Desicritics Category: BizTech: Development

The CFO-CIO Cross-over, Part II

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:14:13 EDT

We earlier spoke about the interesting roles of the CFO and the CIO and what it means to “manage the business” and to “work very closely”? Before we can answer these questions though we have to take a look at the development of both roles. These questions were taken from a workshop arrangement from New Zealand, the answers are mine.

Part A: The past and the present

1. What influence has IT had in getting business to where it is now?

Hugely important, technology has changed the character of financial services, but then, financial services was always at the forefront of adopting technical innovation, whether it was the idea of using wax and clay tablets in Sumerian times to pigeon post in Europe during the middle ages to telegraph during the Victorian and European wars or fax machines or now in terms of global private banking websites, international stock trading electronic gateways, automated insurance quoting engines, offshore call centres linked by CRM systems, intelligent credit risk scoring engines, and so on and so forth.

Technology has allowed firms to gain scale without needing human investment, it has allowed firms to concentrate on their core competitive advantage factor while disposing of all non-core functions and assets.

2. What is the relationship between CFO/CIO at present?

a. What are the positive and negative consequences of the CFO having responsibility for IT?

The main negative consequence is that the CFO, if he is not smart, sees IT as a cost line rather than something that is as important to the bank as the human resources function. Frankly, you wouldn’t put the HR function under the control of the CFO, would you? Then why IT? So the entire IT function starts and stays defensive if treated as a barely tolerated and often thumped cost line. On the positive side, if the CFO is smart and can see technology as a business enabler, then the synergy that the combination of CFO + IT is world beating. IT can benefit from the discipline that a CFO can bring to the table such as demanding business cases for technology investments, driving strategic change, improving technology and delivery sourcing, etc.

b. What are the consequences of having two specific reporting lines into the CEO? Are there any advantages to two distinct reporting lines?

At that level at a big bank, it far too heavily depends upon the three individuals concerned and not on the functions themselves. Because, at that level, the nitty-gritty details of actually running the technology or financial function rarely appears on the radar screen. What does matter at that level is the autonomy given to the two functions, the level to which the finance function is challenging and managing the business to the level to which the technology function has provided value addition to the business. So whether it is good or bad depends upon the three people concerned.

c. How can the relationship between the two be bridged?

Usually it can be bridged with difficulty, because for a good relationship, it requires the CFO to have a forward-looking, change oriented and risk taking frame of mind, while it requires the CIO to be disciplined, talking business, structured, stabilising and think long-term. But some ways that can be useful is for both to write their own visions of where the business will be in five years, then translate that into what it will require their functions to be (people, technology, process, places, etc.) and then get together to dovetail these two plans. Then operationalise by dumping a dollop of agreed governance and investment. Some questions are below which can help you determine if a bridge is needed or some improvements need to be put in:

i. Do the CFO and CIO meet regularly with a set agenda?

ii. Does the CFO challenge the technology plan? And on what basis? Is that besides a cost basis?

iii. Does portfolio management of IT discretionary spend happen? And is that overseen or controlled by the CFO?

iv. Does the IT function provide rigorous business cases which are tracked and followed up?

v. Are there productivity improvement measures which the CFO and CIO agree on the business as usual side of technology?

vi. How involved is the CFO function in the technology sourcing side?

vii. Do you look at purchasing as a stationary and paper purchasing function or is there a strategic sourcing function which has both technology and finance participation?

3. How successful is IT in aligning with business strategy both on an organisational level and specific to the finance department? Is it always complementary or can it end up being at cross purposes?

Generally in financial institutions, IT is well clued-up and successful in aligning with the tactical business strategy, but not the very high-level business strategy levels for obvious reasons. Technology is an enabler of business, not a primary driver of business. You rarely go into a country because your technology allows you to do so, however, you go because of revenue, cost or other strategic drivers and technology makes it happen. On the finance department side, I am afraid IT and Finance are rarely aligned. Reasons are many, because many technology folks are scared spit-less of the finance folks. So the bare minimum is provided and initiative/innovation is frowned upon. Consequently, at best the finance and accounting technology function is outsourced in many industries or ignored at worst. The bright side is there is rarely at cross purposes but that is a poisoned chalice, an ignored function is more dangerous to a firm than a contested function because at least there is more chance of somebody actually noticing that contestation and doing something about it.

4. What influence does IT have on the integrity of financials?

A huge, literally earth-shattering influence. It is a direct relationship, because good IT means good financial integrity. This is the reason SOXA has a deep IT element as well. When I had to sign off SOXA compliance previously, it was clear that the impact was huge and any changes made to the relevant technology systems and processes would have a significant impact on the financials of the firm. Let us put it in another way, 90% of all changes that will hit our finance functions will have some kind of an IT component, and a crucial part of the success of the project will be dependent upon the IT performance and delivery.

We spoke about the interesting roles of CFO and CIO and about the development of both roles in the past and the present. In the last essay we will look at the future and make some predictions about the cooperation between the CFO and CIO.

Technorati Tags: technology, finance, financial institutions, management

Broadband on Batteries

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:35:47 EDT

While booking an air ticket online the other day, there was a power cut just at the point when the gateway was processing the payment from the credit card and the modem shut down. The resulting confusion led to stress as I tried to contact the travel portal, the bank and the airline to get a clear picture regarding ticketing, charging of payment and so on. Online travel portals are not your typical travel agent of old whom you knew by name and had done business with for years. The anonymity of the voice on the other side of the line, the peculiarity of the problem and their obvious inability to understand, let alone help only added to the confusion. This practically undid any advantages that doing transactions online might have provided.

In India, there is a lot of political backing from both the major political formations to increase internet penetration which is among the lowest in the Asia–Pacific region.

“India has the lowest Internet penetration rate at 3 percent in the region, according to a survey by U.S.-based digital research firm comScore Inc. According to the survey

- South Korea boasts of the greatest rate of Internet usage, with 65 percent of its population using the Internet in May.

- China clearly has the largest online population with 91.5 million people. The number of monthly unique Internet users in India is just a quarter of that figure at 22.8 million.”

- South Korea has the most active online population, using the Internet an average of 17.4 days per person in May, and dedicating 31.2 hours to viewing 4,546 pages during the month. Indians on the other hand got onto Cyberspace an average of only 11.4 days per person in May and viewed 1,400 pages over 14.7 hours.

Clearly though, the government is not pushing for internet penetration so that citizens can watch videos on Youtube. Rather the intent is to promote e-commerce and e-governance through the internet platform and thereby increase productivity and efficiency. While all that is a good thing, the commensurate development of an infrastructure backbone is missing.

For instance, look at energy and power generation. After all, my story started with the recounting of a power failure in the middle of a commercial transaction. Even as I write this, electricity in India’s national capital goes on and off several times a day.

Anybody who has ever experienced a power cut in India would know empirically that India simply does not produce enough electricity for its needs and will not do so in the foreseeable future although the national electricity policy envisages power for all by 2012 and per capita availability of power to be increased to more than 1,000 units by 2011-12. With the deadline barely four years away it is impossible that this goal would be ever met.

While industrialization is progressing at a rapid pace, the fact that power generation has not kept up has meant that even relatively less industrialized states like West Bengal which once were power surplus, have power cuts now. In fact, the more industrialized you are, the more is the demand. Maharashtra, for example, faces a deficit of more than 30 per cent In fact, the colloquial term for power cuts “load shedding” has now become part of the country’s rural folk lore.

As I complete typing this piece on a laptop and upload it from a speedy GPRS modem, I remind myself that having a increasingly high tale density of phones and laying strategies to wire up the country to the customer’s doorstep and using Wi Max to connect up the whole country won’t work if we don’t have a proper infra structural backbone. You can’t run a broadband service operating on batteries ! It just does not work !

The Value of Sustainability to Business

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:16:32 EDT

I firmly believe in the virtues of sustainable development. Forget about the green open-toed sandal brigade, it simply makes economic sense. Resources are limited and if you are not being optimal with your resources now and for the future, what kind of a manager would that make you? Looking around the world, one observes some enlightened global businesses heavily involved in sustainability in their business processes,

Who would like to pay more for electricity usage, or for recruitment costs, or waste an opportunity to be with loved ones rather than struggle through Heathrow, that gateway to hell? Who would actually want to be on the front pages of the tabloids as someone who committed unethical behaviour? There are economic upsides on the revenue side (you can sell more to this emerging sustainable consumer, taxpayer, citizen and shareholder) and on the cost side (your costs are reduced on the manpower, capital, materials, machines etc). But many firms and managers still think of sustainability as "green stuff" which is a shame. One way to remove this doubt is to define sustainability.

At a business dinner with the great and good of the British and the international industry, we were discussing the issue of sustainability. An interesting survey was presented by EIU and BT on this issue. The most prominent sustainability activities carried out in the company are environmental guidelines, PR matters, engagement in community investment projects, corporate charitable donations, employee volunteering, ethical trading and sourcing, supplier code of conduct, etc. Quite interesting, aren't they? A very wide range of activities and all they think of is that "green stuff", but when asked about what sustainability should contain in the context of their organisation, a totally different picture appears:

It should contain environmental impacts, ethical corporate behaviour and corporate values, carbon footprint, long term financial health / competitiveness of an organisation, product responsibility, regulatory compliance, social impact, good governance, community relations, workforce diversity and inclusion.

Can you see any difference from what the C-Suite people said about what sustainability should contain and normal business practice? I don’t. So while you might seriously consider it to be a fad, but work with people's Luddite behaviour. Do not say it is to do with sustainability. Say that it is simply normal business practice. For example, I was briefed by our brilliant sustainability chaps on how we can deploy a simple piece of code on the network which will automatically put monitors on standby after 10-20 minutes and switch it off after 30-60 minutes. When you come back, just move the mouse or hit the monitor on/off button. Guess what that will do to the power consumption of that particular monitor? It will reduce the yearly wattage consumption by over three times. Now you tell me, why on earth will you say no to saving two-thirds of your power costs? If you do, then I have a nice bridge to sell to you.

There is much more to this. Think about ethical behaviour. It is vital for people to behave ethically and it is not really that complicated either. You might spend millions on consultants to come up with ethical rules, but actually it is much simpler. Remember what your mother and father taught you? Be good, be nice, don’t do bad things to people, don’t steal, don't lie, don't bribe, don't break laws, and so on and so forth. I do not really care much about exclusions and lawyerly behaviour. And if you are going to argue with me about ethical behaviour, then let me ask you something. Is this what you will do to your child? Will you teach him/her to look at rules of behaviour and think they are to be broken and give them no moral compass? Then why on earth would you do the same in the office? Please don't come into the office drunk. Please do not steal from the company. Please do not be violent towards the staff, do not swear or abuse people. See what I mean? I was told once in a class of reputational risk management, "Don’t do anything that you would not like to read about in the tabloids tomorrow morning". Pretty simple, isn’t it? Because if you do, then your stock price will take a hit (if you aren't fired, that is) and you can’t have a more compelling economic argument than that. Remember, pulling up the stock price is much harder than pulling it down.

Think about diversity. It simply makes sense, more so in this day and age of tight resources (check out some of the industry turnover figures, it can go up as high as 20-25%). Secondly, it takes about six months to a year to really make an employee effective. Now why on earth would you not put in policies to keep your resources happy and with you? If you have to spend 25% of your time annually in dealing with resignations, hiring, negotiations, etc, then you are a masochist. That is such a waste of time! One could be using that time to develop more business and earn more money. So make an extra effort to manage your workforce smartly, get your employees’ daughters and sons into work to see what their parents do. Nothing like increasing loyalty than to have family in the same firm. Pull in more LGBT people. Make sure there are more women engaged in the firm. Make sure that people find working in the firm a good experience. Not only will you not keep your attrition rate low, you will attract better candidates. Who on earth wants to go and work in a firm which is full of Neanderthals? Well, only another Neanderthal, but then, if that is the case, you wouldn't be reading this essay anyway!

If you have a powerful sustainability policy and execution, then you protect your reputational risk. You get to be proud of your firm, when (not if, be prepared for some things happening which are going to impact your reputation), some bad event happens, then you can say: "look, we are good corporate citizens, we are sustainable folks, and mistakes were made, we apologise, we will make sure it does not happen again", and move on. If you do not show evidence that you are consistently sustainable, then nobody will believe you and your share price will tank, but otherwise, you can protect your job, bonus and stock price!

One final thing, keep a beady eye out on what governments are doing. Normally, I would have said that governments impact about 30-40% of your business via laws, rules and regulations. It is my belief that sustainable regulations will jump massively and we will end up with almost 60-70% of our business being driven or influenced in some way by government regulations. Now government regulations are usually meant for protection or guidance. So just pre-empt the guidance and protection as far as possible, but not too much. No point in putting in scrubbers on your chimneys when the rest of your industry has not, as that will simply drive you out of business. However you can surf this regulatory wave by pushing for industry wide scrubber regulations, trying to get cheap scrubbers, use the fact that you have scrubbers to differentiate your products from your competitors, reduce environmental penalty costs by installing scrubbers, and so on and so forth. It just needs intelligence and smartness to surf and manage the regulatory tsunami which is bearing down on us. And no point in moaning about red-tape, it will remain. Well, do moan, it’s good for the soul!

Overall, while there are many more exclusions and issues, I firmly believe that better management of resources is simply better management. Those who get it will make more money, those who don't, will pay for the first lot. Which lot are you with?

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!

Technorati Tags: Management, Sustainability

Nuclear Power - The Seduction of Mephistopheles

C R Sridhar — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:32:24 EDT

‘MEPHISTOPHELES, in the Faust legend, the name of the evil spirit in return for whose assistance Faust signs away his soul.’- Classic Encyclopaedia.

The trope of Nuclear Energy as Mephistopheles is rooted in history. The dropping of the Atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the Americans exposed to the world the destructive power of the Atom. The belief that nuclear energy was a benign genie in service of humankind received a rude jolt when accidents occurred in nuclear plants, one of which was the accident at Chernobyl in 1986 in Ukraine when Unit Four of the plant exploded spewing radioactive fission products into the environment. The fallout of radioactivity from Chernobyl had horrific medical and ecological consequences. It is estimated that nearly 10000 persons of 6,50,000 involved in the clean up operation died prematurely. The long radioactive tail reached large areas of the breadbaskets of the Ukraine and Byelorussia contaminating the soil. The fallout also affected other countries such as Austria, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Baltic states and other countries in the Northern Hemisphere. The incidence of cancer increased significantly among the population living in areas close to the nuclear plant.

The long radioactive tail of Mephistopheles

Before the Chernobyl accident, there was another accident that rocked the complacency of nuclear Industry who said that the chances of a meltdown happening were the same as a bolt of lightening striking a person dead in a parking lot. On March 28, 1979, a nuclear power plant at the Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania had a meltdown on account of a mechanical failure causing the core reactor to overheat. Soon large amounts of radioactivity escaped into the atmosphere. Radioactive water was also released into Susquehanna River, which drains into Chesapeake Bay, a major fishing location. Hundreds of people reported nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from the nose, hair loss and skin rash. There were also reported deaths of farm animals and there were fears that the cows were radiated contaminating the milk supply. Official studies on the impact of radiation on health and the increased incidence of cancer among people living near the plant were not conducted raising the suspicion that the government friendly to the nuclear lobby were hushing up the bad news about the radiation and its effects.1

It would be short sighted on our part to view Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as isolated incidents not warranting a caveat on the use of nuclear energy. There were other incidents such as the accident at the Davis-Besse reactor (Ohio), which occurred in 2002. The inspectors found a cavity in the reactor pressure vessel. The stainless steel liner had not ruptured and a major tragedy was averted. The risks of such accidents would increase as the reactors are aging with the bulk of the reactors moving into the old age cycle. The near misses would dangerously increase as the years go by.

The bad news about nuclear safety does not go away. As recently as last month there were radioactive leaks in France. The Guardian (UK) reported ‘Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône.’ This is not the end of the story. As the Guardian again reports ‘But in recent days there have been other, lesser incidents at nuclear sites. In Romans-sur-Isère, north of Tricastin, at another site run by an Areva subsidiary, officials discovered a burst underground pipe which had been broken for years and did not meet safety standards.’ The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006. More than 80% of France's electricity is generated by the country's 58 nuclear reactors - the world's highest ratio.2

Nuclear Renaissance

In spite of dangers associated with the use of nuclear energy, the seduction of Mephistopheles remains as potent as ever. With Bush – Cheney in US and Sarkozy in France pushing for nuclear energy as an alternative to oil, there appears to be a sort of nuclear renaissance emerging in the wake of oil crisis. The prospects for the nuclear industry seem bright after languishing in doldrums throughout the end of the Twentieth Century as result of environmental movements and protests.

The Nuclear Energy Institute - a propaganda wing of the Nuclear Industry - has spent millions of dollars in spreading highly misleading messages that Nuclear Energy is cheap, clean and green. The ads that reinforce the image of nuclear as a benign force show children gambolling in green grass. The caption at the top of the ad reads - Nuclear Electricity & Clean Air Today & Tomorrow.

Blunting the PR blitz

The propaganda of the Nuclear Industry has not gone unchallenged. In her book Nuclear Power is not the Answer, Dr. Helen Caldicott, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and a leading spokesperson for the anti-nuclear movement, subjects the ‘clean and green’ argument of nuclear energy to withering criticism. She accused the Nuclear Industry of hiding significant facts from the public and peddling nuclear energy with the same ethical disregard to truth as a snake oil salesman.

According to the author, nuclear power ‘is not clean and green’, because large amounts of traditional fossil fuels are required to mine and refine the uranium needed to run nuclear power reactors, to construct the massive concrete reactor buildings, and to transport and store the toxic radioactive waste created by the nuclear process. Moreover, the burning of this fossil fuel emits significant quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2)- the primary greenhouse gas- into the environment. In addition, large amounts of the now banned CFC are emitted during the enrichment of uranium. CFC is more dangerous than CO2 in creating the greenhouse gas and is also a potent destroyer of the ozone layer.

While it is true that nuclear electricity produces one-third of the CO2 emitted from a similar sized conventional gas generator, this is a transitory phase. Soon as the uranium ore declines in grade, more ores are required to be mined by using more fossil fuels. It is estimated that within ten to twenty years nuclear reactors will produce no net energy because of the massive amounts of fossil fuels required to mine and to enrich the poor grades of uranium ores. The tech-fix solution of obtaining large quantities of uranium by reprocessing radioactive spent fuel is not a pragmatic option as it is expensive, extremely hazardous for the workers and releases large amount of radioactive material into the air. In the long run the nuclear plants would emit the same amounts of greenhouse gasses and air pollution as conventional power plants.

Safe running of the nuclear plants do not guarantee they would be emission free. Government regulations allow the nuclear plants to emit thousands of curies of radioactive gasses and material into the air. There is also radioactive waste in accumulating in the cooling pools in the nuclear plants in the world. As the author warns, ‘this waste contains extremely toxic elements that will inevitably pollute the environment and human food chains, a legacy that will lead to epidemics of cancer, leukaemia, and genetic disease in population living near nuclear power plants or radioactive waste facilities for many generations to come.’3

A white elephant

Contrary to the optimistic pronouncement of the Nuclear Industry that nuclear electricity is cheap in as much as it costs only 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour when compared to coal costing 2 cents and gas fired power costing 5.7 cents it is actually exorbitant. The estimates are misleading as they are based on the operational costs of existing plants. Moreover as the author points out ‘ They represent a classic omission of capital costs from a pricing equation.’4 Once realistic construction and running costs are considered, the price of nuclear electricity rises from an estimated 3 pence per kilowatt hour (5 cents in US) to 8.3 pence (14 cents). The capital costs of new plants are very high whereas the costs of running old reactors are not that high. When other costs are added such as subsidies received out of tax payers money, managing pollution, health costs in the event of radiation and its treatment and costs of maintaining nuclear plants secure from terrorist attacks, nuclear energy loses its appeal as a cheap source of electricity.

The road to Perdition

Apart from the disadvantages of high cost and high risk, nuclear energy also opens the Pandora’s box of proliferation of atomic weaponry. Every nuclear power plant has the potential of being an atom bomb factory. A 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 500 pounds of plutonium a year; normally ten pounds of plutonium is fuel for an atom bomb. A bomb made from the plutonium could easily devastate a city making the world an unsafe place. Any non-nuclear weapon state could easily acquire a nuclear plant and have the ability to make nuclear bombs.

With technology becoming simpler and information becoming available on the Internet, the technology to make bombs with nuclear material is not an esoteric skill, which is beyond the means of any rogue state.

In the Indian sub-continent both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. It is estimated that India has 65 nuclear weapons, Pakistan has 30 to 50 weapons and China has 400 weapons. To add to the dangerous scenario, India is being positioned by US to contain China’s rise to super power status. The simmering tension between India and China could worsen in the times to come. The uneasy relationship between India and Pakistan does not augur well for peace in the sub-continent. The prospect of nuclear Armageddon is not science fiction but a case of fiction becoming reality.

A more sustainable energy policy

Electricity is generated when heat boils water converting into steam, which turns turbine-producing electricity. From the energy perspective ‘a nuclear reactor’ - in the words of Helen Caldicott - ‘ is just a very sophisticated and dangerous way to boil water - analogous to cutting a pound of butter with a chain saw.’5

Globally, coal supplies about 64% of the world’s electricity, hydro and nuclear each provide 17%, and renewable energy provide 2%. But recent studies indicate that solar power could supply clean electricity to 100 million people living in the sunny parts of the world by 2025. Tidal and Wind power could provide up to 20% of the UK’s current electricity needs. An integrated energy plan using a mix of wind power, cogeneration, geothermal energy, biomass, and tidal/ wave power combined with energy conservation could displace existing reliance on nuclear power. And with the shift of resources in the form of billions of dollars given as subsidies to the nuclear industry to renewable energy the dream of a clean world environment would be realised.

Individuals need not be mere pawns in the game that big energy corporations play for their own ends. They could play an important role in measures promoting energy conservation – simple acts as not driving fuel guzzling SUV’s, not leaving lights burning all over the house, relying less on air conditioners and heaters by allowing the sweat glands to work more or wearing heavy sweaters in times of winter. Some lifestyle changes are painful but necessary. But self- sacrifice and nobility also motivate human beings. As Helen Caldicott aptly says in the last chapter of her remarkable book, ‘These are the qualities that will lead the world toward sanity and survival.’6

Also hopefully, end the fatal seduction of Mephistopheles once and for all.

--------------------------
1 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- Helen Caldicott- Books for Change- pages 65-74.
2 Accidents tarnish nuclear dream-environment- The Guardian.
3 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- Helen Caldicott- Introduction- page ix.
4 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- page 19.
5 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- page xii.
6 Nuclear Power is not the Answer- page 183.

The Importance of Usability Testing

DeeptiA — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:34:48 EDT

Suppose you are in a tight development cycle. You have to deliver either a new product, or the next version of an existing product. Getting the features of a product right is always a touch task, given that there are a number of competing features that seem important, and prioritizing the features is something that is very important. This decides the priorities that the engineering team (the feature development team) will follow during the development cycle.

How is this priority actually decided? If the company is in in the business of defining an absolutely new product that has not been conceptualized as yet, then getting some feedback from prospective customers is difficult; however, if there are already customers using an existing product (from the same company or a rival company), then it is absolutely essential that these users be polled for the features so that there is a good idea about the features that are most critical (it would also help to identify features that customers would be willing to pay a premium for).

Now consider that we are in the development phase of the project lifecycle, where the UI team works along with the engineering team to define the workflow for the feature. There is a lot of discussion around what the feature should be like (with a possibility of the discussion getting heated as a regular part of feature discussion), and eventually most people agree to what the feature should be like. The UI specs of the feature are drawn up and the feature implementation is based on the spec.

At this point, everything may seem settled, but it is critically important that this final implementation be evaluated for usability issues. At this point, the team needs to find a set of people who would adequately represent the final set of users, and get them to see the feature working in the actual product. Such usability testing will help determine whether the determined final feature is actually something that the users can accept, or whether there are problems that need to be modified.

The timing of such user testing is most critical. Typically, such workflows reach a final form close to the end of the cycle, and this is the form in which users can actually exercise the workflows. However, in a contra effect, this time is also very late in the cycle, and the team will be hesitant to accept changes that are significant, since the amount of time required to make these changes may not be easily available.

What is the solution? The solution that seems to work is to have a much more active involvement with users, starting with showing them mockups as the workflow gets more concrete, active question and answer sessions about what they may be looking for, till the time that they can review the actual product implementation. Further, if a workflow is very new and contentious, then it would make sense to try and complete it earlier. And finally, there needs to be time built into the schedule to take such changes.

Book Review: Database in Depth

Ganadeva Bandyopadhyay — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 00:32:13 EDT

One of the most critical components of the IT framework in any organization is unarguably the database. With the consolidation of relational database management systems of different brands, there is a correspondingly demand for knowledgeable Database Administrators of good caliber at the administration end of such a critical component. This book comes as a theoretical shot in the arm for people aiming for such a profile.

For almost all the database products in use today, the foundational paper remains E.F. Codd's Derivability, Redundancy, and Consistency of Relations Stored in Large Data Banks. One of the important objectives of this book is to clarify the relational theory to practitioners. The author of the present book was one of the colleagues of E.F. Codd and has a much clearer understanding of the original paper as well as developments on it through to the present day. The author of this book along with Hugh Darwen has a formal proposal for the basics of future DBMS.

In the book under review, there is a very clear explanation of the theoretical concepts and their working without getting convoluted with particular implementations of the theory. Based on the components of the relational model throughout the beginning chapters, the eighth chapter gives the full-fledged definition of the relational model. It is defined in terms of five components that are discussed in the preceding chapters.

A must read portion of the book is the foreword by Jonathan Gennick giving the key reasons why any database practitioner should have this book in their collection. There is a warning for the reader though that they approach the book with the intent of learning, as the prose sometimes gets difficult to understand and needs multiple readings to get the point.

One of the only curiosities that the reviewer has is how the author of the present book would analyze the various branded implementations currently in the market in a sort of comparative study. Any such article would make a very interesting read indeed.

Infected by Inflation

Shantanu Dutta — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:39:06 EDT

One can sure meet some strange people these days at weddings and funerals. A couple of months ago, attending the wedding of a niece, I heard the story about one of my aunts. She had been invited to the wedding but was unwell. So she had sent her two sons to attend the wedding on her behalf –with a letter. The letter came with an intriguing stipulation – that it had to be handed to the bride’s mother – her sister-in-law or to the bride herself and no one else. The two sons who made a somewhat hurried exit from the wedding left the letter with the bride’s mother as they hurried out. They stayed quite a distance from the wedding venue and had to return.

In the busyness of the wedding, the letter remained unopened. The wedding guests departed slowly one by one and the letter remained buried in the purse where it was randomly tucked in on the wedding night. There it remained until the news arrived a few weeks later of the death of the aunt in question. At that point, memories were juggled and someone remembered the forgotten letter and after a lengthy search, the letter was finally found and read.

To say that the contents of the letter shell shocked my middle class family is to put it relatively mildly. For in that final letter, my departed aunt, unable to come herself to the wedding and meet anyone had poured her heart out in a letter which she had obviously hoped would be read in her lifetime.

My aunt’s letter described the effects of inflation far better than an economist would be able to, for if inflation is a pandemic, a contagion, then my aunt was one of those felled by it, much as dengue or cerebral malaria or cholera might claim its victims. She described in detail how the modest poultry business her two sons were running for a few years was ruined, first by the onset of bird flu and then the subsequent panic leading to reduced demand in the city. Just when they were beginning to recover and get back on their feet again, inflation began rising and once again the demand failed.

The only steady income in the family was a meager family pension due to my aunt on account of her late husband’s government service. Of late, it was not just the only steady income; it was the only income with her sons’ business in liquidation. The family was faced with a Hobson’s choice - was the pension money to be used to buy provisions and groceries for the family or to buy medicines for my aunt’s several age related ailments.

The decision was made more complex by the fact that the meager family pension would continue only as long as she lived but she finally cast the die and decided that she would wither away so that her sons could live as the little pension money would not allow her to buy any medicines after the groceries were bought. A couple of months later, she was dead. Unlike the many farmers in Maharashtra and else where who need to commit suicide when life becomes unlivable, she was spared that expense. Crude oil prices set somewhere in the New York Stock Exchange and the spiraling inflation took care of that.

Inflation has always been presented to us in newspapers and business media as an economic phenomenon. All the inflation-related fire fighting has been done by macro-economic bodies like the Reserve Bank whose tools are graphs, tables, prediction and politically-laced policy inputs. But these erudite economists need to know that while globally, inflation may be studied as an economic phenomenon, in India’s huts and homes, it is a rapidly spreading infection and potentially fatal among the particularly vulnerable.

In the absence of a prescription, the casualties are rising.

Philanthropy - Giving it All Away

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:29:46 EDT

Those who work in the charity sector have a lot to do with donors and typically one comes across one of two types: the obnoxious kind who makes it very clear from the first encounter that they see the charity worker and his agency as nothing more than a glorified beggar. Often this kind is usually not even dealing or handing out his own money. He or she is more likely to be some technical minion for a face less multi lateral or bilateral entity but looking at the airs that the workers put on, one could be excused for assuming that that they are actually reaching into their pockets and purses and making grants.

The other kind is the old style philanthropist – the one who actually gives out his own cash and sees himself as a partner in the whole exercise. Such donors see themselves as partners and catalysts in a much larger vision in which the agency is on the ground is the pivotal player and all others including themselves as ancillary services supporting the hard work on the ground. The first kind of donor may be more professional in their approach, but perhaps it is the second kind who invests a charitable entity with passion, zest and energy that bureaucratic processes can never deliver, no matter how efficient the number crunching. This piece is a sketch of one such philanthropist and how it made a difference and whether we in India will get to the point where philanthropy not only becomes a way of life and people no longer flaunt their wealth but create examples that are worthy of emulation.

Tom White is a devout Catholic and a World War II veteran who returned from the war to inherit his father’s heavy machinery and construction business in the United States and over time made a lot of money. That was in the late 40s.

Since then over the next 55 years, Tom White has given away $75 million, pretty much all of his assets. At 84, the construction millionaire has given away his fortune. If he has his way, he'll be down to his last quarter when he draws his last breath. He has supported more than 100 causes over the years, but his biggest gift by far has gone to Partners in Health, the program made famous last year with the publication of Tracy Kidder's book "Mountains Beyond Mountains." As Time Magazine which declared him as the philanthropist of the year in 2001, what set Tom White apart from the other givers like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates or the others is that most” big givers don't start redistributing their loot until they have made a pile, and many generous magnates, like Turner and Bill Gates, remain very rich even after they have made headlines for their charity.”

The gross inequities in the distribution of wealth in the world and especially among the poor challenged Tom White, relatively less wealthy man compared to the 4 billionaires from India in the latest Forbes’ top 10 billionaires list and the 53 over all billionaires from India in the list of the word’s 1000 richest people. A lot of the social sector work that the government should be doing for its citizens does not get done because our government’s spending priorities are skewed towards national security. India's defence budget is 960 billion rupees (£12bn) compared with 150.2bn rupees (£1.9bn) for health and 330bn rupees (£4bn) for education - considerably less than the pledged 6 per cent of GDP. With the kind of wealth that now resides in Indian hands, it is embarrassing to say the least that a significant part of the money that supplements the government efforts comes from abroad. Foreign contributions and donations to scores of Indian voluntary organizations, religious groups and charitable institutions every year touch nearly Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion). Indian philanthropists are badly needed if we are to ever reduce this dependence. But do we have any Tom Whites among us ?

Book Review: Hacking - The Art of Exploitation

Ganadeva Bandyopadhyay — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:35:55 EDT

Experience is the best teacher, goes the old saying. Students and learners of C and assembly are often stuck with the seemingly abstract implementations of these programming languages. Being the closest to the execution on the machine is also requiring an intimate knowledge of the way that the 0s and 1s are getting manipulated within all the circuitry.

In Hacking - The Art of Exploitation, starting with each and every basic of the programming from control structure, pointers, typecasting to file access and permissions, function pointers, etc., the discussion is moving on to the various scenarios and examples of general exploitation techniques, networking exploitation, countermeasures and cryptology. The main thing about the treatment of the subject matter is that the clarity of thinking of the author is very prominent. As it is, the large number of domains that a hacker has to encompass do sometimes put to stretch the understanding required. Understanding the basics provided in the step-by step manner is really the implementation of a divide and conquer strategy.

There is also an extensive portion dedicated to cryptology. Quite a few of the texts dedicated to cryptology require the reader to go across for some other book dedicated to information theory for a back-and-forth approach across the two to gather the concept. In this topic especially, the positioning of the examples seamlessly with the concept explanation is a big plus point.

Hacking as a word is very different in different contexts. Thus we have the derivative words cracker and script kiddie. For those looking to have a beginning to the world of optimum coding and extensive knowledge about the nook and crannies of the system, here is a book that does justice. There is a very practical accompaniment of a bootable Live CD to learn the code and examples as well as experiment without risking corruption for the stable OS on a typical desktop.

The book is really recommended not only to the experts looking to have a addition of ways to solve the problems but to the beginner programmers and computer science students who are faced with the problem to imagine real-life problems to understand the various programming techniques.

Attrition And New Recruits

Tanay Behera — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:26:44 EDT

Attrition is a growing concern for many the firms across various sectors in different corners of the world but today the pain is felt more in India. This bruise gets highlighted more in an Indian context because of the growing gap between the growing economy and the engines which are partners in this ride to deliver. Because of employee attrition few initiatives are put on the back burner. The HR managers are having a tough time locating a suitable replacement with required experience and ability, to fill up the vacancies created on account of exit of key employees.

The points that I mention here as to why employees, especially new joinees leave the firm, a little after the embryonic stage of their job career cycle are from what I have seen in the real world corporate dynamics, heard about experiences from friends and few from the learnings and readings from various articles, journals and blogposts. These points are mostly centered around those who have spent their time and energy in the industry (mostly IT/Tech/Tech Services/Engineering) from a range of one year to four years after their graduation from an engineering school or a technical institute. Even few of the points apply to those who don a much higher number of years experience hat. The points mentioned below are not in any order of significance or priority and is just a compendium of views.

1. Opportunities available: The present economy has opened up the doors of opportunities. If a person is skilled, smart and is an inventory of ideas, s/he is like an appetizing cake, waiting for the market to react. Present day progressive forward looking youth aspire to see their career advancement as well as improvement in his financial earnings in the shortest possible time. Demand for smart talent is always there, so when an individual doesn't find his/her present place of work to offer a hotfooting atmosphere, there are other avenues to explore may be in another firm, a start-up or a similar place.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

"I fell in love," he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle's campus in Bangalore.

But Jain's zest eventually fizzled under the repetitive rigors of the Indian back office. So he did what a parade of burned-out functionaries in Bangalore have begun doing: He quit outsourcing to create his own start-up - in his case, designing cellphone software that blocks calls from telemarketers.

2. Incorrect picture painted in campus placement talks: Many global firms work as different legal entities/operating units but under one global brand umbrella in India. To make things clear, let’s take a fictitious firm 'Desicritics Corp', which has under it many legal entities such as ' Desicritics R&D Center', ' Desicritics Software Services Center', ' Desicritics Consulting Team', ' Desicritics Technologies', etc. In most campus placements, ' Desicritics' would go as a single team for hiring but the offer letters are delivered by the different groups under its canopy. To a campus recruit, who is not aware of all these internal corporate crosswords everything appears to be the same. But after working in the industry for a year or two, when s/he realizes that s/he was offered a cozen pill, looking for opportunities elsewhere is the most pragmatic option.

3. Big names don’t matter much anymore: Today big brands in job market do not draw as much awe as it used to few years back. Big names are subtly occupying increasingly lower positions in a candidate's priority list. Individuals are perfectly fine working with small and mid tier firms because it's a known fact that sometimes the biggies cannot match the salaries offered by successful second-rung companies which functions to an extent on a start up blueprint. More so many big firms have even now withdrawn ESOPs, which were the main draw a few years ago. In contrast smaller companies are able to offer profit-sharing plans, interesting projects and more responsibility at an early stage in the candidate's career. This is like a ready made dish for a candidate working in a big firm shrouded with global policies, indefinite/infinite processes, layers of politics, and most important lack of visibility in a big crowd.

In just 3 short years, the world has changed. When I wrote this column for rediff.com in June 2004, it was still a big deal to join one of the Big Five. Except, perhaps at an IIT.

With the rising aspirations of fresh grads the same jobs have lost their sheen. The net has to be spread wider and wider, to tier 2 and tier 3 colleges, which would not be on the recruitment map at all a couple of years ago.

At a lesser known college it is a matter of pride that 'Infosys picked up 6 students'. The feeling is that of having 'arrived'.

But next year when 60 join, and then 100, the same 'we are being recruited like alu and pyaaz' feeling sets in.

Bottom line is: 'Aapne kaam se maatlab raakho, yeh big brand maain rakha kya hai'.

4. Company and personal goals clash: Many of the smart recruits in many local and global firms are hired through campus placements in engineering schools during the pre-final year days. Placement talks are like major brand shows and each of the hiring firms tries to outshine others in the fray by attractive presentations in diverse formats. Company goals and visions are put forward to candidates and these tastes like the best recipes to accelerate one's career. The message that is sent is: 'With the company's goals, all measures are taken for an employee's personal development also'. I am not denying the fact that there are companies who do orchestrate company's goals and employees' personal goals but the number is less. Come to the work place, the real world is not that hunky dory. This is completely out of phase, of WYWPIWYG assurance (what-you-were-promised-is-what-you-get). In short most of the cases of attrition thrive on the thread that firms place their priorities ahead of employees' goals, without understanding the employees' basic aspirations resulting in friction.

Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.

An interesting post related to this ishere.

5. Change in mindset, among individuals and society: Gone are the days, when one stuck to a job even though it was not satisfying, solely on grounds of monetary benefits. The present young generation wants money, no doubt about that, but it's just not money, it has to be enwrapped with stimulating job assignments and responsibilities that tickles one’s tastes. More often than not, the most heard verdict among individuals is.

Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.

Even parents and family members, do not evaluate much when they realize that their children are not very happy with their professions and wish to pursue something that is completely out-of-the-box and divergent to their present occupations. These parents stand as pillars supporting their individuals realize their dreams. I know of few people who have left their regular 9 to 5 jobs in tech firms to work full-time for a NGO, to practice as a freelance photographer, to run a restaurant, etc. The attrition resulting from this is miniscule but it is happening these days. This case is more like pre-caution is better than cure. So when one realizes that s/he had boarded an in-correct ship that would never reach the destination s/he had sculpted in their mind, so better get down in the initial phase before it’s too late.

6. Higher studies plan: A sizeable number of campus recruits move to the U.S. or other countries to pursue higher studies and explore more attractive career opportunities after working in the industry for a year or two after their graduation. They form a small pool of the attrition camp. Few go abroad for their Masters degree, few for their PhDs and few others stretch their stay in India to apply later for an MBA program abroad later. It's not that foreign lands are the only destinations, these days many prefer to go for a Masters program in the IISc, IITs, NITs, or even BITS in the engineering and tech stream and to the coveted IIMs and other top ranked B-Schools after clearing the CAT in the domain of business management. Even ISB with its global tag in business education along with many other private schools in India partnered with other western schools of Business Management is an irresistible destination for many who wish to put their lives on a fast track road. Every year just before the admission season, many managers wait dumbfounded to see how many of the ambitious wickets would fall.

7. Manager-employee Relationship: A smart manager is one who can understand the aspirations of his/her employee and can harness the true capabilities and potentialities to the last drop, brusquely pointing the areas of improvement among the team members. Now that appears as a picturesque and cheeky definition never to be realized in reality because a greater chunk of IT related work in India is service and maintenance oriented, which in turn is purely dependent on margins and numbers. More often than ever, a manager can't do justice to both numbers and fulfilling aspirations and finds him/her self in a Catch-22 situation. For some inflammation or misunderstanding arising at work, involving the manager and employee, mostly the bosses chalk up the tension to a personality clash. There is a tendency, according to management experts, to think that personality is the cause of organizational discord rather than perhaps an effect of it.

Ben Dattner, an associate at Dattner Consulting executive coaching firm, believes that personality conflict might be a symptom of a larger organizational issue. "When I work with my clients, I often try to get them to see how it is not just a conflict between two people. I try to get them to see that it is also potentially a conflict between two visions, two agendas, two constituencies or two visions for the future."

The most applied remedy in this case by young employees is to nip off the problem at its root, just leave the job and find a job elsewhere that suits to one's personal liking in most aspects. Quite a number of exits happen in many firms because of the above mentioned reason.

8. Team one works for: Fresh out of engineering schools, many graduates have a swelled head for being a product from a top school in India. This is very much human and expected behavioral pattern that this crowd aspires to be a part of best of the available work/assignments in any organization in the initial days of his/her career. But since most of the IT industry in India is doused in services and maintenance layer of the entire business cycle as stated in Point. 7, easy to follow processes are defined to streamline the execution segment with élan and efficiency. After doing the same work in repetitive cycles, it's no rocket science and even a normal graduate can tackle that in the most cost effective way without necessitating the presence of smart engineers who demand higher pay checks for the same job.

This air of exclusivity and clannishness lingers in the minds of many for the initial few years. Unfortunately if they happen to belong to a team that is of a different clan/tribe than their's in many vistas, they connect with their friends and settle in zones that match their bandwidth. A sizeable number of exits in many firms fall under this category.

As I mentioned here, the points stated above are my personal views and are collected from various sources. This is definitely not intended on any organization, firm, group or for that matter anybody and everybody. This is an open post and would love to hear other diverse views, if you have any.