There have been tomes written on team management, but, if you whittle it to the core, it boils down to the following. You set crystal clear expectations so that everyone knows what is expected out of them. You create an environment where everyone can thrive and meet/exceed the set expectations. You periodically check-in to ensure … Continue reading Management distilled
Tag: management
Competitive advantage
Are you focussing on developer productivity? If not, read why you should. Technology is getting commoditized. In the yesteryears, you could have counted on your software frameworks and technologies, hardware prowess, access to capital and talent pool as competitive advantages. In a world, which is getting commoditized, the access to these has been democratized, thus … Continue reading Competitive advantage
Daily Standup
Are you confused as to whether to do a daily standup or not for your team? Read on why you should. Daily standups are a hotly contested and controversial topic in the software industry. There are some who actively champion it, and then there are others who detest it. I belong to the former camp, … Continue reading Daily Standup
Deviation From Expected
Someone sitting at a distance asks for the water bottle near me. I pick up the bottle and throw it at that person. Surprisingly, the cap is not screwed. Water splashes all over. When a bottle has its cap on, we usually expect it to be tightly screwed. When something deviates from the expected, unless … Continue reading Deviation From Expected
Resolving disagreements
When you disagree with something or someone, either you do it because you think your idea is better, or you want to keep your ego intact. Let us ignore the latter and focus on the former where the intention is to let the best idea win. When a group of people sit down and try … Continue reading Resolving disagreements
My View
I was looking at Jimi wallets online. Someone peeked at my laptop and asked what it is? I explained it is a rugged waterproof wallet. The other person’s immediate reaction was – Why would anyone need this? This person has never faced the fury of rain while cycling outside. Whenever I explain startups spending marketing … Continue reading My View
Ingratitude
Zoho's domain was inaccessible for a while. This is an embarrassing event for a software organization. https://twitter.com/zoho/status/1044249648993525760 Whenever I hear of events like this, I am reminded of a couple of pages in "The Black Swan". Taleb calls it "A new kind of ingratitude". The idea presented by Taleb essentially boils down to a person … Continue reading Ingratitude
Micro Versus Macro Solutions
Imagine a person who walks from her home to the office. Frequently she is late to work as she takes time to cover the distance. She wants to improve her pace. She goes to a walking expert to get tips on increasing her walking speed. A radical solution to the problem is to use some … Continue reading Micro Versus Macro Solutions
Process Introduction
Whenever a new process is introduced, there is always going to be some discomfort. The cause can be categorized into: 1. Uneasiness due to newness. 2. There is a problem with the process itself. Category one is due to human nature. Deviation from an established routine causes queasiness and a yearning for the old way. … Continue reading Process Introduction
Checklist
Checklists have been in vogue for quite some time now. Probably Atul Gawde's book The Checklist Manifesto kickstarted this. I have been late to the party but once I arrived, I never left. A checklist is an amazing tool to organize personal as well as professional life. Hospitals have figured out that by following … Continue reading Checklist
Self-infliction
I recently watched the movie Hichki. The Plot of the film revolves around a group of kids from less privileged strata of society who get a chance to attend an elite school. With time, these kids feel that the school and the more privileged students there do not give them the respect they deserve. They … Continue reading Self-infliction
Solving Problems
When faced with a problem, the way we should think is: 1. What is the quick and dirty solution? 2. What is the long-term solution? Most of the time, one tends to do only one conveniently ignoring the other. Our mind goes into overdrive and quickly implements a hacky solution and then we forget the … Continue reading Solving Problems
Anti Features
When evaluating new technology, framework or library; a lot of importance is given to the salient features. While it is very important to know the positives, the negatives usually tend to be glossed over. Being aware of the shortcomings of a framework gives one the ability to anticipate problems down the road. For example, let … Continue reading Anti Features
Taking Calls
Making decisions is part and parcel of being a leader. It might feel empowering to take calls, but the hallmark of authentic leadership is in enabling others to do this. The smoother the decision-making process and the lesser the blockers, the better it is for the organization. One route to get there is to create … Continue reading Taking Calls
Build Versus Buy
Consciously or unconsciously, as software engineers, we perennially take build versus buy decisions. It might be as trivial as copy-pasting code from somewhere versus racking up our brains to write our own; using an already available library or creating one from scratch; using a time tested framework against designing one; building a piece of software … Continue reading Build Versus Buy
Context
Sapiens, the book, gives a fantastic perspective of the context in which today's religions, society, and social practices evolved and how in the current context, a lot of these are irrelevant. One of the core ideas presented in the book is that humanity, during evolution, favored social stability over individual liberty because trust was necessary … Continue reading Context
The Expectation Test
I got a phone lying down on road. Since I could not unlock the phone, I waited for the owner of the device to call. A couple of hours later he did call and in his opening sentence started pleading to return it. Even though he was the rightful owner of the phone, he expected … Continue reading The Expectation Test
We Are a Startup
Being part of a startup is not an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later. “We are a startup” is the most common phrase people spout when you ask them about their sloppy processes and development practices. Being a startup cannot justify having zero process or letting developers be trigger happy. Being a startup … Continue reading We Are a Startup
Let us set up an office
FreeCharge recently moved into a bigger office; this brought back fond memories of setting up the first Bangalore office. Setting up an office might not seem a daunting task, but trust me, it is. A previous company that I was part of had opted not to set up its own office and worked out of … Continue reading Let us set up an office
Requirements
We had an admin interface from which people could download an Excel report. One day, we got a mail saying that the report format is Excel version so and so and it does not work with new Excel versions. The scramble began to find out which version of Excel was used, which version our app … Continue reading Requirements
The disconnect
I used to sit next to the CS(Customer Service) team for sometime and I heard them instructing certain steps to customers to redeem campaign codes the second time. The dev team had put some extended efforts to exactly prevent this sort of scenario, these campaign codes were not to be redeemed twice. Why this sort … Continue reading The disconnect
Hands On Manager
When I was new to the software industry, I always used to wonder why managers and leads delegate and ask for updates instead of being hands-on. This article is dedicated to the young novice naive me. Let us take a hypothetical manager in an organization who has taken upon herself to deliver a feature. … Continue reading Hands On Manager
Appraisals
Employee appraisals are a cause of butt ache in almost every organization. Majority of the people I have known/worked with hate this time of the year. In most of the places, appraisals are done in an ass backward way, where in, during some pre defined interval, you fill a form with all the potions you … Continue reading Appraisals
Collaboration tools
Anyone who has been part of a team, be it as an individual contributor or as a lead/manager, would sense a feeling of deja vu after reading this succinct post. I personally have seen this being played in almost every organization I have been a part of. Having been on both sides of the table, … Continue reading Collaboration tools
Work from home
Recently, there has been a brouhaha in the tech community over Marissa Mayer's views on work from home. As an individual tech worker, it is very appealing to side with work from home, and going by the community's reactions, I would say that I am not in the least surprised. But, when you look at it from … Continue reading Work from home
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