Technology can't solve it all!

Technology can't solve it all, sometimes! I wouldn't have said that few years back but as I progressed through my career and saw project after project and issue after issue I realized there will be instances where technology all by itself can't solve the entire business problem.  We may have to come up with a process solution or an exception process to make the solution whole.  It's difficult to admit it as a career technologist but that's the cold truth.  

To give you an example, recently I ran in to a team which was trying to solve a business problem.  To keep it high level, this team was trying to do some data processing based on a key match between a legacy system and a newer web based system.  The team comprised of seasoned and dedicated technologists.  They were able to find the match for 99.95% of the records but they were not able to match on 0.05% of the records.  So, they kept breaking their heads and tried many different routes to get to 100% match and on the way burnt about 2 months and put a multimillion dollar enterprise project at risk of missing schedule milestones.  When few of us from outside of the team started engaging with this, we soon realized in a working session what was going on.  When we analyzed the problem, it was truly a situation where technology can't solve the whole problem as the data itself was incorrect.  The team was able to come up with an exception process to handle those 0.05% of the records and everything started humming again.  

The reason I chose to write about this is to: 1. Admit that there are limits to what technology can solve, 2.So we all know that it is OK to come up with an exception process and not put the bigger objectives at risk for solving a small and impossible problem.  Be smart and keep the eye on the prize!

Persistence pays!!

As I was writing my new blog post, I learned from twitter that Osama Bin Laden is killed.  As the news started sinking in I recollected where I was on September 11th, 2001 and how I heard the news about the attack on World Trade Center.  I also recollected how Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attack subsequently and how the US government has ordered capture or killing of Bin Laden.  Finally today on 5/1/2011, that mission is accomplished and justice is done.  

It took almost 10 years for US Government, unarguable the entity with the most possible resources, to accomplish what it was set on to do.  The lesson that I learned from all this is that "persistence pays when all else fails".  It wouldn't have been possible to achieve this closure without the persistent effort of countless people.  It is no different for us individuals in our every day life too.  Many people dream of things they want to achieve but only some people really reach their goals.  If we closely examine though, it will be very clear that people that achieve tougher goals are very persistent in their efforts.  

So, my advise to anyone chasing their dreams including myself, "Be persistent in achieving your goals".

Doing Business in India

Week before last I spoke to LaSalle high school freshmen class about "Doing business in India".  It was great to see these young kids comprehend the information very quickly and to listen to some of the questions and subsequent discussion.  Here is the presentation I used for the session:

Few of the questions that came from the class just amazed me.  These freshmen kids were asking questions about brand introduction, brand management, social and economic conditions in various countries, etc.  It made me reflect back on my high school days and I can say for sure that I was not thinking at their level when I was at their age.  It once again proved to me the later generations are sharper and they have many more tools available at their disposal than their earlier generations.  All that matters is how they use them and succeed in their careers.  I enjoyed the whole experience and would love to do it again if I have an opportunity!!!

Dr. Gordon Gee's speech notes

The Ohio State University President Dr.Gordon Gee spoke to my EMBA class (class of  2009) on Friday, April 3rd 2009.  His speech left a lasting impression on me and some of the things he discussed are very profound.

Below are the notes from that speech:

1. Learn from your mistakes.  Calibrate yourself and don't get too ambitious too soon.
2. Get comfortable with who you are and try not to be one who others want you to be.
3. Need to have a thick skin, be humorous and have a sense of humor.
4. Feel confident about your decisions and stick to them.
5. Its all about talent and culture. Don't tolerate mediocre performance. Strive for and expect excellence.
6. Greatest personal mistake - love my work too much. Don't become a workaholic. Keep your balance.

Most of these things appear to be common sense. But, when you sit back and think about them, each one of these items have a very deep and profound meaning.  Personally, I am trying to follow them as much as possible although most of you who know me personally already know that I lack a degree of sense of humor :) 

Offshore IT challenges - Part II

In continuation to my last post....

The second troubling issue is employee retention.  Indian IT community is not projecting an image of dependability to the global enterprise.  Attrition rates are way too high (I heard someone say as high as 20% in good years) and prospective employees shop around with job offers playing one firm against the other.  Just to be clear in what I mean by this, employees move from company to company in a very short amount of time for a very small increase in compensation.  The other part of the problem is that the prospective employees accept an offer letter from a company and then go shop in the market with few other companies and negotiate higher comp.  It's OK if they doesn't accept the offer and shop around but it is not ethical/professional to accept an offer and then to go around and shop for higher comp on top of that. 

I believe this is an easier problem to solve and the industry/firms have more control over.  But it needs more discipline and commitment from the Indian software firms. Couple of the things I can think of to address this set of issues include:

1. Companies not interviewing/considering new hires that have worked for less than 2 years at the previous firm.  Some companies use something called a dependability index to track and address this but it should be adopted as an industry self regulation measure.  
2. Companies not negotiating with candidates on top of offers from other companies. 
3. Educating the candidates that it's not acceptable to shop around once they accept an offer and to blacklist them if they are caught doing it (goes back to the national registry of Software professionals concept we discussed in the last post).  

Also, IT firms should realize that they are as much responsible for this problem as the candidates because it's the firms deeds that are encouraging the candidates to behave in a fashion that is actually detrimental at the end to the overall industry.

P.S: I received a lot of feedback from people that read my last post and I sincerely appreciate it.  These are genuine problems for the Indian IT industry and if not addressed can make the whole industry irrelevant to the global economy very quickly.  So, please share your thoughts on how we can act on any of these and also please share these posts with your friends/acquaintances who can make a difference.  Thank you!!