A Blackberry addict discovers grassroots enterprise in India

Well, since last couple of months, i am not actually writing my won blog, but sharing other ones that i find interesting..Can this be called cheating?? Anyway, who cares ;)

This is a post from Shekhar Kapur's latest blog. For those who do not know him, Shekhar is a renowned Film director not only in India but in Hollywood as well. This is the link to his blog,

http://shekharkapur.com/blog/2010/07/a-blackberry-addict-discovers-grassroots-enterprise-in-india/

and for your ease, I am pasting the actual post here..

A greater ‘hole in the wall’ you cannot imagine. A small fading sign on the top saying “Cellphoon reapars” barely visible through the street vendors crowding the Juhu Market in Mumbai. On my way to buy a new Blackberry, my innate sense of adventure (foolishness) made me stop my car and investigate. A shop not more than 6 feet by 6 feet. Grimy and uncleaned.

‘Can you fix a blackberry ?”

‘ Of course , show me”

” How old are you”

‘Sixteen’

Bullshit. He was no more than 10. Not handing my precious blackberry to a 10 year old in unwashed and torn T shirt and pyjama’s ! At least if I buy a new one, they would extract the data for me. Something I have been meaning to do for a year now.

‘What’s wrong with it ?”

‘Well, the roller track ball does not respond. It’s kind of stuck and I cannot operate it”

He grabs it from my hand and looks at it

“You should wash your hands. Many customers have same problem. Roller ball get greasy and dirty, then no working’

Look who was telling me to wash my hands. He probably has not bathed for 10 days, I leaned out to snatch my useless blackberry back.

” you come back in one hour and I fix it’

I am not leaving all my precious data in this unwashed kid’s hands for an hour. No way.

“who will fix it ?”

‘Big brother’

‘ How big is ‘big brother?’

‘big …. umm ..thirty’

Then suddenly big brother walks in. 30 ??? He is no more than 19.

‘What problem ?’ He says grabbing the phone from my greasy hand into his greasier hand. Obviously not trained in etiquette by an upmarket retail store manager.

‘Normal blackberry problem. I replace with original part now. You must wash your hand before you use this’

What is this about me washing my hands suddenly ?? 19 year old big brother rummages through a dubious drawer full of junk and fishes out a spare roller ball packed in cheap cellophane wrapper. Original part ? I doubt it.

But by now I am in the lap of the real India and there is no escape as he fishes out a couple of screwdrivers and sets about opening my Blackberry.

“How long will this take ?”

” Six minutes ”

This I have to see. After spending the whole morning trying to find a Blackberry service centre and getting vague answers about sending the phone in for an assessment that might take a week, I settle down next to his grubby cramped work space. At least I am going to be able to watch all my stored data vanish into virtual space. People crowd around to see what’s happening. I am not breathing easy anyway. I tell myself this is an adventure and literally have to stop myself grabbing my precious blackberry back and making a quick escape.

But in exactly six minutes this kid handed my blackberry back. He had changed the part and cleaned and serviced the the whole phone. Taken it apart, and put it together. As I turned the phone on there was a horrific 2 minutes where the phone would not come on. I looked at him with such hostility that he stepped back.

‘you have more than thousand phone numbers ?”

‘yes’.

‘backed up ?’

‘no’

‘Must back up. I do it for you. Never open phone before backing up’

‘You tell me that now ?’

But then the phone came on and my data was still there. Everyone watching laughed and clapped. This was becoming a show. A six minute show.

I asked him how much.

‘ 500 rupees’ He ventured uncertainly . People around watched in glee expecting a negotiation. Thats $ 10 dollars as against the Rs 30,000 ($ 600) I was a about to spend on a new blackberry or a couple of weeks without my phone. I looked suitably shocked at his ‘high price ‘ but calmly paid him. Much to the disapointment of the expectant crowd.

‘do you have an Iphone ? Even the new ‘4′ one ?

‘no, why”

‘I break the code for you and load any ‘app’ or film you want. I give you 10 film on your memory stick on this one, and change every week for small fee’

I went home having discovered the true entreprenuership that lies at what we call the ‘bottom of the pyramid’. Some may call it piracy, which of course it is, but what can you say about a two uneducated and untrained brothers aged 10 and 19 that set up a ‘hole in the wall’ shop and can fix any technology that the greatest technologists in the world can throw at them.

I smiled at the future of our country. If only we could learn to harness this potential.

‘Please wash your hands before use’ were his last words to me. Now I am feeling seriously unclean.

Why Peter Bragman returned his iPad

This is a post from Peter Bragman on Harvard Business review site's guest blog. It made me thinking, see if it does the same to you...

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/06/why-i-returned-my-ipad.html

Rebels are important

There are team-mates and there are rebel team-mates. Those who do not like things the way they are, question almost everything thats put to them and have a bizzare way of working that strays almost 180 degrees (I couldnt find the degree button on my keyboard) to the line of normal work pattern.
So what do you do with them? Chuck them out? Say they are disturbing the melodious harmony of your super smooth workforce? I say think again. Do you really want to do without them?

Maybe not. Rebels are innovative, never-satisfied and always questioning the status queue. Having one of them around could be a great catalyst when you want to reduce waste, deliver just what is enough and keep energy bubbling in your team. Encourage them with appropriate means, try to align them with higher objective goals and see the effect. Who knows, they may end up giving you what you have been looking for everywhere. Or better, they may give you what you yourself coudln't imagine better.
I believe its all about people management. Or rather 'good people management'.
I could be wrong. but i still think its a nice thought ;-)

Stop by and take a look

Take a look at some cracking Quality Quotes I came across with my opinion on each one.

"The best way to get a project done faster is to start sooner." - Jim Highsmith
I guess most projects get into hiccups or suffer at some point because someone did not take that urgent call or Someone was not active enough when it was required, or someone did not see that far in the beganning. I strongly believe all these can be mitigated to a huge extent if teams start earlier. So at the point when sponsors are just coming up with the product idea and basic requirements, team identification can start. If the team takes of well, chances of a smooth release could increases manyfold.

"Programming can be fun, so can cryptography; however they should not be combined." - Kreitzberg and Shneiderman
I think its simple. We are at a position to realize that there is a limit to modularization and code less-get more done and everything else that is related. When things are changing on a less than half-monthly basis,no one wants to get into decrypting DA-Vinci code kind of puzzels just to get a simple thing done.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein
I think it coincindes more or less with what I talked above. Or not?? Maybe someone could give another take ;-)

So...what tester are you?

This is a very intuitive read that I found while rambling on Internet.

The Tester Types is a fun read, its actually an e-book that describes various types of testers...

Just give it a shot!! Now that everyone has become a tester, I am sure each one of us can identify with a type.. and whats more!! it has got great material for leg-pulling ;-)

so if you are waiting for your chance to get a go at that one person in your team, read Tester Types and you can tease them in all possible ways you want!!!

Who do I identify with? Its Explorer ;)

http://thesocialtester.posterous.com/tag/testertypes

Kaizen vs Kaikaku

Ok, I think I tabooed myself by saying that I read that particular book because ever since I said that, i have not been able to read a single page of it..I am not a superstitious person but in a funny way..well yes, may be ;)

BTW, I came across this very useful piece while indulging into results of my Google search about something that I don't remember..as one site led to another and I kept reading everything until i lost track of where i started from and what I was looking for!!!
Anyway, enough beating around the bush..here it goes(with special comments from my side ;))

In lean terms, there are two kinds of improvement.
1.Kaizen refers to steady but incremental improvement
2.Kaikaku means revolution, or radical improvement.

Without Kaizen you are building Kaikaku on sandy foundations. And vice versa.
The below 10 Kaikaku commandments are all good basic principles to start any improvement journey. It is top down initiative to activate a bottom up empowerment for change.
10 Kaikaku Commandments
By: Hiroyuki Hirano

1.Throw out the traditional concept of manufacturing methods.
2.Think about how the new method will work, not how it won't work. (Thats a cool piece of advice)
3.Don't accept excuses; totally deny the status quo.
4.Don't seek perfection; a 50% implementation rate is fine as long as it's done on the spot.
5.Correct mistakes the moment they are found.
6.Don't spend money on Kaikaku.
7.Problems give you a chance to use your brains.
8.Ask "Why" five times. (I suggest you don't try it on anyone else except you ;-))
9.Ten person's ideas are better than one person's knowledge.
10.Kaikaku knows no limits.

smoke testing

Just got to know that the term Smoke Testing got its use in IT when a piece of hardware was continuously plugged into electricity and it passed if the circuit did not burn and no smoke was produced!! Interesting, isn't it?
Few more notes from the Agile Testing book:
1) Developing a project dialect or team jargon is one of the key things tester should do. What it means is developing a common ground for communication or rather developing and facilitating a common language in which customer and team can communicate with and understand each other.

2) Agile teams are very high on expectations form return on their investments. It makes sense. Agile works in short iterations, a thing like a tool or a concept or technology, if after implementation does not return results quickly, it is left and team moves on. This is can not be considered negative when you are delivering a production ready software within two weeks.

3) Many of the agile development practices are synergistic, means they wont work as well in isolation. If they are implemented in isolation, they might not provide the benefit teams are looking for.diverse viewpoints help but its necessary for everyone to head in the same direction.

4) Another good sentence, "You need courage to allow others to make mistakes because that is the only way to learn the lesson."

BTW, ever since I reported on my blog about this book, I haven't read a single chapter!! So it might be some time before this free flow supply of cool agile advice resumes back ;)

My first post in 2010

Fine, i know i am a little late. It took me some time to get my new laptop and a new internet connection and so instead of 1Jan2010, my first blogpost for this year is on 1Feb2010. Does it matter? I dont think so..I am probably going to blabber the same things anyway ;-)
Mike Cohn, yes The Mike Cohn, personally recommended this book to me "Agile Testing" by Lisa Crispon and Janet Gregory. I have been reading it from past few days and here is a list of couple of notes I had made for myself from the book:

1) Agile testing means using each team member's skill to improve quality. When Agile says quality is a whole team's responsibility, it doesn't mean that testers are not necessary, but the approach here is to make testing everyone's responsibility. It should never be considered as a means to lessen the team size by avoiding to have a specialist tester.

2) Agile is not all about speed, but its all about quality. A team that delivers on time but not delivers on quality, is not an agile team at all..

3) Being an agile tester is not at all easy. It requires one to know something of everything an agile team might use. So an agile tester should know how to translate business needs into application requirements, should participate with developers to achieve maximum amount of unit test coverage, should be able to automate the regression tests, and should be a good if not excellent at exploratory testing. The most important trait is the willingness to learn.

4) Testers tend to be customer focused. This is a very minute thing to be balanced within an agile team as though testers work with other members, they always or most of the time represent customer's point of view. This is a delicate position to be in and if not handled properly, can be a little annoying for the team and may effect the coherence of the team.

5) A very nice sentence that I came to read in the book goes, "Successful projects are a result of good people allowed to do good work"
will keep sharing more as I read on ;)