BootStrapToday

5 SaaS Myths Busted

May 29, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

When Cloud Computing gained mainstream attention of the IT mavens, it started undergoing a lot of critical assessments. It was like a new kid around the block trying to make his way into the neighbourhood gang. And it still is so to a large extent.

Out of all three – SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), SaaS has been through criticism the most. It is so because SaaS has evolved faster and has gained adoption far more than PaaS and IaaS. SaaS has the characteristics such that it can be made available for every kind of software application — CRM (Customer Relation Management), Project Management, SDLC Management and even data storage.

There have been many talks and write-ups about busting the myths about SaaS, but it continues to find itself in the grip of new myths. Some of the myths that I’d like to talk about are listed below:

Myth #1: SaaS is less reliable and less secure

Security in general is a big concern with companies contemplating on implementing cloud computing. An enterprise cloud stack would contain many SaaS applications. These would be the interface for the origin of data which would need to be secured. Since the data is stored at the data centers that are not physically present on the user’s site, it is perceived as less secure. However, I’d like to point out here that this is just a myth that needs to be busted, as customized SLAs can be signed with the SaaS vendors to ensure vendor accountability in case of security breach, just the same way as it is done in IT outsourcing services. When did outsourcing industry stall because of sensitive data transfers? I am sure the IT folks from the outsourcing industry will have a lot to say here.

Myth #2: SaaS will fade away over time

Many even consider that SaaS will fade away over time; it is more of a hype. But that’s not true. SaaS has been around in a disrupting way for more than 10 years now. The fact that software for almost any domain can be provided as SaaS with added advantages, makes SaaS potentially pervasive. SaaS is going to be the de-facto way to utilize IT in the future.

Myth #3: SaaS applications cannot be customized and have feature limitations

That is again a very restricted outlook. SaaS applications usually develop and evolve on a monthly or quarterly basis, thereby making its functionality (or the usability) more sophisticated over time. The SaaS applications come with APIs that you can build on.

Customization is seen as a problem when the requirement is so specific that it is not being addressed by the solutions available in the market. The answer in this case is either to buy traditional on-premise version and spend heavily on customization, or go for in-house development. Well then, that means you have the budget for developing software that meets your specific needs and you definitely cannot live without your set of rules. If this is the case, then you can certainly look into SaaS products and build on the API provided by the vendor, that will help you integrate the SaaS application with the rest of your enterprise IT stack.

Myth #4: SaaS will take away the control

This is another myth. Yes, when the control is suddenly taken away from you, it leaves you unsettled. But in some cases it is only a psychological barrier that acts against adopting the change. Here when we say that the data resides in someone else’s data center, it feels jittery. But the SLAs of the SaaS vendors talk about security aspects which clearly show how the data will be secured and backed-up. (In fact, this must be one of the things in your due diligence list while selecting a SaaS vendor). It is not at all advisable to own the entire IT system if you are not an IT company. The advantages achieved by doing away with the management of the entire IT department are much higher than dwelling with the myth that SaaS takes away the control.

Myth #5: SaaS is expensive in the long run

Cost is a genuine concern but again, it is a myth that SaaS turns out to be expensive in the long run. While doing a cost-benefit analysis you must consider all factors that contribute towards the cost – the manpower requirement for maintaining servers, upgrades, encryption and data back-up, and not just the cost of buying user space under SaaS vs. user license under traditional method. If you calculate the total cost that you save per month when you include all the factors, you will see that SaaS will actually be inexpensive in the long-run also.

Have you come across any such perceptions about SaaS that can be categorized more as a myth than a reality? Please share it with us.

Are You A Dog-tired Project Manager? Try These 5 Tricks To Regain Your Vigor

May 23, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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Working ten-hour days allows you to fall behind twice as fast as you could working five-hour days. – Issac Asimov

Most of the time we think that working overtime can help us get back on our schedule. But that does not happen. It actually does more harm than help. As Issac Asimov said it may put you behind two times of what you would be accomplishing under normal working conditions.

When a project starts falling behind schedule because of some reason, a lot of pressure starts building up for the Project Manager. The pressure gets translated into the developers logging in extra working hours. Over a period of 7 to 10 days, the consequences start showing – developers make more mistakes than usual, they look for shortcuts for fixing bugs, testing team finds work piling up towards the end of the day as the developers check-in bug fixes towards the end of the day and expect to know the results the next day in the morning.

If you are a Project Manager, you will most likely start noticing the bottlenecks early on. You will try to make sure that none of your team member has to work extra hours and/or odd hours, and at the same time develop quality software well within the time and budget.

This may or may not be feasible depending upon various factors. Some of the factors may be controllable such as finding a replacement for an employee who had to leave all of a sudden due to an emergency. But some external factors, such as a change in the business situation of the customer, may not be controllable.

Such situations could be really taxing for the Project Manager. A Project Manager is a professional who has to figure out everything that could possibly go wrong before it actually goes wrong, and take pre-emptive measures to stop that from happening. A Project Manager also has to make sure that the team is able to perform under stressful circumstances also, especially when non-controllable factors come into the picture.

But a Project Manager cannot afford to buckle under stressful conditions, as he has to demonstrate good leadership skills in order to guide and motivate his team. Stress lowers your emotional intelligence (IQ) that is so important to make the right decisions. A good leader should have the emotional resilience in order to ensure that the work gets done towards achieving the end goals.

So, if you are dog-tired Project Manager, here are five tricks that you can try to regain your vigor:

1. Prioritize

When a pressure builds up demanding longer working hours, you must start prioritizing immediately. If you start prioritizing early on you will reduce the possibility work piling up later and manage the schedule better.

2. Negotiate

Once you see any such circumstance where, as a Project Manager you cannot avoid your team logging in more number of hours, try to negotiate for a revised project schedule. The revised project schedule should be such that it does not require your team members to work long hours for more than 10 days in a row.

3. Avoid Perfection

Yes. This is a very bitter pill to swallow. But you may have to consider this too – temporarily. When you prioritize, you can work on modules that can live with flaws for some time and fine tune them later.

4. Take a Break

Another trick is to take a break when you think you and your team are dead tired. While this sounds horrendous especially when work is piling up, working with tired minds makes you more liable to err. So, to relieve your stress you must take a break and refresh your mind.

5. Ask for Help

When things are unavoidable, then you must not hesitate in asking for help. Help could either be for someone taking care of your child for a few hours in a day or be for adding extra team members to meet the extra man-hour requirement of the project.

Can you think of any more tips? Please share with us.

6 Project Management Tips from the Roman Empire

May 21, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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The 5^th century BC Chinese politician, teacher and social philosopher, Confucius said:

Study the past if you would divine the future.

It holds so true for Software Project Management also. When you talk about project management as a discipline in an SDLC, you cannot avoid drawing attention to the Roman Empire’s proficient skills in Project Management. They are considered to be the masters of architecture, design and technology in construction science. Romans are known to have been very advanced in creating colossal architectures with superior technical skills, such as concrete technology, that they had mastered. All that couldn’t have been achieved without equally superb project management skills.

Many of today’s project management skills have roots in the ancient Roman Architecture history. Some of the great examples of Roman Empire’s constructions that exemplify their superior project management skills are the famous Roman Forum, the Bridge over Rhine River laid in 55 BC and the Colosseum constructed in 200 BC.

The stories behind construction of these Roman architectures reek of many project management tips that can be used in executing present day project management:

1. Share the Vision

When Julius Caesar was leading 8 legions (40,000 men) north through Gaul (France), he was faced with the daunting task of crossing the Rhine River to Germania (Germany). No Roman commander had been able to do this earlier. He had the option of crossing by boat but that was very risky due to fast current and the fact that he had to bring the entire cavalry along with equipment. Caesar had to be prepared to face the hostile Germanic tribes on the other side, ready to battle the Romans.

The second option was to build a bridge that would bear the weight of 40,000 men, horses and equipment across the 1000 feet wide and 30 feet deep river. The technical challenge was to build a very stable bridge with the limited available resource of timber only. The bridge was completed in just 10 days.

What this feat shows is unless the entire team was focussed on the end goal and had worked in an organized manner, the project could not have been delivered in a short span of 10 days.

2. Channelize the Skills

The ‘Bridge over Rhine’ had to be completed quickly. An enormous volume of timber was required for the pilings, connecting beams and the walkway. Each task required specific skills such as ramming piles at the bottom of the river using pile-drivers, cutting timber and wrapping them up tightly. This is where channelizing of skills came through, organizing the entire army to build the bridge in a very short time span.

Software development projects are no different. Often due to business uncertainties, such situations arise where you need to make the best use of available resources, bringing different sets of available skills together to achieve goals.

3. Look for Well defined Scope and Requirements

When the Romans built the Colosseum, it was delivered by four contractors. History says that their contracts had detailed specifications of work.

Another useful tip for efficient project management that is exhibited here is to have clearly defined scope and requirements. While this sounds like an anomaly, especially in software development scenario, it is very important to have clear scope in order to deliver quality software. In order to beat the market uncertainties, it might well be a better idea to opt for Agile methodologies and deliver project in smaller iterations.

4. Collaborate and Share Knowledge

Apart from the raw labour in construction of the Colosseum, there were teams of professional Roman builders, engineers, artists, painters and decorators who undertook the skilled tasks necessary for building the Colosseum. Such a colossal project could not have been achieved had there been no collaboration and knowledge sharing at the right levels and at the right intervals.

5. Maintain a grasp on reality

No matter what SLDC processes and/or tools you choose, you have to always maintain a grasp on the ground reality, pertaining to the on-going business conditions of your customer, your employee issues such as sudden absence, budgetary constraints etc. Once you are grounded in reality you can align your resources and energy accordingly.

6. Believe in Yourself

There is no better skill than believing in yourself and your team. The project team for ‘Bridge on Rhine River’ knew that they will have to face opposition from the tribes on the other side of the river. But building the bridge created a psychological impact on the on-looking tribe. Every progress demonstrated the determination and valour of the Romans. And once the cavalry crossed, Caeser roamed freely on the other side, without any opposition. The tribe had fled.

So, if you believe in the cause of a project – that the project will increase your business, say, four times, then you must not pay any heed to the nay sayers. As a project manager you must believe in your managerial and leadership skills to lead the team and achieve the end result.

Startups Are Not Smaller Versions of Big Companies!

May 16, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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Image Courtesy: http://blog.inigral.com

Startups are not smaller versions of big companies though they sure are the starting points. Today’s large behemoths too were once startups – J P Morgan was started as a sole entity by John Pierpont Morgan as an independent financier and banker; Facebook started in a college dorm; Apple started in a garage and Google too started in a garage.

But do startups need to be managed the same way as large companies? Heck, no! Steve Blank, the co-founder of E.piphany (also a professor of entrepreneurship at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University, Columbia University and the Joint Berkeley/Columbia Executive MBA program), postulated that a startup is not a smaller version of a large company. According to him business practices that make sense for large companies are not appropriate for startups.

Startups evolve and go through different stages to finally arrive at the stage of a large enterprise. Every stage differs in goals and challenges. Steve Blank lists these stages as:

The Scalable startup stage
Metamorphosis – the Transition stage
The Large Company stage

Steve’s postulation also indicates that each of these stages requires different combinations and flavours of:

Management Style
Work Culture
Sales & Marketing Strategies
Technical Skills

Think of a situation where you want to hire the best tech talents for your startup. Would you go through the regular route that either Microsoft or Google would take? People would strive to join the larger established companies as they can provide an employee practically everything that she wants – the culture, the salary, the bonus, the exposure etc. But as a startup you will have to go the unconventional way to attract the best developers. The prospective employees and the co-founders must possess different sets of managerial skills in order to traverse into the next stage successfully.

But why is it necessary to define what a startup is? It is for the simple reason that 99% of startups fail and have life expectancy of five years only (being optimistic here). Therefore, if you understand the anatomy of a startup you will be able to take care of it and nurture it with the right set of nutrients – the people, the skills and the processes. In his dissection of a startup, Steve Blank has conceptually explained it well.

You can infer from his explanation that startups are the ventures that are designed with intent to grow big but being at the startup stage means being on the lookout for scalable and sustainable business model. Co-founders go through a variety of versions of the initial idea to arrive at the one that best fits the market over a span of one or two years. Once the business model is found and the repeated revenues flow in, (you can say that your startup has reached the tipping point), the startup is ready to grow and transform into the next stage – the transition stage.

Here is another reason why it is necessary to define a startup. This one is very important and needs to be understood in order to turn into a billion dollar business. In an ideal situation you would want a VC (Venture Capitalist) or an external investor to invest in your startup. So, here’s a little secret pulled out from some of Steve’s wisdom: VCs view startups as an organization used to search for a scalable business model. Once the scalable business model is found, the VCs pitch in and the startup usually grows big. With external investors this scalable startup undergoes a metamorphosis. It progresses into the transition stage and finally into a large company. It is also often at this stage that the co-founders are fired. The reason is that as the startup progresses into the next stage, it needs different set of managerial skills.

If you want to start up on your own then you must evaluate whether you have the kick to thrash out various ideas, work obscene hours and ultimately evolve into a scalable startup, so that you can seek external funds to grow really big. If not, then you may not want to leave your professional job career. Instead look for more entrepreneurial job opportunities. Many companies have the startup culture and offer entrepreneurial work opportunities that are equally challenging.

The Tipping Point in Startups

May 14, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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Facebook’s decision to buy the ‘no revenue’ Instagram for $1 billion created quite a stir in the market. What exactly Facebook plans to do with Instagram is not very clear, but Zuckerberg defended his decision by claiming that the number of Instagram users had reached a ‘tipping point’ from where it would grow significantly.

What is a tipping point? Going by definition per se, a tipping point is a sociological term that means a critical mass or the threshold beyond which it is difficult to stop the flow of a ‘change’ that started progressing but at a crawling pace. This change is usually irreversible or uni-directional; it can be both for the good and for the worse.

A recent article Help Wanted! Silicon Valley’s hiring crunch in BBC Business News wrote,

Just 18 months ago, Tango was just another unknown scrappy venture trying to make it in Silicon Valley. But, within 10 days of introducing its free mobile video-calling service for smartphones over 3G, 4G and wi-fi, Tango amassed a million users.

This is what I call a tipping point in a startup. In this example it is the launch of free mobile video-calling service.

I am sure if you are an entrepreneur (a serial entrepreneur is more like it in this context) you will be able to instantly relate to what the tipping point in startups can be. A serial entrepreneur would have had experiences (of successes and failures) that would help her assess in retrospection the tipping point moments of her previous ventures.

When startups are born they go through a raft of activities to evolve through many versions from the original idea to the one that best fits the market. All these tasks and decisions at the execution level mark the changes that shape up a startup and may define the tipping point, from where there is no turning back!

In online marketing parlance, the tipping point is reached when the organic traffic surpasses the paid search traffic. Usually when organic traffic surpasses the paid search then it means that you are doing a good SEO (search engine optimization) at your end. It also means that your site is viewed with higher credibility. That does a lot of good to the conversion ratio. So, if you are a startup offering any SaaS application, then you would be able to appreciate the importance of increased organic search traffic.

But all this takes time and patience. In the law of creation, there is always chaos and waste; the order sits on top of it. From a startup’s point of view it suggests that whenever there is a sustainable creation or innovation, it is a result of collision of many creative minds that are laser-focussed on delivering the ‘best market fit’, surfing the waves with no reinforcement and strategizing spontaneously to stay afloat. These small steps and spontaneous decisions mark the change collectively, leading to the business situation that you would have been waiting for – the tipping point from where you cannot stop the significant growth.

On the flip side, the tipping point can also be the harbinger for disaster. Year 2010-2011 has seen many e-commerce startups mushrooming in India. Quite a few of them got funded as well. But in the euphoria of making the startups succeed, many of them failed to build strong business model. They got into group buying strategies, or offered deals that were below the cost of the product, or offered the ‘cash-on-delivery’ (COD) method for payment. Result? Many of them had to shut their shops.

The COD method that is highly prevalent in India can especially become the pain point for the e-commerce companies. Till 2011, about 50% to 80% of the payments were happening through COD. If there is a high percentage of returned merchandise through COD, then it can turn as the tipping point for severe losses if the maximum number of customers chooses to pay through it. COD will become too important for the startups to remove it from the payment options, for the fear of losing traction. At the same time the startups will be burning money on logistics without generating any revenue due to returned merchandise.

This is probably the trickiest part when it comes to taking small decisions, as every decision in a startup matters. If you are an entrepreneur who is laser-focussed, hardworking, instinctively business-minded and passionate about bringing out the ‘best market fit’, then you will reach your own tipping point very soon – for the good part of it.

Any thoughts?

9 Secrets to Attract Developers to Your Startup

May 04, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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Getting good talent has always been very tough for startups. Recruitment per se is difficult for any kind of organization and when it comes to startups, the difficulty increases multifold causing startups to underperform.

Publishing job requirements on various job portals and social platforms is not the end of the story. These sources may get you many responses and you will end up with many curriculum vitae. But most of them will be junk – those that are irrelevant skills-wise. If you talk to startup founders I’m sure many of them will agree with this fact.

As a founder what you need is talent that is razor-sharp in her field. If you are looking for a technical person, then you need a person who has a rock-solid knowledge of coding as well as experience of working with at least two different languages and at least few development environments.

So how do the tech startups get top talent? Here are 9 secrets that you can try out:

1. Incubate in a Premier Institute

As part of startup ecosystem, there are incubators started by premier education institutes that help founders develop their startups. Incubating at a premier institute instils trust in other people about the startup’s business idea and the capabilities of the founders as well. This is a big leap in crossing the ‘no confidence’ chasm for a startup – building a trust in the business idea and the founding team.

2. Participate in “Elevator Pitch” Contests

There are many platforms that hold “elevator pitch” contests for startups. These events help startups meet the potential investors and network with other entrepreneurs. Participating in these startup focused events gives you mileage and credibility as a startup.

3. Do not recruit from Tech Companies

To hire great techies, recruiting them from an established tech company is a strict no-no. Logically speaking the kind of techies that you are looking for are getting good exposure in their areas of interest along with good money. These techies are not for your startup.

But if there is someone you know who works in such big companies and who has the urge to work in a startup, then you may consider talking to him/her to join your team. I have mentioned this strategy more clearly in an earlier piece Discover 4 Ways to Recruit Top Talent for Your Startup.

4. Spot the Independent Contractors/Freelancers

If you are running a startup then all your strategies should be disruptively creative otherwise you may not be able to achieve results with limited funds and within limited time. Even recruitment methods should be creatively different.

Instead of following the tradition of recruiting people from job portals after sifting through hundreds of profiles, you may want to attract freelance developers. Many prefer working as freelancers because they do not want to limit their hands-on experience with bigger organizations. They often prefer working with startups or as independent contractors.

5. Sponsor Hackathons

Developers love attending hackathons. It creates an environment of competition and throws out an open challenge to come up with best software. It helps to instantly create an interest in your company and product as well. What can be a better idea than hosting a hackathon to congregate talented developers who can consider joining your startup?

6. Visit Campuses

Campuses are a good source to recruit talented and enthusiastic young developers. Many undergraduates are willing to begin their careers with startups. This culture is catching up fast.

Maybe such tech guys are still small in number, but you can increase your chances of getting good talent by scheduling your visits before the big companies.

7. Choose to Work with Latest Technology

Techies usually want to work with the latest technologies. They get lured by projects which give them hands-on with new technologies, so that they can increase their market value.

8. Tap Your Network

Once you have launched your startup, you can also source developers from within your network that you would have built during your job career. Usually during job days, you get to understand a lot of the technical skills and strengths & weaknesses of your colleagues.

9. Maintain a Tech Blog

If you have chosen to work with latest technologies, then what better way can it be to tell about it to the world through a blog? You must maintain a tech blog where you can publish your own experiences with a particular technology. You can discuss about the issues that you have resolved and also keep publishing best practices or best turned around solutions that you would have found out.

The Tango Between SaaS Business Model and Entrepreneurship

April 30, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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I think most of us understand by now what SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is fundamentally. When we hear about SaaS we know it is a part of Cloud Computing. But rarely do we reflect that SaaS has been around for quite some time (for more than two decades now). It is nothing new. Google docs, Gmail, Yahoo mail etc. are all examples of SaaS. What is new is the buzz of a ‘disruptive business model’ concept that surrounds it.

With the advent of Cloud Computing there has been a disruption in the business model innovation, providing IT in an entirely new fashion. Cloud computing has transformed consumption and delivery of IT to a utility service. SaaS has definitely been the pioneer in this game as it is the part of cloud computing that has seen the biggest growth. According to a report by Gartner, worldwide SaaS revenue will reach $14.5 billion in 2012 which is a 17.9% increase from 2011 revenue of $12.3 billion. Gartner has also projected that by 2015 worldwide SaaS revenue will reach $22.1 billion. In a separate report, Gartner says that PaaS is on the cusp of several years of strategic growth.

When SaaS gained predominance as a disruptive business model, it opened up many new opportunities across different markets and verticals. The startup jingoists, if you will, spotted the opportunities and applied SaaS business models to many IT processes, applications and business functions. The world has ever since witnessed a tango between the SaaS business model and the entrepreneurship landscape; it has helped shape up today’s entrepreneurial landscape which promises to assist entrepreneurs in kick-starting their ventures by reducing time-to-market (TTM) and by helping them bootstrap their ventures more efficiently.

SaaS business model could be made available to any kind of business discipline such as CRM (Salesforce.com), data storage (Dropbox), SDLC/ALM Management and Collaboration tools (BootStrapToday.com), etc. Business applications for all these disciplines have existed as on-premise installed versions. SaaS brought about the change and offered services for these business functions as pay-per-use model which is nothing but the core of the cloud computing phenomenon. Businesses could now access applications for specific functions directly through internet by logging on to a browser, thereby reducing costs and increasing organizational elasticity by paying based on total usage.

Today, organizations can actually set up their entire IT functions through SaaS in the cloud. This is especially true for SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) and startups. These two elements in market perform a tango in close embrace with such brilliance that it eclipses IT as a hurdle. The advantages of SaaS and plethora of opportunities to build businesses around SaaS rhythmically increase and decrease the tempo of the market growth, thereby shaping up the new entrepreneurial landscape.

The factors discussed above – reduced costs, easy accessibility, and improved organizational elasticity – together combine to decrease the barriers to entry and enable creation of more startups at an increasing velocity. Think about a scenario where there is no cloud computing concept. That means we do not have PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) that support and enable SaaS as we know it today. In such a scenario if an entrepreneur has to launch a tech startup, the cost of seed capital spirals for her. The TTM also increases significantly since the entrepreneur has to own licenses and do at least the following under the traditional way:

Set up an app server
Set up the database schemas
Set up deployment platforms
Set up firewall and security
Set up applications for internal business processes such as CRM, ALM tools, intranet etc.

This proves to be an opportunity cost too as the TTM increases. Add to this the cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) and you will instinctively realise that cost acts as a big barrier to entry for startups in any vertical.

So what are you waiting for? There are many supporting business applications available as SaaS model that will enable you to kick-off your startup, giving you full flexibility of expanding those services in tandem with your growing business needs. You just need to understand how to evaluate your SaaS vendor, sign up and go for the kill.

5 Common Problems in Software Development

April 28, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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What is a mistake? According to Oxford Dictionaries a mistake is “an act or judgement that is misguided or wrong”. And what is a problem? A problem is “a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome”.

A misguided judgement or an act for a purpose then will naturally create situations that would be regarded as unwelcome or needing to be dealt with. In other words, the roots of a problem arising during execution of any task lie in the mistakes committed while executing that task. In software development, the common problems arise due to the mistakes that are committed repeatedly, due to external and internal influences such as competition, lack of right skills, lack of budget etc.

Last month I wrote a piece on Classic Mistakes of Software Development and How to Avoid Them based on the white paper Software Development’s Classic Mistakes 2008, v1.02, published by Construx. There I have listed 10 mistakes which have ‘serious to catastrophic’ impact on software development (refer to List #2 in the article).

This article is on similar lines. The 5 common problems in software development that I am going to write about here have their roots in the 10 classic mistakes of software development. I am segregating these problems based on different stages of an SDLC:

Problem stage #1: Requirements gathering

Many projects still follow Waterfall SDLC. If the requirements are not very clear and exhaustive, then the team will find it difficult to proceed on schedule. The team will find it especially difficult to provide deliverables as per customer’s expectations since the requirements were unclear or incomplete at the beginning.

You may be saved if you decide to go for Agile SDLC, but then that again requires that the end-user involvement be high. Else, requirements gathering will suffer.

Problem stage #2 Scheduling & Estimation

Many a time project managers cram too much work within too less man-hours either because of inexperience or because of other constraints such as limited budget or lack of clarity in customer’s business. Bad scheduling is bound to have a ripple effect on development, testing and deployment stages of an SDLC.

Problem stage #3 Development

Mistakes committed during the above two stages cause problems that are inevitable during the development stage. Unclear requirements at the beginning may mean that you have to be ready for lot of feature creep-in. The business side of the customer may consider adding features during development stage as minor changes. But it may throw the whole development team very much off the schedule and cost estimates if the team has to keep revising the code to add features often.

Similarly, bad project schedule estimation will build pressure on the developers, which means more scope for bugs.

Problem stage #4 Testing

Due to bad scheduling it may be possible that there is not enough time for testing, bug fixing and re-testing. It is not possible to have bug free software development. So an overly optimistic schedule (one of the mistakes considered to have serious to catastrophic impact on software development projects) will most certainly create problems as there will not be adequate testing done before deployment.

Problem stage #5 Communication and Collaboration

Though communication and collaboration are not the stages of an SDLC, communication is the backbone for collaborating and getting things done. Whether communication is done through documentation, stand-up meetings and virtual brainstorming or through web-based SDLC management tools, information sharing and knowledge exchange is required for the project to meet quality standards and deliver on schedule.

Brainstorming Your Team to Happiness

April 25, 2012 By Mridula Velagapudi

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Image Courtesy: www.Mathewferry.com

Brainstorming is probably one of the most creative methods of solving any problem. It is a very simple way of generating ideas at no cost at all. It happens when a group of people get together to generate new ideas around a specific cause. It is usually done to quickly get the most optimal solution to a problem, which has either been sitting without a solution for a long time or which needs immediate solution due to a crisis.

In development projects these are very common situations when the team faces pressures because of one of the following factors:

Budget constraints
Close deadlines for deliverables
Limitations of the technology or the tools used
Lack of the right skills
Market uncertainties

Brainstorming can happen best when there are no inhibitions; when people feel free to present their ideas without the fear of bearing the brunt of organizational politics and of being judged.

When people are encouraged to share ideas freely and quickly in a group, a pattern tends to set in. This helps in jotting down all possible options, and simultaneously weighing each solution against the pre-set requirements of the problem at hand. Of course, an adept co-ordinator is needed who can direct the course of brainstorming sessions by interfering at the right intervals, by building up an algorithm depicting all cases and also by jotting them appropriately on a whiteboard so that every participant can view them as a summary.

Once you have all the possible solutions and their outcomes in front of you, it becomes fairly easy to understand the most optimal solution to a problem.

Few other advantages of brainstorming are:

Easy to organize
Easy to understand by one and all
Encourages “out-of-the-box” thinking
Ropes everybody into agreement almost immediately
Provides opportunity for a widespread participation from the most creative minds of your organization

Brainstorming brings the elated feeling for solving a problem and uplifts a team’s gloomy mood grown due to daily rut. The daily grind and monotony builds up anxiety and repetitive thinking in this scenario limits thinking. According to a study Psychological Effects of Brainstorming by Emily Pronin, Elana Jacobs & Daniel M. Wegner in 2008, the effects of thought speed on mood are partially rooted in the subjective experience of thought speed. The results also suggested that these effects can be attributed to the joy-enhancing effects of fast thinking.

These ‘joy-enhancing’ effects are very important to re-energise the team, eliminate boredom and help you in your overall efforts to improve team productivity.

When brainstorming is proven to provide solutions to problems, then what would you do to translate the same effectiveness to the virtual environments? Today we are in the era of using SaaS for many of our IT needs, working with more virtual teams and developing applications that can run on many kinds of mobile devices. Today we need brainstorming more than ever.

Virtual brainstorming poses different set of challenges and these must be addressed in order to get the best results out of virtual brainstorming sessions. Here are the few tips for holding effective brainstorming sessions virtually:

Meet at least once face-to-face if the problem at hand is new. Once the problem is better understood the finer brainstorming sessions can be taken up virtually through online project management tools that enable collaboration.
If a solution is required very quickly then you can collaborate with your web-based project management solution directly, taking help of few web conferencing tools such as Skype to hold synchronous conferencing sessions, though you must keep your sessions short (not more than two hours at a stretch). You can carry on subsequent brainstorming sessions at more convenient schedules of the team.
If you have recently switched to web-based project management solution, then your team may not be fully geared up for the culture of virtual meetings. To get the best out of your team, you must be ready to do some hand-holding by guiding them through the tool and also by encouraging them to participate more.
Transitioning from the divergent mode to the convergent mode is a bit different here. Once you have the solution ideas, you need to get votes for a solution. Here again you must be geared up to conduct parallel voting with the help of the ‘wall’ feature of the online project management tool or the online polling system of the web conferencing tool.

These collaborative behaviours are possible in the virtual platforms, but not without a little practice. But when brainstorming as a creative problem solving method brings about happiness and invigorates your team, wouldn’t you rather brainstorm virtually also?

BootStrapToday V3.0 Alpha Released

April 22, 2012 By Anand Agarwal

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We are really excited to announce the Release of BootStrapToday V3.0 Alpha. This release has gone through a major change in terms of client side architecture. We have revamped the whole architecture to enhance User Experience and improve the overall performance. New design makes the application very simple and intuitive for our user.

BootStrapToday V3 UI uses KnockoutJS as underlying client side framework. Soon we will be publishing our experiences and challenges during the redesign to make it so amazing. (especially about integrating KnockoutJS with Django).

Currently after login, you will still see the old view. You need to click on the link “Test Drive BootStrapToday V3 (Alpha)” on the top of your screen to switch to new Alpha view.

Please check out the video below to see it for yourself. Click on “HD View” for more clarity.

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