An Indian took 22 years to break a mountain to make a short cut path from his village getting exposed to the world easily. This man had lot of determination to make it happen. He sold his goats and got hammer and chisel and got going with breaking the mountain despite people calling him mad and his family upset with his intention. He finally makes it and the entire village is happy that there is a easier path to the outside world. Read the rest of the story “Man who moved a mountain” that got published couple of days back in the local newspaper.

While setting objectives and goals requires some thinking and listening to one’s heart, it requires one to work with the determination to achieve it. Everybody’s got 24 hrs in a day but what makes successful people is the ability to keep that vision in mind and be determined to reach there and surpass the difficulties that come by. Without determination there will not be a hold on what needs to be achieved and it could soon be lost in the mind. Time will wait for none to remind and wait for someone to act upon. Lost time can never be recovered. One can earn experience by working in projects. That is what millions of people do. But what is it that differentiates one from that crowd? The answer depends on the interests, goals and objectives and thinking out of the box to do something significant. It requires determination and dedication and continuous effort to reach those goals and objectives.

Note:-This post is part of the Foundation Stone series.

Customer focus and putting on a customer’s mind while developing, testing and during all the phases of development is the key need that the professionals of this industry needs. It is so easy to get accustomed to technical jargons that we tend to think that the entire world would be aware of those jargons. But this is not the reality.  There are still more people around the world using computers but they have no clue on how it works and what it says and what it asks them to do.  And it can be frustrating if the communication between the system and the user is totally non-understandable to a layman user. This frustration is clearly evident after I read this article “Programmers to Blame for Hard-to-Use Software” from eWeek.com.

As a developer the focus will be on to quickly complete the task at hand and any developer would wish everything worked perfect the first time. The focus will be to implement the logic that is in mind and the ones that will be left out are things like,

a. Comments/Documentation
b. Essential log information
c. Unit Test code
d. Proper error and exception handling (for example handling the generic Exception in java is not a good practice)

There could be more to the list. But the point here is that it is too tempting for a developer to just make the program work and postpone the above as anyone seeing the output will not know whether the above points were taken care of or not. But the above help in code readability, maintainability and quality of the program and are equally important as the program’s output. Procrastination to the last minute can be costly as even the above could induce human errors and it can lead all the way to a problem in production. The best way to make sure the above points are covered is to have self discipline and follow the standards and best practices in the first place. As a developer when you estimate and give a time line include all the necessary tasks that include the above and any other points so that you don’t need to postpone them to a later time.

In many parts of India during an auspicious day in the year the idol of a Hindu God comes around the temple in a city in a big chariot pulled by the devotees. The chariot is pulled by hundreds of devotees. To move the chariot it requires effort from each and every one of those who pull the chariot. When everyone really puts the effort that he/she can, then the chariot starts to move and when the momentum picks up it becomes easier to pull. On the contrary if people just act as though they are pulling, then the effort doubles or triples up on those who really try to pull and they will burn out soon.

There is not much difference in the way a team executes a project with devotees pulling the chariot. It requires each and every person’s complete effort irrespective of what his/her area of involvement in the project to keep the project going. When someone does not do his/her part then the burden could fall on someone who already has his/her load of work. Why it happens? Because irrespective of someone putting effort or not, the project timelines have to be met. So as a team member the bare minimum requirement is to contribute ones effort to the maximum extent so that there is no additional load on other team members.

Have a great week.

This post is part of the Foundation Stone series.

Promotion is a motivating factor for everyone, and in software industry (at least in India) there is usually a bigger hierarchy up the ladder. Once a college pass out joins the IT industry there could be a step forward every year if not twice in a year up till a particular level. A misconception is just because someone has been in the industry for n number of years he/she is eligible to be promoted to level X. A promotion should happen when someone in level X-1 is able to understand/perform some or more of the roles and responsibilities of level X+1. That should be an important criterion to evaluate before someone can be promoted and not just the number of years. Said that it is very important for every aspirant in this industry to have a career goal and milestones set. Because that is what is going to help in answering the question, “What should I start learning and practicing in the next level that I can be eligible to actually be in that level?”

This is part of the Foundation Stone Series 

That was a beautiful and funny quote that I came upon today. More than being funny it makes a lot of sense that not everything will be working right in the first attempt. Success comes upon continuous effort and revisions and not in very first attempt. Continuous revisions can happen through mistakes and feedbacks. Feedbacks could either come from self or from others. The point is clear; patches will always be required to make something better but without moving to version 1.0 you cannot think of patches too. So something does not work the first time call it version 1.0 and then just look at what needs to fixed and patch it.

My other foundation stones.

In my earlier post “Tips to become a software professional” one of the points was,

“Everything comes under give and take policy; knowledge is not an exception to it. Share your knowledge, only then you will know if you learnt correct and what you are missing.”

Learning is a continuous process. Learning does not need to come always through self learning from books or internet. The easiest way to learn something is through someone who has already learnt it.  It benefits both the parties. The person who tries to learn can learn quickly and not take the same time as the person who is teaching.  But then on the other hand the person who is teaching, how does he benefit? Couple of questions that might come to mind is,

• Why should I teach and give away the skill advantage I have?
• Why should I spend time teaching when I have my own work to do?

There is basically no skill advantage just because you know something that others don’t. In fact you won’t know if you possess it unless you share, people ask you questions and you are able to answer them. And sometimes it is those questions that you are trying to find answers will actually add value to whatever you have learned.  Another point is it does not take a lot of time for someone to learn what you know and share that with others and gain added advantage.

As far as spending time is concerned you don’t need to compromise on what you are working on. You just need to plan in advance a time that will suit you and others. If it is a bigger topic it could be a series of sessions and not necessarily a one shot session. Remember by sharing you are registering what you have learnt and it is a rehearsal for yourself to keep what you have learnt for a long time. By sharing you also gain additional skills like the ability to present, improve your communication skill as well as the ability to answer questions.  The learning and sharing is a cycle that pushes you forward and helps you grow.

In one of my earlier foundation stone post “Foundation Stone #13 - Never be afraid to play around“, I was mentioning how it is important when you are a developer, to just try out things that you do not know and not be afraid of the output. If you are a lead and/or project manager guiding your juniors and team members, give them the freedom to experiment learn and work.  Project and timelines are important but at the same time individual growth is also important. And for that just doing a project may not help but learning unknown areas and gaining addition skills can help. Factor that time and plan accordingly, because individual growth is more important. If everyone grows the company grows. Give your team the freedom to experiment, learn, work and not be controlled or directed always.

My other “Foundation” posts.