Must Read

As a part of one of my courses in UoA I was reading an article on "Key Principles of business driven development" And shockingly I found it really interesting. I could co-relate the article with my work ex very closely. Almost made taking the course worth for me.

The article talks about best practices in software development process, their benefits, use and abuse.

Check the article out at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/oct05/kroll/index.html and do let me know how you found the article

Google Calendar Gadget

Well, I have been a ardent fan of Google Calendar in lack of a better solution for my organizing needs. The problems I have faced with with Google Calendar has been that its missing a few basic features like:

1. To-do list which can nicely dock on the side.
2. It's really important for me to check out events (basically click the check mark after I have accomplished my task). I worked around this problem by having a "Archive" Calendar where I move all my "done" tasks/events. Though moving events around calendar is a pain
3. Another missing feature was a weekly to-do list. Derived from the book "First Things First" this is one of the central theme of any organizing I do and its much better than daily to-do lists. I simulated that by adding another calendar "Weekly Tasks". And I keep adding them to the first day of the week or spread them around different days. The color of the task lets me know that its a weekly task

Another feature I missed was not having a desktop version of the calendar. Now, we have a google calendar gadget which is a addon to Google desktop. It sits nicely on the sidebar of my pc, I have added a notes and to-do gadget. I can add events and see agenda of the day directly from the desktop which is pretty neat.

If you are using Google calendar you should really try this gadget out. As far as rest of the missing features just look for some workarounds until Google adds them, if they decide to add them.

On a side note, now I just wish I had the time to organize and maintain my calendar. UoA has been very hectic and that is the reason for my sparing postings. I hope to get back on track soon.

You can't survive if you are unpopular

In the latest episode of The Apprentice, A guy called "Surya" was fired. He was the PM of the team that lost. I wasn't able to watch the complete show and missed the actual task. But this guy fought like hell in the boardroom. He just wasn't ready to go. And he wasn't giving lame excuses either.

He switched teams a few weeks ago and has not been able to "fit in" the team. He has got the talent(it seems) but he never looked like gelling inside the team. He was the Project manager for 3 tasks out of which the team won 2. He also had the best overall record of 5 wins and 2 losses. But once you are in the boardroom and the whole team says I think Mr. X should then Donald trump doesn't really has an option, does he?

One thing I hate is that 9 out of 10 times its the Project manager who is fired. Its like the Manager has an axe on his head. A person remains the Manager till his/her team loses and once it loses he is the most probable candidate to go out. I think they need a little tweak here so to make sure everyone gets a crack at being a Manager.. But since the show will go off the air after this season, we probably wont have this change :/

Cost of speaking too much

Well in the latest episode of The Apprentice(here in India), the guy I was kinda rooting for just got fired. And it wasn't because he screwed up in one of the task but simply coz he let his tongue take control of his brain. He let his tongue run out of control and called himself "White trash" in the board room. STUPID. The result he was fired instantaneously. I feel sorry for the guy since he was a talent powerhouse but then again maybe he was not that smart. He not only used a offensive term in the boardroom, he isolated himself from the product he was trying to sell and trashed himself in front of Donald Trump. His reasoning: "He calls himself that sometimes when he is kidding". Come on man, "You are in the board room of apprentice in front of Donald trump, You don't kid around here" He was probably very safe coz of his past performances and may be he was agitated coz of the fact that he didnt perform well in the task. Guess he would learn to shut up and stop calling himself that.

Now the task was to promote the latest Lexus 2007 model which had all these neat features, none of which seemed highlighted in the event of the loosing team. The other team really worked on the brand image of Lexus and the Luxury associated with it. They had a much bigger crowd there and it seemed a really well managed event.

There was a 2nd routine firing, that of the Project Manager Jenn.. Now, not only she didn't do a good job, she was pathetic in the board room. She was like these guys are great and didn't do anything to defend herself or to stand up for her the decisions she took. Adding to the injury was the fact that her opening presentation was poor coz she overlooked Sun's daily movement.

There are a few ticking bombs left there, and things should really heat up if couple of people who clearly aren't upto the mark are let go from the show.

Another intresting turn of event in the show was clear irritation on Trump's face when he was cut down by his over zealous assistant in firing making his points.

First Things First

I have just started reading "First Things First" by Stephen Covey. It struck me as pretty insightful as did the 7 habits. However, I think, its quite easy to forget what all I can grab from the book writing a brief of the things in the book.

1. Quadrant - II Living: Devote time to Q-II (the important) activities of life. Dont procastinate and let things turn into crisis. Separate the Urgent from Urgent but not Important activities. Avoid Q-III and Q-IV at all costs

What does it mean to me?
a) Things are imp. which I can start anyday has to be started now: Eating right, Drinking lots of water, Exercising
b)Give more importance to relationships.
c)Stop wasting time in Video games and other stupid stuff.

2. Identify the real "First things" : Not only be just more efficient but be more "effective". Identify activities which really are important. Stop living in the crisis world.

Stop giving importance to every to-do activity. Identify the actually "important" activities and start devoting time to those

3CR

The post is on a funda I call 3CR i.e. confirm, Confirm, CONFIRM, Report. Basically, It says you can easily make a ass out of yourself if you report premature findings with no solid proof quite easily. Hence, double..no..triple check everything before establishing or generalising something. This has happened to me multiple times and hence I push myself to adhere to this principle as much as possible(quite hard at times for me)

Ofcourse the above becomes more important when you are reporting to your boss or client where reporting any findings which may turn out to be wrong could be quite a disaster.

So, before jumping from your seat and yelling Eureka, just run a few more testcases ;)

Interesting thought

I attended a workshop on Coaching today, where I heard this:

"Weaknesses are generally just over-played strengths". Hmm... think about it, It seems plausible to me