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Few books grab your attention on the first page and keep it that way until the last. It is surprising that a technical book written by a technical person would be such a one. As I read every page of ‘The mythical Man-Month‘ (MMM), I was thinking to myself, “Damn, I should’ve read this book in college; or at least when I started with my career”. The author, Frederick Brooks, is dealing about those invaluable lessons that I learnt hard way over these many years in this field.

Every problem that the author talks about is so relevant today. Fundamental to the book is the ‘fallacious and dangerous myth about interchangeability of men and months‘. Even today when I present effort estimates to stakeholders, the immediate question is, “So if we double the team size, we should half the time to build this application?”. Brooks derives his response from a restaurant menu in New Orleans – ‘Good cooking takes time!’. Some tasks can’t be hurried without spoiling the result.

Or take the problem of communication. Though every one talks the same business language (English), their interpretations vary. Often one hears, “Oh! you meant that? I thought it was something else!”. Despite plenty of modeling techniques, understanding between parties involved remains a paramount problem in running a software project. (This is compounded in offshore projects).

Those of us who have handled large systems with different functional owners for different modules would have dealt with the issue of ‘conceptual integrity‘. I have managed such projects and it is not only difficult to integrate these modules; such systems throw enormous amount of confusion to the end users.

Building prototypes and releasing alpha & beta software are a common practices today. Open Source Software Practice advocates ‘release often; release early’. Yet, I’ve witnessed large projects with multi man-year effort and high complexity being developed in isolation after gather user requirements. When the project is released after years of development, the ‘actual need and the user’s perception of that need’ changed; and the project is a colossal failure bringing frustration and humiliation to the technical team.

These are just few of the problems and solutions discussed by Brooks. As I said in the beginning of the article, all the issues discussed Brooks are surprisingly relevant today. If you are in software stream – as a developer or as a functional analyst or as a manager – you should read this book. It will avoid you going though the path of agony.

In an earlier post, I mentioned about interpreting scriptures for practical application in our lives. In this post, I’m sharing with you a story in a Hindu epic that inspired me greatly. It’s a pity that I forgot the names of the character and reference but the moral of the story inspired me all through my life.

In the ancient days, according to Hindu epics, it is a common practice for men to undertake penance to invoke blessing of gods. One such story goes like this:

A king undertakes penance with a desire to taste God’s food. Days go by; months go by; and years go by. After many many years of penance, the king is tired and thirsty. Then a lowly man walks by and enquires the tired king, if he needs something. When the king requests for water, the stranger pees in his ‘thiruvodu’ (earthen pot used by beggars for collecting food) and place it before the king. Annoyed by this, the king throws away the pot in anger. As the king throws away the pot, the lowly stranger transforms into God saying, "You threw away what you’ve been longing for – It was God’s food’.

We all long for that one ‘thing’ in our lives – be it the job that will get us out of our  debts or the gal of our dreams, or the article that will take us to the pinnacle of fame. Call it ‘unfair’, but life never gives that in a golden plate. It comes in as a ‘pee in the earthen pot’.

In software industry, it always takes the form of ‘the risky project that none wants to handle’. Taking it could spoil your reputation. But there lies "God’s food", that one thing that you’ve been waiting for.

Those who know me, know that I grab such projects with all enthusiasm. (Sometimes it had been just plain ‘pee in the earthen pot’. When that happens, the emotional pain is too high. Still you learn something valuable about handling risks). But most often I end up as a winner.

Is this true only for professional life? No. I’ve found it to be true even in personal life.

Taking risks is a difficult decision. During the decision making phase, it drains you emotionally and during implementation it drains you physically. But there lies ‘God’s food’.

Next to programming, reading books (along with Photography) is my hobby. If I have not read a book in a month, I feel I’ve wasted that month; and I spend a weekend exclusively on reading.

Topics I read vary, but I’m particularly interested in practical applications of theories than plain academics. Software Engineering, Management and Self-development top my reading list; followed by theology and psychology. I do read novels and other topics but they have to be really interesting for me as I dedicate less time to straying away from my primary interests.

With increasing work load at office and at home, there is a serious crunch for time to read books. So when I came across a service that enables one to read books via email, I was thrilled. DailyLit emails a snippet of a book daily at a time of your choice.

I like it because it is via email – any ways email client, in my case Microsoft Outlook, is opened throughout the day; it is a snippet, it takes only 10 minutes a day. And since I got Blackberry, I can read the book snippet anywhere.

I’ve already read Tom Peters’ 100 ways to succeed/Make Money in 100 installments. Currently I’m subscribed to Good Experience Columns, series of articles on improving user/customer experience. I’ve gotten only 3 installments and I’m already loving it.

DailyLit has both free and paid services. I’ll try out couple of more free books and then wouldn’t mind subscribing to their paid services.

If you are a book-lover, like me, and crunched for time, try DailyLit. You might like it.

I’ve been lucky, at least officially. Right from the start of my career, I’ve worked with some of the best minded managers. Each of them have inspired me to be a ‘little’ better person.

Dr MR Girinath

Not many software professionals get an opportunity to work for a national award winner. I had the privilege of shaping my career under Dr Girinath‘s wings. Even though he had achieved more than most other cardiac surgeons, he still worked hard. He couldn’t rest on past laurels. Every day brought a new challenge for him. And he loved it. Not only I learnt importance of hard work, but also of time – seconds determined life and death.

Dr PV Rao

Dr Rao belongs to an elite team of surgeons who have done successful heart transplants. If Dr Girinath instilled the importance of hard work, Dr Rao instilled a sense of confidence. He believed in me long before I believed in myself. I would attribute my success to him, though he wouldn’t accept it.

Sas3

With a bit of luck, I came into the radar of Sas3. Though I worked with him for a very short duration he made the highest impact in terms of management. His impact is so high that whenever I find myself in a tight-corner, in terms of project or people management, I question myself, “what would sas3 do?” and the answer has never failed me.

Steven Tilley

Oh! those were magical times. I’m referring to those days in Belgium. My stay in Belgium would have been shorter than it was, if not for Steven. He ensured that I never felt as an outsider. Whenever I was around he will request everyone to converse in English. Now that I work in a multi-lingual group, I understand how difficult it is – jokes and funny quips loose their essence when translated from mother-tongue. Yet he did it most of the time.

But his contribution to my career was not ‘making-me-feel-comfortable-around-the-group’. It is in those countless hours of technical, and sometimes not so technical, discussions that we had, often sitting in bars. When mobile computing was still in its baby steps, we discussed on technicalities of brining CRM and ERP systems into mobiles. He encouraged to think beyond ‘out-of-the-box’.

Kurt Van de Moortele

Kurt taught me what trust can bring about in a person. Unlike most others that I worked with, he treated me, a contractor, equal to other team members. He followed a policy of ‘trust someone unless it is broken’. He would tell me, “Keep the users away from me; I’ll stay away from you”. I still try my best to keep the users (from complaining) away from my bosses. Whenever I succeed in that, my bosses keep away from me!

Mahendra

The strongest point of Mahen is his decision making. I’ve not seen him indecisive. He might be gathering facts; but he is never indecisive. During his tenure in our department, there were few decisions that went awry. That didn’t bother him. He didn’t take decisions that made him popular; rather that served the purpose at hand. It is hard to emulate that unless one is confident.

Guru Murty

Success and gentleness don’t go well together. Not for Guru. I’d the opportunity to observe him closely during tough times, and I should say he stayed ‘a gentleman’. It is easier said; but extremely difficult to follow.

One could quickly jump into conclusion that it has all been only nice managers that I worked with. Not quite true. I’ve worked with some terrible ones too. They’ve taught me ‘how-not-to-be’.

I wish to be privileged with such best managers.

When I stepped out of the Engineering School, I decided to have a full-stop to schools. I could not force myself into the pain of going through formal study anymore. I was okay to attend few days of training every now and then, but to spend a year or two in school was a big no, no.

Little did I know, when I decided the above, that I will get into IT! In a highly competitive, knowledge centric industry (like IT), it is the knowledge (and the subsequent application of that knowledge) that differentiates a super star from the mediocre.

So I have to build my knowledge.

Still I didn’t want to go to business school. I tried distance education. It didn’t work either.

That is when I heard of Personal MBA, the brain child of Josh Kaufman. Personal MBA is a collection of best of the books under various management fields like Personal Effectiveness, Applied Psychology, Strategy and so on.

Personal MBA is designed for people like me – lazy and don’t want to attend schools, yet want to understand all about business management. All that one needs to do is to get hold of these books and start reading. While reading will feed you with enough knowledge, your experience will grow only when you apply them (which is true for any education). I have gotten about 6-7 of the books recommended by Josh and have read about 3 books. I can tell you that the money spent is worth spending.

The factor that appealed to me the most was the fact that I didn’t have to go to school. Instead I can read to be a MBA (well not exactly as I won’t have a degree).

In these pages, you can follow my progress in reading for MBA and how I employ them in my life and career. Your thoughts will make this an interesting journey. Feel free to drop me a comment.

Did I hear you whisper ‘Good luck’? Oh! thanks, I need a good deal of them.