Quarter 8 - Week 7

You know, when you really think about it... it's like a wave. Assume you were somehow seated at the top of the wave, lazily creeping towards the shore. And then, all of a sudden it begins to rear its head while increasing its speed, closing the gap between itself and the shore like it's life depended on it. It's silence for a short while... and then all of a sudden it goes crash! Something like this quarter. The weeks have been passing smoothly, and now you suddenly feel the speed... and you wonder, are you prepared to understand the heady stuff. Because it's all going to crash down on your head in a couple of weeks...

Ethics and Business Management

This week the topic was on consumer protection and the legalities of dealing with the end users. There appear to be three major ways of looking at it... the first says that the onus of responsibility in the buyer-seller relationship lies on the buyer, as it's nothing but a contract. The buyer better understand what he's getting into. The second says that the onus of the responsibility lies more on the seller. And the reason for this is that in today's day and age, the buyer can not be expected to truly comprehend the depth of the product. Do you really know how your laptop works, it's inner working? And the third is more from a social front... even if the seller has taken all the care he could, if there are any issues or ill-happenings, the seller has to compensate the buyer by taking full responsibility.

Honestly, I think there's a pretty big problem here. The moment we choose ONE of these options, the other side has enough reason to wash all hands off and act irresponsibly. And mixing one with the other is difficult, where do you draw the line? At what point do you say, this is common sense, protect the seller... or this is unfair, protect the buyer? Who draws the line? But then, ours is not to judge each and every situation now. Looking at the framework we had, we looked at a couple of cases, tried to apply them... and then left it at that. Not very convinced with the solution, but hey, as long as I've understood the application of the framework, the rest lies to practice. There was also some time spent on Advertising Ethics, but considering all the learning I've had from Marketing Communication last quarter, I'm totally against the accusations there. Of course some people use it for bad, but given a tool, the usage whether good or bad is determined by the user, not the tool itself. Advertising is not a bad thing, the guy who prepares the advertising, he's the one we need to look at.

Managing Off-shored Software and IT services

We had a guest lecturer this week, it was very interesting to know that this prof and our actual course prof were the ones who were a part of the origin of the PGSEM programme. It's so cool to be listening to the professors who started the programme, to hear from them why they started it. And it was also insightful to see why they felt that the programme was not what they hoped it would be. As it turns out, you can't have the optimal output from the programme, if the optimal input is not there. The course was expected to start with the support of the industry, and as you probably can guess, our corporate heads were quite slow and unreactive to the programme. Kinda makes you wonder who's side the corporates are on. It's almost like they hurt themselves, by sheer inaction.

Anyway, leaving the sad stories out... this week was about partnerships. One, the infamous case of the Denver Airport, and second the growth of the ODC along a value chain. The first dealt with why the project didn't come through as initially expected. Despite the contracting to an experienced, respected firm, the project was still doomed. And it has been studied ever since, year after year, in every business school. The main problem? The major partners in the contractual agreement were looking out for their own benefits rather than the welfare of everyone involved.

The second session, while actually meant to be about how ODCs evolve along the value chain, was taken over to discuss Peopleware by popular vote in the class(Mainly because most of the class didn't read the case study or the reading, but who's going to tell the prof?). But before you begin to consider that the session was of no value, you should have listened to what the prof had to say. From personal experience, of over 20 years, consulting, starting ODCs, this prof tells us what are the basic principles we need to keep in mind. Common sense, you'd guess, but hardly common... you still see many companies struggling to rise up because of the basic mistakes they make. Funny thing is, if you're in their position, you're not sure if you'd have done the same.

A good weekend, especially since there was a holiday at work. The learning was something that'd stay with you for a good long while, and you look forward to your own time to experiment.