Selection of teams for movement of location

The space in the office was not enough to house more employees and contractors. Management decided to move the resources to a different location which also was the vendor location. At the first, we have to move 25 resources.

Task of identifying and building morale of the team was somethings that I picked up.

First I did a small discussion with my immediate reportees updating them on the management decision. Half of them took it in a positive manner and the others the negative way. There were many who were enthusiastic about this move since it was close to their homes.

I collaborated with another manager who was working on this organizational initiative at a different level. He was curious on what issue my team found while taking up this exercise.

The issues were known - ports need to be  opened and ip addresses need to be whitelisted.
I chose the projects that were independent and could easily pick up and start at the new location. The dependencies were examined closely to know if something would impact - ex - release dates.

More on this as we proceed on this collaborative activity.

Test a Financial Rollout for process finessization

The word finess comes from Old English is to bring delicacy and dexterity to the process which is already sturdy, applause worthy but lacking some of the secrets for a continuously successful future.

To view the initiave from very high, 32000 feet above you see that the act is engaged to bring finess to the process of financial management. A bit of growth to harmonize and include the ends which are undergoing standalone pain and bring a complete harmonization to the process . This is essential for the organization to move ahead in spreading the mission and vision that it has carried with it all along.

Testing such a massive implementation can take months, years based on the scope. The ultimate aim for testing professionals is that during the process of testing in different ways no bug is retained in the system undetected post the release. The bugs that are found and agreed upon are generally considered as a by product of bad planning or bad execution decision and is absorbed in the product with the understanding that the bug will be fixed and released after some delibration.

The bug that goes undetected costs a lot in terms of the reputation of the team implementing the solution and the testing work done. It also makes the organization vulnerable to cyber attacks and generally demoralizes the entire team. The existence of a hidden pre-release bug is such results into lot of vanity and the cost of such a hard bug should be matched with the cost of testing 

Strategy to build efficiency at work

Off the past days I am spending a lot of time in engaging various diverse skilled members in my team. A specialist on the e commerce business needs to relate to the woes of retail business. In the midst of b2b shopping, the whole solution can then merge into one to give the most optimum solution.

Days are gone where the solutions could be diverse and be retained as such, in evolving times, the bait is consolidation and harmonization and putting the correct technology in the right place

In a conglomerate where different products are engineered for different countries,the CRM may not be harmonized , but the financial process excluding the taxation, legal and statutaory needs to be addressed with common goal to bring profit by all means 

Taming big lurching monsters

A program starting with many channels with a new start and a changed end. The estimation and corresponding allocation of resources in a typical software service environment. Concentrating on the finished goal of launching GSI

Understanding the EAI architecture

Taking small step back to haul a new path

Resource match with the skill requirements, require that you first analyze the requirement and then match few components from the requirements to the resume during the face to face interview. Set the correct expectations is very important to start with . Understanding the resource's aspiration and giving hope on the next venture will benefit in the long run to build a good relation.

New assignements are critical for service business continuity, understanding and fulfilling the demands so that the supply meets demand. The earlier the supply meets demand more efficient is the process.

When the business continues for a longer period, an expectation sets in which must be met constantly, the environment may not be encouraging or edgy and the lull sets in. This is a good situation to create edgy situation and propose more riskier SLAs. Challenging yourselves and re-confirm your worth should be done at regular intervals.

Balancing the teams to come up amiable situations is the basis of any service industry.

I have 2 ideas for MRP - Vendor scorecard.-
Give a chart view on the volume of business with service company, competencies catered to by vendors

Saving grace

As part of delivery management and precautionary methods, having a backup of talent pool. Work on building a second line to the very critical line for providing business.
Devising alternative methods to achieve success in delivery management by building pool of vendors and deciphering the needs of smaller units.
The idea is not to create discrete units, but units that are strickingly differentiable at the same time share the similar needs. This enables the team to share and discuss and hence remain stoicly together and work towards common goal.
Worked on building bridges between the peripherial groups which are in the outer and higher circle at workplace. The outer and higher circle is very influential and works silently. The work you do is judged against someone else's work and even though the better work was yours, you could get pulled down due to the proximity of the peer to the outer higher circle.

OHC
NC
LC
OC

The various levels of testing constitute testing practice. Mainly DB testing, ETL testing, XML testing

When I had to manage the expectations

Meeting with vendors to initiate new engagements to benefit the organization. Initially we would like to engage in different cost benefitting models the vendor might have and assess based on our needs.
Engage the vendor in training new GETs, it is a faux pas on the part of vendor if he is not training the new joinees effectively since that is where the benefit lies.
Immediate resource movement in situation where there could be major impending disaster happening. Acknowledging such situations.

Hiring new resources who are required for a stable support. Currently the vendor /perm ratio is very high

SAP testing revolves majorly around SD, MM and FI areas, there have been lot of automated scripts for the domestic market, however for the interfaces there are no automated scripts. During system integration testing, we plan to do a complete end to end testing and use the interfaces as well, there the automated scripts do not help.

Security testing is emerging with threats being suggested due to various anti-viruses and firewalls. Doing device testing, application security testing, penetration testing, creating and explaining the reports is some of the activities that are worked on.

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