Key professional lessons from a Long distance run- Part-3

I recently participated and completed the Contours Women's Day 2012 10K Run . While the run was as much a tribute to the women as much it was to my passion for running, i could gather some useful lessons from this run as well.

This post is in the continuation of the previous post#1, and post#2 on the same topic.

My key learning from this run was-
Starting all over again is a often underrated but an effective skill that could be learned:

To explain the context here a bit. The route of Contours Women's Day 2012 10K Run was a tad different that the ones i have ran in the past. Though i have run on the park (in Bangalore) in which this run happened but not the same route. The official definition of route said-
The 10K starts from Kanteerva stadium, goes into Cubbon park and does 2 loops inside the park and ends with one loop inside the stadium.

So basically it involved 2 loops inside the park. Having multiple loops during the course of a run is quite a normal thing to do given the fact that any city hosting the run would have only limited space and then there are external factors like traffic etc. that proves to be a deterrent in having one long stretch as a usual route. Running on a route with multiple loops have got its own share of benefits like you get to experience the track and beauty of the park more than once, you get familiar with the track and there are less chances of you facing unknown situations as the run progresses.


These benefits are surely valuable but one thing that i realized while on the course of run this time was a unique challenge the run with multiple loop poses to the runner. With all the hard work and enthusiasm, i managed to complete the first loop only to find out that i was at the beginning of where it all started (first point of the race). The very fact that instead of seeing a finish line, you get to a sort of start point in the mid of the run can really pull you down almost as if giving a feeling that nothing much has been achieved despite all the running and slogging done under the scorching heat. Though this is really a false notion, which our mind knows while running but this is something that our body doesn’t comply with at actually not seeing the landmark at completing half the race (unlike other runs, this run didnt have markings at every Kms indicating how many Kms done). This is a sort of funny situation to be in but it has happened with me even in the practice runs. The key in such situations is to make sure to pull yourself up and get on with the run as if you have just started. Every step taken hence after gives you confidence that you are moving in the right direction.

Fast forward to our work lives, there are many situations in which we feel down and out like the following-
- When our good efforts in the projects fall short of expectation and the commitment is not delivered.
- When a superior comes and reprimands you for a lapse. You tend to feel that your reputation gets at stake and doesn’t really like the idea of rebuilding the same.
- Some mistake done while trying out a new idea makes you start off from the beginning.
- You are working to setup a complex Test environment and only at a very late stage you find out that a misstep in the early stage has caused you to restart the efforts again.
There could be many such examples.

The above situations have two things in common-
1. All these situations are not the ideal of the situations a professional can face. In some cases, it can even be termed as a crisis.
2. All these situations are temporary and not permanent.

The faster we get our minds to accept of the temporary nature of these activities and move on to the forward step, the quicker will be come out of the seemingly messy situations. While it is necessary to introspect about the mistakes but overly dwelling upon them take us a step backwards without us even realizing. Its something akin to the feeling that I shared of starting the second loop in a long run.


In his autobiography, "A Champion's mind" Pete Sampras shares his evaluation on how he was able to win so many matches over so many years. One of the relevant things he shares is-
Throughout my career, whenever i made a critical mistake, i just wiped it off the hard drive. I don't really know how i developed that ability to move on instead of dwell upon, but i had it. My guess is that it was some mental function, rather than an emotional one- a kind of extra-high focus on success. And a lot of it was sheer will.
If you train yourself not to let things get to you, they don't."

This assertion by Pete Sampras makes it clear that whether in work or in our personal lives-Starting all over again is a skill that could be learned.

Just do it!

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Great bugs usually exist "Beyond the Obvious"

I was recently reading the book "A Whack on the side of the head" and came across an interesting Sherlock Holmes story-

It seems that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. They pitched their tent under stars and then went to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes awakened and exclaimed," Watson, look up and tell me what you deduce". Watson opened his eyes, and said,"I see billions and billions of stars. Its likely that some of these stars have planetary systems. Further more, I deduce that there is probably oxygen on some of these planets, and its possible that life has developed on a few of the. Is that what you see ?
Holmes replied, "No, you Idiot. Somebody stole our tent."

I would like to share some perspective based on my experience in Software testing around this story-


The main point of this story is that sometimes the most important things aren’t the ones right in front of us but rather the ones that aren't. Most of the times when we test a Software product or application, the usual tendency is to test the newly developed areas which will have more likelihood of having bugs. This approach is pretty valid as it helps to attack the new code and find as many bugs as possible. Over a period of time, when the code changes starts to get reduced, the no. of bugs also tends to go down. What i have observed is that Testing teams start labelling the different modules in the Software products as "Stable", "not-so-stable", "unstable" depending upon the history of bugs found, doing the defect trend analysis. If the bug trends show one module to be stable, the usual strategy is to cut down on the tests and save time and efforts. While this approach may be quite obvious to follow but keeping overall view in mind, this approach could prove to be grossly inadequate. Here's the reason why-


Stability of a Software component depends upon myriad of factors beyond just the bug trends, Some of them are-
- Have i really tested the component adequately ? Are there any more heuristics that i can apply ?
- Do i base my test coverage only on the basis of written test cases or do i also take into account the exploratory testing efforts ? How do I measure Exploratory testing efforts ?
- Have the code changed in the recent past ? How do i know if the code has changed ? Did i follow the code changes check-in?
- How is my Software component getting impacted with integration from other "nearby" components? Are these neighbouring components stable too ?

As is evident, the stability of a module is actually a function of many things of which the Defect density and Defect trends are just one part. It is grossly inadequate to just analyse the bug trends but not have the trends specific to changes in the code, test coverage including exploratory testing etc. in front of you. Like with the profession of farming, testing also follows the principle of "the more you sow, the more you reap". The more test coverage and testing time you give to a certain module, the more chances you would have to find defects. Like in the Sherlock Holmes' story, dont overlook the obvious. It is often quite risky to fall in the trap of "Stable module having no bugs", eventually it may be your goldmine of bugs.

One learning i have had over the years is- When Software tends to get Stable, treat that as a time to redefine your Testing Challenge and focus. It often helps to go beyond the obvious and attack the stable areas with a renewed approach.

Which obvious aspects of work did you challenge today ?

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How well do you handle petty jobs at work ?

There is a certain fanciness about mentioning Innovation as one of the competencies that would take an organization to glorious heights in future. Innovation is always talked about at length by executives as one of the key things that would help an organization sustain and grow its momentum. It has been one of the areas that everyone wants to improve upon to drive their careers forward.

I think all this buzz around Innovation is largely justified given what the companies like Apple, Google and many others has done in the past. But sometimes this buzz overshadows the value of precise execution of the projects, which is sometimes even more important.

I talked about visionary organizations like Apple and Google but while these organizations were breaking paths on Innovation, China was silently gaining the mindshare of the people all around the world with its work primarily around manufacturing. Did they Innovate as well as the US companies ? Probably not but what they mastered was the art of executing well even if they were working on a product as general as a table cloth or a general decoration item or anything else (afterall, everything around looks to be "Made in China" ).
This example kind of gives me an idea that great careers could be build on the premise of Execution excellence even if the Innovation quotient of a person is somewhat reasonable (not great!). If Innovation is a sought-after skill in today's world, Execution excellence is a mandatory one.


Before i seem like making less sense, let me explain what i mean by Execution excellence. Simply put- Organizations make big plans promising bigger, grand results. The results remain just a promise on paper till someone goes in the field, makes his hands dirty and executes on the plan. Excellence in execution takes us closer to realizing those lavish plans. Though Execution of the projects is important, it increasingly amazes me to see that many people find the execution boring. Especially the part of execution where one has to go through those chores repeatedly, again and again in an almost monotonous manner. Let me give some examples here-
- One of the projects that i was involved in testing, at a crucial release stage, required a tester to do the Installation of the product almost countless times (more than 100) in different platform to debug an issue. To put it in other words, a tester needing to Setup OS (5-6 supported), Setup browser (again 5-6 versions), Install the Third party products, Install the Application under test and wait for the error. Though this was a routine job but was important to ensure a seamless customer experience.
- Another example, in an efficient functioning of any team, the regular housekeeping activities like managing of hardware, inventory, information etc. is important but at the same time routine and monotonous.
- Sending a weekly report when nothing significant has happened can be considered as boring and needless when it still serves important status needs of the recipients.
- For a manager, meeting his team regularly may be a routine affair and if not done may lead him to be quite out of sync.
- Again, a Tester going about executing the tests that have passed in the past just to ensure that nothing has regressed in the product (after all, not all testing can lead to bugs!).

This list can go on and on but the key questions are- Do we really give adequate importance to seemingly Petty jobs ? Can we do these jobs/tasks better than they are being currently done?

Further in this blog, i am sharing some of the thoughts/perspective around handling such tasks-

Understanding the role, bigger picture:

Harsha Bhogle in his book- "The Winning Way" talks about an interesting instance-

Unable to work out a way to get Tendulkar out, Naseer Hussain (in 2002 series), decided to frustrate him by bowling a largely negative outside the leg stump line. The man assigned to do the job was Ashley Giles, a workman like spinner who kept things tight. For the next 11 overs, he bowled the outside of leg stump to Tendulkar, a tactic that drew much criticism. But it did keep Tendulkar quiet and ended up frustrating him. "If you cant bowl him out, bore him out.", the critics said, but as Hussain suggested afterwards, it was a better option than Tendulkar getting a century! It was a boring job for Giles to do and the key lay in the Captain's communication of its importance. If a player knows his role and implements it well, a seemingly small role can become important.

It is thus important to understand the bigger picture the task is helping achieve. Every job on the earth has its own dull moments and more often the difference between "just" successful and "greatly" successful lies in how one handles those dull moments. It is also critical to understand one's role in handling petty tasks. As in this example, Giles knew the line he had to bowl and not try anything else. Role clarity comes with effective communication not only on Leader's part but also the follower's part. A follower can always ask right questions to understand/clarify what is expected of him.

Being a true team player:

Rahul Dravid in Harsha Bhogle's book- "The Winning Way" talks about his view-

I have noticed that good team players view success very differently from the rest. They are motivated without really worrying about the credit. That’s not always easy. Anyone who has fielded at Short leg, knows what a Thankless job it is, besides being risky. You put your body on the line, have to work damn hard and may have nothing to show for it. When given that position, there are those who are reluctant to put in the hard work, hoping that will be made to field in another position the next time around, and there are others who give it their best and actually become specialists.
Situations like diving or fielding, in which you put your body at risk, or where you are required to play a role outside your core-competence areas demand more work from a player and therefore require you to put the team before self. The funny thing is that you cannot hide your attitude from the team mates. If you're selfish, you will be found out in no time at all. But if you are a Team-player, the team will know and appreciate that as well.

True team player attitude calls for helping team deal with difficult (and also monotonous) tasks by setting an example. Handling petty tasks often require more patience and situational awareness than many of the other tasks. The way these tasks are handled often brings about the Leaders in people.

Having a Strong Professional value system:

Subroto Bagchi in his book- "The Professional" in one of the chapters makes a mention on how he had been able to do justice to his writing talents along with handling a high profile job. He has 3 books and multiple columns to his credit, he says-

...One point i want to make is importance of taking every assignment seriously. Whether i wrote a column or an invited occasional newspaper piece or for that matter a book, I gave it all i had. To me, my writing commitments were no different from a purely professional commitment at work. This called for many personal sacrifices because it was always like having two jobs.

Though his point is not exactly about handling monotonous task but many things that he talks about here are applicable to the context e.g. "Treating every assignment seriously", "I gave it all i had",
"Professional commitment, these are all valid metaphors for handling the dull, monotonous work. And if these are kept in mind, i believe every task will get the importance it deserves. So, having a strong Professional value system helps deal with any challenging or dull professional situation.

After all, no amount of Innovation can really help us completely get rid of seemingly boring jobs. So why not embrace it and give your best shot!

How do you handle petty jobs at work ?

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Key professional lessons learned from the last over of Wankhede test (INDvsWI)

Last weekend, i got to witness a thrilling Cricket Test match between India and West Indies. After first four days of rather dull Cricket, the match seemed like headed towards a Darw. The result seemed a distant possibility only to see things reverse on the fifth day. The wicket started assisting the bowlers and West Indies who scored runs in excess of 590 in the first innings, got bowled out for a mere 134 in their second innings. That meant that Team India had to score 243 to win the Test match in little more than 2 session of batting. At the start of the dramatic run chase, India seemed to be going steady being something like 100/1 or so and then they lost their way somewhere in the middle and finally managed to make the score of 242 for 9, which made it a last ball draw. There were many exciting moments on the final day of the match but most dramatic were the last few overs and the last over to be very specific. Here is the account of what happened in that last over-

- India needing 3 runs to win and 2 to level scores. Ravichandran Ashwin and Varun Aaron (both playing their first series, Varun his first match) were batting at 13 and 1 respectively).
- West Indies needed 2 Wickets to win.
Ball 1: Varun Aaron tried to hit the ball to off side. Misses the fast ball by Fidel Edwards.
Ball 2: Edwards, just before delivering the ball saw Ashwin short of crease. He could have run Ashwin out within the rules but chose not to in the right Spirit of Cricket. Edwards finally bowls and Varun manages to connect the ball but it does directly to fielder.
Ball 3: Varun plays a wild swing off the third ball and misses.
Ball 4: Varun connects the ball and with some mis-fielding and good fortune, makes much required 1 run. This makes it 2 runs needed off 2 balls to win for India, 2 Wickets off 2 balls to win for West Indies.
Ball 5: Ashwin does not go for his shot and defends the ball and this rules out the possibility of West Indies winning.
Ball 6: Ashwin hits the ball hard to mid-on. The ball goes fast, Ashwin runs the first run hard and seeing the throw on top of his head, does not show much interest in running the second one hard and is run-out. The result: a level scoring draw, something that has happened only once in 120+ years history of the game.

The video for that eventful last over is below-



I could gather some meaningful lessons from this last over and match in general that could be applied in our normal (and work) lives. They are as follows-

Lesson#1: Sometimes the bias towards Action is necessary:
In his book- "The Habit of winning", Prakash Iyer mentions about the aspect of "Action bias", he says-

I came across a research by a team of scholars in Israel. To understand the goalkeeper's mind-set, the team studied 286 penalty kicks from major league football games from around the world. As you probably know, a penalty kick is taken from a distance of just 11 meters from the goal. The goalkeeper gets about 0.1 seconds to react- a window so tiny that goalkeeper must guess which way the ball will go, and commit themselves to a dive- left or right.
The research team tracked the direction of the kick (left, right and center) and tabulated the statistics. And he is what it found: a goalkeeper's best chance of stopping a penalty kick is if he doesn’t dive and stays put in the center!
That’s not all. Though the probability of stopping a kick is the highest when the goalkeeper did not move, the team found that in 92% of the cases, the goalkeeper committed himself to a dive to the either side. Why then do they dive, when standing still would give them their best chance of success!

One way to explain as Prakash Iyer does in his book is because most of the Sportsperson or even High achievers have something called as an "Action bias" i.e. desperate tendency to act in most situations. If say goalkeeper does not commit himself to a dive in a penalty of a World cup final, most of the people would tend to ridicule him stating "He didn’t even try". If he dives and fails to collect the ball, people would probably think- "Atleast he tried (his best!)".

If you now compare Ashwin's situation in Ball 6. He completed one run quite quickly and then seeing the throw going over his head, he didn’t commit himself to the second run fast enough. Later he said, there was no way second run could be done as throw had already almost reached wicket-keeper. Though that lack of immediate action could be debated saying that wicket-keeper "could" have missed the ball and he "could" have got some extra time to make the run. He had to face quite a deal of criticism for not taking that run quickly but more important thing to note is how fast do the people notice the lack of action. That is quite true when the stakes are high.

This is an interesting situation to what Prakash Iyer calls High achievers having bias for action. In this case, Ashwin deliberately didnt act quickly because in his mind he knew his fate was sealed. This is a classic case of people expecting him to act though the result in 99% of times would have been same as what is now (how often do we see Wicket-keepers fumbling straight-forward chances?)

In some circumstances, the "Action" may be unnecessary like in the earlier example of goalkeeper but there are many situations in the our work lives and otherwise in life, when the very notion of "Action" gives indication that things are alive and kicking. For example, if your boss or team is in a different country than you are you, you ought to make sure to keep him/her updating on the various aspects of work. If not, some communication may go amiss. Sometimes, the action is necessary just to instil the belief in the people that you gave your 100%. Here is a simple thing that i learned- If you can act in a situation while still maintaining your genuineness of intent and not sounding artificial, the action (whatever it may be) is worth an attempt. After all who can forgive a goalkeeper just standing still if the football whizzes past from his side.

Lesson#2: Dont forget the Fair play even when the going is tough

If you remember what Edwards did in the Ball-2 of the last over, he actually held the spirit of the game high by not dismissing Ashwin on his run-up. The laws of the game state that the batsman should be in his crease when the bowler is taking a stride to bowl but the spirit of the game suggests that you ought to warn the batsman atleast once before attempting to running out in this situation. The latter is what Edwards did. Had he plainly followed the rules, Ashwin would have been run-out and West Indies could have been within a sniffing distance of victory.
There is a great stuff to be learned from this. In work and even in our lives, never forget to act ethically irrespective of the situation you are in. Following your profession ethically is not an easiest thing to do especially when the stakes are high like it was the case in this match but doing so is always the right in the larger context. You may lose a million by following stuff ethically but can save your organization a billion by avoiding the dangerous law-suites.

Lesson#3: When in trouble, first thing to do is break the monster task into small pieces

Varun struggled to score a single run the first three balls of the last over. Its not as if he didn’t try, he tried hard but somehow fell short. One more thing to note is that he was trying quite hard during this phase. To me it occurred that he made situation quite complex in his mind (naturally for a person playing his first match) and what would have helped in this case is to somehow simplify the situation.
The lesson to learn here is that whenever a problem of huge proportions trouble us, the first thing should be to break that problem in manageable parts and not get overly bogged down by it. Often the problem does not appear as big once we put effort to simplify the same and separately deal with its various parts. Once we have dealt with parts, suddenly we start seeing the light at the end of tunnel.
Try this for your "complex" problem for today, you will certainly achieve more in a day!

Lesson#4: Demonstrating Innovation in crisis is much harder than when things are rosy

Varun did the best he could during the first three balls of this over, considering it was his first match. For sure, he was facing a high pressure situation. Its quite funny how we, as humans, sometimes act in such crisis situations. We usually get tied to a single action and keep trying the same thing. Something Varun kept doing, playing the similar looking shot or within his limitations as a batsman. The lesser related example from our daily lives could be when the TV remote stops functioning, we start bashing it, hitting it against our palms continuously till we realize the problem is with battery. Such a thing is usually called as Blind Persistence meaning we are persistent towards something but keep trying the same thing again and again whereas the need of the hour could well be to innovate a bit while in crisis. Again, this is easier said than done but i do feel the ability of an individual or an organization to innovate when faced with survival crisis always rates high while innovating when you are provided with all the resources. Innovating in crisis requires that extra bit of mental strength and maintaining positivity while in a grave crisis. Not many possess this ability naturally but this quite something that could be developed for sure.

Lesson#5: Leaving too much for too late

In this post, i focused mainly on the last over the match where the situation was already tense and tight. Spare one thought about how we actually reached that situation. It was primarily because most of the batsmen in the top order did not take the responsibility of batting right-through the end and India kept losing wickets.
One of the important lesson here is that one should not keep too much towards the end of the project. This holds good even for the way one plans for a day. Do the most difficult tasks at the start of the day as the more complex ones usually take more time and it would often hold you up from reaching home on time. Afterall, you got to Eat that frog (Ugly task), the first thing in the day.


What did you learn today ?

Key professional lessons from a Long distance run- Part-2

I wrote about the Part-1 of this blogpost may be 2-3 years back. I got reminded to update this while i participated in
Ultra run at Bangalore on 13th-Nov. For starters, Ultra Marathon is any sporting event involving running longer than a traditional marathon length of 42.195 km (as defined by Wikipedia). I participated in 25 Km run event, which incidentally was less than actual marathon but was quite challenging for me. I had run long distances and even cycled longer distances before but not at a high scale event like Ultra, which had close to 900 participants running in different categories up to 100 Km run. Yes, you heard it right- 100 Km run!

I did manage to finish the run and was quite happy in doing so. While i ran at the event, several thoughts ran through my mind and i realized some of these i had not written about in my previous blog on this topic. These are essentially the lessons that i could take back to my life- both work and personal. These are as jotted below-

Life starts where the Comfort zone ends:
This run was a substantial challenge for me personally as i had not attempted such a long run in a public event before this (discounting the numerous practice runs). Moreover, the race day and track had something peculiar about it. The race day was scorching hot- may be in excess of 35 degree Celsius and the race track was uneven and full of dirt. It was so uneven that i almost felt misbalanced on momentarily lapse of concentration while not watching what lies on the ground. Long distance runs especially the Ultra runs does push you beyond your limits, both physically and mentally.

While running one thing that i realized that when your limits get stretched, the challenge takes an altogether different dimension. The challenge no longer remains- "How can i excel in my endeavour ?" it more becomes- "How can i survive somehow ?".
And when it comes to survival, one starts to look at things in a much different perspective than usual situations. Let me share a real life story at this instance-
Once i interviewed one of the General Manager (popularly Known as "TV" because of his name initials) from my past organization (while i was an Editor of In-house magazine). TV shared a very interesting experience about his stay in Antartica for about 16 months. Some excerpts from his website-

I was a member of the XIII Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica (ISEA) and XI Winter-Over Team (WOT) and stayed at Indian Scientific Station at Antarctica, Maitri, between Dec 1993 and Mar 1995 (almost 16 months). I was the youngest Indian scientist at that time to do what is known as ‘wintering’ (i.e., spend 16 months in the icy continent away from comforts of home and hot food). I was also the Post Master of Maitri Post Office, the philatelic post office of Indian Post Department (they still owe me an honararium of Rs. 16 for my services, one rupee per month). Among other things, I worked on HF radio based Data Communication between Antarctica and India.

One of thoughts that TV shared regarding his experience in Antarctica that has stayed with me all through these years was that living away from the comforts of normal city and staying far away at remotely cut off place for long time gave him a unique perspective towards life and dealing with problems. Most of the problems that we face in our day-to-day life are almost trivial when you compare the same with experience one has had in staying in such tough conditions in a place like Antarctica (in a time when probably only way to get connected to your family was through snail mail and you get to probably eat same stuff every day, not to forget dealing with sub zero temperature without Sun for 16 long months). Thats a very valuable insight, something similar (probably in less proportions) that i got to experience while running that long distance run.

Similar to this, I remember to have read one quote regarding dealing with Stress in one of the HBR forums something like- "You dont know what the real stress is unless you are required to walk 10 km everyday to fetch water and food for your thirsty, hungry and mal-nutritioned kids". Like most problems we face, managing stress is often about looking at your situation with a right lens i.e. with a right perspective.

What i eventually learned was that once you overcome something substantial physically and mentally, it gives you a confidence that you can face other difficulties with greater poise. In our usual lives we are so far away from the notion of Survival that we often give much more importance to seemingly trivial issues at work and in normal lives.

Dont let your Survival instincts die, routinely push yourself beyond that cushy comfort zone.

Mixing Risk with caution:
While i was running, may be somewhere around 15 Km mark i started feeling a bout of cramps. I had to think and strategize my run because i still had a good number of kilometres to do. I Stopped, took a stock of things and started gradually running dropping my speed. The fact that i entered this run without an ideal practice was a risk in itself but keeping the overall scheme of things in mind, i had to add some bit of caution to the overall risk i had taken.

It often helps at work and in life to sometimes Stop and Introspect. This is especially true in the fast paced urban life which undervalues the importance and fun of doing things slowly at a pace comfortable to self without worrying about what the world is thinking.

So what i learned was-
Take Risks, Move fast- All that is fine but it helps sometimes to add that "Slowness" to our lives that makes us feel more human.

What did you learn today ?

Key professional lessons learned from the bicycle shop

There is this real incident that took place sometime back and which i recently recollected.
This one instance is about the time i went to service my bicycle. I landed in the shop and started to look for someone who could talk to me. I noticed one person sitting on the chair behind a table talking to a customer. I moved ahead and stood next to the other guy who he was speaking to. I patiently waited for a while for him to atleast acknowledge my presence when he was talking to other guy. Sensing him not do it, i barged in politely and mentioned to him that i had come for the servicing my bicycle. Without looking at me, this person calls his assistant and rather impatiently asks him to attend to me. The assistant addressed my questions and by this time the guy on chair also got free but kept looking at both of us. I negotiated a price and conditions for Servicing and was about to leave when it occurred to me to ask the assistant for his number so that i could call back before coming. Listening to this, the guy still sitting in chair, remarked with a rather superior and rude voice- "Take my number, he is just a mechanic. You will be talking to me."

Thinking over what happened at the bicycle shop makes me feel like going back to the basics of dealing with humans. Was the guy sitting on chair right in all that he did ? Well, if you ask me as his customer, i wont answer in affirmative. Lets delve a bit deeper-

When i stood by his side for a while, as a customer i subconsciously expected him to atleast acknowledge my presence atleast (if not smile and greet me). Thats where he failed to make a connection and that elusive first impression on the customer.
I do feel in our day-to-day chores of work, at a very basic level we as employees seek this seemingly simple thing called "Respect from others". It is the instances like the one narrated above that gives you a perception whether you are being respected or not. i.e. a mere act of not acknowledging the presence of a colleague or failing to say a simple "hello" routinely has more damaging impact than what we perceive generally. This is something that eventually causes the disconnect between people.

Again going back to the story, the way the guy in chair addressed his colleague rather rudely as a mechanic in front of a customer was rather uncalled for. As a customer, it gave me an impression of an autocrat managing the shop. Just like i as a customer demanded this Shopkeeper's attention and respect, the mechanic too had the similar needs. Apparently in this case, was badly shot down.

Some of the thoughts that got reinforced again for me after this incident-
- No matter what the situation, irrespective of your stress levels, "Treat people with Respect".
- If you work with people, Make efforts to acknowledge their presence, Always.
- Be conscious of the way people around you perceive you. Bad perceptions once created are hard to overcome.
- Autocratic Leadership is needed in certain situations but most of the workplace situations can be handled in a democratic way.
- Delegation is a fine art. Empowering people while making them accountable for the deliverables works wonders in most situations.

What did you learn today ?

Attending Conferences and making most of it

The last couple of months have been exciting for me as i got to attend and participate in quite a few Conferences involved in both Attending and Presenting at various forums. I think Conferences are an important means to connect with like-minded professionals, network and learn from them.

I wanted to share some of my learnings around attending and participating in the conferences. Before that, please take some time to go through one of the lessons (Lesson# 251) in the book- Lessons Learned in Software Testing. The lesson is titled- Conferences are for conferring

When you attend a conference on software testing or software development, don’t just sit in the sessions and listen to the speakers. Do a lot (or at least some) of that. But spend a lot of time meeting with other people at the conference to discuss what was presented or what is happening in the field.
If you don’t know many people at the conference, meet some. When you go to lunch, sit with people you don’t know, listen and identify people who are interesting and knowledgeable. Take opportunities to identify interesting people. When you meet them, ask them about what they do and about sessions that they’ve been to. What have they found interesting ? Over time (it takes more than one conference), you’ll make a group of friends whom you meet mainly at conferences, whom you keep up-to-date with via Net, whom you attend sessions with, and maybe whom you’ll write papers and present panels with. This is how three of us met (authors of this book).
Not everyone gets sent to conferences by their company. Tell your manager well before the conference that you want to attend a specific conference. Better notice will increase your chance of attending. After you have attended a conference or two, apply to be a speaker. If you’re accepted, your company will me more likely to send you, and (assuming you do a good job) you’ll gain respect and goodwill within and outside your company.

I have taken the liberty to remove a couple of lines which were not suitable for the purpose of this post but nevertheless the above sums up what you could look forward to when attending any Conference.
Some more of my thoughts below-

• More often we go to conferences thinking of it as similar to a series of training sessions that would give us a sort of silver bullet that would help us solve the current problems that we face at work.
So, first of the things is that not to go into conference believing it would provide the best solution (though it may). In all, there are always multiple different ways to solve a given problem. Interacting with people in conferences may just provide a perspective you may be lacking in your current knowledge. So, always keep your eyes and ears to gain that elusive perspective. It is not that you would become expert in the conference theme immediately after the conference ends but that would certainly make you richer in the topic.

• Secondly, as stated in the excerpt above, I have found in my experience as well that real value of conference comes in not necessarily from the sessions but how well do we take care of time in between sessions. The breaks are usually called “Networking breaks” literally for a reason. From the time I participated in my first conference till now, the external relationships developed during the conferences has helped quite a bit shape my current knowledge and perspective. So, its advisable to hang around with participants, speakers asking questions, sharing your knowledge. Its not easy first time and may require you to go beyond the comfort zone to network with professionals around, but believe me its worth it.

• Thirdly, if the topic you are undergoing is completely new to you, learn as much as possible. If you are already aware of the topic then its best to go with the blank mind (without your knowledge bias) and gather as much as possible and then evaluate. The practices and processes shared are usually context dependent (may work for them but not us depending on the situation) but its important to develop that reasoning that can help sort these contextual differences.

Would really love to hear your experiences on "How to attend the conferences?" and also on "How not to attend the conferences?"