JRR Tolkien

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

Ultimate Freedom...

..is to stop working for money and make your money work for you!

Happy teacher's day

There is a teacher and a student in everyone of us.
As a student, one needs to be observant, hungry to learn and willing to stretch.
As a teacher, one needs to be patient, kind and have the zeal to teach.

Warrior

Watching it for the 10th time maybe...what a movie!

Brendon Conlon, the physics teacher has tapped the great Koba!!

I love you Tommy!!

Killer!!

Perspective

When it was running heavily I was comforted by the shade of a tree..there were few drops still falling on me, but much lesser than the downpour surrounding us.
Once the rain stopped, the few drops accumalated on the leaves we're still falling on me, and suddenly it felt better to be out  in the open rather than under the tree. I quickly walked out.
It took but few moments for the perspective to change.
Such is life! Series of changes in perspective based on circumstances and our reactions to these changes.

The Agile Circus

Yes, we have been stupid enough to implement Agile!!
The Agile framework is supposed to make you faster. And the framework in itself is not bad. The problem lies in the definition itself. Agile on its own is just a set of loose guidelines that the organization needs to follow. However, the implementation of Agile is left purely to the organization.
In general Humans are not too good at interpreting loose guidelines and implementing them for success.
The most relevant examples being our religious scriptures, which are nothing but a set of guidelines which show you the right path. However everyone interprets them as per their will and the end result is casteism, terrorism, "my religion is the best" wars and what not.

Coming back to Agile! There is a PO-Product Owner, TO-Technical Owner, EM-Engineering Manager and SM-Scrum Master. Then there are scrums, sprints and rituals like daily standup meeting, sprint review, sprint demo, etc.
The PO is supposed to give the customer requirements. The TOs break these down into technical user stories which the FCT teams delivers sprint on sprint. The EM is supposed to be obstacle resolver and the SM are the ones who conduct the rituals so that the team stays on track.

Well, sounds easy and fun. Break down requirements, keep delivering them!

In our organization, the implementation is exactly opposite.
1. The PO is more interested in the day to day affairs of the Sprint deliverables and keeps on harping about the bandwidth wastage.
2. The EM is an all encompassing piece of shit role who has not work, but finds work by asking PO not to interfere in his affairs.
3. SMs are ones who are whiling away their time waiting to be laid off with 6 months of compensation.
4. TOs are not able to scale due to the sheer size of the team.

Then there are:
1. TLs who keep complaining about everything that they see
2. The mini EMs who are good for nothing but are only there to keep on following the main EMs instructions.
3. The FCTs which are empowered and abuse this to the fullest.
4. The executive layer at top which is hell bent on proving that we are still successful.

Life is full of BS!! So is our Agile implementation!!

Few good books to read

Thanks to my kindle...I have gone berserk since last 2 months. These are all crime/thrillers written by Indian authors.

1. Penumbra
2. A murder in Gurgaon
3. Patang
4. Second lives
5. Ashvamedha
6. The Murder of Sonia Raikkonen
7. Seduced by murder
8. The Monsoon murders