Clutter of the Mind

We recently had house renovation done at my place. It was an amazing experience. I was more of a spectator than actual doing the dirtying of hands work. I had an extremely strong realisation of the amount of clutter we had created in the house. We are just 4 of us living ,but the clutter was definitely more than 4 people can create together. There was so much junk in the house.We collectively decided to discard everything that we dont NEED at this point in time. Anything 'useful' from the future perspective or anything that was kept as a 'fondness' of the past was removed.I realised the attachment to comforts , the attachment to memories ,attachment to things ,attachment to future.
The more my mind is cluttered with attachment ,the more it shows in the physical space around me .I became aware of my habit of dumping things to be thrown later ,which is also the case when dealing with my thoughts. I just dump thoughts aside to be able to deal with them later.This has made my memory filled with a lot of junk.
Unfortunately any conversations like these are termed as 'philosophical' ,but for me I realised that if i really want to deliver solutions as a Business Analyst I need to get rid of the clutter of my memory.At the same time it does not mean to not have luxuries of life or all the pleasures of life. What it means for me is to enjoy the pleasures without getting attached to the enjoyment as well as the sadness of pleasure.
I am really really thankful to God for giving me such an awesome space.A physical space as well as the space of my mind !!

Use of tools as a Business Analyst

I am working on Enterprise Architect ( a tool from Sparx systems) . This is my first ever tool to be used as a Business Analyst in my profession . Earlier tools that I have used are pen,paper and microsoft word and excel.

I am asking a lot of people in my field their palliness with tools like these.
I must admit the general awareness as well as enthusiasm to use these tools is very limited. I see a general tendency (including myself to switch back to word and excel to express thoughts. I am worse ..I switch back to using pencil and paper :-)

A few thoughts as to why we Business Analysts are not tool friendly ..

1) We see tools like EA,rational as storage mechanisms and not something which can
help us design our thoughts better.
2) The tools in use demand so much of our thinking and in depth enquiry into
scenario that by our sheer laziness we refuse to use these tools.
They challenge us to think beyond our percieved limits.
3) The freedom that other tools give ,that kind of freedom is not available for
expression in these tools .It is but natural as they are made for a specific
purpose

For me EA has become a good learning tool as it is not only telling me the scenarios to be thought through but also how well I can represent and communicate them.
Ofcourse it is also forcing me to give up my Laziness !!

Platform Vs Service

There is confusing in my mind to actually figure out what do you actually mean by a platform and what is a service ?
My visualization is getting a little blurred because of the confusion ...
A platform is a concrete space available for doing something. Launch a service ..may be...
A service is focused around a customer where you deliver value for some return.
Actually these definitions are also vague in my mind...
A want to see myself as a platform but always my definition about me happens as a service ... will update this space once a clarity emerges..

Amazing Biometric experience with RTO

I had been to the RTO office today at andheri for getting my learning license done ...It was far better experience than I imagined it would be . I am so proud of the Mumbai RTO . Though the office opened and 1 hr late than it's scheduled time , I am impressed at the way my details got captured in the RTO records..
I was made to sit in one place . There was a thumb impression recorder next to me . I gave my left hand thumb impression on it. In front of me was an Iball handwriting Capture device . On which I was asked to sign . My signature got recorded on the computer in front of me. Then I was asked to look up straight into a camera which captured my picture... I was asked to verify the details being shown on the computer screen . She narrated the details and I confirmed and that's it without a pen and paper my details got registered in the RTO System through bio metrics.

The only problem was while signing . Since i couldn't see what I was writing on the hadwriting capturing device I dint know where to put the dots in my signature. Apart from this there was no error what so ever...

I will be getting a smart chick smart card as my driving lincense and all penalties will also get attached to it later on I was told !! Amazing !!

Way to go RTO .... ME TRULY PROUD TO BE A MUMBAIKAR !!

What is faith ?

I am exploring this aspect of my life which i had ignored for years together. I used to come from a school of thought that 'Everything in life is in my hands and I can make it happen '.This thought in life has made me run ,run and run very hard in life so much so that with relationships as well I run hard. Never created a space for myself in life at all. Now , I have made a choice to have faith in the power of the universe to make it happen for me. It's a struggle a real BIG struggle as it means for me to stop running and wait for things to happen in my life . For a person who has always been running ,waiting and that too indecively is a struggle . I want to go through this struggling experience in life now. I have started having faith in all places where collective faiths recide and i can see the power in that. At inorbit mall I saw post its of people wishing wishing and wishing and there near those post it's i could feel faith of so many people . My faith is still fragile , it tends to break at the slightest of resistance .I understand that i can't put it back together . It is fresh beginning everytime my faith breaks. I thinks faith becomes stronger as the number of instances breaking it increase and number of times it gets recreated.

'Riyaaz' done by Software Professionals

It has recently dawned on me that I am a 'Software Professional'. The later word 'Professional' is what hovering over my head now . When I see and read about other professions like sportsman , actor ,singer ,dancer I see myself not so like them. The common things among these professionals is 'riyaaz'( practice).They are not dependent on their sponsors for giving them practise ...telling them where they need to improve..It's a constant inward journey they keep doing to be excellent professionals.... For that matter a doctor practises ,so does a lawyer ....but do I as a software professional practise anything ?

So the next question is if the software professional is supposed to do riyaaz in order to be called a professional then what do I practise ? For the first time in my life I am trying to learn to pick a new technology from scratch ..no class room sessions ,no hands on training .... I am learning it on my own with a little guidance from my mentor in life..... ohh boy what an effort it is !!!

What are the other 'riyaaz' do excellent software professionals do ? May be gather knowledge through magazines.... keep a track of Role Models in the industry....If you have come across some true professionals in your life who genuinely practise then please enlighten me so that I can pick up some tips and tricks ....here and there.....

The Invisible Solution Architect !!

I had an opportunity to witness a few individuals solve a problem for the Customer.
They were supposed to make presentations on the solution provided by them and I got the privildge of watching the same.

In the morning, a collegaue of mine had told be about the book 'The Invisible Actor' which is about a japenese actor teaching us how be an actor. And according to him ' A good actor is the one who makes the audience visualize the moon ( if the scene says so) . For Eg: Tabu is a good actor as she effortlessly makes you see things in the scene that she is supposed to convey . Take any scene from 'Chini Cum' and you will get what I am trying to say. According to the Japenese actor if the audience says ' What an amazing way to show the moon!!' ,the actor has failed as a good actor.
Eg: If we see 'Amitabh bachan' in sholay and not 'Jay' then amitabh has not done great job as an actor.At leeast in sholay i saw 'Jay' and not 'Amitabh'

Now you must be wondering ,what this has got to do with solutioning ?
Yesterday while sitting through to those presentations I realised that a good Solution Architect is the one who is successful in creating the picture of the solution without his traits in solution. Only then can we do justice to the solution and it will truely solve the problem. For eg: If I am writing a piece of software with the view that 'I have written a great piece of software','I am a pro microsoft guy', 'I am pro open source guy','I feel Project Management is the key challenge to address in this' ,there are high chances that the software will not solve any problem of life. But if I write the software with the sole aim to address the problem faced by the customer ,align all decision points with not what I believe is true but what the problem is making me believe as true ,then the Solution Architect will become invisible and real solutions will emerge.

Can our IT industry have Invisible Solution Architects ? I am surely striving to be one ....