Quarter 5 - Week 3

The fun times have begun! A couple of quizzes this week and both on Saturday! It's a good thing that they're all announced and that they're based on our previous readings. No more having to mug formulae... atleast for this quarter.

MSP - This week we looked into Requirements Gathering. We analysed a couple of cases, the sinking of the Vasa (a ship made in Sweden during the 1600s or so) and the working methodology of Praxis, a company that is highly reputed for its extremely low bug rate and which works on not-so-normal projects like, well, the Lunar Landing mission! While Requirements Gathering, Risk Management etc. sounds like everyday words like 'tea', 'coffee' and 'pantry' to the guys in the service industry or the 5000+ strong product firms, the young 'uns (especially the startups) probably have no idea what it means to do Requirements Gathering. Apparently, you bring together key members from the team working on the project, or everyone of them if its feasible, and some representatives from the client who stand for every discipline/role that might use the software. Then you guys brainstorm in meetings, yell at each other, throw this out, pull that in, check if "what you mean is what I mean?" and pretty much have a party. Praxis for example, took ONE YEAR just to gather requirements for a project of duration four years. A pretty long time you might say, but it works for them. At the end of this project, they had four bugs... that's it! Four! I can make that many bugs in 15 minutes! Apparently they use formal programming methods which apparently applies mathematical models as an approach to software development. It's quite interesting, though it seems like heavy investments. Look them up.

The other case was the Vasa, and since they failed everyone has something to say about it. The article tried to draw a parallel between it's construction and that of software. It is said that the king of Sweden wanted a super awesome fleet of ships and after the first signoff phase, he kept changing the requirements. And his tool of motivation? "If you dont do it, I'll treat you with contempt". Nobody questions the king, no matter how wrong he is.... in those times!

LOC - We studied how leaders have an issue with growing up. Actually no, it was more like growing into the next role. We've done this article before, so not much to really assimilate in that one. It talks of how roles like 'Managing Self', 'Managing Others', 'Managing Managers'.. etc.... tend to have conflicts during their transition phase. We even did a case where we analysed if a person who was brought in to turn the company around would really be the right choice. I spaced out a bit once in a while, so I dont remember too much from this week, except for thinking that all this seems obvious.

PM - This week was all about how to differentiate your product in the marketplace. Today, any incremental cool 'thing-of-the-future' you do can be easily replicated by other companies. On the other hand, the more you focus on the entire experience of the customer ranging from stating a need they have, to searching for it, to buying it etc., then the easier it will be to get sufficient points for differentiation. We studied how Price Value comparison charts can be used to determine how the company is doing regarding the competitots.

Well, all quizzes are done for this week! Now, to start preparing for the midterm.... assuming there IS a midterm!