If there is someone whom you cannot hide from, it is none other than yourself. Amazingly you don’t realize that whenever you are true to others, you are essentially true to yourself. But tell a lie, do a mistake knowingly that you think others will not know and if your conscience fights against you because you did wrong, you realize you can hide a mistake from someone but really cannot hide it from yourself.

“Feeling guilty” can be made to work for the right purposes. In fact this has really helped me a lot to correct myself and stick on to things I have committed to. Because I know if I don’t keep it up, it will slowly eat my mind, unless there is something genuine stopping me to complete the work. Instead of suffering that bite, I would rather struggle, work hard and somehow complete what I committed to finish.

Though, be aware of a couple of points that can work against you in this process and put you in a trap. The first one is the anti-theory. The anti-theory is when you constantly allow your mind to bite, you become numb and insensitive. This is very dangerous because when you become numb and insensitive, it doesn’t matter to you when you don’t do anything what you promised or committed to. That’s when you dig your own grave. The second one is, in a progressive effort to complete what you have committed to; you might sideline or give less importance to the dependencies of the task you are taking upon. There is folk tale that explains this. There was a crow which got an opportunity to taste from a trash, a sweet made of rice and brown sugar. It liked it so much that it wanted more. So the crow asked it’s wife to prepare some more for him. His wife told him, that it needs some ingredients to make it. The crow got all the ingredients his wife had asked for. Then the crow’s wife started preparing it putting all the ingredients in a pot under fire. The crow was so impatient that it asked its wife repeatedly whether it was ready. Finally when the crow’s wife said it was ready, the crow was so impatient, that it put his beak into the boiling sweet. Because the sweet was so hot, the crow burnt its tongue and could not really sense the taste. It got so furious that it took the pot and dropped it. The pot broke and the sweet got scattered around the ground going waste. The crow’s wife advised her husband to not to be so hasty. The crow realized it by tasting few drops of the sweet that remained in a piece of the pot that had become cold, but all the efforts that it took to get the ingredients and the effort that his wife had put had already gone waste.

Even though the moral of the above story is “haste is waste”, a point to take from this is that we often have tasks that depend on so many things that takes its own time to be done right. If we miss this we might say that we completed it, but the final outcome may not be what is expected and it might be a double work for someone who was expecting it from us to be right the first time. If one keeps these two points in mind and has that guilty feeling to make sure that he/she completes what is committed to on time then the person is already taken a step to be self disciplined and gains trust among people associated with him/her.

Here is an amazing quote to keep in mind when hesitation blocks the mind not to attempt because of fear of failure.

“The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. - Debbi Fields”

Thanks Sowmya Ambiti for sending me this quote. Have a great weekend.

If you are a usability analyst then a revised version of the old saying “Too many cooks spoil the broth” fit would be “Too many clicks spoil the browse.” If you are into web application development check out how easy it is for the user to navigate to different pages of the application.

Trust is a small word but means a lot. Just try searching “define: trust” in Google and look at the results. Faith, hope, confidence, reliability, honesty, belief are few words that have close association with definition of the word trust. There is no predefined set of steps that can build trust. It is built over time as a result of your actions. Trust is one thing that others earn on you for your actions. The more others earn, it becomes easier for one to carry out his/her thoughts, ideas and propositions. Trust is also an investment. In a project team, the team leader should put trust in the team and everyone within the team should trust each other. Without an investment there are no returns, hence the first step towards building trust is to have trust in the team, then that trust returns back up the level. Here is an interesting article “Building Trust” on the Slow Leadership blog.

codefetch is a site that helps developers search for code for different programming/scripting languages that are given as examples in books. One can search for specific keywords and program examples related to that keyword from books on different programming/scripting languages.

IT organizations build many processes during the software development lifecycle to enforce responsibility, accountability to bring in quality deliverable. More than processes the key to achieving quality deliverables is to be self disciplined. If each and every member in the team understands his/her roles and responsibilities and be self disciplined in what they are supposed to do then there is no need for enforcement of work. Ultimately it is the quality of the work that is delivered that matters and if each one is self disciplined in executing the work then automatically the quality of the work improves significantly. This is what agile tries to preach. Here is a good excerpt on self discipline from the book “Agile Project Management” by Jim Highsmith.

Self-discipline enables freedom and empowerment. When individuals and teams want more autonomy, they must exercise greater self-discipline. One of the acute dangers of process-centric development and project management is that they remove any incentive for self-discipline. When managers impose discipline through detailed processes - ‘follow this process or else’ - they stifle initiative and self-discipline. These same managers then turn around and complain, “Why doesn’t anyone around here take any initiative or accept any responsibility?” Imposed-disciplined teams gets things accomplished. Self-disciplined teams accomplish near-miraculous things.

Self-disciplined individuals:

• Accept accountability for results
• Confront reality through rigorous thinking
• Engage in intense interaction and debate
• Work willingly within a self-organizing framework
• Respect colleagues

Dialogue, discussion and participatory decision making are all part of building self-discipline. Self-discipline is also built on competence, persistence and the willingness to assume accountability for results.  Competence is more than skill and ability; it’s attitude and experience. Get the right people involved, and self discipline comes more easily. Get the wrong people, and imposed discipline creeps in, destroying trust, respect, and the egalitarian atmosphere. One reason would-be agile teams don’t succeed is that they fail to realize the self-discipline required. There is no binary switch to go from no discipline to self-discipline; it’s a journey that some individuals get right away, while others need to take a longer trip.

Well one doesn’t need any more explanation on the need for a self-disciplined team for accomplishing near-miraculous things. Are you self disciplined?

This post is part of the Foundation Stone series.

Being an ardent fan of using mind maps regularly as well as using Wikipedia extensively for knowledge exploration I found WikiMindMap a useful site that combines the power of both. It is a good tool to search and navigate and explore between relevant Wikipedia pages.

“Quality in computer software is a controversial field. For some, software quality is a largely aesthetic and practical issue, dealing with the question of how efficiently and elegantly a computer program performs a task and source code looks (see Programming style). For others, quality is defined as strict conformance to requirements and absence of bugs. In both cases, there are sets of practices that are either required, or highly useful in this pursuit.”

That’s an introduction to software quality on Wikipedia. While I was agreed upon that description, I had some realization and thought around that word recently. This happened after my visit to a friend’s place in the United States last week. My friend wanted to meet a relative of hers and asked me to join her. We went to her relative’s home and after some introductions they offered us to show around their house. The first impression I got was this house must be new. Apparently my friend had the same question (this was her first visit too) and it came out of her mouth as a question. I was wrong and they were living in that house for some time now. I realized the saying “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” looking at that house and how it was maintained. Sparkling clean with each and every object placed properly and positioned properly. The credit goes to the mistress of the house and from further discussions we understood it is her passion to keep things in order every day. Her in-law quoted that she is so particular about things in proper place and positioned properly and was explaining with a tooth brush holder which had to be positioned parallel to the walls and not tilted sideways. The closet looked like a cloth shop.

The visit had an effect on me and made a lasting impression. I started feeling that the essence of quality can only be realized with some attitude. It is an attitude of perseverance, an attitude of trying to be a perfectionist, an attitude of being passionate about the work being done, an attitude of being adamant about doing right things the right way. When these characteristics show up in work, that is the evidence of quality. A common proverb in India says, you just need to crush a rice to see if the entire pot of rice has boiled or not. A quality work shows up on its own. Quality is also not about having a check once in a while but it is something that needs to be practiced on a day to day basis. When each member in the team has these quality attitudes, then the team is a quality team. When each team in the organization has these quality attitudes then it is a quality organization. Think about it, do you have these characteristics in you?

My other Foundation Stones