IT services firms dont need innovations ...

With the margins of IT firms getting hit due to slowdown in the biggest IT market, there is sudden focus on innovation, cost-cutting, productivity and high-end services. Great!! At least the IT services companies are now thinking about innovation. But what they are thinking of is not as useful as they are thinking it would be.

By creating products and selling IPs (intellectual property), you can get limited amount of boost on margins. By promoting use of tools, there can only be a limited increase in productivity levels.
This is fine in the short term -- as a tactical measure. However, sustained growth can't be achieved through these measures. What you need to do is - "Bring innovation in the thought process of your organization". Enable your people to think of ways to do things differently -- create tools of their own. You will need to prod them and give some directions and let them complete the circuit of innovation. Yes, this is a slow process --- However, this is the only way we can sustain growth and also lead to proper utilization of the brains of several thousands of IT people.

When i say direction, i mean telling (showing) them how some easy tools were created and throwing questions at them on what could be the different possibilities arising from it. This is what i call " Weaving a framework for innovative thinking". So, don't tell them 'Use tools', enable them to create their own tools.

Skill-based application frameworks

With the skilled programmers becoming a rare commodity and uncontrolled growth of IT industry, there is a need to think differently. We now need to move from requirements based frameworks to skill-based frameworks. By skill-based frameworks I mean, designing the applications/frameworks in such a way that people with low skill levels are also able to develop the required applications. Yes, we have already been supporting programming languages like Java, various modern-day application servers, IDEs etc for the same reason. However, as the need for skilled people increases and we find there are lesser numbers available, we will have to keep moving to more encapsulation i.e. skill based frameworks.

So, in effect, what we are looking at is an additional parameter (skill level of people) for deciding the architecture and framework of an application, besides the usual thing (customer requirements). This is something that we might see in future.

However, the best way of achieving this would be to create 2 frameworks:
1) A customer-requirements-based framework
2) A developer-skill-based framework

So, the development happens using the developer-skill-based framework and you create a tool to directly convert the skill-based framework to the requirement based framework.

This is what I think is the future and the most realistic solution to the skill-shortage problem.
I will further elaborate on this in my future posts.

Any opinions on this are most welcome.

Invisible design patterns

And you thought that the design patterns were a recent thing?

Of course not. If I reflect back on my yester years, I find that these design patterns are actually the solutions to the problems that I myself developed. And few years later I was being told to read and learn about design patterns. Once I read through, I realized that what I thought of as a new thing or a fantastic concept was actually something that I knew about since ages. Some clever guy had named them as design patterns and asked the world to use them. Anyways, that person has done a lot good by bringing this to the notice of everyone. I wonder, why I did not think of putting some fancy names to my design solutions and call them design patterns.

So, these were the visibly invisible, design patterns for me. However, if I look at them today, especially in J2EE context, I think they are fast becoming obsolete. Just looking to see who will be the next one to earn fame from naming some new design patterns.

3 secrets behind frequent restructuring of an IT firm

We recently heard about organizational restructuring in top IT companies of India -- wipro and Infosys. And this is not the first time that such an exercise has happened in these companies. If you look back into time, you will find that this happens quite frequently. So, business vertical based organizations get converted to geography based and then again to vertical based and the cycle goes on and on. So, let's see the reason cited by these orgs:

When moving from vertical based to geography based --> "This will enable us to focus on those particular geographies, hedge our risks, develop an employee base that understands the culture in particular geographies etc...."


When moving from geography based to vertical based --> "This will help us provide the whole range of services in a particular vertical and seamlessly across the globe etc...."

However, i see different benefits from it:

1. Satisfying aspirations of people
Well, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand you could be creating new designations or re-designating people in order to cater to their aspirations but at the same time some other people might feel that their aspirations are not going to be met and hence decide to leave the organization (some might also leave just out of jealousy). So, extreme care needs to be taken on this part.

2. Increased networking within groups
Since the people that formed one single group are now spread across different groups --- there is an automatic creation of communication channel between the new groups and their people. Hence, the level of networking and knowledge sharing gets a boost. Nothing else can lead to this level of networking (and that too at all hierarchical levels)

3. Fresh enthusiasm - like when you join a new company
Again a double-edged sword. People will need to prove themselves again (since their bosses have changed) and hence restructuring infuses fresh blood into the organization. However, some people might also think "Since this is going to be like working in a new company, why don't i actually go ahead and join a new company where i will also get a good jump in pay". These guys were previously sticking to the company because they gave more importance to their own comfort level in the organization then the pay they were getting.

Is the next big restructuring approaching your firm? Maybe yes, if it's been a long time (3+ years) since the last restructuring.

Shortage of people in over-populated India?

I would say 'IT' in India is a job spinner. I remember my days 14 years back when i was really slogging to get admission into one of the major engineering institutions (the IITs) . That was real hard work -- 16 hours put in every day continuously. The carrot was -- if i get into an IIT i will get a job for sure and if i don't i might have to really struggle. IIT entrance exam was a tough one where we had around 0.2 million students competing for around 2000 odd seats.

That was then.

Now, with the IT industry roping in engineering graduates from across India (and the world), the jobs are aplenty. Almost, all engineering colleges across India have campus selections in the IT industry. So, it easy guys. No more 'burning the midnight lamp'. Just chill. And note that the campus selections are rising by the day and students are booked when they have just completed 50% of their course i.e. 2 years of their study. Which also means 2 years in advance. In my days, even in the IITs, campus placements were not always 100%. But now all engineering colleges have excellent campus placements. Leave engineering grads, all grads are having a great time -- thanks to ITeS (IT enabled services) i.e. call centers and BPOs.

So, IT is a real job spinner. And, in fact, it looks quite strange that we are soon going to reach a stage wherein we will say that there is dearth of people (IT-able people) in the 2nd most populated country of the world (or has it become the most populated now)?

Let me introduce this blog and me

Friends,
I am MGoel, an IT pro who is fast approaching 10 years of age in Information technology industry. An engineering grad from India's premier institution (IIT) , I have worked across the globe on various IT assignments of various size and nature. I will not take this intro further since i see the risk of being interpreted as a self-seller.
So this idea of starting my blog came to my yesterday. And this is my first blog --- and even the first experience in the blogging world. So, i will discuss almost everything about IT on this blog.

Anything else that i need to write about on this intro???

So, welcome to my blog.

As i signoff, i am just thinking what my first post would be --- and i have decided that i will not think about the topics but will write about whatever comes to my head. And if you, my friends, want to discuss about something -- i will write about that.

That's how you will see IT thru the eyes of a globetrotting IT pro.

Thanks
MG