, and where to.

“Listen Kesav, I love you, please trust me…”, she was trying to convince him. “Kesav, I am the same, I have always been truthful to you”.

He nodded. She was truthful to him, but the truth looked strange. He was thinking, ‘Can there be two different truths? Is there something called a half truth? Is she self conflicting? Can I live with her contradictions?’. He was not ready to speak.

He grabbed a handful of sand from the beach.

His eyes wandered in the blue sky. The clouds taking different shapes. Its water vapor, flying in the wind. It changes shapes when the wind say. He was trying to justify her. He was finding reasons to understand her.

“Kesav, its complicated, human beings are not always logical, no science has ever described human mind”. He lowered his eyes and looked at her. She saw his eyes expressing a mixture of feelings. Now he is trying to solve a contradiction within himself.

‘You cannot step on two boats, it can be one or zero, nothing in between’, he was logical in thinking, that is how he is trained to be, as a doctor of Mathematics.

She stood up and started walking towards the waves. He watched her, as always, she looks very childish. He liked her childishness, and he would explain to her Fermat’s last theorem. She disliked mathematics, but for him she used to listen, with endless curiosity. ‘She was adapting to me, identifying with me’, he thought, ‘but now I have to adapt with her, and it seems very difficult, going against my principles, my ideas and my likings. I cannot deny my principles, and to be with her is to compromise. I cannot be two different persons’. He was slowly realizing, that he is on the verge of a split!

She came back. “What if we agree to disagree?”, kneeling down on the sand, face to face.

“Agree to disagree? Again contradictions? You are always a person of contradictions, how do we agree on things that we disagree?”

“Its simple, we are going to agree that we disagree in certain matters, we have to make sure that we don’t cross each others freedom”.

‘She is talking about freedom. I always wanted her to be mine, childlike, dependant. She is not a child anymore, she is taking her own decisions, she is free…’, he had never thought it before.

“But how far…”, he was skeptical.

“Look Kesav, its you who taught me those Venn Diagrams, the unions and intersections. We will be a union and we will share what we agree, the intersections”.

‘Venn diagrams, sets, circles, when they get closer, more will be the area of intersection’, he was trying to prove her statement, mathematically. ‘Why I am using geometry to prove algebra of sets’, he thought for a moment. ‘Forget it, at least she is trying to apply math in her life, that’s a good sign’.

He forgot the contradictions, lied down on the beach. Up above, in the blue sky, the wind brought two clouds together. Unions and Intersections, in the universal set.

Thou Shalt Not Pirate!

And God gave Moses 2 CDs. He read the eighth line of code and it read: “Thou Shalt Not Pirate”.

“God!” Moses paused for a moment. “You have written… Thou Shall Not Pirate!”

He continued. “I thought, in the modern world, piracy is harmless. Moreover, you know how important is Microsoft Office for my ministry and me? I got the Windows for myself (yeah, I got a branded PC). And, Aaron is willing to share his Office installation CD. I think he got the original one. What’s wrong in sharing?”

Now they are on the escalator, on their way down, from Sinai.

The Lord replied, “Then it is Aaron’s property. Thou Shalt Not Covet.” The Lord’s reply was brief with the general statement of the tenth line of code.

Moses had more reasons. “God, there is a difference. In olden days, when people used to steal the owner lost the property and he could not use it anymore. Software is different. It is like the bread Jesus gave to five thousand!!! It does not get emptied. The owner enjoys the software and he lets his fellows enjoy it too.”

God was patient, “Who stands lost”?

“Of course, it’s Microsoft, or whoever makes the software”, Moses continued. “But they made all the money which they wanted. And if I did not pay for one piece of software, it is not going to make any difference to them. Moreover, I am not using it to run a business. I am using it for a not-for-profit organization and that too for Your ministry. How do you think I will summarize these CDs and publish, without Microsoft Office and Adobe PageMaker?

The Lord smiled at Moses and repeated His question. “Tell me now, who stands lost?”

Moses stood perplexed. They have now reached the first floor. As they stepped on to the last flight of escalators, God spoke to him.

“You talked about one small piracy. The one small piracy which does not make any difference to the software company or its CEO. The one small piracy which is not going to make any difference in this world. And when you do it, remember, you are the one I came looking for. You are the one I came to rescue. Now you know who is the lost.”

When they almost reached the ground floor, God spoke to Moses. “Do not be afraid. I have come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

Moses saw a thunder and lightning. The Lord disappeared.

He opened his eyes and saw his wife walking to the kitchen. She has left the lights on. He looked at the table clock, and then the computer behind that.

Then he rose up from the bed, and walked to the computer, for God commanded him, “Thou Shalt Not Pirate”.

Interactive Financial Exchange

Evolution in any form is to bring in complexity to the system. It is universal and inevitable. Now we are talking about banking industry, its language and the messaging systems that form the backbone of the industry.

Back in 1970s when computers were introduced in banking, the messages and files were mostly proprietary. Soon the industry realized the power of networking and common standards and numerous attempts were made to make the messages interoperable. In those days the resources were limited and most of the messages and standards that were devised aimed at transferring data efficiently between the end-points. The hardware devices used crude messages, while the programs were much more flexible.

In the next couple of decades, computing grew leaps and bounds to form the gigantic World Wide Web that covered the earth. The possibilities of interactions increased, even surpassing the national and geographic boundaries. The cost of transportation and storage of data steadily went down, while scope and size kept increasing unpredictably.

The messaging standards introduced were soon withered and dried in the process. Two notable standards that still stand against the wind are OFX (Open Financial Exchange) and Gold. They were on the right track but seriously limited in covering the entire scope of financial industry. Nevertheless, the two standards provided the base on which IFX could be built up – to be an open, consistent, extensible, and universal standard.

The IFX Forum, a working group consists of veterans in financial and technical domains, chart down the specification and publish it periodically. The standards are accessible to anyone on the web, and are open for inspection, suggestions and corrections. The huge effort that is put voluntarily in the development of this standard shows another trend of the times – to be open. Openness invites faster verification and adoption of the standard into the industry.

A great deal of care has been put into the development so that the standard remains consistent across various arms of the industry. Consistent naming, consistent structure and strict behavior mark the standard differently from the legacy messaging systems. The specification is divided into three classes: Business Message, File Format and Transport. The working group has envisaged the broad classification as the industry demands interoperability of different channels than the replacement of one with another. An example of an IFX message would be an ATM transaction (business message), formatted in XML (file format) sent over HTTPS (transport).

The ever-increasing scope of business messages increase two-dimensionally. In the domain new services are added and existing facilities are extended. In technology new channels are invented while the existing technologies can be hardly thrown away. These necessitate the extensibility of a standard that can cover the new and existing features alike. It should be also possible to discard the unused and unwanted features with equal ease. IFX is implemented over XML architecture which itself stands for extensibility. The proven concepts of object oriented methodology are also adapted in the development.

Another noted achievement in IFX is the universality of the standard. IFX already supports vast areas in financial industry covering the basic and advanced services in banking, payment, credit cards and presentments. Soon the IFX will pitch into insurance which is seen separately until recently. In the technology IFX spans from simple message system to complex Electronic Data Interchange based transactions.

IFX defines the entities such as Bills, Payments, Customers, Services, etc. as objects. There are six operations that can be performed over these objects, viz. Add, Modify, Delete/Cancel, Inquiry, Audit, and Synchronize. The messages are classified according to its directions, Request and Response. IFX also provides the sign-on and sign-off messages and session services.

Some of the current banking services include, account, statement, account transaction, interest rate, account taxation, foreign exchange rate, stop check, funds transfer, recurring funds transfer, check order, deposit book order, debit authorization, credit authorization, debit, and credit. The payment services include payee, payment, payment authorization, remittance and recurring payment. The operations on these services vary depending on the type of the service.

The extensibility and the universality always come with a price. When compared to its predecessors in the legacy environment, IFX implementations demands more processing power and storage facilities. Intelligent and PC based devices can handle volumes of data and may bring sudden surge of data as they replace the traditional devices. Think about the multitude of ATM transactions converted to wordy XML messages zipping across the world. This also brings in another twist to the tale as conventionally the financial institutions relied on the legacy systems. As these systems still struggle to catch up the new ways and waves of computing, the endless possibility of distributed and network computing stands poised at the other end.

The banking industry and its technologies are reaching a turning point to adapt newer and better ways. It is the question of deciding an appropriate time to break off from the old and embrace the new. While the industry is keenly watching the new developments and prepares itself to be in the excitement, the consumers and customers have a lot to hope for, endless and seamless ways of interaction and integration.

Hindu Crosswords in AcrossLite Format

Copy The Hindu Crossword from www.hindu.com
Open a text file in any good text editor

1. Paste the AcrossLite header as below

<ACROSS PUZZLE>
<TITLE>
Hindu Crossword
<AUTHOR>
The Hindu
<COPYRIGHT>
The Hindu © 2004
<SIZE>
15x15
<GRID>

2. Draw the grid with dots and Xs. Dots are for the Black boxes and Xs for White boxes

.XXXXXXX.XXXXXX
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
XXXXX.XXXXXXXXX
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
XXXXXXXXX.XXXXX
X...X.X.X.X.X.X
XXXX...XXXXXXX.
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
.XXXXXXX...XXXX
X.X.X.X.X.X...X
XXXXX.XXXXXXXXX
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
XXXXXXXXX.XXXXX
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
XXXXXX.XXXXXXX.

CAUTION: Do not leave any blank lines between tags and text

3. Copy Hindu Crossword Clues

4. Remove all the blank lines

5. Remove clue-numberings

6. Paste clues for Across under the tag

<ACROSS>

CAUTION: The tags are case-sensitive

7. Paste clues for Down under

<DOWN>

8. Put the trailer tag

<NOTEPAD>

This tag is optional

9. Save the file with .puz extension and open using AcrossLite

10. Press Ctrl+S to convert the text file to AcrossLite Binary Format.

Solving 3 x 3 x 3 Rubik’s Cube

Sometime back, I was searching in the Wide Web World for an easy-to-understand solution for Rubik’s cube. I found many, but none worked out for me. Finally my friends helped me out to solve it. As I got help from many, I started jotting down the moves and thought I will write those down for the benefit of others. That was the first version of this article.

Later, I discovered that people are still having problems with notations, and I introduced a new notation as well.

Read this completely once, before attempting to solve.

Most of us see Rubik’s cube as six faces. This will not help in solving the cube. From now onwards we should be able to see the cube, constituted of three layers. The method I discuss here is to solve the cube layer by layer.

Before getting into the solution, it is good to learn some terminology and notations, for that helps in writing smaller steps/instructions which will stay in memory. After a while, you will forget the instructions, and follow the patterns.

As we start with terminology, keep in mind that while solving a piece (or using a formula), you should not change the orientation of the cube. Thus said, let us name the faces. There are six faces for Rubik’s cube, and hold the cube in front of you. Let the face that is facing you is F (Front), and the opposite face is B (Back). The face on your left is L (Left) and on the right is R (Right). The upper side is U (Up) and the one that faces down is D (Down). The color of a face is the color of the center piece, as the center piece cannot be moved.

Consider that the Rubik’s cube is made up of 27 little cubes. One cube is in the core (in fact, there isn’t any) and it does not come in our way. Observe – the center pieces on all the faces are immovable (relatively). Now, that leaves 20 little cubes to play around. Let us name the small cubes with respect to the intersection of faces. We can even name each face of these little cubes by properly qualifying the names. The left hand top little cube is a corner piece and is the intersection of L, U and F faces; so we can call it LUF, LFU, ULF, UFL, FUL, or FLU. Let us stick to a convention that the first letter denotes the face of the little cube. So, if we are talking about the front face of the left hand top little cube we will call it FLU or FUL. If it is the upper face of the same we will call ULF or UFL. The edge pieces will have only two faces and their names will be like LF, RD, and DB etc.

We need to rotate these layers while solving the cube. For a layer, there can be two kinds of rotations – clockwise and anticlockwise. But, qualifying a rotation to be clockwise or anticlockwise depends on which way we are looking at. Let’s make it clear. A face’s rotation is said to be clockwise, if the face is rotating in the clockwise direction when you are looking at it. So, when you rotate the left face anticlockwise FLU goes away from you, and when you rotate the right face anticlockwise FRU becomes DRF. The rotations are then quantified as quarter, half, three-quarter and full turns. A full turn of a layer does not alter anything. A clockwise three-quarter turn is equal to an anticlockwise quarter turn and for the same reason we will not deal with three-quarter turns. Half turn of a layer is the same whether it is turned clockwise or anticlockwise.

The names of the faces are not needed often, so we will use the same names for clockwise rotations. Let’s call L as clockwise quarter turn of left face, R as clockwise quarter turn of right face and so on. The symbol’ (single quote) will denote anticlockwise rotation. For example, L’ will represent left face anticlockwise quarter turn and F’ will denote front face anticlockwise quarter turn. We will call half turns B2, F2 etc. Once you are familiar with the faces and the notation and the rotation, we can start solving the cube.

Solving the first layer – Intuition
Solving the first face can be done by observing the movements of pieces (little cubes). Determine a U face (let’s take White as U face). Look for a white edge piece on the bottom layer, white not on’D face’. Determine the color of the bottom face of that little edge piece. (Say we found it to be Red). Now, that piece (White-Red) should be at the intersection of centerpieces colored with White and Red. White is already on U face, now turn the cube in such a way that Red is your F face. Now, bring the White-Red edge piece on the L face or R face, in such a way that White is LD or RD and Red is DL or DR. (Say the piece is on the right hand side and then White is RD). This White-Red edge piece is to occupy the UF position when the cube is solved. Let’s take it there. If you observe the possible rotations of UF position and RD, you can find that the circles of rotation intersect at FD. That’s the best location to swap these pieces. So turn the center layer of F face such that UF comes to FD. Now turn the bottom layer such that RD becomes FD (now FD is White-Red). Finally turn the FD layer back to UF position and the White-Red piece is correctly positioned. A hint that I can give you is that it is more like catching with a hook. The same exercise can be repeated for corner pieces and the pieces of the middle layer. But if the White face is on the D side, we have to first bring it to the bottom layer of R, L, F or B faces. While doing that, make sure that you are not disturbing the correctly set pieces on the U face. Also, if the piece is wrongly positioned on the U face, break it away first by bringing some unwanted piece in its position, and then start moving it to the correct place.

Solving the second layer – It’s easy
When the first layer is done it forms a T with the center pieces in the middle layer. That means we need to solve only four pieces to finish the second layer. The formulae start here. All the formulae can be mirrored. If you mirror the steps for one piece the formula will affect its opposite piece.

The following formula will move the cube RD to FL. First, find out which cube fits into FL and position it in RD. Make sure it is positioned as RD, not DR.

Formula 1
To move RD to FL :::: L D’ L’ D’ F’ D F

For the first timers, it is better to write down what is on the RD and DR, and do the steps. Then find out what happened to the piece. Remember, you should not change the orientation of the cube while doing the steps.

Since this is the first formula let’s write down the corollary.
To move LD to FR :::: R’ D R D F D’ F’

This formula can be repeated to solve the second layer. If there is piece incorrectly positioned on the second layer, first take it out, and then position it correctly.

Solving the third layer – It’s fun
After two layers are completed it is advised to turn the cube upside down to get a better view as well as to reduce the complexity. After turning the cube upside down, now your top layer is scrambled and the bottom two layers are set. Our first goal is to form a cross (like a + symbol, not X) on the present U face (earlier it was D face). The best way to start is to find a “piece of cross”. Look for an L shape or a straight line on the U face, with centerpiece included. If you find a line you are lucky, you need to do the next formula only once. If you find an L shape then you have to do the formula twice. Else you have to keep doing the formula until you get a line or L shape on the U face. (Don’t worry the formula is simple and you will get it soon).

Once you find an L shape you need to convert it to a line. And the same formula will convert the line into a cross. Starting with the L shape, first position the shape such that it forms between UR, UF and the center piece.

Formula 2
To get a cross on the third layer :::: B L U L’ U’ B’

If you had the L shape now it is gone, and you got the line between UR – Centerpiece – UL. Repeat the formula to complete the cross.

(The L shape could be anywhere, but you have to make appropriate modifications to the formula)

Now position the cross such that the edge pieces are matching with the other layers. (Say, for Blue-Yellow edge piece, Yellow should be on the Yellow side, and so on). It does not happen easily. Sometimes two adjacent pieces will match, and sometimes two opposite pieces will match. If you find only one edge piece matching with the other layers, turn the U face and you will find some other two pieces are matching. Once you match two adjacent edge pieces with other layers and two others are not matching, we need to swap those two pieces which are not matching. If the two opposite pieces are matching we need to break that. Simply apply the next formula to break the matching and start with two adjacent matching pieces.

Let’s position the incorrect pieces on UF and UR for the third formula. Before doing the third formula, we need to be careful, because the third formula is presented in a reusable manner for memorizing. That necessitates to do an extra step before the third formula is applied. Once the UL and UB pieces are correct (i.e., UF and UR pieces are incorrect), quarter turn the U face clockwise, so that UF’looks’ correct. This is very important and often forgotten.

Formula 3
To swap the incorrect edge pieces :::: R U R’ U R U2 R’

By now all the edge pieces are correct, and the corner pieces needs to be solved. If you look carefully, one of the corner pieces may be in its right position, but not aligned correctly. We need it for the next step. If none of the corner pieces are in its position simply follow the next formula, and you can find one falling into position (the alignment may be wrong) and do the formula again to correct others. The formula cycles three corner pieces in clockwise direction. It means, UBR will go to UFR, UFR will move to UFL and UFL will go to UBR. Notice that UBL remains as it is. So the correctly positioned corner piece should be on UBL while other three pieces move in clockwise direction to take their places.

Formula 4
To cycle three corner pieces :::: R’ U L U’ R U L’ U’

After cycling enough, the corner pieces take their position, and may be misaligned. If two adjacent corner pieces are aligned properly, you are lucky. But if two opposite pieces are aligned properly, you have to break one of those. How sad!

The last and longest formula will solve the cube. This formula should be applied in such a way that when the little face RUF will become UFR (or rotates anticlockwise in its position) the piece will be solved. This is important. To reiterate, hold the cube such that the corner piece will be correctly aligned when RUF turns to UFR. It is also to be noted that this formula works with two corner pieces. So if you rotate RUF, RLF will also rotate. Now, if you do not find any piece that will satisfy the condition that when RUF becomes UFR the corner piece will be aligned, just do the next formula once, and you will find a piece satisfying the condition.

Formula 5
To rotate the corner piece RUF to UFR :::: R’ U2 R U R’ U R L U2 L’ U’ L U’ L’

Repeat the formula and rotate the pairs of unsolved corners such that when RUF becomes UFR the RUF (UFR) corner piece is correctly aligned, until THE CUBE IS SOLVED.

Notice that the first part of formula 5 is the reverse of formula 3 and the second part is mirrored moves of the first. That is why it was asked to do the extra step before the formula 3 is applied. Also, keep in mind that all these formulae can be mirrored to provide opposite/mirrored results. Practicing such mirrored formulae will improve the speed of solving.

There are more optimizations that can be done while solving, but it is better learned after familiarizing one solution. It would complicate this already complicated document, if I were to write down the optimal steps.

Last but not the least, do not get discouraged or disheartened if you cannot solve the cube overnight. It took me some sleepless nights to observe, learn and practice the cube, and now the cube just gets solved in my hands. I need not recollect these formulae or consciously apply them.

Wishing you all the best…

NOTE: I had prepared an image to explain each step. But I became too lazy to lay it out on the page. Here is the image – rubiks-cube-solution.png – if you need any visual assistance in solving.  In case the image does not look good, change the background to white in your image viewer, as there are some transparent colors in the image.

Introduction to Cryptography

Cryptography was a subject of interest among the Government agencies, military, banks and multinational corporations, until recently. The research and development in this area was mainly aimed at delivering the vital messages without being understood by the interceptors. As we move into an information society, now cryptography relates to everyones life. It has become one of the main tools of privacy, trust, access control, electronic payments, corporate security and countless other fields.

The history of Cryptography is 4000 years old and can be traced to the hieroglyphs of early Egyptian civilization. It played a crucial role in both the World Wars. Cryptanalysis, the art of breaking the cryptographic messages (called ciphers) was also developed, and played an equal role in World War II.

In earlier days the secrecy of cryptographic messages depended upon the secrecy of algorithms. The strength of these systems clearly depended on its implementations. Also, it is possible to reengineer these algorithms, if implemented in software, particularly. In modern cryptosystems, everyone knows the algorithm, and the secrecy depends on keys, some random numbers used to encrypt the message or plaintext. The most commonly used type of cryptosystem in use today is Data Encryption Standard (DES), developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA, based on a cryptosystem by Horst Feistel, a scientist at IBM Corporation. DES is known as a symmetric (or secret-key) algorithm, as it uses the same key for encryption and decryption. The encryption is performed by a series of permutations, expansions, and bit-slice operations, which makes it tough for the attacker to decipher the message. Nevertheless, DES was broken in 1998, with the use of modern computers that can do exhaustive key search easily. A variant of DES, Triple DES (3DES) uses DES three times, in an encrypt-decrypt-encrypt sequence with three different, unrelated keys. Triple-DES is arguably stronger than DES, however, it is rather slow compared to some new cryptosystems.

In response to growing feasibility of attacks against DES, NIST began coordinating the development of a successor to be called as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). AES will use a more complex algorithm and 128-bit encryption standard instead of 64-bit standard of DES (actually 56 bit, excluding parity bits). Another algorithm called IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm) also uses 128-bit key and considered to be secure. It has been around for several years and no practical attacks on it have been published, despite numerous attempts to analyze it.

A different type of cryptosystem was developed in the meantime, generally known as Public Key Cryptography, using asymmetric (public-key) algorithms. Public-key cryptography uses a pair of mathematically related keys. If one key is used to encrypt information, then only the related key decrypt that information. The security of Public Key Cryptosystem is based on the fact that the private key can be computed from the public key only by solving a difficult computational problem. Therefore, the keys are based on the intractability of discrete logarithms, or factoring of large integers etc. RSA developed by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman is the most commonly used public key cryptosystem. The RSA system uses two large prime numbers, multiplied to form a composite and capitalizes on the very difficult problem of factoring into prime numbers. Other common public-key systems are Diffie-Hellman, used in key exchange protocols and Digital Signature Standard (DSS), a signature only mechanism endorsed by the United States Government. These two systems are based on discrete logarithms.

A public key system can be explained using an example. In this system every end-points hold a pair of keys called public-key and private-key. Public-key is published to all, while the private-key is kept secret. The information to be sent is encrypted using the publickey, which is provided by the receiver, or retrieved from a directory in which it is published (see Lotus Notes Address Book). The receiver uses the private-key to decrypt the information that has been encrypted using corresponding public-key. Thus the receiver can be certain that the information it is able to decrypt must have been intended for it. Alternatively, a private-key can be used to digitally sign a message, to identify the sender. The digital signature is a unique value depending on the content of the message, created using a hashing or message authentication algorithm. This value is encrypted using the private-key. The person who receives this message is provided with the algorithm and the public-key (either in the message itself, or from a directory). The receiver hash the message using the algorithm, decrypts the signature using the public-key, and compares the values as verification. When combined with a digital timestamp, the message can also be proved to have been sent at a certain time.

Another development in this area is a digital certificate. It is digitally signed statement by a Certification Authority (CA) that provides independent confirmation of an attribute claimed by a person offering a digital signature. The Certification Authority is a mutually trusted third party who does verification of the subject of the certificate, much like an agency that issues passports or driving licenses. In practice, CAs offer a range of certificates, graded according to the level of inquiry used to confirm the identity of the subject of the certificate. Digital certificates have a wide range of applications in the growing Internet community. Identifying Certificates that technically binds a name to a public key, Authorization Certificates binding the geographic location, age and other attributes, and Transactional Certificates to attest a particular transaction are some examples.

The Public Key System is collectively known as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), including the Digital Certificates, Certification Authorities, Directories, and Certificate Management Systems. Applications are made PKI aware so that they are able to use Digital Signatures and Digital Certificates. Security is considered as a chain; it is only as strong as the weakest link.

Cryptography has advanced leaps and bounds in past few decades, identifying and removing the weakest links. The exponential growth in computational technology keeps demanding stronger versions of cryptographic systems than ever before. Also, if the weakest links that are not cryptographic, such as storage of private keys, are not made stronger the system will still remain vulnerable, however strong it is.

Our Deepest Fear

I saw the movie “Coach Carter” and am pretty impressed. The coach kept asking the tough rookie – “Cruz, what’s your deepest fear?”. At one point Cruz finds the answer:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

That’s something too philosophical to come out from the character. It’s a quote from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson. May be coach Carter taught him on that eventful night. Anyway!

Talented people are hard to find. They are hard to manage as well. But the biggest problem with the talented lot is to make them one with a team. In the height of their abilities, the biggest fear they face is that they are “powerful beyond measure” and they should not “shrink” in front of others. As their team-mates catch up with them, they start building a fortress around themselves or start building insecurity in others. They just can’t afford to lose the top spot.

Once Cruz realized that his fear is in not being able to let go, he was able to work on it and identify himself better with the team. He was okay to abide with the contracts and the rules.

Are you talented and take pride in your abilities and do you tend to bend the rules? Well, think twice. What’s your deepest fear?

Hunters & Farmers

In a recent newsletter, Jim Womack from Lean.Org has mentioned the hunters/farmers concept in sales, and encouraged the farmers in a lean organization. For the people who have not heard about hunters & farmers, hunters are the aggressive sales people who’s interest is in getting sales higher and faster for the moment. While farmers can be quite future-minded, nurturing the customers, slowly building them up to a long term relationship.

These days organizations prefer hunters (we call head-hunters, not head-farmers; isn’t it?) and that helps them meet the short-term targets very well. When the hunters get worn out, they get new hunters! When the customer is not happy being hunted ruthlessly, the hunters go and find new customers and hunt them down! I guess that is why Jim Womack preferred farmers than hunters.

But, farming is not very attractive. And nobody has patience. What do we do now? ‘Hunters who occasionally farm’ does not sound nice! Shall we encourage farmers, who hunt occasionally?

Tiny Little Minute

I was preparing some notes on “stewardship of time” and came across this poem.

Just a tiny little minute,
Only sixty seconds in it,
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it,
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.

– Author Unknown

I sat there for a moment and wondered how much meaning it conveyed to me. May be the entire message on “stewardship of time” is in it.

Order or chaos?

It is astonishing if you look at the orderliness in physics and in the applicability of the laws of physics. Order and discipline are also considered as a desirable quality in human life.

It is interesting to note the relation of order and predictability. Predictability helps better ordering and orderliness makes the results more predictable. This is the key for many of the modern process improvement techniques such as Lean.

Lean processes first aims for an order in the system. This first step is one of the most difficult steps as the change needs to be from within. If the change is not from one’s self, it becomes an imposition – a trigger for disorder. The immediate and surprising savings come from ordering the systems. From my experience, it is always a challenge to bring order and uniformity in a team unless it is demonstrated and the team is motivated. Much more efforts will be spent on follow up and maintenance of order until a steady state is reached.

It costs to bring order into a system. It costs time and money to keep our rooms clean and tidy. As a child, I was not much orderly in life. Those days my father used to tell me – “it saves an hour, if only we take a minute to keep things right, at the first place”. Lean implementations prove that the cost of order and discipline is recoverable. However, orderliness by itself may not bring huge savings. The savings will depend on how effective the arrangement is. It is important to study the usability of an ordered system to decide the effectiveness. In a team, it matters how members perceive the system and how they are able to adapt to it. Most of the times, it makes sense to limit the ‘degree of orderliness’ at a medium so that it is acceptable to everyone.

While order and discipline are much desirable, chaos is unavoidable. Deterministic laws of physics are classical. In modern days, quantum mechanics adds a dash of randomness and unpredictability to the rigidity of physics laws. It is then also important to relate to the chaos of the system, and to learn to limit it in allowable limits. In physics too, the randomness affects small particles, not the larger systems.

Order or chaos? It is difficult to say which is fundamental. Human nature is unpredictable and random and chaos seems to be the answer. It requires commitment and dedication to adopt orderliness into our nature and practice it in everyday life. Everyday I need to take many conscious decisions to maintain order in my environment. Still, I am striving & straining, for a better order in my life. It is an unending journey, a journey to perfection!