Number of bugs vs. Performance of Tester

I will start this blog with an anecdote.

Start of anecdote.

Around four years back, I was working (or better to say testing) in telecom lab when suddenly one of the Project Manager (PM) came to me and said that there is an emergency meeting with the client and you need to be there immediately. I immediately rushed to the conference room and found that the room was full of hot vibrations, which was due to the hot discussions that were going on with the client. It was a telephonic call with the client sitting across the oceans in London. I joined it and the first question that has been fired on me from the client was that how many bugs you have found in the last release that has been delivered to them. Although I know the exact number of bugs, still I said “Around 25 – 30”. The response from the PM, sitting besides me, was “No Sanat, tell us the exact number”. I said “What do you want to retrieve from the exact number of bugs”. And that too in front of the client, I whispered slowly. The response from the PM was shocking. He said “We want to measure the performance of the testing team based on the number of exact bugs that you have found”. I was not able to answer (or to react) on his question at that time but I provided him the exact number of bugs. I immediately asked to leave that room and I done so.

But the concern that was hitting me again and again was why a tester is being rated based on the number of bugs that have been logged by him/her. Although I must be a happy man at that time since I was the person who almost fired 80% of the bugs in that particular product that have been tested by me (with other 4 testers) for more than 3 years. I was thinking on that on a very serious node and in the meantime, one fine day, my manager (Testing Manager) called a meeting with the all the testers (we were 5 at that time, including me). He said that we should fire more and more number of bugs against the release to improve the testing and to show the client that effective testing has been performed.

I totally followed his instructions and that started creating an unhealthy environment between the testers and programmers. All the testers (including me) started logging bugs in the databases with a very high frequency without even thinking of whether it is a bug or not. And without even throwing a second thought on the bugs, the programmer started rejecting the bugs. This panic and uncontrolled situation continued for one week and then a team meeting has been called to analyze the same. The meeting concluded with a node that the decision taken before was incorrect and there must be something that should measure the performance of the testing team.

End of anecdote.

To understand this topic in a better way, first we should understand the common problems in the Software Development Process that redirects any Software to a buggy Software. Some of the problems that I have seen are:

• Poor requirements - if requirements are unclear, incomplete, too general, or not testable, there will be problems.
• Unrealistic schedule - if too much work is crammed in too little time, problems are expected.
• Inadequate testing - no one will know whether or not the program is any good until the customer complains or systems crash.
• Poor planning - requests to pile on new features after development is underway which is extremely common.
• Miscommunication - if developers don't know what's needed or customers have erroneous expectations, problems are guaranteed.

Now I am coming back to the points that need to be considered to analyze any tester’s performance. See the underlined text below. You will get the viewpoint of mine that I always considered for this concern.

A good test engineer has a 'test to break' attitude, an ability to take the point of view of the customer, a strong desire for quality, and an attention to detail. Tact and diplomacy are useful in maintaining a cooperative relationship with developers, and an ability to communicate with both technical (developers) and non-technical (customers, management) people is useful. Previous software development experience can be helpful as it provides a deeper understanding of the software development process, gives the tester an appreciation for the developers' point of view, and reduce the learning curve in automated test tool programming. Judgment skills are needed to assess high-risk areas of an application on which to focus testing efforts when time is limited.

A good Test engineer should:

• be familiar with the software development process.
• be able to maintain enthusiasm of their team and promote a positive atmosphere, despite what is a somewhat 'negative' process (e.g., looking for or preventing problems).
• be able to promote teamwork to increase productivity.
• be able to promote cooperation between software, test, and QA engineers.
• have the diplomatic skills needed to promote improvements in QA processes.
• have the ability to withstand pressures and say 'no' to other managers when quality is insufficient or QA processes are not being adhered to.
• have people judgment skills for hiring and keeping skilled personnel.
• be able to communicate with technical and non-technical people, engineers, managers, and customers.
• be able to run meetings and keep them focused.

I believe testing cannot be measured accurately. Although there are n number of formulas that I am also using to provide some number as a performance of the individual tester, but still I disagree. Those numbers (or formulas) are good for management because management always believes in number. Testing cannot be measured, it can only be monitored. As I always said “Testing never ends”.

I will conclude this blog with Dr Cem Kaner amazing statement on this concern. “If you really need a simple number to use to rank your testers, use a random number generator. It is fairer than bug counting, it probably creates less political infighting, and it might be more accurate”.

-- Sanat Sharma

Materialized Talks

One week back, I read a great article on http://www.stickyminds.com titled “What's In A Name?” which says that developers are not the only “developers” who are working or developing the product. All the persons (System Engineers, Coders, Programmers, Testers, deploy persons, support functions) are developers. Developers should be called as “Programmers” or “Coders”.

I have added my comment on that article and I got a supporting response from the author, Fiona Charles, who is a Toronto-based test consultant and manager with thirty years of experience in software development and integration projects. See my comments that I published and the response by the author below:

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Comment:
by Sanat Sharma 10/29/2008

Great thought, Fiona. "Developers" are not the only one who are developing the product. It involves other roles also. And that is the reason; some organizations started saying developers as "SDE" means "Software Development Engineers" and testers as "SDET" means "Software Development Engineers in Testing". It all went wrong when we started calling programmers "developers." It is very difficult for me, having an experience of 7+ years in testing and quality, to deal with a programmer turned manager.

Sanat Sharma
http://www.xtremeedge.blogspot.com

Author's Response: 10/29/2008
Thanks, Sanat. That's an interesting example you cite, though I would prefer to leave the "engineer" out of both titles. What's wrong with "programmer" and "tester", after all?

I sympathize with your issues about programmers turned managers. Unfortunately for us, they are in the majority among IT managers. We need to find a way of reaching them collectively, not simply one by one, so we are not constantly having the same conversations or arguments again and again.

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Few days back, I discussed this with one of my programmer colleague and the response I got from him was amazing. I can’t pen down what he said but that was disgusting and shocking. And on top of it, one of the programmers sitting beside us, having around 3+ years of programming work experience laughed at his comments without even thinking of what has been told by both parties.

I realized on that day that sometimes you cannot change the attitude of someone who is not able to understand what you are trying to say. I decided better to keep my mouth shut with these kinds of guy rather than doing long discussions. Because it’s true that “Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference.”

-- Sanat Sharma

Baby Step Technique (BST)

Have you seen a baby when he starts walking at his initial stage? The baby firmly puts one step further and wait until his first step made a solid landing in the ground. Unless and until, he is sure that his first step is placed and planted properly in the ground, he started moving his second step for further walk. This way he is ensuring that his first step should not be uprooted when he is moving his second step. The baby always worked in this way and covers the initial distance in a long span of time. He is not getting success at every attempt that he is doing. But he understands that efforts may fail, but one should not fail to make efforts.

Who told this little angel to behave like this? Who told him about the risks of putting steps? How he is ensuring that his first step landed safe in the ground? What is the timeframe for him to decide his second step movement?

Well, the questions are many, but the answer is simple, “God is great”.

I always appreciate this awesome technique and would like to name it as “BST – Baby Step Technique”.

What I learn from the textbooks is just for my resume, I believe more in informal learning, I learn more from the newspapers. I read books and articles about testing and quality. I question and critique everything aggressively. I write articles on my blog site regularly about my previous and current testing and quality experiences and encounters. I read books and articles that are NOT about testing and quality. And I notice babies also.

Now, let’s come out from this baby world and fit this BST in our Software Industry.

Throughout my carrier so far, I always saw that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. There are many who wants to make a difference but don’t know where to start. BST is the best example to start. Baby Steps Technique (BST) works in a similar way in IT as it works for a baby.

In our industry, we always messed up with different issues / concerns / doubts. But if you do not want to create a loaded and messy environment within your group, BST is for you only. In BST, one should split his/her tasks in small pieces of chunks and try to fix and close it before you are going to move in another task. "Establish time boxes" and "Finish partly done work" are two child techniques of BST. Instead of big bang approach, one should take small, incremental steps that maximize discovery.

Establish time boxes means that one should decide the completion time of each and every activity (irrespective of small and big one). Defining a completion date creates a time box for you and you will become conscious about the deadlines.

Finish partly done work. One should not keep the status of any action item as pending. Try to work in binary mode. Either one or zero. Making the status of any task as pending for more than a week is not recommended. BST can be failure for these guys who have a regular practice of doing so.

I am working on these two (or would say working with these two) from the last three years. From manager’s point of view, assigning time to complete, help team to complete timely and resolve obstacles quickly are the three basic activities that should be performed to make BST a successful technique.

BST always asks a question from its followers - Are you doing even one percent of what you think must be done?

I do agree that one of the easiest things to do in life is to come up with solutions, but one of the hardest is to actually implement them. But BST is a technique which can be implanted on large scale as well as small scale, with a baby steps.

Breaking the tasks into smaller one will always make your activities good, fast and efficient. And this is all BST is based on.

-- Sanat Sharma

Are you customer friendly?

Every day we're saying, 'How can we keep our customers happy?' 'How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will. Dealing with customers plays a major role in any organizations success or failure. Customers always never interested in our specification documents; they are interested in the answer to one simple question:

“Did the product do what I expected it to do?”

Quality in a product or service is not what the suppliers put in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. And the dilemma is Customer satisfaction cannot be measured, it can only be monitored. Ignoring the customer satisfaction can lead to unawareness. Sometimes a light you see at the end of a tunnel is actually an oncoming train. This is how ignorance can lead to unawareness.

Any organization (or I would say a successful organization) should have a trust relationship with their customers. Trust should be closely monitored because trust is invisible but the symptoms of its absence are not. Your most unhappy customers should be your greatest source of learning.

Now this is interesting. Just now, a thought came into my mind. I am trying to list down some expectations that I want from the product / service provider when I am playing a role of a customer. When I am a customer, I want that my talks, views and ideas should be listened attentively, taken seriously with basic courtesies and dedicated attention. I want a competent and efficient service / product with all the anticipation of my needs and all the explanations in my terms.

I want from the other side of the desk that I should be informed with all the options that they have and not to be passed around. Other than that, I want a friendliness, honesty and professional service with a follow through and empathy.

Recently, I went to buy something, big house hold item, in one of the biggest shopping mall of my area and all the things that I mentioned above was not done up to my expectations. Although the shopping store was too good, big and from a reputed market leader in the household products, but still I was not convinced and satisfied with the way I was handled. I immediately drop the idea. Not of purchasing the item, but to purchase the item from the same shop. After that, I went to another shop with a comparatively small setup with the previous one. I bought the product from their. That means, most of the expectations that I have from the providers, have been fulfilled.

See, how I am reacting when I am playing a role of the customer. I immediately switched to another shop when my expectations were not fulfilled. This means that one should be customer friendly to sustain the market. The continuous entry of new competitors is exploding choice of the customer. Competitors are making enormous investments for long term market shares.

Here I am trying to pen down a checklist that one should follow to maximize the customer satisfaction level.

1. Getting to know who is to be served and also what exactly to offer.
2. Find out what exactly a customer is looking for.
3. Let the customer know about what you can offer today rather than telling them what you will offer them at a later stage.
4. Get people who can deliver and meet deadlines.
5. Create prototypes.
6. Find the easiest approach for customer transition.
7. Customize your product offering.
8. Allow the customer to get the best possible price and reduce his costs.
9. Provide the best possible security to customer information.
10. Use the right kind of networking hardware and creating the proper system architecture to link disparate functions.
11. Use the right kind of software or combination of software for proper enterprise level linkages and integrations.
12. Develop a centralized customer information database available at all touch points and assisting in personalized marketing to the customer.
13. Proper knowledge management and integrating the same with the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution.
14. Educate employees and customers alike.
15. Viewing the CRM solution in the context of normal business activity rather than a complex front end.

I always insist on a statement, which is my favorite,

“Customer satisfaction is quality”

Most of the companies are working on this single liner about quality. These companies are allowing the customer to dictate specifications and quality standards. All the marketing efforts are directed at meeting customer needs, not market share. Marketers are tracking customer needs continuously and responding to them instantly. Corporate strategies are aiming at delivering greater customer values than rivals. All planning, process, and people are reconfigured around the customer.

As I said before, there is a huge competitiveness in the market. All the big market players are identifying the new competencies and growing to server the customer better. Costs are cutting down to deliver greater value at lower prices. TQM (Total Quality Management) plays a major role to raise the product quality, which the companies are using. Product cycle time are reducing to reduce time-to-market and boost responsiveness. Companies are developing their brands to generate long-term, not short term margins.

-- Sanat Sharma

Quality Circle

“A Quality Circle is a volunteer group composed of employees who meet to discuss workplace improvement, and make presentations to management with their ideas, especially relating to quality of output in order to improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and enrich the work of employees. The ideal size of a quality circle should be from eight to ten members.”

Well, the definition really looks good and impressive. Let’s go through another definition.

A small group of employees doing similar or related work who meet regularly to identify, analyze, and solve product-quality and production problems and to improve general operations. The circle is a relatively autonomous unit (ideally about ten workers), usually led by a supervisor or a senior worker and organized as a work unit."

-- Joel E. Ross and William C. Ross

After Second World War, Japan was the first country who started working on a very serious node on Quality. Quality circles were among the first Japanese management practices, which plays a major role in the success of most of the Japanese companies like Toyota. I have covered the success of Japan and meaning of Quality in some of my previous blogs.

When visiting Japan in the 1970s, American managers noticed groups of workers meeting to address the quality problems. The American managers recognized this as a practice that could easily be copied and returned home to institute it in their own companies. Quality circles (QCs) took off in the United States as a Japanese management mania peaked. The movement boomed in early 1980s as most large companies introduced this practice in United States.

But the bloom was soon off the rose, however, as firms fond themselves devoting a lot of time and attention to QCs and receiving relatively little in return. There were a number of reasons for the lack of results. Employees were only encouraged to work on quality problems during their meetings (usually about an hour a week) and spent the rest of their week just “doing their job”. Supervisors were often not involved in the program and were indifferent, if not downright hostile, to it. Perhaps the biggest problem was that QCs were “just a program”, cut off from and often opposed to the way the organization usually worked. Managers preached about the importance of quality work during their QC events, but when crunch time came, their attitude was, in the words of one QC member,” If it doesn’t smoke, ship it!” that means management’s goal was to get the product out the door as soon as possible. Not surprisingly, companies started to disband their QC programs, which were soon dismissed as just another passing fad. In the context of current interest in total quality, many managers look back on QCs as essentially a false start on the road to quality. It is interesting in this light to note that many Japanese companies still operate QCs and that they are seen as a critical part of the total quality control (TQC) effort in these companies.

According to the Union of Japanese Scientist and Engineers, 5.5 million workers take part in 750,000 circles. Managers as well as frontline employees are involved, and the circles are considered as normal part of working life, rather than a program. In fact, QCs often work to achieve the objectives set in the Kaizen process, (will define it further) which puts them in the mainstream of TQC activity. Some organizations provide monetary incentives for suggestions provided by circles, and employees in some firms make dozens of suggestions per year. It appears that the mistake made in the United States introduction of quality circles was not in introducing them, but in not taking them seriously.

Now coming back to Kaizen.

Kaizen (pronounced ki-zen) strategy has been called “the single most important concept in Japanese management – the key to Japanese competitive success”. It is the cumulative effect of hundreds or thousands of small improvements that creates dramatic change in performance. In the Kaizen approach, as practiced in Japan, financial investment is minimal; everyone participates in the process; and improvements results from the know-how the experience of workers.

According to Japanese manufacturing expert, Shigeo Shingo

“Since improvement demands new procedures, a certain amount of difficulty will be encountered. Initially, new methods will be difficult. Old procedures, however, are easy just because they are familiar. As long as it is unfamiliar, even an improved procedure will be more difficult and will take more time than the old procedure. Thus no improvement shows its true worth right away. 99 percent of all improvement plans would vanish without a trace if they were to be abandoned after only a brief trial.”

Managers need systematic approach to drive continuous improvement programs. Some organizations follow some standard and popular approaches, while other develops unique approaches to meet their own needs and cultures.

A seven steps technique for accelerated continuous improvement.

1. Focus and pinpoint. Focus is about getting everyone on the same page with regard to goals and Pinpoint is about specifying in measurable terms what is expected.
2. Communicate. Communication should be done company-wide by publicizing key result areas, the vision, and the mission statements so that employees can answer the questions: what is being improved? Why is it important to the customer, to the company and to me? What has the management team committed to do to help? And what specifically company asking me to do? (I have covered the Vision. Mission and Policies in my last blog. Have you gone through it?)
3. Translate and link. Teams should translate the company-wide objectives into their own language and environment.
4. Create a management action plan. Management should create a plan with specific actions to reach a goal, including metrics to measure success. Each team member should asked to know what tasks need to be done, why they are important, and what the team role is in getting them done.
5. Improve process. Use the techniques like Fish bone, Pareto, QCs, Six Sigma. Management should know the difference between the experience and expertise.
6. Measure progress and provide feedback. Feedback should be visual, frequent, simple and specific. The baseline performance should be shown for comparison. The past, current period, and goals should be posted.
7. Reinforce behaviors and celebrate results. Learning leads to positive results by encouraging teams to celebrations to answer the questions: what did you do? Why is it important for the customer, the company, and the team? How did the team accomplish this achievement?

Products are better and cheaper to produce when everyone, at every stage in development, is responsible for the quality of their work. Actually, Quality is like buying oats. If you want nice, fresh, clean oats, then you must pay a fair price. However, if you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse --- That comes a little cheaper!

Every time, I am saying that Quality is everybody’s job,’ and that’s true. But it must start with management. Management’s job is to lead people toward a goal. And Quality is the only goal that matters because Quality is planned, designed and built in – not inspected in. Quality is never improved unless it is a part of your personality.

-- Sanat Sharma

Vision, Mission and Policies (VMP)

After a short vacation of travelling, roaming, learning, speaking, listening, and reading, it's back to the blogosphere.

In India, a few days back, one of the most talked about car of the world, the Tata Nano, has changed her house from one Indian state (West Bengal) to other state (Gujrat). It was a major switch for Tata as they faced lot of controversies in West Bengal. I believe West Bengal is not aware of what they have lost. But I really appreciate the efforts done by almost all the industrial states of India to house the Tata Nano in their respective states. But finally, it was Gujrat, who got this lucky chance. Actually, it is not by luck. It was a great effort by the Gujrat government; as a result, Nano is in their bucket. It is due to this reason only that Gujrat is said to be the strongest state of India. Both politically and financially.

But the question here is not about the “Home town” of Tata Nano. The question is that how Ratan Tata, the owner of Tata, one of the biggest business houses in India, thought about this car, which is supposed to be the cheapest car in the world. Actually, here come the three factors based on which any business line can work and establish and Tata is not an exception.

First is vision. It was the first face to face meeting between Ratan Tata and the media about the Nano. He said that once he was going to somewhere in India and he has seen a family of four (2 adults + 2 children) driving in a two wheeler. It was a very risky drive as four of them were loaded dangerously in that vehicle. And on top of it, it was raining outside. All the four passengers were on a very unsafe drive. Instantly, a thought came up to his mind and he decided to make a cheap car for lower middle class in India, just for serving the people, in the name of security, safety and social service. The amazing point is that he decided the price also of that car at the same moment. And that was INR 1 Lakh. Now that was the vision.

Second is mission. When he conveyed his dream car to the top management of Tata motors, it was a challenging task for all of the employees to work and make a car within the price band of what he had thought of. But Ratan Tata convinced each of them and a mission was established for each and every employee who has to work for Nano.

Third are policies. Nano team worked for more than 4 years and after that they were in the condition to present a car in the market with the same price tag that has been decided 4 years back. This was due to policies only. In that 4 years of time span, the Indian economy took a lot of bumps in the market. And the worst situation, that Nano faced, was of the location change from one state to other. And that too is when there were only 3 months left to make that car available on road for public. But the best policies and ultimate quality management kept the price tag of INR 1 Lakh only. Although there was a delay of 8 months after the Nano’s location change, but I am sure this will be taken care of by the Tata.

That is the reason, when Tata Nano came face to face first time with the public; there was a huge response in the hall where it was kept. The best part that I liked at that time was the driving of Ratan Tata. He himself came to hall showing his driving skills with Tata Nano. That was the first car shown to the public and his first line after getting out of the car to the public was “A promise is a promise”.

Same VMP (Vision, Mission and Policies) is true for one more business plan from another business giant of India, the Reliance. Dhirubhai Ambani, the owner of Reliance Industries, vision was to make a telephone call on the rate of a postcard. His vision was that each and every Indian should have a mobile phone with a very cheap call rate, that too on a price of a postcard. The vision was clearly understood by his team, a mission was made and implementing best policies and quality management, this is going to happen in India within a year.

My kudos to the visionary men of India, like Ratan Tata and Dhirubhai Ambani.

-- Sanat Sharma

5778889 – Techniques and Principles

5W of Decision making

1. What
2. Why
3. When
4. Where
5. How

7 C of Customer Satisfaction

1. Consistent Quality
2. Committed delivery
3. Customized product mix
4. Contemporary products
5. Competitive price
6. Complaint settlement
7. Culture of customer service

7 S SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats) analyses

1. Strategy
2. Structure
3. System
4. Style
5. Staff
6. Skills
7. Shared values

8 habits of highly effective people

1. First understand before you seek to be understand
2. Synergize
3. Win, Win
4. Be proactive
5. Keep end in mind – Goal orientation
6. First thing first – Prioritization
7. Sharpening the axe
8. From effectiveness to greatness

8 Total Quality Management principles

1. Vision
2. Philosophy
3. Value
4. Symbol
5. Goal
6. Benchmark
7. Metrics
8. Tools and methodology.

8 Quality management principles

1. Customer focus
2. Leadership
3. Involvement of people
4. Process approach
5. System approach to management
6. Factual approach to decision making
7. Continual improvement
8. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

9M of Quality management

1. Man
2. Material
3. Machine
4. Measurement
5. Market
6. Money
7. Method
8. Message
9. Management

-- Sanat Sharma

Human Resource Management with Physics

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass–energy equivalence, E = mc ². Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to Theoretical Physics.

In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the concept that any mass has an associated energy and vice versa. In special relativity this relationship is expressed using the mass–energy equivalence formula

E = mc ²

Where

· E = energy,

· m = mass,

· c = the speed of light in a vacuum.

This mass–energy equivalence formula is very useful in our IT industry also, especially when Human Resource Management comes into the picture. But how? Let me explain.

There are two terms in the industry for any particular human resource which clearly defines the interest of that particular one in his/her job.

1. Participation which means physical presence only.
2. Involvement which means Physical + Mental presence + commitment + Pride.

I have seen some of the resources who are working only in a participation mode. That means, they are not doing their work without commitment and pride. These resources are overhead in any organization and should be kicked off as early as possible.

Second category, Involvement. People work with a great enthusiasm and pride that falls in this category. They rise with a speed and always appreciated by the management.

So the physics is related to Human Resource Management as follows:

E = mc ²

Where

• E = Effectiveness
• m = motivation
• c = commitment

This means that a person can be effective only if he is motivated and his commitment level is very high.

Now the question is how E (i.e. effectiveness) can be improved? Now as per the equation, the answer is very simple. Motivation with a lot of commitment will improve it. But there are some good practices to improve E in a better way. Let us point out those practices:

1. Practice 1: One should communicate about needs.
2. Practice 2: Encourage Healthy Conflict.
3. Practice 3: Be Fully Present.
4. Practice 4: Build Trust with Every Action.
5. Practice 5: Use Technology to Build Relationships.

-- Sanat Sharma

Cost Cutting or Cost Balancing

Scenario -1.

I joined IT industry in the year 2001 as a Testing Engineer in one of the middle size US Company. My salary was INR …. and I was satisfied with it. Besides my salary, I have other facilities also like free lunch, anytime pick and drop facility, 5 days working, Medical insurance etc.

Gradually I started rising in my carrier and currently my salary is INR …. with no free lunch, no free pick and drop facility.

Scenario - 2.

One of my friends started his professional carrier in non-IT industry in the same year 2001. His salary was half of the salary that I was drawing at that time with no free lunch, no pick and drop facility and 6 days working. And still after 7+ years, his salary is half the salary of mine.

These two scenarios are same in some ways and totally different in other ways. How? Let me explain.

IT industry started rising everywhere in the world with a great Bang. Great salaries, ultimate facilities, comfortable infrastructure, and lots and lots of things. But whatever goes up in the sky will have to come back to earth. This is a real fact and same thing happened with the IT industry also.

IT industry has started controlling their expenditure. Beside IT, almost all the industries have not provided any add on facilities (like free lunch, free cab) from starting. But IT guys are used to of it. As far as salary is concern, we all know the gap in between the IT industry and other industry.

I was attending a session in a seminar where I came to know the view points of the non-IT guys about us. They simply said that

"an IT guy started his carrier with a salary that is of a non-IT person having around 7-8 years of experience. All the IT professionals have 5 days a week and non-IT guys work for 6 days a week. As far as other facilities are concern, IT industry is far better than the non-IT."

I was surprised to see the muscles of their faces (non-IT guys) full of tensions and jealous when they were discussing this.

From that day onwards, I am thinking that we, as an IT guys, are never satisfied with our salary and perks. And if our companies try to reduce the expenditures on us, like paid lunch, no free cab, we always said that there is a cost cutting in IT. Recently, my cousin sister, who is also in IT industry, came to my house and said that Cost Cutting is going on everywhere in IT.

Now the question is “Is this a cost cutting or a Cost balancing?”

-- Sanat Sharma

Group Intelligence

Recently I was part of a meeting with a highly skilled, experienced and designated people of an organization. We started discussion with a very positive attitude. All were putting their individual thought process about the subject in an excellent way including myself. Gradually the meeting started heading towards nowhere. It all seems that each and every individual on that room was trying to convince his/her thoughts to the other without even thinking about what the other person is trying to say. Since all the participants were from top management and few of them were from middle management, most of the messy statements were passed by the top management band. I was also from the middle management group. I thought to keep my mouth shut and only observed how a meeting, which was planned for brainstorming, has converted into blame storming. This was a meeting where minutes were kept and hours were lost.

I am not saying that all the top management persons in that meeting were responsible for that meeting failure or they have no sense of business. And I am dam sure that each person has a capability to handle all the positive and negative views about the subject. The only issue with those guys was that they were not trying to understand what the other person is trying to say. Also every person was trying to convince the other that he has the right thoughts about the subject.

I must say here that each individual in that meeting have a great intelligence but there was no group intelligence in that team. This is a fact that if each individual has good intelligence in a group, there is a less chance of good group intelligence in that group. Each one has difference of opinion.

In an ideal scenario, the below written equation should be true.

Group Intelligence > Sum of Individual Intelligence

I.e. Group intelligence should be greater than the sum of its parts. But this can happen only when each individual is having a different mindset and everyone brings a unique thought about the subject. Listening and convincing characteristics are also required.

All the experts have full rights to have a difference of opinion but this can be resolved in a more graceful and amicable way with humility. All the experts should go for cooperation, not confrontation. Solo intelligence is OK, but the group intelligence is much richer.

-- Sanat Sharma

3F Interviews

Generally, I speak from my experience. So, I will start this blog with an anecdote. Few years back, I was struggling in my professional life. I was desperately looking for a job or rather for a good job. All of my friends circle was aware of this and were trying their best to help me out in this difficult and challenging phase. They forwarded my profile to many organizations and I got interview calls from most of the organizations. But in most of the organizations, my interview was of not more than 10 minutes. The interviewer was even not interested in what currently I was doing. The organizations for which I am talking here are some of the big and well known organizations. I was quite surprised and was unable to identify the reasons behind that.

But there is a specific reason of why they were doing so? The thread is like this. My friends forwarded my profile to the concern person. This guy can be a HR or a technical person. Now, due to the friendship and other personal relationships, they couldn’t refuse to even interviewing me. This was irrespective of the fact that whether there was an opening in the organization or not. So what was happening that I was being called for an interview keeping this point in mind that we will not consider this guy for further actions. Just for the sake of friendship with their friends, they were spending 10 – 15 minutes with me.

This is called a 3F Interview.

3 F means FAKE, FRAUD and FALSE.

Recently, I also get a chance to perform 3F with one of the candidate who has applied for a specific position in my group through one of my colleague. But this time, since the roles have been changed and I have to decide whether I will perform 3F or not, I refused to do so. I simply said to my concern friend that this person is overall not required in my group for this position. And I will not perform any 3F interview.

I hope this has been appreciated by my colleague and hope I will not perform any 3F interview again with anyone due to any pressure or relationship. Experience is a hard teacher because it gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

-- Sanat Sharma

Appraisal

Hi XXX,

I find that I must submit my resignation to XYZ Company, effective immediately. I regret the inconvenience it will cause, but circumstances have left me no choice.

Thank you for the opportunity to work.

Allow me to express my best wishes for the company and yourself.

Regards,

YYY

After one month,

Hi XXX,

I found that I was wrong in resigning from XYZ Company. I am simply backing of with my decision and will continue work with the organization.

All the inconvenience caused is regretted.

Regards,

YYY

Appraisal, what does that mean? It means “The classification of someone or something with respect to its worth”.

The meaning mentioned above is the theoretical description of the word “Appraisal”. So let’s come to the practical aspect of this word. The word appraisal is an abbreviated word; the description of it is as follows:

• A stands for arguable.
• P stands for personal.
• P stands for pressure.
• R stands for rendezvous.
• A stands for attitude.
• I stands for ineffective.
• S stands for stupid.
• A stands for append.
• L stands for limit.

So let’s redefine the new definition of appraisal.

An Appraisal is the most arguable and personal activity with lots of pressure and rendezvous having attitude problems which makes any employee ineffective and stupid redirecting the management to append decisions within the limit.

-- Sanat Sharma

The Rise and Rise of Industries

After Second World War (1939 – 1945), the world’s economy was at its worst. All the industries were fighting for their survival. It was due to the reason that the Second World War stretched for so many years and almost all the countries contributed their best to win this war. If we turn back the history pages, most of us should be aware with this fact that this World War was a not the “War of Issues”. I would say it was the “War of Egos”. And since ego was their in between, no body thought about what they were doing and what will be the implications after this.

This “War of Egos” gave a new direction to the World which has changed the face of the World’s economy. And that direction was “Darkness”. No one was aware of what to do next. All the industries have to invent the wheel again. And that brought a revolution in the industry. Most of the countries took this as a major challenge for them and start exploring the best way to keep the industrial spirit high and business speed maximum.

How it all started? It all started with a new term that hit the market in late 1940s. And that was LPG which is Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization.

· Liberalization means the act of making less strict.

· Privatization means changing something from state to private ownership or control.

· Globalization means growth to a global or worldwide scale.

So, let’s start our journey decade wise and I am sure you will get a clear picture of the “Rise and rise of Industries”.

Decade of 1950 – 1960.

It was the time when industries only targeted on Production. It was due to the reason that there was a huge demand and supply gap. The demand was at his best due to the repercussions of the World War. The demands were hitting from almost each and every area of the World and the industries were trying their best to supply at each and every corner of the World. Most of the countries in this decade started creating their base for future.

Decade of 1960 – 1970.

This was the time of Processes and their implementations. All the process and quality gurus like Demming, Juran, Pareto came into the limelight in this era. Since the industry was at its peak in the production, it has been observed that there were numerous issues that could be resolved if there will be proper processes on place and most important is their best implementations. Processes gave a steep upward direction to the industrial development and most of the companies found their production level at its best after implementing the proper processes as per their needs and requirements.

Decade of 1970 – 1980.

Welcome to Technology era. This decade was the golden decade for all the technology hungry companies. After producing the mass production and implementing the processes to improve the production, it has been felt that technology area was lacking. Industries spent lot of money for research and development of the new technologies so that they could become the market leaders. The rise and rise of Japan is the best example in this decade.

Decade of 1980 – 1990.

Now till this decade, Production + Processes + Technologies were at their best. So industry experts targeted to acquire the Customers. Almost all the industries tired and succeed to create a huge base of customers for their individual areas and this is the time when most of the industries (or better to say companies) take on a huge base of customers. In India, the rise and rise of Maruti-Suzuki and Reliance Industries are the best examples of this decade.

Decade of 1990 – 2000.

Welcome to the golden time of the customers. This decade was dedicated to the research and development department, neither of technology nor or processes, but of Needs of the Customer. It was difficult for any organization to retain the customers. This was because of the fact that customers have numerous options available in the market. Industries worked hard to retain the customers and separate department have made to perform research about “What the customer wants?” Customers demands went like a rocket in this era and industry worked hard to fulfill them.

2000 – till date.

This is the time of Customer Satisfaction which is due to the previous decade (1990 – 2000). Since previous decade was the golden time for the customers, this is more than golden time (I would say Diamond time) for the customers. The customers have numerous options in the market with all kind of services and comfort. Customer can switch to any product any time if the product is not satisfying their needs. The most difficult fact for the industry is that Customer satisfaction cannot be measured (or evaluated), it can only be monitored. The major challenge that is standing as tall as Mount Everest in front of all industries is how to satisfy the customers. In fact, some modern process gurus (better to say Quality Gurus) redefine the definition of Quality i.e. “Customer Satisfaction is Quality”.

In fact I am also trying to climb the Mount Everest of Customer Satisfaction. But I promise to all my readers (or better to say Customers) that you would be more than satisfied after spending your precious time to read my articles. Thanks a lot for your time, I valued that the most.

-- Sanat Sharma