Its been a while since my last post. Between then and now, a lot of things have happened. On the good part, I went to Europe in warm weather- though it was only Germany. All my previous trips till then were in gloomy winter.
And since I could spend a weekend, I got a chance to visit the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart - for which I got a free entrance, by virtue of my company ID card.
This was a chance to connect with history, to know about a passion for engineering excellence. This happens to be right across the Porsche Museum. Two of the many names that have brought immense fame to the city of Stuttgart.
But all this was in the middle of really tough days in a particular project.
Most of this time was spent in having to prepare presentations on what went wrong, how to fix it and by when.
Just as I was about to post this, I read this tweet that someone shared.
"If its written in Python, then its probably machine learning. If it's written in Power Point, then its probably AI."
This, and the next part of the post were lessons in project management for me, and a brutal reality check.
Just as the project storm had weathered, our family took up a long pending project at home - Kitchen renovation. This was the second part of a longer program of home repairs - which started sometime in the beginning of the year.
And when I said kitchen renovation, everything up to the last tile in the 20 year old kitchen was ripped apart and replaced with something more contemporary. It was much similar to the project at work, where majority of the code was rewritten from scratch, rather than part by part refactoring.
During this period, I had to work with a lot of people - carpenters, masons, tiling specialist, painters, electrician, plumber, granite experts and so on. And this experience prompted me to write this post - the right people are essential for any project to succeed.
I was wary of the budget. But since I knew good material and good workmanship comes at a premium, I was prepared for any kind of budget over run.
But I was not prepared for the kind of schedule over run - what should have been 6 days of work, took 3 full weeks. And during this time, the family had to endure a lot of trouble without a functional kitchen at home.
The underlying problem was people, and my inability to deal with them.
Each of the people involved were good in their own area work. But the uncertainty associated with them was responsible for all the delays. So many days were lost when no work actually took place, where one person or group was waiting for the other to complete their bit.
For example, a good plumber whom I know just took off to his hometown whilst keeping his mobile phone back in the city. It was only after 4 days of waiting that I had to get a substitute fielder to do part of his job.
But then, the same good old plumber became available at the next time that I needed him - the threat of losing a bigger business did the trick.
The biggest challenge was dealing with the granite experts, who contributed to most of the delay. And since I had to pay a sizable money as advance, I could not have moved this work to someone else after that. Escalations to the owner of the company didn't help much - but threatening his 20 year reputation did.
On a positive note, I was really impressed by the quality of their work and the overall finish that their work brought to the kitchen.
An ever reliable electrician and painters did an awesome job, without having to look over their shoulder.
The tiling expert and mason also did a good job. But while one didn't know how to use the materials to the best effect, the other had to come back to fix some bugs that he had created.
But the best of the lot were the carpenters. A real professional unit, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. While the elder brother did all the marketing, design and managing finances. The younger ones did all the heavy work- creating the furniture, transportation and installation. While the quality of their work was really good, it was their cheerful outlook towards work that impressed me the most.
I could draw a lot of parallels with how things went on at the project at office. And in general what's common with the corporate India, and the unorganized sector is our lackadaisical Chalta Hai attitude towards work.
Between the carrot and the stick, its almost always that only the stick works.
This was a chance to connect with history, to know about a passion for engineering excellence. This happens to be right across the Porsche Museum. Two of the many names that have brought immense fame to the city of Stuttgart.
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| This beauty was a restoration, once owned by the Maharaja of Kashmir |
But all this was in the middle of really tough days in a particular project.
Most of this time was spent in having to prepare presentations on what went wrong, how to fix it and by when.
Just as I was about to post this, I read this tweet that someone shared.
"If its written in Python, then its probably machine learning. If it's written in Power Point, then its probably AI."
This, and the next part of the post were lessons in project management for me, and a brutal reality check.
Just as the project storm had weathered, our family took up a long pending project at home - Kitchen renovation. This was the second part of a longer program of home repairs - which started sometime in the beginning of the year.
And when I said kitchen renovation, everything up to the last tile in the 20 year old kitchen was ripped apart and replaced with something more contemporary. It was much similar to the project at work, where majority of the code was rewritten from scratch, rather than part by part refactoring.
During this period, I had to work with a lot of people - carpenters, masons, tiling specialist, painters, electrician, plumber, granite experts and so on. And this experience prompted me to write this post - the right people are essential for any project to succeed.
I was wary of the budget. But since I knew good material and good workmanship comes at a premium, I was prepared for any kind of budget over run.
But I was not prepared for the kind of schedule over run - what should have been 6 days of work, took 3 full weeks. And during this time, the family had to endure a lot of trouble without a functional kitchen at home.
The underlying problem was people, and my inability to deal with them.
Each of the people involved were good in their own area work. But the uncertainty associated with them was responsible for all the delays. So many days were lost when no work actually took place, where one person or group was waiting for the other to complete their bit.
For example, a good plumber whom I know just took off to his hometown whilst keeping his mobile phone back in the city. It was only after 4 days of waiting that I had to get a substitute fielder to do part of his job.
But then, the same good old plumber became available at the next time that I needed him - the threat of losing a bigger business did the trick.
The biggest challenge was dealing with the granite experts, who contributed to most of the delay. And since I had to pay a sizable money as advance, I could not have moved this work to someone else after that. Escalations to the owner of the company didn't help much - but threatening his 20 year reputation did.
On a positive note, I was really impressed by the quality of their work and the overall finish that their work brought to the kitchen.
An ever reliable electrician and painters did an awesome job, without having to look over their shoulder.
The tiling expert and mason also did a good job. But while one didn't know how to use the materials to the best effect, the other had to come back to fix some bugs that he had created.
But the best of the lot were the carpenters. A real professional unit, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. While the elder brother did all the marketing, design and managing finances. The younger ones did all the heavy work- creating the furniture, transportation and installation. While the quality of their work was really good, it was their cheerful outlook towards work that impressed me the most.
Their primary skill was carpentry, but when the situation demanded, they pitched in to do electrical work, tiling, masonry and everything else in order to get things done.
You may call it T-shaped skills in an agile team.
I could draw a lot of parallels with how things went on at the project at office. And in general what's common with the corporate India, and the unorganized sector is our lackadaisical Chalta Hai attitude towards work.
Between the carrot and the stick, its almost always that only the stick works.
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