Satire: How to get bankrupt ?

I haven't written this article myself, but came across it on net. Its an amazing must read.........


Funny but true:
Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was thetiny island itself. The total money in circulation was 2 dollars as therewere only two pieces of 1 dollar coins circulating around.
1) There were 3 citizens living on this island country. A owned the land.B and C each owned 1 dollar.
2) B decided to purchase the land from A for 1 dollar. So, now A and C own1 dollar each while B owned a piece of land that is worth 1 dollar.
* The net asset of the country now = 3 dollars.
3) Now C thought that since there is only one piece of land in the country,and land is non producible asset, its value must definitely go up. So, heborrowed 1 dollar from A, and together with his own 1 dollar, he bought theland from B for 2 dollars.
*A has a loan to C of 1 dollar, so his net asset is 1 dollar.* B sold his land and got 2 dollars, so his net asset is 2 dollars.* C owned the piece of land worth 2 dollars but with his 1 dollar debt toA, his net residual asset is 1 dollar.* Thus, the net asset of the country = 4 dollars.
4) A saw that the land he once owned has risen in value. He regrettedhaving sold it. Luckily, he has a 1 dollar loan to C. He then borrowed 2dollars from B and acquired the land back from C for 3 dollars. The paymentis by 2 dollars cash (which he borrowed) and cancellation of the 1 dollarloan to C. As a result, A now owned a piece of land that is worth 3dollars. But since he owed B 2 dollars, his net asset is 1 dollar.
* B loaned 2 dollars to A. So his net asset is 2 dollars.* C now has the 2 coins. His net asset is also 2 dollars.* The net asset of the country = 5 dollars. A bubble is building up.
(5) B saw that the value of land kept rising. He also wanted to own theland. So he bought the land from A for 4 dollars. The payment is byborrowing 2 dollars from C, and cancellation of his 2 dollars loan to A.
* As a result, A has got his debt cleared and he got the 2 coins. His netasset is 2 dollars.* B owned a piece of land that is worth 4 dollars, but since he has a debtof 2 dollars with C, his net Asset is 2 dollars.* C loaned 2 dollars to B, so his net asset is 2 dollars.
* The net asset of the country = 6 dollars; even though, the country hasonly one piece of land and 2 Dollars in circulation.
(6) Everybody has made money and everybody felt happy and prosperous.
(7) One day an evil wind blew, and an evil thought came to C's mind. "Hey,what if the land price stop going up, how could B repay my loan. There isonly 2 dollars in circulation, and, I think after all the land that B ownsis worth at most only 1 dollar, and no more."
(8) A also thought the same way.
(9) Nobody wanted to buy land anymore.
* So, in the end, A owns the 2 dollar coins, his net asset is 2 dollars.* B owed C 2 dollars and the land he owned which he thought worth 4 dollarsis now 1 dollar. So his net asset is only 1 dollar.* C has a loan of 2 dollars to B. But it is a bad debt. Although his netasset is still 2 dollars, his Heart is palpitating.* The net asset of the country = 3 dollars again.
(10) So, who has stolen the 3 dollars from the country ? Of course, beforethe bubble burst B thought his land was worth 4 dollars. Actually, rightbefore the collapse, the net asset of the country was 6 dollars on paper.B's net asset is still 2 dollars, his heart is palpitating.
(11) B had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. C as to relinquish his 2dollars bad debt to B, but in return he acquired the land which is worth 1dollar now.
* A owns the 2 coins, his net asset is 2 dollars.* B is bankrupt, his net asset is 0 dollar. ( he lost everything )* C got no choice but end up with a land worth only 1 dollar
* The net asset of the country = 3 dollars !!!?

Its Day Break after a looooooooooooooong Dark Night........

I would like to open this note by expressing my deepest condolences to all lives lost in the Mumbai Terror attack and also wound want to salute all the forces who were instrumental in getting the situation under control.

29th November 2008 marked the end of another BLACK DAY in India's history. It was a very long day that started on the night of 26th November. YES..... Mumbai was held at ransom for a whole 59 hours. It hurts to say that India has always borne the brunt of terror strikes time and again. Thousands of innocents have been killed and hundreds maimed and devastated in terror strikes in India in the last six years. But no terror attack of this magnitude has ever been witnessed. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/India_a_major_terror_target/articleshow/3761676.cms).

As we know every issue does open up a can of worms, this one did too. There were several unanswered questions that every Indian has always had but they are now being more vocal about it.

• Why does India always prove to be a Soft target for the terroists?
• Is an average Indian Citizen Secure in their country ?
• Why is there a security lapse ?
• Why do the Governing bodies not take any strict measures against terror?
• Why does our legal system suck and have several loopholes?
• And many more......

It is upto us to take account of all these questions and ensure that we fill in these gaps (whatever it takes to do so) before the incident is long forgotten and we find ourselves facing another such incident. Every citizen is responsible to do his bit and the Govt. of course. It is time we accept our shortcomings and work together to cover them up rather than reluctantly saying "Its not my JOB".

The Media here is doing a wonderful job in expressing Public regret. India needs a radical change and I only hope that this incident acts a silver lineing in bringing about this change.
Nothing can compensate the lives lost in this carnage but I only hope that these sacrifices are accounted for and the miscreants are brought to book by our govt. before the entire world to see. We should also take this opportunity to join hands with all nations in the fight against terrorism and put an end to it such that everbody can live in peace and harmony again........

Bare Necessities for Success in Production Support

After coming back to India of late, I have developed this interest to play Table Tennis at the recreation room of my work facility. I always land playing a game against the pros, at the end of which I end up loosing. On pondering over my loss, I concluded that these pros were playing “Table Tennis” while I was just trying to keep the ball back on the table, but without any strategy.

I would like to draw an analogy of this reference with Production Support Management for software applications.

Just as any player would concentrate on the game with a strategy behind his moves, we need to check if our support teams are simply solving issues as they get them (like I play table tennis) or are they really servicing the customer with a strategy to ensure that they do not get this issue again.

When I talk of a strategy to succeed in Production Support the five key ingredients that I can think of are:

1. Fixing Issues at the Root.
2. Proper Communication Channel (within teams)
3. Support Artifacts
4. Infrastructure & Monitoring
5. Customer Satisfaction.

I am keeping “Customer satisfaction” at the bottom of my list because if we are able to force a compliance on the first four attributes then that would in turn ensure Customer Satisfaction as the end product.

1) Fixing Issues at the Root.

‘Every ticket that is hurled at the Production support team to look at, arises due to a cause behind the same’

Allow me to explain this with an example:

There was an instance when a monthly report execution failed, as there were multiple hung processes on the server executing these reports. The instinct to provide an immediate addressal to this issue would tell me to simply kill the hung processes and get going with the reports. However in doing so, I would miss the ‘big picture’ in understanding the activities on the server that led to hung processes.

Having given the above example I would like to highlight that it is equally important to understand the root cause behind any request and fix it at the origin (on priority). Doing this would avoid the resurgence of similar issues in future and would simultaneously improve the health of the application.

However to do so it is required to have proper development procedures in place, to take on the fixes arising due to root cause identification. This defined process in any organization needs to be flexible enough to absorb such adhoc development requests, as prioritizing these fixes can get chaotic at times. (May be I would comment more on this subject in my following Blog).

2) Communication

The support structure of an organization depends whether the software growth in that firm has been organic or inorganic. An inorganic growth will only add to multiple layers being identified in support with multiple teams supporting various modules of an application. However it would be ideal to flatten this structure. Multiple layers of hierarchy in support would only add to complications. This would lead to tickets bouncing back and forth between various support teams and in turn agonizing the end user.

I would say it is rather impossible to have a completely flat support structure in any organization. Given this fact, communication plays a major role for success stories in support. Below listed are a few pointers we need to consider wrt communication.

• Communication between internal support teams to be complete and crisp.
• All support TMs should have a list of who’s who in different support teams.
• All teams should have the latest updates regarding scope of work of different support teams
• List of SMEs pertaining to the application.
• User should always be in loop in case of multiple teams handling an issue. Also the user should have a single point of contact in such cases.

3) Support Artifacts

What are the basic artifacts that a support team will need to run the daily show? This depends on the application complexity and the technologies involved. The right proportion of technical and functional documentation required should be a call of the support team. But what every support team could document is a FAQ Document or a learning document that would encrypt the procedure to resolve frequently occurring tickets of similar nature.

Apart from these, a support team should always have the list of Upstream and Downstream application wrt the system they support. The list of users tagged to the applications would prove to be an added bonus.

The support teams need to ensure that all documentation consumed by the team are stored at a central location accessible to other teams as well.

4) Infrastructure & Monitoring

Application monitoring by all means has to be proactive rather than reactive. This would help the support team to jump to issues and fix them even before the users get to know of them. A novel idea that I heard in one of the discussions was to have a dependency GRID for software products. A dependency grid illustrates which servers host which databases, and then which databases are used by which applications, and finally the names, numbers, and email groups of the business users that are affected by that server/database failure. If any of the components in the defined Grid fails then all corresponding impacted components turn RED. This will enable your team to proactively manage your customers expectations. There are tools available in the market that offer this kind of feature.

Apart from this infrastructure management plays a crucial role in the support structure of an organization. It would be advisable to have a dedicated team focus on the health (performance included) and maintenance of servers.

And as stated earlier, Customer Satisfaction which would be the to the success of any production support team can be achieved by effective blending of the 4 key attributes discussed earlier.

So, think about it…is your Software Production Support team playing table tennis as champions do (with strategy), or are they just trying to keep the ball back on the table?

Who am I?

I am a software professional working with a leading IT Consulting Firm.

Having spent many years in the IT industry I have developed an aptitude to pick up challenges as they come along ones stride and master the same as I move along.

Of late, I have developed this habit of reading and responding to blogs. I find it a medium one to dump their thoughts and expressions on a web page. So here I am, introducing myself to the blogging community......