Work - finding your purpose

Recently, I went to Kochi, met with Dr. Mahesh at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences. I had some really good conversation with Dr. Mahesh, understood some critical healthcare problems and how brilliant minds are working on it. There are research papers which specialist like them release, available on web, which has years of research's and experiment's summary.
Doctor shared how he saved a young kid's life through 3D printing his heart, as doctors were not ready to operate him because they were unable to find a way by looking in the MRI scan and come up with a feasible solution, but what Dr. Mahesh created a 3D print of the heart and sliced it right at the area where it was required to calculate the size of the flap which will filled and thus this way saved the boy.
Now, to gather this 3D printer Dr. Mahesh contacted couple of people outside India but it was hard to bring in such printer, but somehow he was successful. After the operation, the kid was saved and on recovery asked him if he can see the 3D printed model of his heart. On showing it to him Doctor came to know that this kid had already made a 3D printer 3 months back at his home, this kid belonging from a small town near to Kochi has collected information, contacted people all around the globe, ordered items from Alibaba and built a basic prototype of 3D printer which was actually working. What a coincidence!!!

While having a conversation with Dr. Mahesh, who was 45 but use to look like 35, I asked why are he is working here in Kochin at AIMS as he can earn 5x times anywhere in India but he choose this place, why? (he is from Delhi actually but has been here from last 13 years)
He told that in north doctor are asked to touch the business goal but here we focus on saving the pediatrics (infants), with a humor he told that this morning you might have woke up and had you breakfast, right? but this morning from 6 to 10, he saved 6 lives, that also infants, just imagine the smile on those little kids when they get well. This is what he emphasized is the real reward for him, working at AIMS.

He suggested, one day while working you will get an opportunity or say path which you truly want to walk on not for money but for the cause which touch you, will satisfy you, choose that path and you will be happy, content and creative henceforth just as he is.


Addons
There are real world problems which are occurring and then there are people who are trying to solve those problems. What we are doing is crying about our own substantial problems which don’t have a real meaning and worth of, but as we are so much distracted in our own life, we don’t get time to look at these real world problems and get inspired to solve it.

There are research papers on pubMed and open source platform where people like Dr. Mahesh release their publications which are generated after months of research. Now how these people can have connect to young innovators to facilitate research work in the hands for future generation and on the other hand how these young innovators can have connects to such people who can act as mentors and guide them to give path in their life.

That chap wanted to build a 3D printing machine and he reached out to different people across the globe for help and even ordered items from Alibaba to assemble and test the device. This line actually inspired me, we are so much hesitant in our lives to even talk to someone and that chap was asking questions and help from unknowns. That's actually excellent. 

What is IT Project Management?

 

From starting of design document to signing off the last project module delivery to the client is all about project management.

In between, a lot of elements play a vital role to complete the entire project, like:-

1. Platform to use to develop the system
2. Resources/ People
3. Design Phase
4. Dividing and allocating task to right person
5. Predicting approx timelines
6. Documentation!

I am not talking about the hierarchy of a project, here I want to discuss about what are the things which project manager needs to  take care of?
Generally we think the real stuff is done by the coder in a software project but that's a false assumption.
 "Quality and on time delivery of the project depends upon how manager manages the team!"

Stages of a project?

In each of this phase there is a vital role of a project manager, what? needs to be find out by the manager itself. It's not that Design phase is for Business analyst, Development phase is for developers, Testing phase is for tester.  It's not about checking that everything is happening on time, managing means lot more than that.

• Making sure the Business Analyst (BA) has gathered all the specs and prepares the SRS document which gets a sign off from the client.
• After this, BA rights the use cases (covering all the scenarios).
• UI Mock-up is prepared & finally signing off from the client as the spec and definition of the system has been locked for this iteration, any new feature request will go in another iteration/ cycle.
•  Once the above 3 process is done, next starts the Documentation process:-
• Defining the list of Users, their Roles, and each functionality of the system covering all the scenarios as defined by Use-Cases. (This takes time and patience but quality doesn't come in hurry work)
• The entire system can be broken into different Modules and Sub-Modules.
• Categorizing all the functionality under these Modules.
• Assigning each Module to Resources.
• Finally, preparing the timeline of each module by discussing it with the Resources (as they are the one who know how much time will it take) and thus locking the overall timeline of the project.
•  After this only the real time tracking of the project can be done. For us, it works like this:-
• On time DB schema preparation
• List of APIs/ Data Flow
• Data Structure/ Model class definition
• On behalf of each API, queries or stored proc, if required
• Using the Mock-up, Front-end design
• Using the API doc, WS coded or back-end api creation
• Binding of back-end with front-end
• Unit tested from developers side 
• Passed to tester if completed
• Tester tests it & pass it or iterate it through bug list
• After all the modules has been tested and passed, deployment!
• Analysis that we are delayed, which functionality took time (development time or bug fixing time) & who was responsible (not to nag, but for improvement) - this is called soul searching phase 
• Celebrate with a party!

Generally the manager who has the experience of all the phases of a software development life cycle (SDLC) knows how things work and how it should be managed is preferred, theoretically gaining knowledge of SDLC from an MBA degree will make him an idealistic manager hence resulting to develop an ideal system which practically is impossible, as defined by physics.
Lots of things comes under consideration, which can't be documented or taught, which comes from intuition and that, my friend, is gained through experience.

Managing a small team & Running a startup

When the team is small (5 members), the enthusiasm is there and each one of us communicate and understand the need of hard-work  to be given to the company [dedication].
But when the count increases, there comes the real challenge. Challenge to coordinate & communicate properly and effectively with each one of them and maintaining the same level of enthusiasm becomes pretty hard.

All the members will share and work towards the same goal or vision of the company is really an uncertain expectation to have.

Simple enough solution when you don't know the future or are not certain about it, work towards making one. Put in effort to help each one of them to understand the purpose of their work. The work which will collaboratively take the company one step further towards it's goals [direction].
Let them take responsibility for the quality and punctuality [deadline] of their work.

Obviously this can be uncertain and unrealistic solution from management point of view but they need to understand that controlling from one node (manager) is not the definition of management. Each node (members of the company) has to self manage themselves and their work as well [dynamic].

What is the difference between a manager and a coordinator?

A manager is the person who takes critical decision all by itself and articulate the instructions to be followed to the members of the company.

This has been widely accepted in the corporate world and thus no one (usually the person sitting on the top level) isn't aware of how things should work and what need to be done in order to improve the overall system as it should not just be looked at from his/ her point of view but also from the ground level, as this also comes under the system.





A coordinator cum a true leader: This way is complex and really puts the manager into a test that how well he/ she can manage the team's communication and coordination.

There has to be a transparency to a certain level. This helps to have clear understanding and support a better communication and coordination between each member of the organization.
This responsibility is of the manager who resides at the core of the entire system.



# What are the important elements for an organization to succeed in the initial level?

• Direction - in which direction are they working on?
• Dedication - being focused, hard working and disciplined for the work and it's completion.
• Deadline - not to ambitious but not to lenient as well, identifying the estimated timeline.
• Dynamic - flexible enough to adapt new changes or accept drawbacks (failed attempts) & work on improvements.
• Develop - end result or the output should not say that you have succeeded, but in the process one keep succeeding and developing everyday.

Dead..Lines__

Think of a deadline for any task! It's kind of scary, isn't it?
It should be if you don't know how to break the path to achieving the task within that deadline. If you know how to manage it, then you might like giving deadlines to you.
It is similar to discipline, which we use to hate in school, never practiced in college but instantly faced it in corporate and started disliking it. It's just like, you were not giving attention to Triangles in your class 8 and 9 and suddenly you have to give board exam for Trigonometry chapter. Obviously, you are going to hate it, not because it's not acceptable by you, it's because you don't know how to tackle it, solve it.

You are not aware of the basics about how deadlines work. Might be no one taught it to you or if someone did then you were forced to follow it, instead of giving you the proper underlying basics of it, the logic how deadline works.

Let's start from the worst scenario, what happens if you are not disciplined? (want to check? answer these following question link here) and on top of that you don't give/ or like to give deadlines to yourself.

Here is a Ted-Ed video on what happens inside the mind of a procrastinator? It's funny but it's meaningful.

What's the result of being not disciplined? You procrastinate, effects are at times you may end up asking to yourself any of these two question:

1. Which direction are you going?
2. What are your accomplishments so far?

These are the symptoms, the ways you can actually find out, are you a procrastinator? Do you like to be disciplined?

Now, if you desire to improve then how to solve it? How can you get rid of this?
Let's discuss this in the next post.. keep tuned ;)

Who's life are you living?

What is the framework of life which has been taught to you or specifically saying what have you chosen to learn out of all the events or lesson taught by the fate?

Q: Why start a post with a question?
So that I can give a direction to your thoughts and skepticism as you are going to relate this blog post with your life and then judge this post. Now this doesn't mean I don't want you to judge, sure do, it will improve my perspective and quality of thoughts.

Back to the question, who's life are you living? In today's world, most of us compare our self with the achievers, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ellon Musk. Yes, we do when we come to know about them for the first time and get fascinated. The question which comes to our head, as it has became a universal question in this scenario, is "They were working their ass off and achieve things even when they were at the age of me at this point, what have I achieved?" and get sad enough to give up on what we were working on and have achieved or accomplished so far.

Q: Why do we do that?
Human nature. We focus on negative side more than on the positive part, we as humans have the tendency to think all the possibilities to fight with different kind of scenarios which may come in front of us, this way we prepare ourself for each and every situation. This is how our ancestors survived and thus we are alive.

But, todays world is mentally more challenging in comparision to previous age. Today we have anxiety disorder, worry about same thing in an infinite loop of thought unless it pass on, have attention deficiency sydrome without being aware of it.

Then, how come They have become achievers and you haven't or doubt that you will. They did what they loved and were fixed to their GOAL. Are you? Yes, obviously you are. If so, lets quantify..

So, which direction are we flowing towards? Apart from all the digital mess which is around us today, all the unchosen chaos residing in the head of each individual including our self, have we took time to ask ourself before consuming any maturely written content, which is meant to be marketed well rather than create value in the mind of readers, and without judging it whether this is related to your goal, aaahhhh your goal!!! let's cut the train of thoughts here and focus on one thing,

"What is your GOAL?"

Have you even written it down some where, either on a piece of paper or on your journal? Because after that only you can sketch the path towards it and hence chose what comes in your path, which article should be read to influence you so that it may direct you or motivate you towards your GOAL.

Hence, decide your GOAL, don't just make a mental note of it, write it down and read at certain intervals to keep you focused.

Last thought which I want to leave with you is, before reading any article or consuming any post on Facebook or watching any video on YouTube, ask yourself does this fall on your path or is it just a lucrative content which attracts the lost souls who haven't chosen the direction of their life.

Next blog post: How big companies are using internet as a platform to suck your time to make their own profits? Ethical or not, no one is mature enough to judge that, will you try even?

Time vs Productivity

I don't have time!
I thought I will work on an App and make it to the play store, a decent and workable app which will let user engage with it every day for a minute and provide an insight into their lifestyle related to how active it is?

I did hire interns (two) and started the virtual internship and here I am not able to start with the task completion and achieve any milestone, not even a single step.
I got busy with office work and also got overburden by the work.

Now I guess this might happen with any guy who is working and had taken responsibilities  at office but still has the fire to do something of its own.

So, here is the list of things which I started, All of this started in the month of May:

1. Huge workload at the office got to complete tasks as well as with tight deadline.
2. At the same time, I thought I will hire two virtual interns and ask them to work on the project which I wanted to work since last year. Hired them but then before doing all this I have to prepare the scope of the project, functionalities documents as well as project roadmap (with milestones and timeline). I failed to do this and as a result, I am not able to coordinate with them every day and give them the task for the next day.
3. Along with this, I started running and doing exercise in the morning as well which makes me exhausted by the evening and hence I can't work on anything when I return to home after office.

Possible reason I am failing:

• I am unable to work in the afternoon, feel drowsy and procrastinate. I guess my productivity cycle is in the morning (8 to 12 or 1) and then in the evening (5 to 9).
• Either I open up YouTube to watch Justice League videos ( a new trend in me) or I open up Facebook. One as never ending suggestive videos algorithm and the other has an infinite scroll with relevant content which the user will like to read. Both of the algorithm as written to keep engaging the user and trap him/her. I have become the victim of it.
• When lots of people are in the office, they talk and this distracts me from working that's why when I am alone in the office or with very fewer people then the productivity goes higher. I can accomplish more stuff.

Why I am not able to be an entrepreneur

Few years back when I was in 4th year of my engineering, I did a course called Tech Entrepreneurship from Online portal which was being taught by Standford's professor. Doing that course filled a lot of energy to me then and I was so hyper active. I use to think of numerous of ideas and eager to make a venture. I was ready to take a risk.

Now, I am as if stagnated, unproductive, stable. I don't hustle anymore. I am fearing about what will happen if I take this risk then I may loose someone. I can't fulfil my dreams, or this is just a mere thought. What I think is you have stopped making small projects and experimenting them. Dump this thought that you are not taking the risk because of losing someone, this is a just mere excuse. Try to be realistic and practical, on what grounds are you willing to take this risk, do you have any plan? any business model?? any idea even?

Firstly stop thinking that you know much, and stop acting like you are a teacher, this thought is what stagnating you, stay foolish and stay hungry, never get mature, be a child from the mind. You shouldn't act like you have to teach someone something, just be like as if you are talking and if they find it helpful then they may accept it and appreciate it. Most of the people out there are more  matured than what you are right now, so stay hungry and eager to learn. 

After many months, I enrolled myself in the entrepreneurship course (I guess I like business end more than the technical end) and looking at the people around me I became skeptical that oh they are doing like this, I wasn't like this before. I know how I became skeptical. I need to throw out this nature and be optimistic.

Positive things happen to Positive people 

Something very valuable I learned about making a startup: 

Zuckerberg in an interview said that he use to do small projects always and out of which one hit the market and it went viral. I got to incorporate this habit in me.

Some mindset change thing which I learned today:

• So far any documentary or interview or lesson I use to watch or read, I use to get an idea of how I don't fit into those shoes who became a successful entrepreneur or don't have the quality which they had in the early stages.
• But, today when I listen to Zuckerberg interview there was this point which I can't recall but it made me feel that yes I have this quality in me hence I can be an entrepreneur one day, yes that quality was - making small projects and experimenting them out. Zuckerberg also mentioned that college or institutes shouldn't be taken in a sense that you need to learn these particular skills but in return one should focus on what he/she knows and add it to his/her knowledge base and work around that, focus on what are you good at.  Even Elon Musk use to skip his college and work on a separate project which he wanted to sell. 

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.

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.

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

Learning from Senior Manager

The hell with the project managers. Sometimes its really hard to make them understand that the way or the thing which you are thinking is not a good way. Leave the task to the designer to let him design his imagination. You have to be good at something one. Just don't try to think that you can do everything from designing to developing to excel uploads and database queries to managing. Hell with you. 

Today I am really very much irritated by the guy whom I call Sir who behaves like a manager. Though he is quite good at something like managing things but not good at visualizing stuff. He lake vision and imagination. Every time when you work on UI or UX of any product or website or app, you need to give the designer this task and also communicate with some users to understand who they want to or love to interact with the app.

I am learning, learning to code, learning to behave and also how to manage. Here I need to learn one of the vital thing today never thing yourself as senior. Every guy is good at what he do. You can't just imitate him/her and do his part. Its better to support her as she may lack that vision or knowledge which you are aware of. Try to have a conversation with her rather that imposing her and judging her.

Team will go further if you respect them rather than asking them to respect you by trying to behave like you are bigger in status with them. This Sir (today I really don't want to respect him) is behaving in this manner because he is receiving less amount of respect from others. This makes him annoyed somehow I have noticed this.

Why some days are so unproductive?

I wonder some days when they are about to end.. That which task I have completed today? Oh no I get that bad feeling of not doing anything productive some days.

I am not a social networking sticky type of guys who keeps on doing FB or something whole day.
Even their are some days which I spend by reading articles and just kind of exploring new stuffs. This too makes me feels that I lived today in an unstructured way and thus I can't tell that towards which path I walked today.

These days are really unproductive and makes me feel that I haven't achieved anything today. Wait! I think this because may be I wasn't stick to the path towards my goal and through out my day I wasn't focused on what was my today's goal or you may say that I haven't made any short term goal today in the beginning of my day this made me not to stick to what I would have planned to do today.

So first thing first, every morning when we reach our office give 30 minutes, complete 30 minutes to plan that what you are going to do today so that it may really help to approach towards the goal which you have ahead, it may be any project delivery or completion of any module kind of stuff.

Now, how to plan out stuffs which you are going to do today. Take a paper (as I do) and start writing what you have to do today w.r.t what you did yesterday and how today's work will values to it. Before doing all this, make the diagram of the entire goal and break it down into tasks. These tasks can further be broken down to sub-tasks and arranged in order and dependencies. Thus, after arranging them, one can plot it on time-line and hence each day gets its own small goals (sub-tasks).

In this way one can find himself/herself to be productive each day and summing up each day will make him/her productive in that project or long run.