What it takes to be……. The Wives of the purple room

This is just my second blog and it took me an eon to come up with this one. But really I’ve got not only myself to blame but my job as well. This one might just an aimless blog that tries to highlight the lack of awareness of some …. Some of the people around you and me … Really, I’m writing to partly fill my empty time and partly due to the fact that I can vent out my unquestionable ill-feelings for those whose job is merely to sit in the comfort of their board rooms and reacting to situations in a manner only they can comprehend!

Symptoms

Not for the first time, I had asked myself last night, if software project management requires an MBA. Almost without a dint of dispute, each time the answer that I get is a quick ‘No’ and last night was hardly anything unusual. Software Industry is still rudimentary in comparison with manufacturing industries. So it is not always easy to juxtapose qualities required to run a manufacturing plant with the software industry. May be the least we can do is understand the hierarchy of a manufacturing organization and see how best that fits in to the software industry. Various factors might influence the decisions when one decides to build a start up company; the size, market strength, products, services, etc. Normally in a start up, the board members themselves may be the human resources behind the technology that their company endorses. They adopt a policy of manage and develop and top management is all the company is. But as the company grows roles need to be defined. But our software giants as they grew to be so with course of time used pure manager breeds who essentially managed every resource offered at their desktop. Managers manage and techies develop. But as the Software industry started its journey of evolution, requirements, roles, positions, etc evolved with it too. The organization structure itself has been constantly reviewed and refined. New roles are defined to meet new ventures. Gone are the days when the manager’s roles were restricted to resource handling, dealing with the client and other such engagements that are highly managerial in nature and less technical. Come has a time when more and more people are looked upon who posses the skills that fuses technology and management. After all, when we look at some companies that are highly successful, invariably the people who made the boat were always great technicians turned entrepreneurs.
The software industry after suffering multiple set backs is finally gaining the lost momentum and is racing toward the wining post. The proportion with which it is growing is almost making it invincible. In India, almost all the software majors have crossed the then-elusive billion dollar margin and they have gone to make aggressive recruitments much to the delight of thousands. To an extent that bench strength considered once a luxury is now a necessity. As much as in a manufacturing industry where certain inventory is kept as stock, software industry’ stock is the human brains which are reserved to meet the demands that are forecast.

Some of the companies have managed to multiply the employee strength by four times. That’s gargantuan by any measure. This meant that the corporate positions had to be expanded and re-structured. The corporate tree grew taller and each of these positions has well defined roles to go with the capabilities. Probably the least of the managers are now dedicated to support a single running project. When ones focus zeroes in on at a project level, the actual-on-the-ground project management skills combined with a decent technical interpretation is desirable. But the question is do managers have enough of technical skills or do we have technical architects who have enough managerial skills. It is very easy to develop and hone the managerial skills than probably the technical skills. At least this is the concept the industry has adopted. Thus the people who are clinging on to the lower branches of the corporate tree of echelon make easy project managers.

Diagnosis

Recruit Tom, Dick and Harry

The company that I work in, once used to take the cream of the students whose intellectual capital was powering the progress. Now they are doing massive recruitments to supply the demands. It just does not matter what is their aptitude and ability. The entrance test that the companies normally conduct sometimes feels like a mere façade. But the growing danger is, it is done at the cost of quality of products being delivered. This is mainly due to the policy the middle managers have adopted. These middle managers as I have seen them posses very little to ride their job. The mantra being success of a team relies on the agility of the team and of course team effort. But they have forgotten that you need every bit of concrete to make reinforced steel, every drop of water to make an ocean, and every bit of peace to attain nirvana. They have a strong but blind faith that shortcomings of a few can be covered by the cognizance of the team as a whole. This can be translated as work of a few can be projected as the work of many. In the land of the software giants, increasing feeling is that the quality is slowly becoming a forgotten term.

Blind to attrition and a touch of sycophancy

I don’t know if they are blind, but they sure are negligent. Read this bit… One of my friends who joined my company along with me about two and half years back has been working...err… slogging for a well known client. Imagine working without the much needed breaks in the form of weekends and each day is as long as 14 to 16 hrs for a period of almost six months. This slave-like-treatment did not hamper his spirits not that he is stoical but because he has an extremely strong demeanor. Despite the fact that some of his lower colleagues have had greater rewards for far less work that they have put in, he remained in his elements. As the fate would have it, he would go to his higher manager and ask him for a change in his profile, or an initiation of US VISA, simply to get an answer that “we are looking in to it and we will take care of it”. He would go on to find that neither did he get a promotion nor did he get a VISA initiation. Worst still to see that the people who are least expected to rejoice their promotions would beam with pride. Alas! I wonder from they would find such pride!!! If only their conscience played a part in their act of pretension! Poor fellow having very little options would then decide to send a resignation letter. The manager simply accepts the letter and says good luck as if to say it was luck that departed my friend. My friend would then be bereft of any words with a bit of dissatisfaction. What actually happened? Exactly that as if a script was already written for him and the manager directed the movie flawlessly. The least my friend expected was at least an explanation that he was a crucial resource and he could not afford to lose such a precious resource that he was! You might argue that it is important that we rate ourselves highly not fall before ourselves. Yes, my friend did not, but it would be utterly important for anyone to be recognized. Talent is when recognized!

Now where does sycophancy pitch in? May be from the culture of our forebears right from the days of kings, we always loved to be appreciated; almost a girlish aspect of the kings. We would like to be told of good things about ourselves and did not kings love false-admiration and flattery? They were drawn in to a false sentiment of extremely high pride and it kept them very happy. Weird in many ways but I still believe it exists. You need to be in the good books of your higher management, and then you sure are the king! People use whatever opportunity to toady to managers; be it a power break fast, a team meeting or even the rest rooms! Preoccupied thought of nepotism settles in their minds and when it comes to promotions or awards, it certainly influences their moves. I have at least seen it in my company. How many of you have?

I’m the king and I say the right things.

This requires a special mentioning. It is almost laughable. Once we had a meeting that was supposed to address the issues and the concerns that the team of good size had. Three top people of our team were to address the concerns. One of the issues that were to rise on its head was the promotions which everyone strongly felt were manipulated. We knew well in hand that the issues will not be solved simply because these men cannot even convince themselves. Our sole intention was to watch the show and get entertained! As the meeting started, questions started popping up and some of them were pretty close to direct-on-the-face. Were there any criteria that were followed while selecting candidates for promotions? Why were certain policies ignored when selecting a particular candidate? Why was not I promoted? You took in to account the prior experience all right. But you considered the functional experience as well. Why is that so? What can you do to motivate the team? And many more questions. The answers were typically middle managerial! Yes, the organization has defined some guidelines to follow. Note the word guide lines - How carefully, this term was used in place of rules. We can recommend certain people even if they do not meet certain set rules, because they have exceptionally well – without defining what is performing exceptionally well. Prior experience is taken no matter where they have worked. Because you could work in any industry and still could carry some experience with you that will be useful to the organization.
When asked we required more clarity, the response was ‘meet me in person’ or ‘we know better’. One of the funniest answers was “You are wrong and you sit down”. I’m not sure if these were the words as it were but it was pretty close being that.
I can only conclude one thing. These men are looking at short term remedy forgetting about its nasty and stinking long term consequences. They try to build a reservoir to tackle a coming flood. What they don’t see is an impending avalanche! An avalanche that would so forceful that it could wipe some of the companies from its current hold.

And a crisis is slowly emerging

Middle Management crisis as I would like to call their short comings is potentially going to pierce the quality of the software products with its perilously sharp claws. Since this situation now encompasses all the IT companies in India, it creates an obstacle for these men to see the true and terrible consequences of their current act. Surely China is keeping an eye on this! I wish this does not happen but I’m afraid the nonchalant addressing of the situation might lead us to face a day when we are playing second fiddle to China.


Remedy

Prevention is better than cure. But when an epidemic has struck, the remedial measures have to be taken keeping in mind the future. Often when the disease is so deep-rooted, the cure should be at the roots. The buds need to be perfect for a perfect blossom. Sometimes cure is so blatantly visible and yet oblivion to our eyes because we do not dig in to the roots and see the problem. I do feel that the roles are not defined properly and also the people who do fit in the roles do not actually fit in, because they do not know the expectations clearly. For example, in my organization, a team lead would normally do a team management job. He then gets caught up in the dichotomy of having to fit two roles at the same time. The result sometimes is very disastrous. What we really need is to understand the requirements and define the roles. Set the expectations and the objectives. Find the right people to support the roles. This is the most important. Unless people know what they are doing and what is expected of them, they are bound to falter. The next step is to gear them up by providing the right training. Currently most people do a project management professional course and have a workshop for one week and the next day they are managing a team of 50. This simply doesn’t work out and it is not as easy as it is. The training needs to be defined as well and should be an intensive one. Having collaborations with some of the prestigious management institutions and sending people to those institutions for training in specific aspects of management should be the way to go. This way the companies can build upon the intellectual capital and it will augur well for the future. Regarding the sycophancy, may god be with us! That’s the only remedy I can think of. To end this assault, since these managers are so overawed by their positions and act in a cowardly manner when they try to cover-up for their own blemish, I was forced to think of them as the wives of the purple room. No offence ladies!

Ashes 2005 – The Return of Cricket

Foot Ball is the name of the game or is it? :

"Alan Shearer wants Owen and makes a million phone calls to Madrid" - This would have hit the headlines of most of the newspapers had it happened a couple of months back. How about this claiming the spotlight: 'Jessica Bohl visited the Bernabéu'. Jessica Bohl almost an unknown name to most but she is an actress in the motion picture "Real”. Quite Possible. Leave this alone. Imagine Beckham's hairstyles from Mohican to his spikes to his clean shaven head... These trivial yet interesting facts used to be the jewel of the Newspapers' crown. Britain… Britain... Britain… The mass of which is football fanatic; and Britain, the birth place of the great game of cricket. For almost a decade now, the followers of this game saw a nightmare of cricket’s extinction from England. Foot Ball was surely the talk of all until this Ashes.


Changing Attitude:

This ashes is all about England's grit and a discovery of a great player. There were times in the past when England hardly ever looked like winning a match be it a one day or a test and when they looked like, they succumbed to pressure, making sure they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And the wounds kept aggravating till a point when a defeat would just mean to them another one and the critics ran out of words!!!! If it ever will take something to redeem their pride, then this would be it: The Ashes. This means a hell of a lot to them considering the history behind it. If there ever was an English team that would intimidate the guts of these Aussies, if there ever was an English team that would shatter the confidence of Aussies, then this is the team that would do it; a special bunch of players and a serious one at that. They mean business. An Eye for and Eye, A tooth for a tooth, Aggression for Aggression seem to be the slogan. The expectations from these players were not set very high overnight. They out performed their potential in every game that they played.


This New bunch – A Force to reckon with:

Players like Trescothik, Vaughan, Collingwood, Flintoff, Pieterson, Geraint Jones, and Simon Jones have all one thing in common - Killer Instinct. Their nothing to fear attitude helped England's Cause tremendously and they all seem to have a congenital or a programmed belief that they are no less than their counterparts and they all believe in themselves. Then there are these people: Hoggard, Harmisson and Andrew Strauss - What a huge difference these people have made in International cricket. All these three people are highly talented and Hoggard in particular gives an impression of a mason, putting in hours and hours of bowling and hitting the same spot. Harmisson is fast and furious and his height helps as well. He might seem very childlike with his facial expressions and may have a body language that is not overpowering;but he is one of those who lets the ball do the talking. The inclusion of such immensely talented players in a team has a charm of its own in getting the crowd in to watching them play.Doubt it not. Ashes 2005 bears witness for it.


Freddie, where were you? :

Speaking of crowd pullers, did I mention earlier, this ashes is all about the discovery of a great player? Not a tough one to guess.
Yes, Andrew Flintoff - He has come up in leaps and bounds over the years and just looks matured, calm and beaming with confidence. Personally, I feel he is a shadow better than Chris Cairns and Kallis - Mind you, I would never imagine Kallis to be a better bowler than Flintoff. These are three of the best all rounders in the game today. There are people who raised their eyebrows when comparisons were drawn between Flintoff and Ian Botham. You can never compare two players of different era but surely he is the Ian Botham of world cricket today. If he continues to play the way he is and treats us to his great batting and bowling display, then he is well on his way to become another Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Richard Hadlee, Clive Lloyd and even Greame Pollock, the man who I consider the greatest all rounder of all time. When I look back at Flintoff's career, he used to be kind of what we call in cricket as a 'Bits and pieces' cricketer and I thought was highly overrated by the British press. Oh boy! I never thought his deliverance would far surpass the expectations. There was a silver lining in his cloud when England beat Pakistan at Peshawar if I'm not wrong, when he England had to chase something like 240 runs in the final session of the test match. He, along with Graham Thorpe managed to hit the run rate which was almost three times that they'd managed in the first innings of that test match. The actual turning of point of his career or for that matter this whole England team was the tour of India. The main players did not come to India sighting security reasons. Hoggard, Flintoff, Trescothik, and a few others did make it to India. Flintoff suddenly discovered his potential with ball and Hoggard, I remember kept toiling and bowled his heart out.


Vaughan is here too

Michael Vaughan, we know how he butchered the Indian attack in 2002 and later in down under, made McGrath and Co feel what is to be like getting plundered. He has grown with experience and although he did not do much justice to his potential, this ashes saw his timely return to form. In 2002, his batting style was so contrary to many English players’. Naseer Hussain identified his talent and asked him to change nothing. He started off well but later went in to hibernation; here he comes with a bang with a solid knock of 166 at Old Trafford, Manchester. He is not presumptuous like Stephen Fleming and is not known to make bold statements like Ponting or Ganguly but he is there conveying the messages and how he conveyed we all know. His Clever fielding positions and intelligent use of bowlers are instrumental in the team's success.He commands the respect of his team mates and others in the game.


The Ashes so far – A sign of falling Aussie Arrogance:

Although, the series did not start the way England would have wanted and it seemed like yet another ashes sorry story at Lords, they managed to turn it around from then on. Edgbaston saw a humdinger of a match and the Englishmen ignored history to pull off a nail biting victory. At Old Trafford, Mc Grath showed us he can hang around with the bat long enough for the Australians to draw the match. But it was England again, who came through to win a mental battle and Michael Vaughan and his troops saw his opposition team celebrating their draw! Michael Vaughan quietly called the team for a huddle (Is it not the famous Indian Huddle?) and whispered “Boys, We have played really well and lets do it again!” ‘Let’s do it again’ – these are strong words from a strong captain.
Trent Bridge match was a match dominated by England but Aussies restored their character by playing out of their skins in the last two days of the match. The Genius of Shane Warne came alive yet again and Bret Lee bowled the only way he knows how to – Fast and he ran though Flintoff and Pieterson like a panther. But…But… All in vain… Hoggard and Ashley Giles – the so called Tail Enders held their nerves. I’m all sure that Oval will bring us another thriller that would keep us all to the edge of our seats.

Thanks to this supremely contested battle, Cricket is the reigning queen of News papers and millions of others who knew better than watching this game! Is Ashes coming home to England? Only time will tell. But if they gut it out the way they did this summer, England will emerge on top leaving the Aussies in utter shame.