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Thursday, January 3, 2008

Charity at work!!

I really appreciate the good work done by Adam Gilchrist, Australian cricket team's wicketkeeper, for a charitable cause recently during a test match. He donned pink wicket keeping gloves and took catches that contributed money for the charity that he supports. It is a noble cause. But was it easy for him because he is a celebrity and people are ready to back him up. Will it be equally easy for commoners like you and me to do this? Well, the answer is yes! It is easy, provided we have the time and a desire to do a good deed!

I would love to hear from you what you have been able to do, ways in which we can help. Here’s one from my side – if you pay USD 400 for an XO laptop (100 dollar laptop project), you get one and the other one is donated to a child in an under-developed nation that could help the child in the education process!

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Staff augmentation - is it worth it?

Staff Augmentation works well for starters but is it wise to stick to it during the long course? Well, if you have a very small capacity to plan for then by all means, go for it.

Staff Augmentation works really well if there are only a handful of resources that need to be managed. Work could be assigned to and tracked fairly easily for these resources along with your own work. Staff Augmentation also helps if the size of the projects that you typically engage on are very small - both in terms of the team size and the duration. These projects use up less than 5 members and are less than 2 elapsed months in duration. Your project is as good or as bad as the resource that you decide to bring on board. Don't blame the staffing agency for the failure or the success, blame the model!

Beyond a certain threshold (35+ resources or 5 medium sized projects), it makes sense to go for project based ownership driven model of outsourcing. It takes away the pain of staff augmentation overheads of short-listing resources, interviewing, risk of whether the resource will really work out or not, tracking the time sheets for these resources among other tasks. The risk is owned by the consulting vendor. You can sit back and manage the outcome / deliverable. You really do not care if there is resource turnover in your project, the consulting vendor is on the hook for delivering the goods. These days Tier 1 vendors have an elaborate set of metrics that could be tracked for a project which give you a fair measure of the health of your project. If you see red, a phone call to the top management of the consulting vendor is all it takes for corrective actions and investments to fall in place and lo behold! the project is back on track! It is not always this easy but life is less stressful. If the project fails, then the vendor is to be blamed! The only thing that you need to manage (and manage really well) is the expectation of the business users. Business users will need to adapt to the concept of not always having people responding to their queries right away, they will have to learn to follow some processes, learn to sign-off on deliverables (and later learn that sign-off means a sign-off), learn the hard way that requirements cannot be changed at their beck and call, it takes money to add or change requirements, well the list is long...So long as you are able to manage the business users, you are on your way to success!

The other factors are that it is a cost effective option, there could be learning that is cross leveraged across projects, knowledge could be created in a common repository and over a period of time your organization could benefit from the structure and process regimen being followed by the consulting vendor (you will never reap these benefits with staff augmentation - there is no incentive for a staffing vendor to do this for you).

Staff augmentation may look easy and less of a trouble, but friend, look beyond and there lies heaven...it takes courage to take the first step (you know what, every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing it, so just do it). And most importantly, please make the vendor successful as your success lies in the success of the vendor. It takes some effort initially but the end results are worth the effort! Come on board and enjoy the ride!

टेक्नोलॉजी का दुरूपयोग - क्रिकेट पे कलंक

क्या टेक्नोलॉजी क्रिकेट कि मासूमियत छीन रही है? क्या टेक्नोलॉजी क्रिकेट से मनोरंजन को कम कर रही है?
मैं यह नहीं मानता! मैं तो यह कहता हूँ कि टेक्नोलॉजी का पूर्ण उपयोग न करने से हम इस असमंजस भरी स्थिथि मैं हैं। यदि स्निक्कोमीटर या हाव्क आए जैसी टेक्नोलॉजी अम्पाइर के पास होती तो वह कभी गलत डिसीजन नहीं देते और इतना बवाल कभी नहीं उठता। कृपा करके आप यह समझे कि उम्पिरे भी इंसान हैं और गलतियां भी इंसान ही करतें हैं। इस प्रकार का टेक्नोलॉजी का अर्ध उपयोग क्रिकेट को एक सज्जन और भावनात्मक खेल से एक ठंडा खेल बना रह है। आज कि ज़रूरत है कि या तो हम टेक्नोलॉजी का पूर्ण उपयोग करें या फिर अम्पाइर पे पूर्ण भरोसा.

Technology's invasion of cricket - is a non issue!!

Slick use of technology certainly makes for an interesting cricket viewing on television but is it good for a good old game of cricket? Is use of technology robbing a part of the 'glorious uncertainties' of cricket? If we really look at the root cause, it is the partial deployment of technology that is the cause for concern rather than the technology itself.

Who would have raised a hue and cry, if the umpires too had the freedom to look at the snickometer or the hawkeye reading for each appeal. Please do not blame the two men in white coats in the middle, they are after all very much human. TV Commentators, have the freedom to look at replays and make use of the technology at their disposal (and they sometimes still get it wrong!) and create an issue out of nothing - thereby create a topic that sustains them for a day and for the TV channel it translates into higher TRPs and thereby higher revenues!!

So what if the umpire makes a mistake! Its a part of the game - at the end of a day's play, the players and the umpires should feel comfortable to meet at the club house and have a beer and enjoy each others company. Please remember cricket is a game and it should be enjoyed not only by the viewers but also by the players as well as by the umpires. This partial deployment of technology is not helping the game - it is robbing cricket of the human element. Technology is cold and impersonal and cricket as a game is much more warm and friendly.

The decision makers must decide - either all or nothing - swaying in between is not done!