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.

For Digitial Media management, it is a website to upload content, the content metafile is created. The digital media management tool is currently working for US customer and Europe customers and supports English and German languages

Vendor Discussion

I called meeting with Mindtree to start discussion on future testing activities.

Today, I closed on few demands left open for perm testing.. It is imperative for me to now have a bench which will cater to new requirements.

I had lunch with team and helped me understand their background.

I have to continue on my strategy to aspire much more than the position I currently hold. I am having some ego issues with a counterpart who has been recently promoted. I would continue building a team which will support me. it is very important for me to get new projects asap

End to End Cycle

Today for SIMPLE upgrade testing project we found that during SIT the end to end testing cycles are not planned

I made the opinion that the existing regression suite be run first and then the end to end cases should be examined.

For security penetration testing we decided to conduct some flows wherein the internal security scan for SAP is conducted.

Mentoring all the way

A lot of talent pool resides in most organization with no catalyst to make the positive energy flow, does that sound like something happening to you?. A mentor is someone who helps you through a process or on a more subtle note helps you understand and blow your full potential in a fairly new or unfamiliar surrounding.

I doubt if we could make rapid progress without a strong mentor by our side. I have mentored quite some in the past and have been mentored myself, one thing remains sheer talent is powerless without this subtle nature which brings you closer to the goal.

 A mathematical view is that the mentoring exists on the chart where the standard deviation is more than normal thus the difference in the present and expected is more, a mentor will not be so much of a use where the present and expected is reached, in such a situation the mentor might take the role of a competitor or a boss. A good mentor generally becomes a good boss, but the reverse may not be true.

Mentoring is a skill which is failry neglected and is done only when one is forced to. 

Vendor Management tricks

Managing existing vendors and demand planning goes hand in hand. The push from the vendor to sell/oversell influences the forecasting calculations and forecast can be overestimated. On the other hand the demand might not vary at all or worse diminish within the course of the forecast.

Pursuing the vendor on creating value to enable increase in demand is imperative. It is kind of a catch 22 situation but as vendor manager the push and pull of forecast and demand and the decoupling point needs to be reached sooner.

If there has been no forecast the demand would come strongly , as it happens when a company starts and during the initial days there is no forecast and is run over demands alone. As the business matures the bench is being organized to give cost benefit and quick response to the customer and meet the demands quicker. The strategy to keep bench needs to be planned out carefully and it is job of demand planner to make the resource adaptable to varying customer needs. The jazzing up of the resource is something best done by senior technical individual who has serious mentoring skills.

Tomorrow I will write more on mentoring skills

Data Entry, Information System, Analytics... what Next

Is the calculation on the 

Runge Kutta to your help when you want to make a difference

Every time I have to make a change from my current situation, I wonder how I can do it. Change is a differential and is relative and proportional to your current situation. if you want to make a change it has to be factored on a timeline and will be a by product of what you already have.


One cannot take big strides if that is not in the thought process that has built up over years and is growing on every second. Bringing large thinking spaces in your mind and others that are around you creates the matter on which you can base a change.

Thinking Obama while writing this.

Dear Mathematics enthusiasts , my blog is for those who are completely lost in this world but wanted to reach ashore. If you love mathematics, you can understand life better with it. For example , learn a basic non-linear equation which values f(x) = 0 , this is point where the curve meets the x axis. x axis is the time parameter... if your life is a non-linear equation, the f(x) = 0 is the point where you will reach the equilibrium, a place where you will enjoy bliss. This point can be maintained till eternity if you make yourself constant and not vary with the x timeline. This is all for today, my understanding of f(x) = 0