Sunday, June 25, 2017

Changes in Engineering Syllabus

Times are changing rapidly but our Engineering Syllabus is almost static. We are making them into salaried class/unemployed class, but not to be a successful person. For a Mechanical Engineer, while I understand that the subjects taught are important to be a successful mechanical engineer, it doesn't tell the life skills required to success in the competitive world. This is limiting the creative thoughts of graduates and is making a large a number of graduates unemployed

An engineering graduate needs to know commerce subjects like financial 101, different types of investments and disadvantages of not investing and advantages of investing early, managing household expenses, managing cost of projects and other topics which talks about financial health through the person's lifetime from school, to higher studies, working, family, retirement, unexpected necessity times.

An engineering graduate also needs to know about food and nutrition and lifestyle related benefits and disadvantages like what kind of food to eat, what not to eat, what benefits each product has that we consume, a meal plan, recipes, cookery classes etc..

An engineering graduate also requires business administration and entrepreneurial skills, for him to understand what it takes to setup an business, how to market and sell his produce, what it takes to setup a production unit whether material things or agri related, storage ways, channels of selling, marketing your produce effectively and how to tie up with logistics to export the products from our villages/citiies/countries

An understanding of taxes and subsidies available for setting up business or running business/production houses is also important

English skills for interacting with rest of world along with debate and group discussion, public speaking sessions are as important as machine design

People skills and HR skills are very important to interact with the world either personally or to work together as a community/team

A brief understanding of agriculture, organic farming, less carbon footprint, environment challenges etc... are few optional or mandatory courses that need the engineering gradudate to be knowledgable about

Why Yoga and Physical education is only touched up till school and not in colleges? An alert mind, living every moment blissfully leads to more productive individual and better performing person, and also towards a healthy lifestyle

Why I say this? While my brain would have captured the necessary way to tackle or address a problem from my engineering degree, everything else that I needed to know to be successful was not taught in my engineering college

There is no hard fast rule that basic farming, electricity, gardening skills are non engineering subjects, but essential daily life skills that might be useful for the individual to live a wholesome and independent life

Higher education further like MBA might be a recommended thing, but also looks more english way to get more money rather than making few essential lessons open to general public and other graduate degrees

Hence  strongly feel and suggest that we relook at our education system to make our society more successful, healthy and blissful

Friday, May 12, 2017

What is Agile?

What is Agile? (pending to write this article)

A day in the life of a Agile project as a developer / scrum master

Metrics in Agile for SQA - Velocity, Burndown, Burnup...

Challenges of Agile

I always executed Waterfall my whole life, can I execute the project in Agile?

Risks and Issues Management

Dependency Management

Beware of Scope changes during Sprint Running

Definition of Done

How to make scope changes during sprint running if need be

Show and Tell during the Sprint

User story elaboration and acceptance criteria

Daily calls and the three questions (what did I do yesterday, what I plan to do today, what are my blockers) - call and document as DSR

Preparing for Sprint Planning Meeting

Sprint Planning Meetings

Retrospective and those three questions (What did go well? What didn't go well? What can we do better?)

Measuring the Spring goals and metrics

Importance of Agile training for Organization and especially Management team (important to understand the differences from Waterfall and how to ask the right questions)

Agile Certifications available

Agile Tools available like JIRA, Grasshopper, TFS, Excel etc....

Saturday, April 8, 2017

My thoughts from Sadhguru;s Inner Engineering Course

Finally my wait of 1 year to take a Inner Engineering course has finally come to an end.



I went to the Inner Engineering Course, near to my house. All excited to listen and learn yoga.
Was surprised to the see the hall full of younger generation and felt good, they have an amazing tool to cope up with life in their early twenties.



One of the learnings for me was on Responsibility. We are responsible to everything that happens around us. Everybody will be capable to act, but actions are done only by few. Our actions differ. It is our ability to respond to a situation ( not react). In our day to work, we come across various scenarios, some we tend to react, some we respond, some we take actions (good/bad). Trying to respond and not react, can greatly enhance your quality of life and possible reduction in suffering.



Another one is the situation. We can't do anything thinking about past, we can't really control what will happen to the future, only inevitable thing and the truth is the present. When you like what is in the present, you are happy, when you don't like what is in front of you, you tend to be unhappy/angry/resentment etc...kind of feelings. When you can accept the truth and the current situation, your response and work changes.I tried applying this to my day to day work, and I can say my day went peaceful.



We suffer from thoughts of past. It does no good to us other than suffering. We fear about the future and worry. It again only causes us worry and suffering. Only truth is the current now. Live in the present and you will be happy. When I am overwhelmed, the best option I do is to live in present and do the job to the best of my abilities. It usually falls in place and I can be more productive. Glad to realize that I already do that to some extent. The story of a pregnant deer is a very good story to recollect in this context



Another beautiful explanation I heard today is about the difference in pain and suffering. Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is avoidable. The story of bleeding of Sadhguru and the doctor being amazed of why he is not suffering even inspite of the pain is a good story. When pain comes, our mind plays the trick and magnifies it so much that we end up suffering more than what might be required.



Negative Karmic food - onion, garlic, tea, coffee,  (takes more energy from the body)
Neutral Karmic food - potatoes (leads to lethargy)
Positive Karmic food - fruits, vegetables



Trying to remember the moments of happiness.A 5 year old has many things he can be joyful about, but as we grew older, we can't recollect sometimes even 1 happy moment in a day.We are going backward. I understand that Bhava Spandana is a good advanced level course which we must attend



If you love someone and accept, then they will be all around your world. If not, they will be in a different world than yours.



The yoga asanas learnt are Upa Kriya and Sambhavi Maha Mudra


Incredible food, made simple without cooking. Isha Volunteers are the best. We finally did the entire Sambhavi Maha Mudra together and I felt it cleared my mind a bit and felt good. Obviously need to practice more and was suggested to practice for 40 days twice a day and followed by 6 months once a day for 21 minutes each.


Upa Yoga


Upa Yoga

1) Directional Movements of hand joints, palms in front of you, fisted, facing outward, with sideways, outward rotation, with one breath of exhalation, them with inward rotation, with one breath of inhalation. Repeat this for 3 times. Repeat the same, to the front, to the top and to the downwards.


2) Knee Rotation, first clockwise and then anti-clockwise, 3 times each, as you inhale move to the back and as you inhale to the front


3) Squatting with hands folded over the knees, flap 8-12 times and stand up


4) Neck Exercises,
        a) Up and Down: as you exhale move your chin downwards towards the body, and as you exhale,, move you neck backwards, and do this 3 times.
        b) Sideways: Then move your neck sideways, as you inhale move sideways and as you exhale, bring it to front and repeat to the other side and come back. Repeat this for 3 times.
       c) Ear to Shoulder: Then move your neck to shoulder, as you exhale move your ear to shoulder and as you inhale bring it back, and repeat this for 3 times.
       d) Head Rotation: Then move your neck from left side anticlockwise, a full circle and then back clockwise, as you inhale go back and as you exhale come front.
       e) Shoulder Rotation: Rotate your shoulders in a circle for 3 times in clockwise direction followed by 3 rounds of anti-clockwise direction

Preparatory Asanas

5) Butterfly (Patanga) Asana - For Spine ( Root of energy), bring your feet together and clasp with your hands clasped and move it towards your body. Start flapping your thighs slowly and continuously for 2-3 minutes


6)  Baby (Shishupal) Asana - For Spine, bring your right leg, on left elbow and wrap it with right hand and rock it like a baby for 2-3 minutes. Repeat it for the other leg. This is a hip exercise


7) Then do the 10 step Nadi Vibhajana, in a table posture (1), 2- exhale, 3- inhale, 4 - exhale and bring the right leg towards head, 5- inhale and bring the right leg backwards and head upwards, 6- exhale and bring the right left towards head, 7-inhale and bring the left leg backwards and head upwards, 8- exhale in table position, 9- inhale, 10-come back to table position. This asana was quite sweating for me and liked it

SHAMBHAVI MAHAMUDRA (21 minutes)

8) Sit in Ardha Siddhasana, with left hand in brahma mudra (in the center palm facing upwards), and right hand doing a breathing exercise. Exhale through left nose to start and always end with exhale from left nose. After exhale from left nose, inhale from left nose and exhale from right nose. Inhale from the same nose and exhale from the other nose. Repeat this for  6-7 mins.

9) Sit in Ardha siddhasana, with yoga mudra, thumb and first finger in ring formation and the rest of the fingers together and palm facing upwards. Sit and chant AUM for 21 times and feel the vibration from naval to throat. Open your mouth and close it and it creates the AUM mantra that vibrates from bottom to throat

10) Slightly raise your neck, and rapidly (4 inhale/exhale per sec) inhale and exhale at surface of the nose for 3-4 minutes....flutter through nose.

11) 3 lock bandasana, as you inhale, take your head backwards and lock your chin and bring towards your center of throat, tighten the diaphragm and anal muscles and hold it as long as you are comfortable, then if you want to exhale, unlock the chin and exhale, again lock it in emptiness, and keep it till you are comfortable, then unlock chin and inhale. As you inhale, unlock the diaphragm and anal muscles. 

12) Move your head back and sit calmly with head slightly backwards and concentrating in between the eye brows and watch your breathe for 6-7 minutes into deep meditation

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Giving Respect

Giving respect comes from heart. We should be open enough to observe the good things that a person has done to earn where he is.

We don't necessary need to like that person, but respecting him for his talent/virtues is an important virtue you need to possess to become a good human being with a positive attitude

Each person has a USP that you can learn and practice if possible or utilize the strength of that person towards greater good of the organization

So I don't entirely go with you should earn the respect. You should be open enough to respect someone, unless that person is too crooked and does unethical things that harm the company or you. Even if they are crooked, it might just be your perception of things.

Organization has key positions where few people are promoted to. You might like them and or you might hate them. But organization has promoted them to that position because they see something in them that you might not be privy of, so as part of your job, if you need to report to them or work with them or provide them with some information, it your duty to oblige and give. If you have trouble doing that, just focus that organization needs that to be done by you for organization, leaving the person alone, and act professionally.

You tend to bond better with the people you respect, so try to increase your span of respect. Where you cannot, you need to do the duty professionally and not to affect your, their, or org. goals at any cost. Hatred/jealousy/non-cooperation is not a health thing for your mind or body and does no good to you. It harms your career prospects and also dents the org. goals in someway, which company management will not appreciate and in the end, will affect you.

All living things earn respect and care from you. Try to keep a healthy mind and atmosphere at work location as well. Try to keep healthy relationships with your friends and family. This gives an aura of positivism around you and increases the longevity of your life. Healthy mind is important and giving respect and helping others is an important tool in your life.



Effective Delegation and focus on work

How effectively you delegate, follow up and track greatly influences your ability to scale up and take more responsibility. Having a talented team below you also determines the success. You are the one responsible for having a talented team 

If there are 10 things with you, it is not that you need to do those tasks, it is about how you delegate, how EFFECTIVELY you follow up and track the things to closure, how you track your follow up dates and without missing, follow up to closure makes you complete vast amount of items done by you and your team. The follow up should be laser focused and you can have an excel/tool having those details. 

It is perfectly fine that you have free time, as long as things are getting done by designated people. You should utilize this free time to focus on the KPIs/ and growth of the business and thing strategically and not get bogged down by transactions 

Most of the time a Senior Manager, or a Manager who has been doing extremely well in what they do, miss the bus of promotion mainly because you get so bogged down with transactions, that you don't have time (don't set aside time) to market your talent and achievements and bond with your manager to work on strategic things.

Working on strategic goals of your company for that year greatly influences your growth in the company.

Having a LASER focus on your goals for your year is very important skill you need to develop, every waking minute of your time, should be thinking on those goals, and every opportunity you have should have something to do with achieving your goals, and with this, no force can stop you from growing the business of your organization, and hence forth your personal growth. 

This is I call it, MINDING your BUSINESS. It will be wonderful, if you can practice this and train your next level in the same, that growth/improvements will happen automatically, as it is not one by ten people working on growing the business

This I learnt from my boss, who is an epitome of laser focused leadership