Kumaran and Deepak discuss the content from the book "Team Topologies". How communication structures within a teams impact the quality of solutions and software. Can teams really function like a 'microservice' ? What is low, medium and high bandwidth communication? How do we manage the cognitive load? #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Links: https://teamtopologies.com/ Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran and Deepak discuss how the MVP concept, which has been around for a while, is being adopted by businesses. The executive leadership/board has a challenge understanding the MVP concept. There is a mindset issue. There is a misconception that a large project broken into small parts is the MVP, in fact it is a 'decomposed waterfall' . MVP is useful when the way forward isn't very well defined and limited exploration will provide the direction. Fear of failure that prevents people from adopting the MVP concept. MVP allows failure with minimum damage. MVP approach can be applied to any area of business.  #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged #mvp

Kumaran, Deepak and Venkat share how they learn and keep themselves updated. No prizes for guessing youtube is a key source, followed by linkedin where you can follow thought leaders. Facebook is another place where you can follow technical magazines. Subscribing to email distribution lists has its problems of sifting through junk email. Listening to long form podcasts is also a good way to keep yourself updated. Links to sites mentioned in the podcast:  Facebook:https://fb.com/VergeYouTube Channels: https://lnkd.in/dZPej3jT - General business https://lnkd.in/dH2d7caC - Finance / investing personalhttps://lnkd.in/dS-QaUar - Power BIhttps://lnkd.in/dU_7Zxk6 = Office 365https://lnkd.in/dHbP3J4h - Power Platformhttps://lnkd.in/dKiEwJpK - CTO stuffhttps://lnkd.in/d6hKaEPs - General geek https://lnkd.in/dybE2KJJ - General productivity Use Google Alerts for topics of your interest Podcasts: This Week in Tech: https://twit.tv/twitWindows Weekly: https://twit.tv/wwThoughtworks Technology Podcast Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran and Deepak discuss how to do a high visibility application launch. What should the technology teams focus on? Kumaran suggest a 'zoom in' approach to find out what is important. For a large consumer facing application it is important to take care of not signed up users. How to control the feature explosion? The technology team needs to take into account the small things and not get confused by the big picture. 'zoom out' to find opportunities. When you are worried, 'zoom in' and execute.  #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Venkat and Deepak discuss the prevalent industry buzzwords and veer towards discussing how engineering mindset can possibly interfere with seeing the whole picture. Being intentional while finding solutions is very important. Kumar shares an example of a hospital and blood bank. Venkat shares his experience of providing solutions to aquaculture farmers. #mindsets #solutions #designthinking #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Gowtham and Deepak discuss why should or should not use an open source tool. Open source is not free in the enterprise context. Cost of supporting, updating and troubleshooting  the tool needs to be considered. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) implementation need to evaluated with a clear understanding of the benefits vs. cost. Kumaran shares an example calculation for return on investment (ROI). RPA tool can turn from a cost reduction tool to a profit generating tool. When you think of automation think of  three  factors  that you are trying to address 1. Toil  2. Complexity 3. Accuracy. There can be good reasons to go with open source - when you want to really take ownership. There has to be deep technical interest in understanding the code and contributing to it. Log4J has created a question mark on open source - where vulnerabilities are not found even though apparently it is visible to all.   #opensourcesoftware #RPA #rpatools #roboticprocessautomation #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Jiffin, Kumarn and Deepak are challenged to find the differences between a software product and a software service. Jiffin shares his perspective as a Product Manager. How he transitioned from being a service owner to a product manager. Repeatability, reusability, profit margin are the words associated with a product. Kumaran takes an example of his  own application. Thinking from the user's and usability perspective can turn a feature into a "micro-product". Is SaaS (Software as a Service) a product? Increasingly it is difficult to differentiate between a service and a product. A gulab jamun analogy driven too far …. A product provides limited customisability, because it impacts the maintainability. Product mindset is important even for services. A software library is an example for a micro-product.  #productdevelopment #productmanagement  #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Deepak, Venkat and Nishanth discuss why operations should be considered while developing software. IASA cover operations under "IT Environment". If DevOps is done right then IT Ops should not an issue, however business ops is often ignored. In the true spirit of DevOps Kumaran has given the Ops responsibility to his Dev team. Developers added more features to the product they had to operate it. For small teams this is more practically feasible, for a large product or services company a lot more needs to be considered. The approach of designing the software changes when developers do operations. DevOps team in most large organisations means the automation team. Operations team needs to be engaged in the development phase. MVP approach should include important operations aspects instead of cutting them out for the need to achieve faster time to market. An operations user story should be added to all features. Operations folks are inherently defensive in their thinking and developers are more aggressive in their approach. #itoperations #devops #softwarearchitecture #sysadmin #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Deepak, Venkat, Raja and Nishanth What does IT outsourcing really mean? What the different aspects of outsourcing? How is "Body shopping" different from outsourcing? Impact of outsourcing on development projects. Does the work of the project manager or an architect change? Can you really increase speed of your projects by outsourcing? Venkat explains the issues of understanding the outsourcers capabilities. It can take two weeks for a contractor to be aligned to the project team's context. Raja clarifies the differences between outsourcing and project management issues. The three perspectives that companies apply to evaluate outsourcing. Can SaaS and the cloud be considered as technology capability outsourcing? Sharing the vision with the outsourcing partner is important to achieve success. Inner-sourcing versus outsourcing. Venkat shares his experience of outsourcing and not getting the desired result. The integration of outsourcer's output into your value stream is very important to consider in advance. What can IT and software learn from manufacturing and construction industry. #outsourcing #itoutsourcing #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged   YouTube: https://youtu.be/C8w0uim-WEc

Kumaran, Deepak, Venkat and Nishanth discuss the value of cloud PC in the enterprise. The typical scenarios where cloud PC  makes sense. Kumaran shares his perspective for developers in his team using Apple Macs as their primary development machines. Venkat explores the option of providing remote employees with a standard dev environment. Nishanth explores a QA scenario. Provisioning of users during the pandemic is one successful scenario implemented by a lot of organisations using various options including cloud PC like services. #remoteworking #cloudPC #remotedesktop #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged YouTube: https://youtu.be/bVY_9L5dVJE Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Deepak, Venkat, Raja and Nishanth discuss the issues of hiring in large and small organisations. There is a need to have a business continuity and disaster recovery planning for skills. The vision of business growth needs to inform this planning. There is a possible use of 'gig workers' to fill in the gap. Hiring part time should be considered. It should be pro-active and reactive. Raja describes the difference in hiring for service , product and start-up organisations. The changes in technology are making the skills issue critical. Predicting the skills requirement has become the new 'holy grail' - we are not able to do it! Freelancing with specialised skills is the future. The hiring challenges of small start-ups versus the unicorns. Nishanth shares his experience from a product company perspective and recommends hiring someone smarter that you. Start-ups have a unique advantage that they can offer - an opportunity to change the world! Recruit for potential. #jobs #recruitment #hiring #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged

Kumaran, Deepak, Venkat and Nishanth discuss the value of 'waterfall' model of project execution. A large number of enterprises still follow the model. In a number of situations we are just naming the things  It still makes sense to  execute linear and predictable projects where the outcomes are fixed as 'waterfall' projects. In the software world where the requirements are dynamic in nature and huge number of solution options, Agile should be applied. As a bonus, enjoy a good joke on 'opportunities' :-)  #waterfallprojectmanagement #aglie #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Deepak, Sudar and Nishanth discuss the problem of governance of citizen developed applications. How to establish control between IT and citizen developers. Governance should be inbuilt into the product/platform. An interesting option of using a git like distributed control came up in the discussion. Who has access to data is an important problem to solve. A role based access framework is required. The control should be on data rather than applications. IT needs to understand that they cannot possibly solve all business scenarios, they need to empower the business. IT needs put a framework in place so that business can solve it's problems while not abusing the system. Using the experience of solving the 'master data management' (MDM) problem can be helpful to design the controls. A well designed information architecture can enhance the adoption of citizen developer initiatives. #lowcode #citizendeveloper #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on:https://etiunplugged.in   https://fb.com/etiunpluggedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Venkat and Deepak discuss personal productivity tips and practices they do. How to handle the factors in your control and those not in your control? Blocking your calendar for doing specific tasks is one way to remain productive. Better instant message responses - don't waste time with hello - just ask your question or make your request. Not organising personal and professional work can hurt productivity. Train your employees to organise their work. Disabling notifications is a better for focus. Taking external help to organise is an option that should work. Focus on what you need to do this week or the very near future. Read only e-mail which are sent to you or CC to you. Declutter your work as well as your life to be more productive. Tagging your emails can help you organise work. Set retention policies on distribution list emails to clear them at regular intervals. Move to "pull notifications" rather than "push". Have designated timekeeper in a meeting to ensure finishing on time. Allow for bio-breaks between back to back meetings. #productivity #productivityhacks #decluttering #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Follow us on: https://etiunplugged.in https://fb.com/etiunplugged https://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged

Kumaran, Deepak and Gowtham discuss why do we need IT Architecture frameworks. Are they the cause of unceremonious death of software? How do TOGAF, Zachman and IASA compare? IASA enables even smaller projects - even as small as 3 member team running a small projects. Using the framework as a checklist or guidance. Frameworks can function as great diagnostic tools. Kumaran talks about how the IASA framework works with its 5 pillars from a small project to complete enterprise. #ITArchitecture #itabok #informationtechnology #enterprise #podcast #podcastepisode #audio #etiunplugged Reference Links: https://iasaglobal.org Follow us on: https://etiunplugged.in https://fb.com/etiunplugged https://www.linkedin.com/company/etiunplugged