Thread of my life - Intimidated easily

So here is the thing, I use to think how people achieve success, are they born like that or they get shaped in such way on the process of life? or it is they work on themselves to become a material of success.
I use to think, take notes from online articles, analyse personal life and people whom I met, how successful people do things differently and how?

Soura, who is the CEO of Lattice has very proficient knowledge of anything which he do. He is dominating, so most of the time when he is in a debate or talking to people then his point is very valid and well put.

What I am lacking at is the knowledge which I have. Last day I was hearing Sundar's interview, he did point out that sometimes in your life you will have to work with people who would be challenging, will intimidate you. That is the phase when you will find insecurities and feel that you are not so competent, and the good part is, here you will get disheartened but if you can work on yourself and control yourself then you get the opportunity to enhance yourself during this phase.

Don't be in a state where everything is easy and simple for you, that means you are not growing. What do you want? just be where you are or want to grow.

What is wrong in me? I think a lot, analyse a lot. I wait for the feedback from another person to confirm that I did a nice job. Boss, you should understand that if you would have done a not so good job then next time when you approach you are not going to get that much return.
You should do your job rest is other's job. Just make sure whatever you are doing is very structured, logical and proper (not perfect, be practical).

You need to work hard and make yourself an intelligent person too. Read, and speak out what you have in your head, you may be wrong in the initial phase but you should commit to yourself that you are gonna fix your incapabilities and make yourself better.
Make sure whatever content you add to your mind and speak should be very valid and authentic. If someone doubts it, say okay let me think on it. I may be wrong but need to know more about it.
This way you won't get offended and give time to yourself to improve.

Finding Software Project's Lifetime

Project completed, developed and tested and even deployed on the client's end.
Now, the question rises!! What will be the lifetime of this software i.e how long will the user use the software without asking for any further upgrade?

With time the data in the back-end keep on increasing, the queries written for the system will take longer time to return the requested records.

Who can validate that system can withstand such future load or any other dependencies?
Mostly the support team is the first layer where it is reported about any issues which the software faces.
Then from the support team it gets articulated to the testing team.
On reproducing the error or investigating on the issue being faced. From here the manager is being notified.
The manager then bring it up in the group meeting with the developers, that's how the develop gets aware of the issue which wasn't able to visualize, the manager couldn't figure out at the time of design and development, the testing team missed it.

So, finally who can estimate the lifetime and take steps to extend it?

• An analyst who have experience in testing and have a track record of finding logical loopholes.
• An experienced project manager.
• Experienced developer or the one who can think/ figure out logical dependencies at code level.

If there's a position or specialization in IT field who can do an audit of the project an evaluate the lifetime of the project.

How he/she can gain this expertise?
 1. Surveying the projects which has been deployed and used on the field.
 2. Reading project analysis report and all.

BUT, in today's world there isn't any concept of one time build and delivered software as the world has accepted the rapid upgrading technique. Hence all this won't mean.

Though one should audit the limitation of the software system.

Deciding the career path

Lots of thing are going on. I am getting interested in the events which are happening around me. Previously I wasn't able to read newspaper because it use to effect me but now at least I can read news on internet, the ones which I like to read. Recently, I have seen  that in Indian Express app the news are worth reading, they don't post unnecessary  news.

Facebook can be used to get trending news and read lots of useful articles.

Twitter can be used to get an idea of latest happenings.

I have taken up responsibilities at work. Getting older, now I really need to know how to live life so that I may achieve what I want to or for now at least I can say that how to be a quality person in business field.

Should I go for MBA? do I need it or ? I should read some more about this and figure out that should I really take this decision? 

I am good at coding. Moreover I don't want to spend any more money on education. I have already burnt a lot.

Talks about business and events.

Today I was having conversation with Samip, telling him about the idea that me and Niraj were planning to have a Saturday event kind of once in a month for the startups to validate their idea.
I recalled that there was two events which we tried to organize and was successful in a small scale.
Samip came up with the idea that why not to leave an impression by the time we leave Kolkata. Organize a event in a small scale and make it successful.

I thought "Yes it is possible". Will need to plan out how? as we don't want to make it a big one so that it may not effect our work schedule in any possible way.

We can plan it in the month of September once Samip is back from States.
Name it, "Learn how to hack".

Then on returned back to home, had a conversation with Niraj regarding a product. I need to learn marketing!! representing, showcasing. He said why not to take this ERP product further, why not to sell this software to small to medium scale shops. I don't know what would be the future but if we try to help these small scale businesses to aid them in making more sales and managing their business then I hope we may succeed in making some sales.

• Sales target: 10. 
• Cost of the software: 5000 INR.
• Type of business: Garments, Medicine.
• Value Prop: Purchase and Sales, Dealers and Customers.

 This Saturday, me Niraj and Anup are going to have a discussion about this. Let's see what comes up.

Making yourself better

What is exactly my goal? When I can say that yes I have gained the stability of my life and I am successful.
What is the mark where I have to reach? Financially, Socially, Professionally and Personally. In all the four horizons what is that I have to be so that I may call myself yes this is it, which I was dreaming.

Personally, I am a good guy and I have to be a good guy. No such jealousy, hidden thoughts for anyone.

Professionally I am getting better. I am learning every day doing something which I can't do or is at the higher level. This way I am taking steps vertically. Need to go further. At this moment I am an employee. One day I will stand out my own business or uphold father's business and will run it.

Financially I am getting better, my bank account is getting a good amount of savings. Though I need to learn how to spend and run your livelihood entirely on yourself. I need to educate myself and practise this. How much I am earning, how much I should spend and how much should I save. I need to work out on this part.

Socially, yes this part needs a lot of attention. I am not going out mixing with people and being social. I am living alone with myself. I really need to go out and open up in every different type of groups and community.

The point which I have missed out are being Healthy, how is my Psychology, what is my Philosophy?

These are the areas which also need attention when you need stability and success in your life.

The Sherlock effect

Yesterday (3rd May 2015) it was Sunday and I was stuck in watching a TV series named Sherlock, I really like the serial, it made me think that when you are obsessed about something i.e. your work which you love to do, then you are never left alone anywhere.
Things which had surprised me from that series are the term like

• Mindmap
• Thinking with the help of pictures
• Solving a problem in your mind with a large amount of data
• Talking to yourself and avoiding what others are thinking about you when you do so
• Love the subject which you like working on
• Creating a space in your home which is comfortable of thinking and experimenting

I wonder how can a person be so much obsessed about doing something so much. Waoooo I would say.
When you are alone you enhance the skills which you have and then while working along or with someone you can show off your skills set which you actually have and trying to upgrade it every day.
Thats what humans like isn't it, people liking them and appreciating their qualities. This make a person feel satisfied.

Watching Sherlock has somehow affected my way of thinking, now I don't like to think low level thoughts.
I need to enhance myself and you the time when I am alone productively.

How can I experiment the logic which I thought to develop any module of the project?

Truth about self success.

A man is known by his own mentality. How successful he will be in his life or will achieve which he wants to.

I kept on thinking for years about the secret behind a man's success. Here when I was driving to office today (11th May 2015) morning I realised that it's not the quality which makes a man perfect. It is the things which are in his head, the process of thinking the content of his/her thinking.

If I am having a clear thought of something like what I should do in each stage of life, which kind of close friends I choose to stay with. All this point makes a man perfect and closer to his goal.

If my thought process is clear without any complexity and I know what to do and when I don't know then at least know what decision I should take to proceed further then I am walking on the right path.

All this while in my life I use to think how to become a person like I use to dream. The righteous and successful person. Now I know I am heading towards the right direction in my life.

• Trying to improve myself each day.
• Finding ways to keep myself productive each day.
• Making new friends.
• Stepping towards the community workers in organisations like CRY.

No doing wasteful things and utilising the time as much as possible like Sherlock.

In our life there are few role models who inspire us. I have also been inspired by such characters (real or fiction) but I really received it well and I think we should let good characters inspire us. Read about them and learn from their methods. Build up thought process as well. 

This is what I think which will make a person worthy for himself and take him towards the goal which he/she dreams of.

Science behind solving a problem

Today me and the CEO of the company where I work were trying to solve a problem. It was a simple logical problem which was from a website. Though the problem was solved by him. I really like the approach which he used to solve the problem.

Then in the afternoon I sat to work on some problem sums from Hacker Rank. I realized that the problem sums there too have the samples (i.e. test cases) to give a better understanding of the problem.

In maths, this too may be applied. The approach which I am talking about is having three section:

• Problem
• Samples
• Solution

This is basically to solve big or complex problem, because most of the time we don't get the clear idea about the problem. To reach to the solution, one should first dissect the big chunk of problem in a minute section, out of this section one should draw a sample i.e. for this input what would be the output. Say that the process through which we withdrawn the out is our hypothesis.
Thus from this assumed output and process we try to form the solution and check whether it really solves the problem, if it does then we solved it, if it doesn't then we for sure our hypothesis is wrong, take a break then revert back and come up with a new process.

This way one can surely solve a big problem without getting stuck.

Note: This post contains complete abstract theory. One can't get any help from this post unless he/she practically implement this and draws a conclusion him/her-self.

Realization of my abstract GOAL !!

Yesterday I wrote on the notice board thinking about my GOAL?
I wasn't able to find any!! This is who I am at this moment. An aimless person who don't know which way to flow.
This morning I came up with the idea of filling up my imagination with what I want to become one day. I know I try to step towards starting a business and running it, that means I thrive to become an entrepreneur providing a service or having a product. But, I don't know how to become one of them. The reason is no one neither I have made myself to visualise the path which I have to travel and giving a hint how to travel those path.

Here I am in office arrived early and took a decision to watch few videos on Pitching Idea to Angel Investors, viewing some live footage if there is which will help me to gain the knowledge about how things happen. This is how I can gain the confidence I guess to talk to or to give a presentation in front of investors.

This is how I can have the context for my thoughts rather than thinking some stupid stuff which people (most of them) do. i have also started doing that so I need to learn how to deviate my focus from there and start thinking and filling up my dreams with some real stuff which will help me in near future.

At this point of time, I have no confidence that how I can make a startup and run it successfully. But this is not going to demotivate me. I will fight with this some how and find the way out. Sometime I really do feel that I am in a deep shit. I need to come out of it. I don't see the capability in me for what I want to achieve. I need to make myself up and ready for that. I need to get matured and start designing the world which I dream of.

Let's begin again.

Helping Startups grow

On February 17, 2015 I went to one of the Nasscom 10000 startups event in Kolkata. It was good but not structured, pulled off at the mid of the event. Had a realization about a problem which is in India at the present. The spirit for startup or being an entrepreneur is very appreciable, the only lacking thing are the Mentors who guide to the person who wants to be an entrepreneur and make a successful startup. There might be some really good mentors but we need more numbers of them for the amount of entrepreneurs coming up each year.

Last day i.e. March 27, 2015 I was discussing with my friend Niraj about an idea that how can we help the budding entrepreneur to test their startup idea in an eight hour time frame.

I know, 8 hours is very less but will still try to accomplish that. Here goes the process:

• First we will have a site and a form to be filled up by the people who wants to be a part of the event. They can be from schools (class 11 & 12), colleges, office employees or the person who has already started the journey.
• We will tag each person capability like engineer, business guy, marketing domain, sales knowledge or the person with an idea.
• Once a person register himself/herself, we will send them a mail that how we are going to co-ordinate. If the person has an idea in his mind then he may start collecting market survey which will be used on the day of the event.

The event will be once in a month and taking up the responsibility of one idea only, not more than that. The flow of the event will be like:

• First we will discuss about the IDEA.
• From that idea, we will write down the Problem Statement.
• Now, validating the proposed Solution based on two questions:
• Do the problem statement really exist?
• Whether the solution really solves the problem?
• From the Market Survey, finding out whether the solution is marketable?
• Once the solution is validated, then tech guys can start to develop the Low Fidelity Prototype.
• In the parallel way, the non-tech guys can start generating (if market survey is not done yet) or analyse the Market Survey and find the potential customers.
• Creating Business Model.
• Creating a 2 minute Presentation for Investors (optional, future purpose).
• On completion of Low Fidelity Prototype, try to sell it to identified Potential Customer.
• Draw a Conclusion from all the above process (Market Survey, Selling to Potential Customer)
• Are the potential customer willing to pay for the low fidelity prototype?
• Finally, writing down what would be the future plan of each individual.

We need to wrap up all these things in 8 hours and by the end of the session asking for the feedback on what are their views on this session and how can we improve it?

Let's see how we implement it and by when.

Baby Steps Last days of completion

2015, April 9:
Last day I was suppose to deliver the BabySteps app but unfortunately I came across a bug where the Timeline and the Reminders were not being sync when internet connection is not present.
The reason was the sync column was not being set hence the unsync pending sync was not detected for both Reminders and Timeline.
When it was detected, then there was an exception in the cloud database. It was that the column values were set as null.
Along with this, there was another exception which was the reminders and timeline were saved with internet connection then null was set hence when pulled back the values were reflected in the front end.

Complete mess.

The third issue which is eating up my head is reminders are not showing where existing baby selected.

2015, April 10:
Last evening a new bug was discovered, the pending sync growth was not working properly. I thought I may have to stay at office to completely make the app bug free, but then I thought leave it. Let's not put so much stress on myself and go home. When I reached home and debugged the app, I saw the issue was in the DB end which was made by me. Just one word which was changing the whole logical flow of deletion. At last fixed it and it worked.

Today I need to check through complete application and think about possible issues which can happen and then find out the solution to fix it and it should be the solution which should not create exception on other module.

2015, April 11:
Last night I slept at Sahil's place. It was really nice and cozy. I had to complete the project by yesterday anyhow so I thought to stay at the office at night if required but Sahil asked me to come to his place. I watched Sherlock episode while having the dinner and then sat down to work to complete the app. Realised that I was close to complete it by fixing few of minor bugs. I rectified the bugs which I was aware of and then at 2 o'clock at night I got a confidence that yes everything is done I guess. Things were working properly. I took a call that yes now everything has been fixed and it's working properly. Mailed the latest version of BabySteps to business head and closed the development. I mentioned in the mail that I can't guarantee that the app will work 100% in all condition and for always, but clearly mentioned that at least I am 90% confidence that yes it's gonna work always.
Freezed the code mailed the backups of app, web services and db dump to out COO and internal team members.
Good luck and Good night.

Coding on time and bug fixing plus documenting all of it.

This is something weird which I have discovered in me recently in few months, i.e. losing the concentration or enthusiasm in coding. Some of the reason which I can see is the thought that I don't know how am I going to develop this module by coding as because I am not aware of the library classes which is required to develop that part.

Second reason is I find difficulty to solve the bug which occurs in the code, I feel like being sick. Now the wonder is if I go away from the screen of my laptop and design the logic on papers then I will be able to track down the reason of the bug and its solution. But if I stare on the screen I can't focus my mind on coding and fixing the bug. I can't concentrate this way.

Hence, what should I do so that I remain productive. I need to think and design how I am gonna work and complete my task timely.

For the first problem which I am facing, I should get the knowledge of those library classes or read the documentation and write on a piece of paper it's functionality. It would be like summary of the whole learnings. In that way I will get the knowledge that how to build the module and won't get stuck at any point which really makes me frustrated.

The second problem, I am gonna need to do some extra work there, I need to replicate the entire module's logic and its logical dependencies on a paper and then remove the laptop from my desk to work with the paper and find the bug and write down it's possible solution on another paper. This way, I may take longer time to solve a bug, but I won't slag at least, which eventually takes longer.

These piece of paper can later go into the documentation of the project, hence I would be able to develop the module on time (solving my first problem) and removing all the potential bugs from the code (solving my second problem). Along with this, the documentation of the code will be ready too.

Voila`

College Project to Real Life project

In the world of application development, the only very crucial factor which one should be very concerned of is the development methodologies.
We coders think that just writing up the code and checking whether the required functionality is working means the application is ready to go.

This is absolutely not the scenario when we come out from our college and join a company. There the projects are huge and one of the important thing which I learnt was there can be 'n' number of probability where the same logic and code may fall to satisfy user's requirement. Hence while coding one has to think very rigorously and sketch out the entire project module architecture and code blocks logic to find out the dependencies and how those will be achieved in the system.

I never sat down and gave 30% to 40% of time for designing the whole project architecture, dfd, erd, forms (their fields and validation) and the UI wireframe of each screen. I use to get excited and start to code. As the project scope was not that much big hence the development was done in few weeks with less number of obstacles. Starting in my career, I did the same thing and started working as soon as any project document use to come to me.

Later in the phase, I use to get stuck at some points which required initial brainstorming through the logic designing of the entire project. Due to this I had to change a huge block of codes which added extra overheads to development and I ended up taking more time for development. This same thing happened in the recent project on which I am working and about to complete it by the end of this month i.e. March 2015. It was started in the fourth week of January 2015.

Like the college project we decided that this app will be completed in 1 month or max 1 and half months. But wasn't aware that it can't be done in such a duration of time.

Following stuffs which I realised are:

• Without listing down all the features in a detailed format one can not estimate what would be the expected time required to complete the project. During development and on completion of each module, client may say that this is the limited functionality which has been developed, he meant more through his two line of sentence which described about that module in the scope. Hence, list down each and every feature and functionality in the project.
• Design the UI wireframe of each screen: This will help the designer to rapidly design the UI component and the widgets/component present in each screen will eventually describe what each one of them will do, like forms will describe the backend database table's columns, thus giving an overview of db schema. Click Buttons will tell what will be the action event they will do hence, DB class functions can be estimated as per those features covered by these click events.
• For all the forms, the validation required on each field will be clear from the wireframes.
• Discussing about all the scenarios, positive cases, negative cases, worst cases. What will be done in each case. This will describe how to design and develop the scenario when things won't happen according to the expected manner. Eg. when a long list of insertion is to be done what if a single record in the middle of the list wasn't successfully inserted, should the process continue or revert back all the transaction (i.e. insertion) [This may come under business discussion what need to be done in such cases, hence prior discussion of all this should be done].

All these lessons I have learn while working on the 2nd project, which was completely built from the scratch. It is going to take 2 and half months to completely develop the whole app covering every possible features which the app can provide to them (i.e customers) it is being built for.

January experience (1st 2 week)

Ya I am not feeling so well. I feel alone and no one with me at this moment. I just work and keep on working as I don't have any other task to do.
I use to like my work, which I am doing but as I keep on doing this stuff then ultimately I will have this dislike growing in my mind as I keep on doing same thing for a long period of time.
I took a break and went for a short trip with friends and really got energized but this was I guess for short period of time as I get stuck in my work I start to feel sick seriously.
We are making this prototype which need to be perfect atleast this much I expect from myself but there are problems each time I start using it I don't feel that much amount of confidence.
 This is the condition I really dislike as I really don't want to deliver a buggy kind of application or a product.
Well this is clear that consulting can even be a product as big companies have ideas and money with them but don't have the technology to execute it, they might to hire people which they don't want to do as what if their idea doesn't work then? So those stuffs can be outsourced and then we can help them create such product/solution (a complete solution) so that they may just need man power to execute it.
Development cost saved, now they have the real object of their idea and hence they can start operating with very limited resources and at limited zones.
This is how things happen in big companies.
We use to think that 4 or 5 people can come together and will try to solve the problem, in the same manner big giant companies even have lots of ideas or solution to wide variety of problems which they want to take a step towards it but can't, hence for them
We, are there...

Delivery of first product at Lattice

Last few weeks I am searching for my productivity, I wake up late, I don't do exercise, I drink black coffee to gain concentration in my work. I tried not coming by bike as it exhausts me a lot. I don't have a schedule. I can't reach any per day goal in my work, actually I don't make any.

By the end of the day I feel bad for not being productive and being very sluggish. All my work is getting delayed and I end up making excuses to protect myself.

I am so much concerned about this nature of mine as because recently few months back I have joined a start-up company. Now when you are working in a newly formed company whose aims are high and the guys who have co-founded it are from the renowned university of the world then it means, you too have to match to their standard or else you will bring their standard down which I really don't want to in any condition.

Now when I am working in this company where I was also concerned before joining them, that what if things doesn't work out then? where I will go ? I was a bit selfish and even I was thinking if we are able to bring projects and deliver it, then for sure the business will run and I will be one of the direct reason to support business.

Here is our first delivery which is very close and I have to work my ass off to match up to the quality of work which they expect and even I am very concerned (as I see from the customer point of view) about the flawless functioning of the product which will deliver to our customer. I really hate to deliver a buggy application (in this case it is the hardware and the software app) to the customer.

I really need to bring some change in me without being concerned about it. I need:

1. Punctuality
2. Discipline
3. Seriousness