How Agile is your Transformation?

 If you are a technology driven organization in existence for a decade or more, it is quite natural that you may have a mix of old and new IT applications. It becomes even more interesting when you have a bunch of in-house developed and vendor applications.

The third dimension to this blend, given the nature of operations is the fact that you have a combination of legacy applications that are running with minimum required support and new ones that are part delivered or the stars in the horizon for which development is in progress.

Frame the above picture in your mind and now think what will be your consideration when you are moving from the Waterfall way of delivery to Agile delivery. Before heading to the answer, we first need to look at some of the Agile considerations assuming we all are familiar with Waterfall.

With the risk of sounding like an Agile Coach, here are a few quick thoughts that come to my mind the moment we speak Agile. Sizeable chunks of work, Fail fast and Iterative development.

Sizeable chunks of work

This is probably one of the first questions that we need to ask the teams. Does the current status of a product allow us to break it down into sizeable chunks so that Agile development can logically apply? This could be possible for products that are already in production and for which a healthy enhancement pipeline exists. On the other hand you could face challenges with those products for which development is half way through with a pre-agreed delivery methodology. The scenario gets complex if we have a vendor in the mix.

Fail Fast

It is true that you could apply this fantastic concept for your products. This equally must apply for your transformation saga as well. You may try to pull off an Agile transformation for your identified products, but if any of them does not meet a criteria, it’ll be better to rethink the strategy. Probably having an Agile KPI is a good idea so that you have a measurable action based on which informed decisions can be made.

Iterative Development

This is a fundamental building block of Agile. Can you create your product in iterations? Can the releases be planned to add value to business incrementally? Can the product be pieced together to finally form a jigsaw? Are the stakeholders all aligned to meet this criteria? If the answer to any of these is ‘No’ you’ll need to revisit your transformation path for that product.

There are definitely many more factors that drive Agile transformation. The above three are probably some of the key ones. What is important is to remember the fact that while transformation could be essential for progress, it isn’t the panacea for an organization where a plethora of technology flavours co-exist.

You need to choose and choose wisely. Else your Agile transformation will end up being nothing but fragile!

Get up buddy!

I remember attending a major event in my life when I was in class 8 a couple of decades back. There was an institute named ‘Universal’ in my small home town of Changanacherry. They were having a very unique exhibition for which my dad took me and my brother. That was the first time ever in my life I saw this magical machine called ‘computer’. They showed us a CPU, a monitor, a keyboard and even a Floppy Disk! There was a wonderful game running on the black and white monitor which was called ‘Prince of Persia’. That day, little did I realize that these machines will have a major influence in my future life!

Years went by and computers in various shapes, sizes and colors have become part of our routine. It has become so much an integral part of our lives that it is almost impossible to spend a day without interacting with these brilliant innovations in one form or other. This also means that many of us tend to spend a considerable amount of time in front of these mean machines every day at work or at home.

A good number of professions around the world demand spending a lot of time at a stretch in front of these machines. Professions such as IT, Banking & Finance, Insurance, Customer Service and many more make you glued to your chairs for most part of the day staring at the monitors where your work gets done. This has a serious impact on one vital part of your body; your spine or backbone!

The human backbone is like a multistorey building where bones are stacked on top of each other with a disc in between each one. Bones as you know are pretty strong, but be aware of the fact that the discs are made of a softer material with a tough outer portion and a jelly like inner portion. These are meant to act as shock absorbers and as ligaments that hold the spine intact.

What’s important to note is the fact that the longer you remain in a specific position the more pressure you give to these building blocks. This leads to increased pressure to the discs and over a period of time the jelly like portion won’t be able to withstand the pressure anymore and will come out by tearing the tougher outer portion. This leads to reduced shock absorbing capacity for your backbone as well as added pressure to your spinal cord. So any extra load on your spinal cord will have an immediate impact on your health!

The symptoms usually start with minor back pain which increases over a period of time. It is extremely important not to ignore these minor pains and let it worsen to reach a point of no-return. The more serious scenarios are disc herniation commonly known as slip disc or to make it worse a complete paralysis resulting from a damaged spinal cord! The age old saying perfectly fits here. Prevention is better than cure.

There are many things including regular exercise that we could do to avoid such a situation. Here is a pretty simple action that you could do to save yourself from the perils of this obvious danger. Many of us who sit in front of the computers for a long time tend to forget to get up in between. It is important to take a quick break every half an hour at least by simply standing up for a few seconds giving the much needed relaxation for your backbone.

Most of us access official mails on one of the E-mail providers such as Outlook, Lotus Notes etc. There will be a reminder functionality on these applications. Set up a reminder for every 30 minutes that will pop-up to give you a message ‘Get up buddy!’ The moment you see the message just do the simple act of getting up from your chair and look somewhere else other than your monitor. This has a double benefit of providing a relaxation for both your spine and your eyes. If possible you could move around a bit before coming back to your seat. Once back on your seat, snooze the task so that it’ll remind you again in the next 30 minutes. Follow this regularly.

This is one of the easiest activities to follow to ensure that you do not overburden your spine. This will at least help you remember to do a simple activity that has a long term benefit. Go ahead and set up the reminder. The best buddies are the ones who really care for you. May this reminder be your best buddy while working on your computers!

Tail End: Don’t think that people who do not sit and work have nothing to worry. As I mentioned earlier, the longer you remain in a specific position, bigger the impact is. Ensure that you give your spine a chance to relax at regular intervals.

Wishing you a happy & healthy life! 

The Red Firewall

We were a bunch of half baked Management Grads back in 2005. It was time for our internship program and along with a friend of mine I kicked off a Market Research activity for an IT Firm. Our targets were CIOs [Chief Information Officer] of IT organizations. Figuring out the usage and scope for Network Security Products like Firewalls was to be our assignment.

And there we were, charting the longitude and latitude of the City of Bangalore, on a brand new bike knocking at the doors of every possible IT companies we could figure out. We'd to cover a minimum of ten firms a day. Our initial thought was ten is such a small number, but the facts of cold calls soon hit us real hard. Forget about meeting ten CIOs, getting an appointment a day became an event to celebrate! Many a times, we'd to split the areas between us to meet the target.

Destiny had it that two months of our lives were to continue in this fashion. It so happened that we were one short of our target on a promising Friday evening. All what we had to do was to finish off the last one and head back home. We were at one of the commercial hubs of South Bangalore and were sure to find an IT firm to fill our last slot.

Soon we found ourselves standing in front of a state-of-the-art building which had a pretty interesting name. Since we were in that part of the world where IT companies were giving competition to the population growth of the country itself, we were confident about our find. Walked we did, right through the front door and met an equally confident front desk assistant who welcomed us with a warm smile.

The usual drill was to ask for the CIO and push our chances for a short instant meeting. The receptionists usually oblige or politely deny. But this one proved to be a different animal altogether. She answered in negative to our query on CIO, but said they did have a Firewall. We found that interesting, though not surprising since there were many small IT firms without CIOs but one person handling multiple roles.

Our following question was about meeting the person who is in charge of the Firewall. Her answer baffled us. She said, "Sir, we don't have anyone like that. I manage it myself. In fact we got it only last week and installed". We were not sure if we should be confused or mighty impressed. Here's a receptionist who also doubles up as the Network Administrator! What a revelation?! All that and more were completely proved otherwise with her next statement. That totally pulled the rug from under our feet!

Her eyes twinkled and smile broadened when she said, "The best part is, it is Red in color and I love Red"!

We looked at each other and needless to say, were speechless. For a moment we even thought, perhaps there could be a brand new type of Firewall named in the likes of 'Bluetooth'! Sensing our confusion she asked us to follow her. Took us through a door besides the Front Office desk and blissfully pointed her finger at a direction and repeated those words, "That is our Red Firewall".

There it was, perched on a wall, laughing out loud, a Red colored Fire Extinguisher!!!