Strategic Analysis & Thoughts

Scrum Burndown Charts

2015-05-17T21:39:00.000+08:00

I find this short article on burndown chart very informative and easy to understand compared to other articles.

http://www.mitchlacey.com/intro-to-agile/scrum/burndown-charts

The chart (visual) helps the team to see if there is any issue and perhaps can leverage on Kanban's concept of limiting WIPs (work in progress items) to improve the situation.

Common acronyms that may be mentioned in Scrum related materials & notes

2013-06-25T16:19:00.002+08:00

INVEST - Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INVEST_(mnemonic)

DRY - Don't Repeat Yourself
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself

SOLID - Single responsibility, Open-closed, Liskov substitution, Interface segregation, Dependency inversion
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_(object-oriented_design)

CI – Continuous Integration
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Integration

TDD - Test Driven Development
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Driven_Development

ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development
Details: http://testdrivendeveloper.com/2008/04/02/AcceptanceTestDrivenDevelopmentExplained.aspx

DI – Dependency Injection
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_injection

MMF - Minimum Marketable Feature.
Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_funding_methodology

PBI - Product Backlog Items
Details: http://agilebench.com/blog/the-product-backlog-for-agile-teams

DoD - Definition of Done
Details: http://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2008/september/definition-of-done-a-reference

CFDs - Cumulative Flow Diagrams
Details: http://blog.belatrixsf.com/scrum-cumulative-flow-chart-analysis/

Scrum - Strengths & Challenges

2013-06-17T15:33:00.004+08:00

Scrum is a project management framework that is mostly used for software development. It builds upon continuous iteration of predefined processes - planning, development, feedback.

If you search for it, you will get thousands of writings on scrum. I would like to share about what are the pros (strengths) and cons (challenges), and how to deal with the challenges.

Strengths
1. Has built-in communication process - the planning and daily stand-up meetings. This forces and ensures the team is aware of everything that is happening. Continuous communication is key to a project's success.

2. Shippable deliverable. This is really a good one. Most of the time the customer are not really clear of what is needed. But along the way when everyone sees a working product, they can tell if that's what they want or not. This is similar to prototyping. But prototyping can be just on paper or screen design and may not be good enough for customer to see what he/she will eventually get. Thus ship-able products is really a working prototype that customers can use and validate.

3. Scrum expects team members to have multiple skills - design, coding, testing, writing user stories etc. The skills acquired will make a scrum team member to be able to contribute actively in future projects and any kind of discussion. It will also improve their communication skills.

4. Lean product backlog and sprint backlog management. Forced ranking and delaying the detailing of a requirement still we reach it are the 2 methods that I find very useful and believe makes scrum a lean project management framework.

5. Clearly defined user story format :-).

Challenges
1. Meetings are time-boxed. Its good to ensure we are focused. However, there may be more things to discuss and clarify especially during the start of the project or start of a sprint. Limiting time may result in some important discussion & agreements is missed. "After meeting" discussions or unofficial meetings between a few members may result in some members not aware of some of the things.

Possible solution:- I suggest, we use bigger time box in the beginning. Or better still don't time box the first daily meeting. But strive to eventually bring it down to the recommended 15 minutes along the way.

2. It assumes most or all impediments can be resolved in 1 day. What if there are impediments that can't be resolved during that sprint ? It may result in the task or backlog not done. The scrum will be busy but what happens to the developer who took up the task? He/she may end up being "free" as in scrum there is no planning/prioritization during sprint. It assumes all the agreed tasks can be completed during the sprint whether it is a 2 weeks sprint or 1 month sprint.

Possible solution:- I would suggest to have a "stretch goal". That means identifying a few additional items in the sprint backlog. They should be classified as "non-committal". The team should only look at them if for whatever reason they are not able to work on the other committed items. This creates a much more agile situation.

3. In scrum, the Product Owner is the key decision maker with regards to requirements (product backlog) and its prioritization. In scrum, the Product Owner is the ONLY key decision maker on requirements and prioritization. He/She is expected to provide instant answers during sprint planning. But in real scenarios, the Product Owner may just be representing the "requirements team" who is talking to their own customers. Unless the Product Owner has full and complete knowledge of all the requirements, which is a rare case, he/she will not be able to provide accurate and instant answers to the team members. This situation will cause some delays in the team's progress.

Possible solution:- During backlog refinement meeting and sprint planning, Product Owner should be allowed to bring along a few other members. However, their roles should be limited to providing clarification. The Product Owner should still be the decision maker on prioritization. In this way, we can clarify matters faster. After a few sprints, the Product Owner (and the team) will have much better understanding and should be able to clarify and make decisions without the involvement of other members. Of course, in both cases, the Product Owner should continuously engage his/her requirements team to be on top of the requirements and so that he/she should be able provide clarity on the backlogs.

4. Some organizations are very operational in nature. They do not have dedicated project teams working on software development projects. Since operational support is always the number one priority for most organizations, it is going to be very difficult to assign a few members to be spending full time on a software development project as demanded in scrum. Sometimes there is no one who can support a system better than the team member. Sometimes his/her partner may be out on vacation or unplanned/emergency leave.

Possible solution: Having shorter sprint cycles (such as 2 weeks) may actually help. The person can be away for 1 sprint and join back the team in the next sprint after having the issue addressed or his/hear partner back to work. Having shorter sprints can also help in a situation whereby rotation of duties is practiced. However, changing of team members will increase the time for them to familiarize themselves with each other and take longer time to reach the performing stage (based on Tuckman Model).

5. Effort estimation depends on each team members skill set, experience and familiarity with the system. Different estimates may be given due to lack of skill set rather than lack of understanding. Junior team member may be feel uncomfortable providing estimates. Different estimates may also arise if the developers have different approach in mind. Sometimes both approach may have its own pros and cons.

Possible solutions: During estimation, team members should describe not only why they estimate so but also explain briefly how they would develop the solution for the user story. This will help the team to understand why is the estimation being made so.

Videos on Agile Project Management - Scrum with Kanban

2013-06-11T09:52:00.001+08:00

Simple but good sharing on the Scrum Framework @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BWbaZs1M_8

I find this talk @ http://vimeo.com/16918747 very useful to understand what are Scrum and Kanban and how we make use of both for better result. There is also the free e-book @ http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/kanban-scrum-minibook.

Another video below gives a quick comparison between Scrum & Kanban @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx6_E5XxqEo

Project Management vs Playing Chess

2013-06-04T14:42:00.000+08:00

Project Management vs Playing Chess

1. A plan is needed. You need to have a plan (& strategy) on how you want to run the project (which methodology to be used, what are the deliverable, when to to deliver it), play chess (chess strategy what else). B plan is also needed :-).

2. But be alert & flexible - a.k.a be street smart. But quite often, things that are out of our control will happen and disrupt our plan. A team member can leave the project and the opponent can make an unexpected move. It's very important that we are always on alert on whats happening and it is equally important to react fast. We must be flexible to change our plan based on new circumstances to avoid critical delay in the project or loss of a piece or worst still loss of the game.

3. Sunk cost. In business, there is a term called "sunk cost". Sunk cost means the cost that has already occurred and should not be considered for future decision making. Similarly is projects, there can be a deliverable which was identified earlier as needed but later need to be dropped. In chess, we may have sacrificed a piece as part of our strategy but after we realized the strategy won't work, we should not worry about it anymore and should start fresh. In another word, stop carrying the baggage from previous decision that may not be valid moving forward.

4. Stay cool. When the going gets tough, the tough must get going!!.

Escalate for timely issues resolution

2013-05-30T13:51:00.001+08:00

One way to ensure timely completion of pre-defined project tasks is close follow-up. In reality tasks owners may have many tasks to perform simultaneously. Project managers needs to follow-up with them closely.

However, it may not work all the time. The task owner may simply don't have the bandwidth to perform the task. She or he may need to attend to another urgent or higher priority issue (personal or business). As in some cases, the duration planned may not be accurate and the task owner doesn't really have the skill set and expertise he or she is expected to have.

Whatever it is, once a task is not completed on time per plan, then we have an issue here. But how can we ensure the issue does not become chronic and impact the project schedule, cost or quality ? This is where, we need seek help. This is called escalation.

Who do we escalate to ? Depending on the issue at hand, we should escalate to either the program manager, client or project sponsor, partner's management, vendor's management or our own higher management.

When do we escalate ? This will be purely based on project managers judgement. But timely escalating is very important.

To be effective, the person that we escalate to should be provided right level information as what is it that we are escalating about and what kind of help are we seeking from them. The tough part is to ensure our relationship with the task owner is not damaged. This is a challenge because some people can take this personal. However, we also cannot delay escalation because higher management or sponsors hate surprises especially if it negative news. It is better for them to be aware of the current state of the project and not be surprised. In fact escalation should be seen as a healthy way of communication or not healthy to have it done frequently.

Follow-up for a successful project completion.

2013-05-27T15:27:00.002+08:00

Communication has been always a key challenge in all most any matter we come across in our daily life. I guess it is because all matters centers around our interaction or relationship with others be it our spouse, colleagues, parents, siblings, friends.

During project management, project plan, task due date, availability ( or unavailability), issues, risks, actions required all need to be communicated to the right party at the right time with the right level of details. If we communicate too early it may be forgotten especially "busy" people who may find it annoying as they are probably chasing after late tasks. If we have these people in the project, its going to be nightmare for the project managers. On the other hand, if you communicate too near to task start date or due date, it becomes "your mistake/problem".

So to handle these situations, we need to communicate frequently a.k.a do close follow-ups

i) Give a tinkle 1 week before to the task owner to ask if she or he will be available to perform the task. If not then we need to source for the replacement. Don't be surprise if people go on leave during the time you need them to perform certain tasks. This happens even in multi-national companies (MNCs) or in projects that have a very clear project plan and senior members.

ii) The follow-up with the task owner 1-2 days before to ask if they have started the work or are ready to perform the task as planned. I am sure you wonder why I ask if they have started the work even before the start date. Some people are actually efficient that usually start work earlier. That's how they manage their time. For those who hasn't start it is kind of a soft reminder for them. Either way it is a win-win situation.

The first 2 above can provide us an idea if there is any risks for that tasks. These issues must be documented, tracked and escalated if needed.

iii) Third follow-up should be done mid-way of the task to gauge the progress. The number of follow-ups depends on how long is a particular task and how comfortable are we with the task owner. If we have good experience with the task owner then we can afford less follow-up with them. Otherwise it is safer to have more frequent follow-ups. We may want to ask for some kind of proofs as well if our level of confidence on the task owner is very less. Some people has a tendency to start work on the due date specially on short tasks that is planned for 1-2 days. Although short tasks, if they are in critical path, then they will cause delay in the project progress. So we need to be very vigilant here. This is also where we have the "right" to get the task owner to work on their tasks.

This 3rd item can provide us an idea if there are any issues for that tasks.

iv) Finally we need to follow-up to know if the task has been completely successfully. Successfully ?? Yes. It means you must have a way to gauge every tasks completion to determine if indeed it can be considered successfully completed. After all, the project manager is responsible for the successful completion of his project and that means successfully completion of each and every the tasks in that project.

Happy project managing !!

Critical Success Criteria for a Project

2013-03-29T11:49:00.001+08:00

This is what I think what is extremely important for a project to be successful.

1. Good Communication. This is not new but seems like some projects managers simply don't get it. What does "good communication" means ?

Good communication refers to :-

a) Timely communication. If you report out something that people already heard, then it is of no use and it may even create confusion, unless you are correcting any misinformation that is out there.

b) Accurate information. Whatever we communicate whether verbally, in email or status reports, must have accurate and complete information otherwise recipients will get a wrong picture. Some people are just plain lazy to provide sufficient details.

c) Right level of details to the right recipients. Don't simply copy to all unless requested.

For example, if there is a delay because of something happened (or didn't happen), then we should inform the impacted stakeholders soonest possible and not wait for the daily or weekly report out. The communication should also include what happened, the impact of it to the players and what should or can be done by the impacted persons or task owners. Otherwise, recipients will just read the email and .... (do nothing).

2. Commitment

I find that lack of commitment is another cause for project delays or failure. Or people say they commit but don't really honor that. It may be also due to changes in priority for the person. Or change in direction by the boss.

Only sitting down and discussing with the person will help to address it. If it doesn't help, then follow the escalation chain.

Thirukkural on Emotional Intelligence - Part 2

2012-01-10T17:14:00.000+08:00

Couplet 486

அதிகாரம் : காலமறிதல்
குறள் : 486
ஊக்க முடையான் ஒடுக்கம் பொருதகர்
தாக்கற்குப் பேருந் தகைத்து.

Translation: The self-restraint of the energetic (while waiting for a suitable opportunity), is like the drawing back of a fighting-ram in order to butt.

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Couplet 487

அதிகாரம் : காலமறிதல்
குறள் : 487
பொள்ளென ஆங்கே புறம்வேரார் காலம்பார்த்து
உள்வேர்ப்பர் ஒள்ளி யவர்.

Translation: The wise will not immediately and hastily shew out their anger; they will watch their time, and restrain it within.

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Couplet 490

அதிகாரம் : காலமறிதல்
குறள் : 490
கொக்கொக்க கூம்பும் பருவத்து மற்றதன்
குத்தொக்க சீர்த்த இடத்து.

Translation: At the time when one should use self-control, let him restrain himself like a heron; and, let him like it, strike, when there is a favorable opportunity.

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Couplet 621

அதிகாரம் : இடுக்கணழியாமை
குறள் : 621
இடுக்கண் வருங்கால் நகுக அதனை
அடுத்தூர்வது அஃதொப்ப தில்.

Translation: If troubles come, laugh; there is nothing like that, to press upon and drive away sorrow.

In my own words: Laughter the best medicine suits this well !! We should laugh away our problems and sorrow. I guess easier said than done but hey, being down or crying may not solve our sorrow anyway.

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Couplet 622

அதிகாரம் : இடுக்கணழியாமை
குறள் : 622
வெள்ளத் தனைய இடும்பை அறிவுடையான்
உள்ளத்தின் உள்ளக் கெடும்.

Translation: A flood of troubles will be overcome by the (courageous) thought which the minds of the wise will entertain, even in sorrow.

In my own words: We should be brave to face all of our troubles to resolve it.

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Couplet 623

அதிகாரம் : இடுக்கணழியாமை
குறள் : 623
இடும்பைக்கு இடும்பை படுப்பர் இடும்பைக்கு
இடும்பை படாஅ தவர்

In my own words: If we remain strong and face the problem we encounter (instead of complaining), we win over the problem and sorrow.

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Couplet 624

அதிகாரம் : இடுக்கணழியாமை
குறள் : 624
மடுத்தவா யெல்லாம் பகடன்னான் உற்ற
இடுக்கண் இடர்ப்பாடு உடைத்து

Translation: Troubles will vanish before the man who (struggles against difficulties) as a buffalo (drawing a cart) through deep mire.

In my own words: When the going gets tough, we (the tough :-)), should get going !!

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Harvard Study on Meditation

2011-12-27T10:59:00.002+08:00

I am been practicing casual meditation for a while now after learning the techniques from a Sahaja Yoga instructor near my place. Meditation creates relaxation & self-awareness. On the days that I meditate, I can feel I am more relaxed, better energized and have a good feeling. And each day I learn more about myself. If I am doing some thing wrong like being angry over something, I can sense it faster and react accordingly. It is somehow helping me to be more emotionally intelligent and coping with every day stress.

This is a study from Harvard: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/

What is Yoga?

2011-12-05T14:46:00.003+08:00

A note on what is Yoga from my reading of an article on Linga Purana.

Yoga has eight components. These are known as yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.

Yama is preparatory to meditation, it has to be backed up by the practice of non-voilence. Niyama means certain rules that have to be followed. These include truthfulness, celibacy and lack of jealousy. The rules also encompass cleanliness, the donation of alms and fasting at appointed times. Pranayama signifies the control of the breath of life. This must always be attempted in a proper asana (posture). Pratyahara implies the withdrawal of the mind from addiction to sensual and material pursuits. An image has to be decided on for purposes of meditation. When this image is fixed in one’s mind, that is known as dharana, and the actual process of meditation is called dhyana. Samadhi is the final stage of meditation, when the union between the paramatman and the atman is realized

Yoga must always be practiced in an appropriate place. One must not be close to a fire, nor must the place chosen be a cremation-ground or a location frequented by wild beasts. There must not be any noise or insects that are likely to distract one’s attention. For example, a cave is a very good place to practice yoga in.

Do not imagine for a moment that yoga is easy. There are numerous distractions and disturbances that make one deviate from the right path. One has to fight laziness and sloth. As one progresses, there are illusions that one hallucinates from. Demons are seen . There are powers that one attains and these also cause distractions. But if somehow one manages to conquer these, true bliss can be attained.

Thirukkural Discourse by Thangavelu

2011-01-22T13:00:00.003+08:00

Here is a sample youtube video of Thirukkural explanation by Sree Thangavelu .. simply fantastic !! easy to understand with lots of examples ...

To get a list of other kurals by him, simple go to youtube.com and key in "Discourse by Thangavelu" in the search box and search for it !!

Scientific Religion

2011-01-22T10:29:00.006+08:00

I stumbled upon this videos this morning .. very interesting

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcuM7SD26J4&feature=related

Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV-bIMse_fk&NR=1

Part 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjpyyV7Gfm0&feature=related

SharePoint 2010, the way moving forward ?

2010-07-09T14:04:00.002+08:00

Until a few years ago, the demand for SharePoint 2003 developers and engineers in Malaysia was very low. But the demand picked up for developers and engineers knowledgeable in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or better known as MOSS 2007. And recently, Microsoft announced a new product called SharePoint 2010. It is the new version of MOSS 2007 and I guess SharePoint 2010 will have more followers in Malaysia.

Seems like Microsoft is betting their future in SharePoint and related technologies. More and more features or stand-alone products has been nicely integrated with SharePoint 2007. The same goes for SharePoint 2010 as well. I guess this trend will continue for future versions of SharePoint.

As in most new software products, SharePoint needs more power. Check out the requirements here.

Other technologies tightly integrated with SharePoint are MS-SQL 2005/2008, .NET 3 / 3.5 , IE 7 and Windows 2003/2008.

So, for those Microsoft technology enthusiasts, SharePoint is the way to go !!

Enterprise 2.0, the way forward

2009-11-14T06:12:00.004+08:00

Enterprise 2.0 are the new phenomenon in the business and social world. Basically it means organizations that enables and encourages true collaboration between employees as well between a organization with its key stakeholders such the customers and suppliers.

There are many motivations for organizations to embrace the Enterprise 2.0 culture. Highly distributed employees, more educated and demanding customers, and suppliers who are hard pressed to continuously improve product (& services) quality while at the time reduce cost and price of their offering. Only a truly collaborative environment can ensure the success of an organization in this competitive environment. The demand for social computing tools will also come from the younger generation of employees who will have a Facebook or Twitter account way before they join the workforce.

In the very near term, organizations must incorporate becoming an Enterprise 2.0 organization as part of the corporate strategy. The actions to be come an Enterprise 2.0 must come from the CEO and no one else. IT must given support to introduce tools that integrates seamlessly into employees' workflow. HR must come up with process and incentives to encourage employees to share and collaborate. Business groups must include knowledge capture using social computing tools as part of their day job. Finance must be able to capture the business value of true collaboration. and above all, the CEO must play an active role to make all these work!

Sustainable Building - Canadian student's project

2009-09-08T16:58:00.003+08:00

Check this out .. college students from Flemming College in Canada, building a sustainable building (Camp Kawartha Environment Centre) with these great features

Geothermal heating and cooling
Radiant floors
Living roof seeded with local plants
Solar hot water
Grid-tied solar panel PV power
Net-zero energy design supplying evenly back to the grid at peak demand hours
Pre-fabricated and built-on-site straw bale walls
Rain water collection to supply all building water use
Indoor constructed wetland water purification system
Passive solar design
Super insulative straw bale, hempcrete and rammed earth construction
Only thatch roof in Ontario, locally harvested grasses
Cordwood benches

I hope other colleges and universities especially in Malaysia will encourage similar research and projects to find a sustainable building suitable for the local climate. It will also be a great way to instill the importance of living sustainably.

SCORE - Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy

2009-09-07T13:27:00.004+08:00

You may have heard thousands of time about the famous MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor) but have you have ever heard of SCORE - Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy ??

When I first heard about SCORE, I imagined clean energy .. I imagined some kind of research being done around the areas of clean and sustainable/renewable energy such as heat/light from the sun or wind power or hidro/wave power on the sea etc, so I told myself to do some research to understand this effort more ....

BUT to my dismay this is not the case ... actually it is a very misleading term being used the relevant parties .. really misleading and disappointing

It says it has a very large deposit (1.46 billion tonnes) of coal ? I guess the state or the players intend to fully extract and burn it to produce cheap electricity??? so much for my imagination on clean energy !!

Looking at their strategies and priority industries, quite soon Sarawak will also be choked with one of the greatest pollutions in this region and environmental disaster

Its funny .. the website says one of the benefits are increase in quality of life ? How can that be? I guess , whoever it may be, only considers income level as the yardstick for quality of life !!!

Sustainable Transport - a foldable scooter ?

2009-08-26T15:30:00.006+08:00

How about a fold-able scooter as your transport? Yeah, that was the great invention that made MIT students to win the Year 2009 BuckMinster Fuller Challenge. I was and am always fascinated by the ingenuity and creativity of people around the world in general.

This group of students actually invented/proposed more than just a fold-able electric scooter. Their invention was really about a "comprehensive system", whereby the scooter is just one part of it. But the scooter is what astonishes me the most :-) especially because you can fold it.

Actually it would be much better if we can fold it into a comfortable chair. That way, we can stop under a shelter during heavy rain and sit on this comfy chair while waiting for the rain to stop or subside before continuing our journey.

Read more about the invention here ..

Wazzup Toyota ??

2009-08-20T17:39:00.003+08:00

Looks like Toyota is kind of hesitant to move forward quickly on electric cars.

I wonder why?

The reasons they give does not really make any sense to me especially when Toyota is one of the most innovative and successful car makers around. I am sure Toyota can work around any obstacles especially the technical ones. Car makers should share and learn from each other about this new (I mean electric vehicle) technology. It makes more business and environment sense to come up with a good electric vehicle.

Read more on this here ..

The Atlas of the Real World

2009-08-20T09:11:00.003+08:00

I stumbled upon this cool atlas website this morning .. it depicts the nations of the world by their demographic importance on a range of subjects .. check it out here

Sustainable Transport - A2B Metro

2009-08-19T15:42:00.007+08:00

What happens when you combine electric and pedal power ? You get A2B Metro bicycle or two-wheeler. Unfortunately for us Malaysians, Ultra Motor don't sell any of its cool two-wheeler products here yet. This product ins only available in a few countries - US, UK, Germany and India.

Is it because there is no demand for it ??? I don't think so. According to this website article, the largest number of motorcycles per person is in Malaysia & Greece.

There are few more cool environment friendly two-wheeler products by Ultra Motor ... read more here

Or perhaps, we could develop our own electric-pedal power product ?? With Malaysians being more aware and concerned of being more environment friendly, I believe this will be a very fruitful venture. Of course, the quality must be good. I have came across few online articles on a electric bicycle product which is imported from China and sold in Malaysia but it didn't look very good.

Update on 21-08-2009.

Looks like i was about 1 year too late to stumble upon A2B .. thestar motoring article actually carried an story on this about a year ago. You knwo what they, better late than never to find out something useful or interesting :-)

Sustainable Transport - Busycle

2009-08-18T15:52:00.006+08:00

What a superb innovation !

Beside being a sustainable transport and reducing waste, this transportation also creates a great opportunity for teamwork among communities or colleagues. Probably organizations can use this as part of their team building efforts. Very large organization should start looking into pedal power as a mode of transportation between its nearby building/campuses.

The Busycle is a 15-person pedal-powered bus that travels in neighborhoods throughout the United States. The Busycle runs solely on the energy of its passengers. Anyone willing to pull their weight and pedal can be a Busycle passenger. The Busycle requires individuals to use their own will and physical strength to come together as a group to go from point A to point B .. read more here

Critical success factors to achieve sustainability

2009-08-12T17:31:00.015+08:00

Malaysian corporations are still in its infancy with regards to achieving a truly sustaining phase. There is still more to learn and do. It is a long journey to achieve the sustaining phase but the rewards are great.

There are a few critical success factors to achieve sustainability as listed below.

1. Integration of the local community and environment as key stakeholders of the corporation.

Corporations must include the local community and the environment as a key stakeholder with the highest priority. By doing so, the profit oriented corporation will be able to balance their profit orientation with their social responsibility which includes the betterment of society as well as the protection of the environment

2. Being very clear on WHAT exactly to achieve (to be spelled out as the mission & vision) and more importantly, HOW to achieve it from sustainability point of view. Check out at Interface's Mission Zero.

Currently many organizations have Corporate Social Responsibility policy or statements which seems more like a public relations activity. This has to change if the corporation is serious about being a sustaining organization. Sustainability must be the core of the corporate strategy.

3. Continuous and active involvement of employees.

It is critical that employees understand how they can contribute positively to help the organization to achieve the sustaining phase. It is also critical they are motivated to do so. Otherwise it will be just a greenwash. Having their performance related compensation is one way to achieve this. There will be also spillover effect whereby the employees will in turn educate their family members on sustainability.

4. Ensure both our products and process including raw materials incorporates people and environmental friendliness. For example, what's the point of using electricity that was generated by burning coal or utilizing nuclear technology !!! We should go for renewable energy instead.

Book Review: Leadership and the One Minute Manager

2009-08-07T09:47:00.000+08:00

This is not a latest book. In fact, it was it was written and published some 23 years ago. I just got the chance to read the book quite recently because it was kind of mentioned in my MBA text reading.

But it was a very good read. I like it very much because it was written in a dialog between experts in Situational Leadership and a curious person. I like it because it was written in a very simple and interesting language. It was like reading a story book !! I wish we can have more of similar format books.

And you know what, the concepts can be applied in our everyday life, be it at office or home. However, it may be a bit difficult at home because of sibling rivalry and jealously. You can't really treat kids differently unless they reach certain age to really understand what is happening.

One interesting quote from this book :

"Everyone is a potential high performer. Some people just need a little help along the way"

Made in India Electric Car !!

2009-07-28T18:32:00.005+08:00

India, the majestic country, continuously creates innovation. Famous for its IT talents working around the world, is poised to contribute even greater to safeguarding the environment.

Reva Electric Car company from India is working on improving and increasing its electric car manufacturing. It could be one of the cheapest electric cars around !! Check out its savings calculator. It can show how much you can save.