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Amarnath Bose's Groups
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Purchasing Processes
12 members
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Organizational Process...
36 members
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Project & Risk Management
42 members
Amarnath Bose's Discussions
THE DAMP COURSE - where is it in your organisation?
The damp course functions beautifully when the going is good. It is in difficult situations that the upstream and downstream communication becomes a challenge. The strategic needs - manned by the u...
Replied Dec. 4, 2008
Improvement, restructuring and transformation
That will be great Dave. Please do send me your paper on Enterprise Ecology. Thanks & Cheers Amarnath
Replied May. 26, 2008
Improvement, restructuring and transformation
Thanks Dave, I do see your perspective. Diverting from your original post, don't you think that the old management hierarchy - and specifically terms and roles of "middle management" are badly ant...
Replied May. 19, 2008
Problem classification & generic solution
I admit that the "problem" is possibly over-scoped and has considerably less than desired clarity. Dave, the business problems that you mention as also a host of other problems that are not purely...
Replied May. 19, 2008
Improvement, restructuring and transformation
Isn't the difference between the three merely quantitative? Are the three - improve, restructure, transform, really too different? "Improve" generally indicates to me a smaller differential than "...
Replied May. 19, 2008
Problem classification & generic solution
On the LP classification - a technique is evolved to solve a problem; an analytic technique that discerns a pattern is no different in that it helps understand, model and solve some problem - may b...
Replied May. 14, 2008
Purchasing Process
Hello Dave, Nothing wrong per-se with Tools & IDEs & COTS that helps developers. Just that with the facilities at ones disposal, the focus is lost. People tend to get carried away. Bottom ...
Replied Apr. 28, 2008
Purchasing Process
Speaking of software, I am not sure if this was or is the purpose of this thread, I feel that some of the reasons that software is guaranteed to fail are: Collaborative development - accountabilit...
Replied Apr. 28, 2008
Purchasing Process
Peter, I do realize that there is a mismatch between the corporate & the technician views as far as quality is concerned. Just that I tend to feel that the later is possibly sincere while the ...
Replied Apr. 26, 2008
Purchasing Process
Let me quote Peter Drucker in this context. "Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality ...
Replied Apr. 25, 2008
Process Improvement - things to guard against
What you say makes very good sense, Dave. My uneducated guess is that most PI teams work at the bottom-most level, but draw the PI mandate, priorities, design and vision from the top. In a sense it...
Tagged: process, improvement
Replied Apr. 25, 2008
Process Improvement - things to guard against
See Dave, your response (MECE) preceded this. The intriguing question, "how we define SPI", came up possibly as an afterthought (and deeper analysis). It didn't occur to me till you posed the quest...
Tagged: process, improvement
Replied Apr. 25, 2008
What CMM has done in Indian Software industry in past 14- 15 years
The auditing methodology is a derivative of the purpose sought to be achieved. The sample projects selected seldom answers the critique of scientific sampling. Chances are slim that an audit would ...
Replied Apr. 21, 2008
Problem classification & generic solution
Thanks Jeff, this is another very good problem to add to our list. Reminds me of Latin Squares heavily used in statistical design of experiments.
Replied Apr. 19, 2008
Problem classification & generic solution
Francine, The point here is to evaluate the class of problems that can be solved using computational techniques (using a computer). The imponderables in business analysis are very many and too uns...
Replied Apr. 19, 2008
Process Improvement - things to guard against
Thanks Francine. Indeed a clear articulation is necessary. Tailoring to the various stakeholders is sometimes tricky and often critical to the degree of success. Cheers
Tagged: process, improvement
Replied Apr. 19, 2008
Process Improvement - things to guard against
Thank you Joseph. Very well said. Possibly the culture attenuation is the most difficult part. Also important are inertia (passive resistance) as Mark puts it, and egos.
Tagged: process, improvement
Replied Apr. 19, 2008
What CMM has done in Indian Software industry in past 14- 15 years
Raj, Yes, it is being looked upon more and more as a prestige badge. And you are right, one cannot fault a very worthy initiative because of the innovative abuse it is being subjected to. The seco...
Replied Apr. 4, 2008
What CMM has done in Indian Software industry in past 14- 15 years
Generally in India, Quality is not seen as intrinsic to IT. The desire to excel & go-beyond, that is the cornerstone of true excellence in any field is conspicuous by its absence in Indian IT. ...
Replied Apr. 4, 2008
Problem classification & generic solution
Trivial & non Trivial: we need not consider problems that lend to straight-forward solutions. The distinction is important because this is crucial to defining the scope. Sometimes an iterative...
Replied Apr. 3, 2008
Amarnath Bose's Page
Profile Information
- LinkedIn Profile URL or Public CV/Resume URL
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/amarnathbose
- Here's something interesting about me :
- I am interested in software process improvements with far reaching impact. I feel that there is a lot to be done, and we are at ground zero on processes even as technology continues to move ahead at a blistering pace.
Would love to invove in a like-minded group.
I feel that AI and evolutionary algorithms need to get ingrained as process boosters - else process improvement will forever lag behind.
Look forward to getting to interact with you.
Amarnath Bose's Blog
Whither IIT JEE?
IIT has gone back on this and now it is a single multiple choice type test. Multiple choice tests can never evaluate… Continue
Posted on March 12, 2008 at 11:30am — 1 Comment
Blog Posts
Life after Corporate Warfare
Posted by Atul Mathur on April 9, 2009 at 10:33am — 1 Comment
New Book on CS4 Flash
Posted by Michael "Ollie" Oliver on February 13, 2009 at 8:19pm
Seam Vs Spring
Posted by Adeel Ansari on October 8, 2008 at 12:30am
About me
Posted by Mark Porter on October 3, 2008 at 3:10am
Search for New Challenges
Posted by Atul Mathur on September 15, 2008 at 2:31pm — 6 Comments
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I just read the post on Human Capital Management. Well done for trying to calm things down. (I take it that it was closed due to the heat of debate!)
I am also a natural peace-maker, but I must admit I do enjoy a good heated argument now and then!
Regards, Mark
Keep writing.
I would have loved it had there been more participation.
The "bone structure" that you refer is nothing but decisons at the finest level of granularity. And for the sake of discussion, all else (higher levels) are derived using combinations of these lowest granular decisions.
Risks is a cliched word. Obstacles sounds better. But I prefer constraints, because in the situation where various agents are tring to optimize their objective function, the very act of trying to optimize would impose constraints on other agents as much as environmental factors - or irritants as you refer.
And environmental variables, risks or obstacles are players in this game too. The perception of the "subject" is immaterial - it is a derivative of the goal or the objective function. These variables are caused by agents - a leaf fluttering in the breeze, a drop of water causing tiny ripples on a larger water body or a feather spinning down in its fall. As also a human agent contemplating to thwart another. If our model were accurate and exhaustive, we should be able to explain all phenomenon.
Abstraction is a refuge for our inability to comprehend beyond a point. It is like a child's learning.
To simplify, we consider human decision, but non-live agents are very much on the board. As is experience, for live agents. Two humans in the same situation could take different decisions based on past experience. Conditioning? What about a single individual and a given situation (in all its elaborateness)? Can we surmise that the individual would make the same decision everytime, if we could conduct this experiment by rolling back time? I guess not.
Did I make any sense? I transliterated my thoughts as it came, did not do a cross check for sanity. Catch me tomorrow on a specific point, and I may be at a loss to explain.
I like your approach Mukesh. Though at times I feel that you become too involved, a participant in the events that you choose to dissect. Aloofness is a virtue that I would recommend. It has the advantage of bringing in objectivity.
Thanks
It may make sense to look upon objects only - no subject. Each object acts based on inputs it receives. Some inputs will reinforce each other, some may dampen the effect of another. Ultimately the inputs in their collective force would trigger an action from the object primarily in consideration. Then again, this action would serve as an input to other objects and so on.
It is a network, not a hierachy, except at the dimension of time.
Even a simple reflex action takes into account environmental details and is unflappable in judgement.
I feel that we have too often jumped into the process without mitigating the known dampeners.
My 3 most important hurdles in decreasing order of importance are
1) clear definition of scope and benefits
2) sustained organizational sponsorship
3) team with capability and focus
I look forward to lots of innovation and great interaction with the group.
I am in software and am immensely interested in s/w process improvement.
Wishes & Regards
Amarnath