Project 8: Why I do it!!!

I remember the first time I attended Toastmaster session. When asked to introduced myself, I started with my work experience, my educational background and certifications I had completed. I paused for a second as I realized, that I was at a Toastmasters Club meeting, and not for a job interview. So I changed subjects to talk about why I was at the club and what I expected to get out of the club. I also talked about my hobbies. Cricket, music and mountains are my passion. Ever since that day, I have never missed a chance to get on stage and talk about mountains and my trekking experiences. And as I spoke, I have seen some eyebrows raised, doubting the credibility of my stories. I know it's hard to believe a visibly unfit guy like me talk about mountaineering. So I thought to take this opportunity to substantiate my stories with photographic evidence.

So let me jump straight to my presentation, where I'll show you photographs of three my favourite treks.

1. Alang - Kulang - Madan

Before I tell you about this trek, I want to ask everyone; Which was you most memorable New Year's Eve? I am sure most would have stories of an epic party with friends at a bar or a pub, or may be a club. For me this particular trek stands out. My friends and I planned to do something different that year. So the moment someone of us muttered Alang - Kulang - Madan, we all agreed in unison. Alang- Kulang - Madan are three most isolate and remote forts in Maharashtra. Very few venture out to these forts, due to its sheer inaccessibility. We drove overnight to the base of the forts, then trekked through thick forests for good six to seven hours, with heavy sacks on our backs; only to face a huge rock wall smooth as a slate. With sun hurrying towards the horizon, we had to muster up as much strength as we could to anchor the ropes and climb the wall that stood before us. Our exhaustion was more than compensated for by the amazing view from the top. We setup a small camp fire and slept next to it gazing at millions of shimmering stars in the clear night sky. At the stroke of midnight the horizon on either side of the forts light up with fireworks set from the towns below.

2. Raigad

Raigad, the capital of the Maratha Empire. A perfect specimen of a formidable fortified fort. I have visited this fort many times, and each time the fort has surprised me with something new. By the way luck never seems to favor me when at this fort though. This one time, I broke my shoes and had to walk bare foot in the mountains on a hot summer afternoon. The other time I broke my toes and had to limp all through the trek. Most memorably, I remember, it rained so heavily that there was about three inches of water in our tent, I had to sleep sitting on our sack.

3. Vasota

Just like Alang, this fort too is one of the most remote places in Maharashtra. Fort Vasota is located in the back waters of the Koyna river. This fort marks the border of rain shadow region. Thick forest and large back waters of the Koyna river on one side and a complete barren landscape on the other side. One can clearly see the stark contrast between the two landscapes during summers. Due to its inaccessibility, Marathas used this fort as prison. Most dreaded convicts of their times were locked up here. Though this fort is heavily fortified, it has never been part of any famous battles. It exchanged hands only through treaties signed between kingdoms. Only story of a battle that I know was between Marathas and British. This too was a token fight, cause it is said that the British fired only three cannon balls at this fort and the fort was surrendered.

Today, I shared only a few of my experiences with you all. My wife hasn't been this fortunate. One day when I told her about one of my trekking experiences; she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Trekking twenty miles, with a twenty pound sack on your back, all day under the sun in the mountains is not a definition of a fun activity.That's manual labour. Why would you do such a thing?". To answer her question I showed her this photo.

That's me fast asleep on the floor of Satara Bus Depot after a long trek. But on a serious note  my answer to 'Why do I do it?' is for three main reasons.

1. Self Actualization

With each trek I have a new realization of my capabilities. Capabilities that I knew I had and the one I didnt. Like the capabilities, I also have the realization of my limitations. With each trek I challenge myself and discover how far I can physically and mentally push myself.

2. History

Every window has a different perspective. History is not dull and depressing as it is in our text books, and its definitely not as glamorous as shown in the movies. To really understand history you have to visit these forts and mountains. They give you a chance to visualize how things must have transpired in the past.

3. I am a Storyteller

I love to tell stories. The most vivid stories are only possible if you have had the opportunity to travel, explore, see and experience things first hand. With a large bag full of experiences that I have, make for some really exciting stories to tell.

Xpressions 2015

On Sunday 18^th Oct 2015 Oracle Mumbai was host to Xpressions 2015 a speech contest for Toastmasters International. Xpression 2015 had participants from Toastmasters Clubs all over Mumbai. Participants contested in humorous speech and speech evaluation contests.

I too competed in the humorous speech contest. I based my short speech on a dialogue between Norm and Cliff from the popular TV show "Cheers". I titled my speech "The Theory of Intelligence".

The Theory of Intelligence

For a long time i thought, human intelligence was like our heights. No matter how high you are, that one extra inch would have done wounders to your self-esteem. Fellow Toastmasters and guests, welcome to our facility here at Oracle Mumbai for the speech contest. My topic for the day is "Theory of Intelligence". From the dawn of the ages philosophers have contemplated over what intelligence is and how humans can improve there intelligence. Dante, Plato, Socrates, etc. and other philosophers in time have pondered on this idea. So i thought why not me. I can have my own theory on this subject. I am intelligent. After all i am an engineer. See being an engineer automatically gives me right competency to talk on anything under the sun. 

Going back to the analogy I gave before, as I thought more subject i came to realize, that there is only so much one can to to improve ones height. And then there is little one can do about it. But our brain is a fascinating machine. It stars working well before your born and stops only after death. This machine has the capability has the capability to improve over time. So you can train yourself, sharpen your mind and become smarter. 

So I decided to applying my engineering skills to come out with a solution to this problem and find an easy way to help people improve there intelligence. So I thought and thought and thought some more. And I saw still staring in blank. I was getting a little disheartened even. Now Napoleon once said " Champagne to celebrate and cchampagne to contemplate." I choose the later option. So I went out with my friends to a bar to have a few drinks. After about four dirks it struck me. This is it!!! It was a flash of light. Why didn't I think about it before, well of course I had not been drinking before, so probably it was that. 

The story takes place in the savannas of Africa. In the great open pastures. There are herds gazelles grazing in the pastures. And where there are animals grazing there are always predators, lurking in the shadows, stalking their pray. Then the hunt begins. During the hunt the speed of the heard of gazelles is not determined by the fittest and strongest gazelles at the very start of the heard. But by the slowest and the weakest gazelles at the end of the heard. With each hunt, a weak link from that heard is removed. No matter how cruel this sounds but with each hunt the heard is actually improving.

I use the same analogy with our brain. Our brain is built up of brain cells. Our intelligence as with the heard is not determined by the fittest of the brain cells but by the weakest of the brain cells. No I need note tell you all how bad alcohol is for your body. Its equally bad for our brain since it kills brain cells. Now naturally alcohol is not going to kill the fittest of your brain cells first, but the weakest of the brain cells. So with each drink you get smarter and smarter and smarter. And that is why my friends I always sound smarter after a couple of beers. 

We all must have heard the old adage "An apple a day keeps a doctor away.". Now with this new revelation I feel we need to change this adage. So I propose, "An apple and a beer a day keeps a doctor and ......" well I figured only this much. What more do you expect from a guy with his fifth pint of beer. Cheers!!!

Sprinting with Agile

On 4th Sep 2015, Oracle Mumbai organized "Teach-It-Forward" an event to feature young OFSS employees who gave short talks on technology and functional knowledge. The event had some great talks on topics like MEAN Stack, Mobile Banking, Preparing for PMP, Bitcoin etc. I was also asked to give a small talk for the session. I chose to speak on Agile Methodology. 

Agile is a customer focused software development methodology in which a big project is subdivided in small mini projects. One or more such mini projects are completed in an iteration lasting two to three weeks long. What results is a partially usable product for the business owner, which can be then taken to end users.

An emails for the event was sent out to all OFSS staff a few days before the event with names and order of all the speakers. I was the first speaker in the list. I was quiet nervous as I presumed I had to open the event with my talk. But it turned out, on the day of the event the order was changed and I was placed as the last speaker. I was a little relieved by this news. The event was scheduled post lunch and I was going to go last on stage. I knew I had to put in some extra efforts to keep the audiences interested. So instead of giving a routine presentation using a ppt, which almost all the participants in the event did before me. I thought of engaging the audience by running them through a complete cycle of an Agile project.

I asked a friend of mine to video record my talk so that I can see how it went and where I can improve. Since I have shot this using a smart phone the audio and video quality might be a little poor. Here is the link to my talk. Do share you thought and ideas on the content and my presentation.

Project 7: Agile Startup

Navin Bansal a young IT professional was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. He submits his idea in an ideation contest conducted by NASCOM. He is misinformed that his idea has reached the final round of an ideation contest. He takes the leap of faith and quits his job to start his start up. He realizes for him to be successful he needs to roll out his product at the earliest. He decides to adopt Agile methodology so that he can get a customer focused product in the shortest amount time. Agile develops products in an iterative manner. With each iteration called Sprint a potentially shippable product is delivered to the client.

Navin hires Yogi to execute his project. Yogi as a Product Owner of an Agile team discusses requirements with Navin and documents them in a product backlog. A product backlog is a repository for all the requirements to be worked upon in Agile. They outline the project timelines and priorities for the project this is called as backlog grooming. Requirements in Agile are called User stories because they are focused on what the customer wants.

Yogi brings in Scrum Master Jitu and his team to develop the product. Yogi and Jitu conduct a sprint planning meeting with the scrum team. Yogi explains the sprints goal to the team. The team reviews and prioritizes the product backlog. Jitu decides which user story fits the current sprint and moves the product backlog into a sprint backlog. A sprint backlog defines the scope of the sprint. The scrum team is a heterogeneous group. It consists of both developers and quality analyst. With everything in place the team gets working.

Everyday during the sprint cycle Jitu conducts a Daily Standup Meeting with the scrum team to monitor their progress. They discuss three key points. What the team did yesterday? What they will be doing today? And what hindered their work? Jitu sees to it that all the impediments are resolved so that the team can work smoothly. Jitu tracks the team’s progress in a Sprint Brundown Graph. He shares it with the team during the daily standup meeting so that the team knows where they are and what they need to do to meet the sprints goal in the given timeline. With each day’s work the teams efforts increase while as the user stories are completed the sprint backlog decreases. When all the work for the sprint is complete it is presented to Navin in an End of Sprint Review.

Navin was happy with the work and signs it off. The partly completed yet usable product is launched in the market. Navin and Yogi then meet with Navin's customers and seek feedback. They approach Saurabh Mandal a marketing expert to review their product and give them inputs on user experience. The suggestions of the customer and Mandal are documented as new requirements for the upcoming sprint in the product backlog.

Yogi conducts a Retrospective meeting with Jitu and his scrum team. In this meeting Yogi shares the customer feedback with the team. The scrum team also discusses what went well during the sprint and what can be improved for the next sprint. This completes the first sprint and Yogi and Jitu start working with on the next sprint. With complition of each new sprint Navin is one step closer to his finished product.

Using Agile methodology Navin drastically reduces the time to market for his product. Since Navin can take only a part of his product and go to his customers, it gives him a confidence that what he envisioned is what his customer wants. Even with only a small part of the product Navin can start generating revenue for his start up. For a young starup revenue is a desperately needed lifeline.

Navin, Yogi, Jitu and Mandal are characters from one of my favorite internet show “The Pitchers.” The show is about four guys who quit their jobs, to set out on path of entrepreneurship. It’s an amazingly humors drama which I enjoy thoroughly. The show is broadcasted on tvfplay.com. I hope that you too enjoy the show as much as I have.

Here are a few books on Agile Methodology that you might find interesting.

Project 6: An Interview

“Hi Omkar, can you help me with search & sort algos?” Sampada asked over the phone. 

“Sure, why not.” 

After spending some time explaining algorithms to Sampada she said. 

“Thanks for the help. So you seem to be all prepped for tomorrow?” “All prepped for what?”

“For the campus interview…You are attending the interview right?”

“Ahhhh….you know what Sam I’ll call you back. Bye.”

I hung up the phone and immediately called another friend.

“Hey Buddy!!! Quick two questions. Did you know there was campus interview at our college tomorrow and are you attending it?”

“Yes and Yes”

Without saying anything further I hung up and dialed hurriedly.

“Sam, need a favor, can you print my CV, my printer is not working.”

This was going to be my first ever job interview and yet somehow I was neither overexcited nor was I nervous. For the next couple of hours I brushed up on possible interview questions.

The next day I reached college early. But to my surprise the college was already buzzing with students from across engineering colleges. That’s probably the first time I felt the gravity the situation.  I registered myself at the registration desk and headed straight to my friends in the auditorium where all the registered students were sitting. There were not much Hi’s or Hello’s rather there were questions “Did you revise OOPs concept?”, “Will they ask SQL queries or data structures?” I didn’t say much and kept to myself.

The hiring HR marched onto the center of the stage and informed “There would be three rounds of interview; Aptitude test, Group Discussion and a Personal Interview.” Students were then randomly split in groups. I unfortunately got in a group where none of my college friends were in.

There were about 15 students in my group. Each group was directed to a different classroom for the aptitude test. Most faces in the room seemed bright and confident. Of course why wouldn’t they. These were probably the bunch who prepared for GRE, GMAT, CAT and other exams. These guys go around job hunting during campus interviews just so that they can put job offers on MBA CV as achievements. The test was done, and I felt it went well. This made me nervous cause if I felt the test went well, all these MBA aspirants in the room must have aced it. HR came in and started announcing names, first name was mine. “Gone…. Lets pack up and go home.” I said to myself. She read out only 8 or 9 names and then asked us to move to another room for GD round. “One down two more two to go” I muttered to myself.

A few more from a different group joined us in the group discussion round. The topic for group discussion was something related to dress code in offices. Everyone shared their opinion on the topic, I shared mine too. But as I spoke the HR moderating the discussion peered out of the folder where she was keeping notes and looked straight at me. The look on her face suggested that I was speaking something atrocious. I got a bit conscious but I trudged on. Once again I waited for the results. My name was called out and was asked to wait in a queue out in the hallway. But what was the result? Did I clear the GD? Or was I in the line for people who were rejected. I checked with some guys ahead of me, they too were clueless. I looked around none of my friends were in the queue. I slowly moved ahead in the queue. Not until I was about 3^rd or 4^th in line, I figured that this was line for personal interview. So I had made it through the GD after all. A little solace for me.

“Two down one to go. Come on!” I said to myself.

When it was my turn I went to the door knocked it from outside and entered. “Can I sit?” I said. “You are best to judge your ability to sit in that chair. The question you should have rather asked is ‘May I sit in that chair’.” A little voice in my head just screamed “Grinch!!! You got a Grinch. He is not just going to kill you, and he is going to savor every moment of it.” The interview started with the usual line “So tell me something about yourself” and also ended, again with the usual line “That’s all from my side unless you have any questions.” I just shook hands and stepped out of the room.

I went back to the auditorium where I found my friends, they were quiet eager to know how I had done in the interview. There was very little that I could share because my name was called out by HR. I stepped out of the auditorium with the HR, after a brief discussion I was asked to leave.

At about three in the afternoon I was amongst the first to leave college. I tried calling my friends but none answered. Finally at about 8:30 that night I got a call from Vishal. “Pendse did you get the news? There were 25 students from our college; I called all of them you the last one that I am calling. It was tough interview man and only three got selected. Ravi, Irfan and me. Everyone else got rejected” With a big grin on my face which I wished Vishal could see I said “You know what Vishal. Add a fourth name to the list.” “Who’s name?” “My name, I too, got selected.”

So what’s the moral of the story? Be the creator of your own fate. Don’t wait for serendipity to lead you to the right roads. Life not always takes the right turns when you give someone else the control to decide your future. Secondly, when you think you achieved something effortlessly. Think again, your success is a culmination of all the hard work you did through till that moment. Others only see your success but not the hard work that has gone in to be successful. So don’t discount you efforts by saying ‘It was a silly moment of success.’

Here are a few books that might help you fair well in interviews:

Project 5: How hard is it to say Hi!!!

The other day I met a friend at a coffee shop. He had recently changed jobs, so I asked him about his new company. He said “Everything’s great! There’s just one small problem. My desk is pretty close to where all the senior managers sit. And since I am new I don’t know anyone. It gets little awkward when I run into them sometimes.”

Fellow toastmasters and guests, how hard is it for us to just say Hi!!!

I have heard similar instances so many times. It is always either that you don’t know people in your organization or people don’t seem to know you. And neither is good. And if you are an introvert, you do go unnoticed in office. Recently I attended a session by John Stepper on his upcoming book “Working out Loud”.  Listening to John Stepper, I felt, his ideas to create visibility for your work and for yourself are applicable to both introvert or not. Here are three simple ideas I would love share with you.

Introduce:

Consider this; you step into your office elevator. As you enter you see your CEO in it, your pause, you stare then you simply nod or put a smile on your face, reach one corner then quickly take your mobile phone out and dig into its screen pretending to be busy. “Phewww, saved.” Is what your thinking, while the CEO is thinking “What a creep, I wonder how he deals with our clients.” It is absolutely important to learn to greet someone and introduce yourself. Figure out what best describes you and what you do. Order events chronologically, it makes it easier for you to remember and for others to understand. Practice your introduction with your friends. Once you feel confident with your introduction, start using it. For starters, remember those folk you came across around office pantry, why not open up to them, introduce yourself. See if your introduction works.

Thank You Notes:

Who doesn’t like to be appreciated or thanked for the work they do, but we seldom take the efforts to express our gratitude. Guy Spier is a well known speaker and a best selling author on value investing. He is a big proponent of thank you notes. All he suggests is to make efforts to thank people. He says he always leaves a short thank you note for hotel staff before checking out for making his stay comfortable. He says thank you notes are small investments that compound over time. Thank you notes are long term investments, they don’t pay back immediately. Keeping at it is the key. And for the rewards, are rarely monitory. The true reward is the satisfaction one gets appreciating others efforts towards you.

Share Ideas:

A fellow toastmaster of our club was telling me how he was facing a particular problem and how he found an easy fix for it. Once he had the solution he didn’t want to loose it, so as a reminder to himself he posted it on his blog. He was amazed to find his blog had over 5000 visitors overnight and in a matter of few days millions had visited his blog looking for solution. You always have something to contribute, it’s just that we are either unaware or undermine our ability. It’s so easy to share today. Use social and collaboration tools like, Word press, BlogSpot, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. When you open up and share your ideas, it becomes easier for others to share there thoughts and ideas with you. Being part of Toastmasters Club is a great experience and I am sharing this experience on my blog, tracking my Toastmasters Club journey.

Let’s recap; a confident and welcoming introduction is your foot in the door. Appreciate what other offer you and reciprocate with a simple thank you note. That’s the least you can do. Finally share your thoughts, ideas and put your work out there for others to see. Networking is not simply sharing business cards, quick handshakes, phony smiles and small talk. Networking is about making meaningful relationships. I hope what I have shared with you all today will help you shed inhibitions about networking and help you explore new ways to make yourself and your work visible.

Here is the link to the book Working out Loud by John Stepper. Here are few more books I recommend as good reads for effective business networking.



Here's the link to the speech I gave on improving networking skills at Oracle Toastmasters Club in Mumbai. I'd love to here you thought on it.

Project 4: Juggad Innovation.

What comes to your mind when I say “Juggad”? Quick Fix or work around. Juggad has a very negative connotation. Fellow toastmasters and guests today I am going to talk about Juggad Innovation which will change your perspective on this word. Today I will talk on two things structured innovation and juggad innovation. What I will also do is explain the six principles of juggad with six simple examples.

Structured innovation is the conventional form of innovation, implemented widely across industries. When we think of structured innovation we usually picture large organization with huge research facilities with lots of funding dedicated to develop new innovative products. The question is does the outputs of these research facilities justify the resources deployed towards it. Consider this; researchers in 3M were researching world’s strongest adhesive. What they come out with was the most temporary adhesive, and that’s how Posit was invented, 3Ms most sold product.

Structured innovation is a top down model of innovation. It is not a problem-solution model. Juggad on the other hand identifies problem and then provides easy yet robust solution. Key features of juggad solution are its frugality, flexibility and inclusiveness. These features are elaborated in the six principles of juggad which are as follows:

Ø      Seek opportunity in adversity

Ø      Do more with less

Ø      Think and act flexible

Ø      Keep it simple

Ø      Include the margins

Ø      Follow your heart

Seeking Opportunity In Adversity:

About twenty years back Gujarat was an energy deficit state, riddled with frequent power cuts and power shortage. A businessman from Surat involved in the textile industry wondered how he would manage his business with the inadequacy of power supply. In his search for alternative sources of power sources, his research leads him to renewable sources of energy. He realized that Surat being a windy city, it suited him best to start wind farms. Soon he got his facilities was off the grid. As the word of his success spread, businessmen from across India started approaching him for his services to install renewal energy plants suitable for them and their geography. This is the story of Tulsi Tanti and Suzlon. Suzlon today is worlds leading service provider of renewal energy solutions.

Do More With Less:

With international fast food restaurants like McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut etc. opening outlets in India, Samar Gupta saw opportunity providing these restaurants with exotic vegetables like iceberg lettuce, zucchini, avocado, olives etc. To produce these vegetable Samar needed farms, but in India laws are such that only farmers can own agriculture land. Since Samar was not a farmer he could buy farmland. What he did was the next best. He loaned farmland form small farmers. Ever since that time, Samar Gupta’s Trikaya Agriculture has grown from strength to strength.

Think And Act Flexible:

Have you ever heard of a potato cleaning washing machine? Haier is a Chinese consumer electronic company which has done just that. Haier kept receiving complaints from rural China that their washing machines kept clogging. After investigation Haier found that farmer after harvesting potatoes used washing machines to clean the silt from the potatoes, and the result was clogged washing machines. Thinking and acting flexibly Haier choose not to dismiss the complaints of the farmers and instead made modifications to there machines which could then clean clothes and clean vegetables with out clogging the machines.

Keep It Simple:

Remember the first Apple iPod that hit the market, none can be better example of keeping it simple than these iPods. It had a play and pause button to play or pause music. It had left and right arrows to shuffle through the playlist, up and down arrows to increase or decrease the volume of sound. The best part was its long lasting battery which could play high quality music for long time and also loads of space to store all your favorite music. Techno savvy or not anyone could pick it up and use it without the need of any instruction manual. Early iPod epitomizes design simplicity.

Include The Margins:

Vodafone was looking at ways to increasing its base in Africa. During there market research they found that majority of Africans were unbanked. To assist the unbanked Africans, Vodafone launched m-pesa in Kenya in 2007. Using m-pesa individuals could top up there prepaid mobile phones with cash and then transfer the prepaid cash to anyone’s mobile account. To redeem the cash all one had to do was to visit one of the many small mom & pop shops with which Vodafone had tied-up with. This proved a big hit Kenya; soon Vodafone launched the m-pesa in other African countries. Where once again it saw run away success. With m-pesa Vodafone created synergies for its customer and itself.

Follow Your Heart:

When venturing into the retail market, many advised Kishore Biyani to model Big Bazaar on successful models used by hypermarkets in western countries like Tesco, Wal-Mart, Target etc. But trusting his intuition, Kishore felt that the look and feel of the western hypermarkets would seem artificial façade of gloss and shine in country like ours. He believed that Indians loved the bazaar atmosphere and yet the stores had to be clean and organized. That’s why the aisles in Big Bazaar are narrow, so that people bump into each other, just like in a real bazaar. That’s also why most of the products like grocery for example are not packet but kept loose in large vats for people to touch and feel the quality before purchasing.

To sum it all up, juggad innovation is all about three key ideas being frugal, being flexible and being inclusive. Juggad innovation develops precise solution for problem at hand and fast. But this does not mean any compromise on the quality. Rather the emphasis is on delivering high quality in the fastest and the cheapest way possible. How does all of this relate to what we do as software engineers? We work in a product company like Oracle; our products are used by millions across the glob. The only differentiation between us and our competitor is innovative products that create value for customers. Let’s apply juggad innovation to create better products and enhance value for our customers faster and cheaper.

Here is the link to the book Jugaad Innovation. I have also included a few more books on innovation that might interest you.

Here's the link to the speech I gave on Jugaad Innovation at Oracle Toastmasters Club in Mumbai. I'd love to here you thought on it.