2010
03.07
I was watching “Bugs Life” with my 2.5 year old son and I heard a statement which I hadn’t paid attention to when I watched this movie couple times before. In the movie Hopper says “First rule of leadership: everything is your fault. It’s a bug-eat-bug world out there” to the queen when the queen tries to blame it on the worker ant.
This holds true in today’s management world. The whole responsibility of a manager/leader is to see the unseen and do everything that needs to happen in order to avoid issues. Recently I ran into a situation and the best thing anyone can do is to accept the blame and failure, apologize for it and provide assurance on what will be done to avoid this in the future. The organizations are huge now a days and its harder and harder to control everything.
Leaders have a huge responsibility. They are not only responsible for the growth of the company they are also responsible for the growth of every employees they manage.
Category Management |
2010
02.15
Gone are the days where Managers would sit and decide what needs to be done and who does it. In today’s world Managers have to be more hands on. They are the first line of leaders among the organization. Read my article on technical-management so see what it means to be a manager in todays Agile organization.
I came across this article form Pete Deemer at the Scrum Training Institute. He has written an excellent article on the role of the manager in Scrum.
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“What’s the role of a manager in Scrum? I’m a manager, and since I’m not mentioned in the definition of the Scrum roles, and the team is self-organizing, does that mean I’m supposed to just… disappear?”
You can download the guide at: Manager 2.0: The Role of the Manager in Scrum
{quote}
Category Agile, Management, Technology |
2010
02.06
This was a good book, but somehow I was not that impressed by it and couldn’t convince myself to complete the last few chapters.
Category Books, Management |
2010
02.06
I finally got to finish reading this book. It is absolutely a fabulous book. This is a must read for all the people on the product development side or on the strategy side. One of the key things that this book talks about is how do you create a Blue Ocean which will get you out of the bloody red ocean war with your compitetors. The four action framework is a great concept to look into
1. Create – What is that you are creating new. This factor should not have been offered by the industry that you are in.
2. Eliminate – What factors are taken for granted and should be eliminated.
3. Reduce – What factors can be reduced yet still provided the value needed.
4. Raise – What factors should be raised above the industry standards
Also the next focus should be on non-customers.
First-Tier Non-customers – These are the people who are currently the customers who interact very minimally and not too happy or else looking for other alternatives
Second-Tier customers – These are the people who are not customers currently and who dislike or don’t want to use your products.
Third-Tier customers – These are the people who are untapped and not considered as customers for the industry you are in.
Finally overcoming the “Organizational Hurdles”
Strategic shift: Involve your employees to talk to them about the strategic shift.
Limited Resource – Address the limited resource issues
Motivation – Motivate the key people to move fast and tenaciously
Politics – The key phrase most of the places is “You get shot down before you stand up”. You need to address all the issues.
On the whole it was great reading about all the companies that created Blue Oceans for themselves. Cirque De Sole, Yellow Tail., Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, CNN etc….
Category Books |
2009
12.29
Technical management has different meanings at different places. The way I see it is by dividing the responsibilities into three categories
1. People management – this is the number one responsibilty for any technical manager. He/She needs to be focused on the people reporting to them and make sure that their needs are taken care of. The manager should always create an environment where the direct reports are the most productive. You should be more downward focused than upward focused if you want to build a really strong team. There is a fine line between being the nice guy and being an asshole. The more closer u are towards the line the better for you.
2. Project Management – if you are in a technical company where you are also resposible for projects then you need to have project management skills. The more details you know about the project the easier it is to run a successful project. Transparency is the key to success. Always keep an open communication and inform everyone of the status as often a possible. If you have the flexibilty follow one of the Agile methodologies.
3. Technical decision maker: this is one of the responsibilty of a technical manager. The more closer you are to technical decisions the better you are at managing people and also better at managing the projects. In my opinion this role/responsibilty is what distinguishes a regular technical manager from an exceptional one.
Category Technology |
2009
12.24
Wordpress has an awesome iPhone app now. You can actually manage most of the critical pieces of blogging through this app. Most of the times I get these thoughts that I wish I could blog but would forget before I get in front of a computer. I am hoping I will blog more often with this wordpress app.
Opensource will go longways. Applications like wordpress is what makes opensource such a great model.
Tags: Technology Category Technology |
2009
12.08
We have been looking to hire couple software engineers for a few months now. We have already phone screened about a dozen and interviewed a handful. Why is that it is so hard to find some good java developers? Is it because Chicago has maxed out or else good people are hard to come by? Or else is that the resumes that are coming across are not quality resumes?
Either way we are looking for some kick ass java developers. C# or C++ would work too. It is a fast paced company and really busy team. If you are interested to work in the Travel Industry then post a comment in here with your contact and I will reach out to you. You need to have more than 4 years of experience to be considered. You can also apply directly in here
Apply Now
Category Jobs |
2009
10.16
Today Intellij announced that they are open sourcing the IDE. As usual this was a huge step for JetBrains and was welcomed very well in the development community. I am a huge fan of IDEA and have been using this for almost 5 years now. Its worth every penny in my opinion. I am interested to see where this will end up in the future. One good thing is Jetbrains is still continuing a commercial version and hence the good stuff will keep coming. Now I can afford to download a free version and enjoy the same benefits.
Sorry Eclipse users you will be left behind in my opinion 
.
Category Technology |
2009
09.18
4 months with around 200 miles worth of training and burning around 20K calories I finally managed to finish my first ever Half Marathon. Here are some pictures from my run http://www.marathonfoto.com/order_my_photos.cfm?BFI=jjvu40um1d&Language=en.
I started off well and was doing around 10 mins a mile up until 6 miles. Then started slowing down and was around 10.30mins per mile for around 10 miles. Then I hit the wall when my knees started giving up on me. I managed finally to finish up in 2:41 and completing the run within the allocated time. My timing was around 12:20per mile in the end. The last 2 weeks of my training was not up to par and I blame myself for that
But in the end I am happy that I was able to finish the half. It was so worth all the effort that I went through. Now I have a a lot more respect to the runners mainly due to the dedication and discipline that they need to have to participate in these kind of runs. I hope I can do this again
http://www.mapmyrun.com/user/united-states/il/bolingbrook/ragskashyap
Category Running |
2009
07.26
Why is that its been more than a month that I have blogged about anything? There are a bunch of reasons that are keeping me busy now a days. By far the one that that has kept me busy since early May is Running. I was never a long distance runner. I used to do short sprints during my school and college days. Now all of a sudden why the long distance runs? I have been meaning to get some workouts to keep healthy but never got a reason to push myself. So I thought maybe if I signup for an event then I might do it. I am doing a half marathon(Chicago) in Sep 2009. As part of this I follow the training from Hal Hidgon. I run 3 times a week and cross train for 2 days and do strengthen exercises for 1 day. This has been my routine for 2 months now.
I track my training at mapmyrun. I use a nike heart rate monitor and use the imapmyrun iphone app to track the running and workouts. I have been doing roller blading as my cross training sport. Here are some good running links that I have gathered during my research
I hope to continue my training for another month and a half and plan on completing the half marathon.
Category Running |