Reading 'Vanka' (by Anton Chekhov) on a Christmas week

Christmas is just few days away. Today Chekhov's 'Vanka' was published in Malayala Manorama daily, a Malayalam translation of it. Vanka is one of my favorites from Chekhov. Its the story about a lonely boy writing a letter to his grand father on a Christmas eve ,to save him from the current cruel realities of loneliness and the cruel master and friends. When I read Vanka again after few years it took me to the same old Christmas feelings...of reading Vanka during my college days...Vanka's hopes ... being nostalgic, snowy nights , love of grandfather...

Here is a good collection of Checkhov's stories.

My first 90 days @Yahoo!

Sep 4th(Thu) was my last day with Ariba and I joined Yahoo! on Sep 8th (Mon) to head the Quality Engineering for the Emerging Markets(EM) business group. Today its Nov 9th. I have completed my 2 months with Yahoo. Its really an exciting journey. I am liking my new job.New challenges and responsibilities mixed with lots of things what I used to do in my previous QA job at Ariba.

Jaya, Ariba India MD was mentioning about a book "The first 90 days - critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels" by Michael Watkins in one of the steering commitee meetings. I have read this book and used the learnings and philosophy for my transition into Yahoo!. It helped me a lot. One of the first thing this book talk about is "accelerate your learning of your new job" and match strategy to situation by diagnosing the situation to develop the right strategy. I have developed a simple quality engineering maturity assessment framework to diagnose the current situation and created a simple dashboard for all the EM products (aka properties). This is helping me to set up my Q4 goal and track the progress on a monthly basis.Team is good and I have a good manager. Impossible is nothing. I have big dreams and need to execute my dreams to make big wins for Yahoo!

Oct 26, Sun: Villju moved to his new apartment (Mahaveer Dazzle) @ Hoddy circle, whitefiled. Nimmu had her dance programme at Malleswaram , part of Genesys (her dance school) anniversary. She danced for 'Sing is King' and 'Bang ...Bang...'

QoD

Impossible : Impossible is nothing

• “When no-one else believes in you – believe in yourself.”
• “Push yourself further, and you find out what you’re really made of.”
• “You will go through tough times. It’s about coming through that.”
• “No matter how bad things get, make the most of what you've got.”
• “Keep moving forward and do what you love.”
• “If you keep on putting one foot in front of the other, you¹re going to get to where you need to be.”
• “People putting you down can drive you to do things you didn’t even think you could do yourself.”
• “The things you fear, you just fear them in your head.”
• “Where you start isn’t necessarily where you end up.”
• “You have to fight for every step of the way to your impossible.”
• “Sometimes bad things can turn out good.”

Perfection : "Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it" - the surrealist and uber eccentric painter Salvador Dali

Leaving Ariba...

Thank you and adieu
I wanted to take a moment to let you know that I am leaving Ariba today.

Transitioning from Ariba is an emotional decision, as I have enjoyed working at this company for many years. I have learned a great deal from my managers and many other leaders at Ariba. Ariba is a big part of my life and I will always cherish the fond memories of my years here. I am proud of what we have built together at IDC, and I am so optimistic about Ariba's future. Thank you all for the support, guidance, and encouragement you have provided me during my time at Ariba.

Please keep in touch, I can be reached at my personal email address baijuglad@yahoo.com . I am also in linkedin.

Thanks again to all of you, and I wish you continued success in the future.

Regards,
Baiju

Last weekly meeting with team
Today is my last week at Ariba. When I joined 5 years back we were just 6 member team owning 5-6 features and some of the automation. 2 years back we have started owning the Quality responsibility for the entire product set. Doing some innovations from India and getting it recognized in Ariba world wide was another big dream. We have proposed , prototyped and demonstrated Selenium as a tool for test automation. We have been working on this for an year and last March it got accepted as the common tool for Ariba world wide. I have learnt a lot on Scrum while working here. Learnt a lot in the Steering Committee meeting. Thanks to Ariba. Today while sitting in the farewell lunch I have been thinking about these. Its time for me to get down from the journey and catch another train.
We have Monday team meeting as usual. Today one of my parting message to team was to focus on testing to improve quality. This is the summary.
Disciplined Testing

• Testing risky areas early
• Change in code is risk – so test around the change immediately
• Focus on where customers are reporting more defects
• Communicate to your developers and appropriate internal customers regularly
• Test status
• Defects – go and show the defect if it’s a blocker to your scrum team
• Write your defect reports with enough details and follow the best practices
• Analyse the defects little more in detail – product log
• Understand why is it not working – need to know the feature block diagram

About Managers

Today some of the managers in our group had a program review with our COO who is visiting India. Most of the managers were focussing on bringing up the Red issues in the project. Its very important to understand to whom you are presenting and we should show the picture of both green and Red stuff rather than just focussing only on Reds.

If there are Red or risky items in your project its the duty of the managers to come out with options to bring it back to green. "There is no point for predicting rain. There is only points for building an ark". There are astrologers to predict the rain and we as managers to build the ark so that we all are safely shore even if it rain heavily.

Another thought on managers : Managers are indirect cost in a software business where as Individual contributors (coders , designers , testers etc...) are direct cost. We need to ensure that we don't spend too much on the indirect cost and we have the right ratio between individual contributors and managers.

Good additional read on Direct vs Indirect cost 

Poems by Khalil Gibran

Poems by Khalil Gibran

“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”

"The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say..."

I am alive like you, and now I stand beside you.
Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you.

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. --Reinhold Niebuhr

Serenity Prayer Video

Turning point

Life has progressed a lot. Change is the only constant in life now a days.

Its raining outside.
I can hear the voice
of murmuring rain drops.
I am waiting near
this pathway of my life...
I can see the shady
turning point ahead.
Once the rain is over
I need to start walking down
through this muddy and slushy road...

Its raining in my heart now...
I can see the faces of
my good office friends
through the rain glass...
sharing fun,
consoling when depressed,
helping when in trouble.
Thank you. But I can not wait,
the turning poing is calling me...
Feeling so sad that
I am going to miss you all...
my dear friend , my beloved team

May 15th and 16th I was in Las Vegas , attending the Ariba User Conference. Great experience talking to some of our customers. I was staying in Hotel Palatzzo. Conference was in Hotel Venician. Tried to do play some gampling. This gampling places never sleep.

May 16th evening I went to Sunnyvale, California for a one week stay. Met some of my freinds. Could not go out much as the visit in Sunnyvale was for just a week and lots of work to do.

May 25th: on my way back I got down in Singapore. Nimmu was in Singapore with my sister in law. I spent 2 days in Singapore. Nimmu learnt swimming during her 2 months Singapore stay.

Here in office further changes. Leigh Anne, Marianna two VPs left. Then Mike Shumaker joined as EVP. Carl another VP left this week. Greg Gaydosh my new manager moving to Seattle and going to work with a new team.

Selenium has been accepted as the official UI automation tool in Ariba. Satya, one of my team members coined this idea one year back and he worked on the prototype.

We have purchased a 1 acre land in Ayiroor, 8 km from new Kochi international airport. Registration was on Jun 13th, Friday.

God is a reverse credit card

God is a reverse credit card.
He paid for all our sins
Before we all are born,
By hanging on the cross.

God is a reverse credit card.
He saved us from Adam's sin
By paying for all the sins committed
and yet to get committed by you and me.

God is a reverse credit card.
We need to pay back
With interest to God
By doing something beautiful for God.

By smiling at abandoned
and giving them a gentle hug.
By feeding the poor
with a part of your dinner.

By loving the needy
Without any greed.
By loving your family
To bring heaven down.

Talking to a friend in need...

Wise Advice
from Mother Teresa

( because it was never between you and them )

---

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis
it is between you and God;
it was never between you and them anyway.

-- Do something beautiful for God...