Abusing "Resource" in IT

Typical conversation snippets:

"I need more resources."

"I don't have any good resource."

"We are not getting any good resources these days."

"I want that resource with Hari and not the one with Bala."

"Just add more resources and deliver the project on time."

What are we referring to here by "resource"?

I wouldn't be surprised if you guess it to be a table/ chair/computer/sand/cement / steel/ PVC tube/ concrete mixer/bullock cart, or anything you can think of. Hardly do the above snippets give an indication that, "Resource" here refers to a Human Being. A live Human, who can think, who has an individuality, who has certain unique strengths and weakness, and who like you and me is similar and dissimilar to every other Human.

I digress here.

• Did you have a professor who never took attendance, but his classes were always full?
• Do you remember that grumpy fellow at the neighborhood store, which you avoided given a choice?
• Did your father or mother or any elders in your family spoke of there colleagues or people with whom they work/ do business as a "Resource"?

You must have got a fair idea that people around you, be it be at your school, home, work place were given respect which all of us accord on our fellow human beings. At the same time those with the ability get that additional due for what they are. Well, welcome to the world of "IT", where Human's are nothing more than the table/chair/computer around you. Now,Why do I say this?

Please go read the first five lines of this post again. If that is kind of attitude with which we are treated in "IT" by the management, what more do you expect me to say. Can't these people use people/ person instead of God-Damn Resource. It really gets on my nerves, when I hear such stuff.

The usage of Resource for "Human Resources", can be attributed to the very definition of the word[Wikipedia]:

"A resource is any physical or virtual entity of limited availability, or anything used to help one earn a living."

Going by this definition qualifies Human's as resources in any industry they work. Wikipedia has this to say about resources, specifically Human Resources, our point of discussion in this post.

Human resources

Human beings are also considered to be resources because they have the ability to change raw materials into valuable resources. The term Human resources can also be defined as the skills, energies, talents, abilities and knowledge that are used for the production of goods or the rendering of services. While taking into account human beings as resources, the following things have to be kept in mind:

• The size of the population
• The capabilities of the individuals in that population.

I don't have any problem when the word resource is employed for humans at a scale and situation where it is applicable i.e. as mentioned in the snippet when considering human beings as resources we have to keep in mind "The Capabilities". Even when we replace tables/ chairs/ computers there is a lot of difference between a good one, an average one and a bad one. And we are talking about Humans here. The problem here is not just the usage of word in letter but the usage in spirit.

Now the next question is, why do people/ management behave the way they do? In my experience with various managers:

1. They truly believe that people are replaceable resources.
2. They are in this industry for too long and got accustomed to this terminology (both in word and spirit).
3. They don't have an opinion for or against the usage and so go with the mass practice.
4. They do feel (not strongly) against the usage of this word, but go with the masses.

With lot of good managers(very few) it is the last point,for most of the them it is the 2nd and 3rd. There are very few in the 1st category and they are the ones who cause the most damage.

What am I going to do about this?

This issue of Resource has been troubling me for close to two years now. I talked to many of my friends, colleagues, peers about this, but never raised a voice against this nor gave a thought to what I will do?

I am not going to change the world. I am going to make a small change to myself. It is not an easy task, but let me take a small step forward with my first post of the new decade.Through this post, I want to take a stand that, I will not budge to the pressures of using the term Resource:

• With any one whom I work with.
• With my team or any others who report to me or will report to me.
• In any conversation involving people and their work.

How do you solve this problem?

If you really feel this is a problem take stand now. There is an excellent book called The Mythical Man Month, go please read it to get a perspective on people management in projects. Get a perspective on the difference between a person with good ability and one without.

It takes good amount of work to truly understand and implement the spirit of good people management,except for a minuscule percent, the others tend to take the easier route and that's where the problem lies.

I am taking a step in the right direction are YOU?

Follow me on Twitter: gantir

Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Read more!

Beyond Regular Search

Search, Google are indispensable part of our lives. A majority of my online time goes with search on Google(80%) and a few others (Bing, Wikipedia, Twitter etc). Little over a decade, in the past no body paid any attention to search and today search stands at the center of our world. Many have said on inadequacy of today's search and I will not venture here into that aspect.

What I will discuss here is how search as it is done today does not meet my current requirements? and what are the things I am looking for as a searcher, as a content provider.

I am someone who can be termed reasonably net savvy user, who tries his best to keep abreast of the developments in the cyber world. I will here discuss some of my search behaviors.

1. Increasingly, I use search for navigation. If I have to find the url of cricinfo, I probably will do a google search than even bookmarking it.
2. Even the above is changing, thanks to chrome which pre-fetches the URL most of the times.
3. Another thing I notice is my search requirements are increasingly becoming more complex. I did not get a good lead even from Google for some of the search terms.
4. Most of my searches arise out of a complex issue at hand. The search engine fails to understand the intent of the problem. Now, I seriously don't expect today's search engines to excel here.
5. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised at the results thrown out. This means the first result is one is that I want to look at!!
6. Love the new integrated results with images and videos.
7. But hate the maps in the results. At least here in India many times it's a distraction. I would go to Google Maps and search than want the crappy result in my regular search.
8. The above I understand is not Google's fault, but it is their problem to solve.
9. I tend to add wiki to every keyword if it remotely resembles a noun.
10. I would love to have a random search feature, just like in wikipedia. It will save me the trip to wikipedia and back.
11. I love tag clouds, anyone heard of Quintura.(wow I got this spelling correct without googling and image search here for google results in an unexpected result).
12. I would love to continue but, I am too lazy that's it. My 11 search use cases.

Follow me on Twitter: gantir


Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Read more!

Bus to Work

Finally!! After two weeks of endless postponements, I commuted by bus to work. The story goes like this.

I am big believer of walking to work. For the first two years of my professional life, I walked to work. However, somewhere during that period I had to accept the reality and get myself a bike. Initially for about an year, it was sparsely put to use on working days, I used it mostly on weekends to meet friends and my sister. Now, that was a good three years back.

Over the last three years, I got sucked into picking up my mobike for every and anything. That was when I met Srini, I knew him for about two years in Proteans, but it was only in the last few months that I got to work with him. He is one person who inspired me to commute by bus to work. He does it himself everyday. This inspired me to try the same.

This inspiration was not enough to pull me out of inertia, Sameer(though I never met him), his blog post about Indus (a nice gentleman, whom I met at BCB4) was the trigger. Ever since I was contemplating commuting by bus to work, it finally materialised on Tuesday last and man I am glad I made it.

I figured out that I kept postponing if it was a daily affair, that would be a huge step from the daily comfort. To overcome this mental block, I decided that I will do it twice a week to start with and then see how it goes. The next big question is which days?
Monday and Firday are out of question for obvious reasons. Two days in a row is ruled out as I don't fancy travelling by multiple buses, so that finally left me with Tuesday and Thursday.

Both these days, I took bus to office, and boy what a contrast it was! The first day was joyride, found a bus that left me at BTM just after reaching the bus stop. There was a private service which I took to the HSR BDA junction. Thursday was a two hour wait at the bus stop for the elusive Vajra bus direct to HSR BDA Junction.

There were a few observations I made over the past two trips.

• There is nothing in Bangalore either online or otherwise which gives you an accurate description of routes on which the buses ply. I understand that the traffic is problem in Bangalore, but there is no excuse for not being able to get route information.
• If you want to travel in comfort, better start before eight.
• There are not many buses plying over very long distances(~20km). Most of the buses are medium distance(~10Km). If we have to go from one end of the city to the other, invariably we have to take at least 2-3 buses. Also, the connecting hubs are not many. Again no information available.

Now the Good.

• You get to see many areas which you never noticed when on mobike.
• You get to know precisely which area is which? I now know where difference between BTM Water Tank, Ragi Guda temple stop and so on. Earlier all of them were BTM!

I will keep writing more about my bus experience every week. Keep tuned in.

Follow me on Twitter: gantir


Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Read more!

The One To Be!!

I am in the process of migrating all my mails from gmail to my google apps account. While going through all the mails, I came across this which I wrote in a fit of inspiration about three years back. It pains me that most of what I said still remains true in my context. But it also gives me the inspiration to face the drudgery and move ahead. As the saying goes everything happens for our own good. This simple piece gives me new hope. Here it goes:

"How do I say what I have seen in the last 24 yrs of my life? What do I envison for the next five - six decades of life left in me. What did I do at this age of mine, that many of the greats have done much before mine.

At the age of 21 when he died, Galois was a mathematical genius. Though probably never given the due recognition during his life time, his contributions to the world of mathematics, and as an extension to computer science is widley accepted. Another great Einstein came up with the photo electric effect when he was just 26 for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1921.It is always debated why he was never awarded a Nobel for Theory of Relativity.

Sachin achieved cult status in his teens, Roger Federer is the same age as me but reins the tennis world today. If I start listing I can go on and on, on how many people have made it big before they reached the age I have now reached.

Now when I see back, what I have acheieved, probably none is remotley even close to what these people have done. Does that mean I am nobody? No, I am someone to all those people to whom I am dear, to all those people who are dear to me. I am someone in the making to be the one to be!!."



Follow me on Twitter: gantir


Liked this Post: Subscribe to the RSS feed to get the posts to you. You have the advantage of getting my deli.cio.us links on the feed.

Read more!