Project Management Deficiet

The world is facing real Project Managers' supply deficiet. There are lot of PMPs and Prince2 certified professionals claiming to be PMs but don't even know the basics of project management. Result, unneccessary delays in projects all over the world.

Planning is not an inherent human trait, we are very random and unorganized animals; its not inculcated in our DNA. The examples of price that we pay for want of it  shows everywhere- delayed bank work, missed grocery items, unpaid utility bills, missed flights and endless complain about lack of time. The price that we pay in business for lack of planning though is severe, sometimes changes the fortune of the company.

In business, domain expertise is important to became a good project manager. Someone from brick-and-mortar industry won't be able to run an IT project and vice versa. A good project manager can really make a complex project look simple with efficient delegation of task and rigorous tracking. And a bad PM can make a even a simple project look complicated, they are project damagers, and they are omnipresent.

Industry has not yet realized the importance of having a good PM, they are selected randomly and the general perception is that anybody can do this job. Billion dollar worth projects miss their deadlines and enterprises bleed in expensive interest just because the entire thing was poorly planned and managed. Examples of delayed infrastructure projects are everywhere and if its public structures like flyovers, roads or bridges, the endless construction causes lot of pain as well.

Its high time organizations understood the true value of having a good PM and start spending time in training and building PM competency. Nobody wants the PM as the week link, because if that happens, then there is zero chance of success for the project.

Luck- Biggest Success Factor

You see lot of undeserving people doing so very well in life and start to wonder whether all these talk about hardwork, sincerity, creativity and talent holds any relevance. Frequently one sees a brilliant employee, a talented singer and great artist losing out to an average but lucky guy.

No one knows what works in this world; talent is definitely not the guarantee for success. Everything is based on people's perception; an average guy skills may be percieved superior. Sometimes I feel people do not want great work, they dont understand it and feel intimidated and insecure by it. Average becomes good because people can identify and relate with it.

There are filmstars with zero acting talent having bank balance of $100m, singers who can barely sing having millions of followers and sportsmen with lesser talent rated and paid very highly. Luck matters the most. I don't think the maxim 'harder you work, luckier you get' works all the time especially in comparative study.

One needs to be born with luck. There are people who took things casually and they were always at the right place at the right time and made it big without any planning. Life is beautiful for them. While there are others who worked hard and planned well but still struggled in life. Life is tough for them.

Unfortunately Luck can't be bought or learned; either you have it or not. If you are the unfortunate one, being the second best (sometimes last) will always be your best.

Big Data Analytics - Mapping humans behavioural DNA

Yesteryears, companies found it very difficult to learn about the buying habits, desires, likes and wishes of customers. A large country with diverse population and economic levels pose even larger problem in identifying the prospective customer. Result, large marketing budget with unsure outcome.

The web has changed the game by  becoming the single largest channel of human expression. Internet has become an important utility for humans for networking, ecommerce, explicit expression and information gathering. In the process, humans are leaving a big internet footprint, which says a lot about their charecteristics, desires, buying habits, likes and wishes. Something which product companies will be greatly interested in.

The more people interact with and spent time on Internet, more footprints can be generated and then analysed for insights. Web 2.0 and social networking like facebook, twitter and youtube are ensuring that people are spending greater amount of time regularly on the web and thus divulging more about themselves as a consumer.

Moreover, technology has made it easier to create various kinds of digital data easily and make it available on the web. Camera enabled phones & PCs, tablets and rapidly increasing bandwidth are facilitating creation and distribution of textual, photo and video data.

All this information on the web in structured and unstructured form- email, blog, tweets, facebook messages, videos, et al - are creating a massive data deluge. We're talking in terms of petabytes. And these are gold mines of information waiting there to be analysed.

One can build a complex algorithm and try to make sense out of this data historically or one can go a step further and provide real time analytics so that prospective customer can be gotton hold of at the moment when he is researching on buying something and is about to take a call.

Big Data anaytics also helps in gathering choices, opinions, problems and other traits of a specific demographic.

Investment in Big Data realtime analytics will rise in leaps and bounds. The benefits are many in terms of understanding humans as a consumer, employee and a citizen and then using this insights to make a productive decision.

Chakravyuh Movie Review

Prakash Jha has done it again; has come up with really intriguing movie on naxalism. I was very disappointed with Aarakshan, he messed it up big time with lack of sincerity. This time his movie has a good subject, a tight storyline, good screenplay and perfect treatment.

Naxalism has now infected almost the entire country and nobody is benefiting from the mindless violence. The fight for land has taken a different meaning over the years. It started with revolt against the landowners, the zamindars, the uppercaste people owning vast tracts of land. Now it has spread to the tribal belt, where politicians and industrialists, are trying to snatch their land for minerals and hence the resistance. The film depicts the reality, where tribals and poor people, living in vicinity of mining company or mineral industry are suffering while the industrialists are minting money in billions.

In India land comes at a premium and with new found development stakes have gotten even higher. In some areas, the prices have gone up by 1000 times and land is the easiest way to earn tons of money; fool the poor guy, snatch his ancestor land at meagre price and then sell it at a premium.

Corruption in this country is the root cause of almost all the evils. It directly affects the governance and the result is poor not able to rise economically even after 65 years of independence. And now they are getting frustated with the system and its reflecting in spate of violent uprising.

Jha's film shows both sides of story, innocent policemen getting killed and innocent tribals being exploited and leaves the judgement to the audience. The film is shot in authentic outdoor locales in tribal belts which adds to the reality.

Hats off to Jha for coming up with such well made thought provoking film. And somebody please bring sanity to the governance, every evil and problems in this country are result of its deficiet.

Barfi Movie Review - Piece of Art

I just went through the emotional ride of 'Barfi' and it was really satisfying. Bollywood has definitely come a long way and I think its getting ready to compete with the best in the world. Cinematography, editing, screenplay, background music and acting - this film excels in all departments. 

Its a story of a deaf and dumb, extremely lovable guy, Ranbir Kapoor and his love story. It was quite a challenge for the director to make a commercial film with such a protagonist. Comedy, tight screenplay and excellent production made the film look very commercial and yet soulful.

Its a Ranbir Kapoor film and I give him 10/10. I dont think anyone could have done any better. Not a word said and he still made so much impact. He is brilliant, he is perfect, really amazing to see the kind of talent he possess. No wonder even an engaged woman and a mentally challenged girl fell in love with him in the movie.

The only sore point for me was Priyanka Chopra's acting- sucked big time. PC is riding her luck since last 10 yrs and like SRK just forces herself to the audience. Its high time the industry bid farewell to this ageing actress. Just one expression in the entire movie, Sridevi of Sadma was greatly missed here. Fortunately she had very less scenes and the director used lot of camera tricks trying to make her acting look palatable with good success.

Anurag Basu has made this movie with lot of soul, freshness and energy. Each frame is a piece of art and the hard work of his entire team shows. I will be surprised if the movie doesn't sweep awards this year. Pritam background score is world class, the film with this subject would have failed without it.

Excellent movie, a must watch and will definitely inspire directors to attempt something fresh. This movie must be sent to global film festivals to showcase Indian talent. 

Wonder la Amusement Theme Park, Bangalore

** Checkout the six HD videos of Wonder la amusement park embedded in the blog **

Monsoon gave a skip to Bangalore this year, just clouds and wind but no trace of rains. I decided to try Wonder la amusement park, and play with water the whole day.

I took my car and a friend and in no time I was at toll gate of NICE (Bangalore-Mysore Expressway -Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd) road near Electronics city. Paid Rs 80/- toll (hefty) and started my journey towards Wonder la, which is around 30 kms. The expressway is wide and smooth but doesn't go all the way to Mysore yet. We covered the distance in 3/4 hr flat ( tested my car at 180 kmph on the expressway).

It was Saturday and I was aware that its going to be crowded. First glimpse of Wonder la was people everywhere and the demographic 10-25 yrs around 80%. There is ample parking space (no fee) and the surroundings are neat and clean. There is an ATM and a snacks restaurant outside - it was only 10.30 am, so we spent the time having snacks and strolling outside. [there is a restaurant inside as well and water bottles are allowed]

There are more than 1/2 a dozen ticket counters, well manned and managed. Took our tickets paying Rs 730/- per head and entered into the campus. At the ticket counter, do not forget to buy the Valet. Valet is a wrist-watch type electronic swipe-able  thing which can be wore on the wrist, substitute for cash to be used at various food counters.  So one doesn't need to carry purse and cash and ruin the trip with fear of losing it; it comes with various denominations with service charge of Rs 20/-. So pay Rs 500/-, they will give you the valet, use  it for various food items and in the end return back at the ticket counter, they will refund whatever is left deducting Rs 20/- as service charge.

There is a very big locker building near the entrance. One has to pay Rs 500/-to secure a big locker( three sizes). On returning the key, they will refund the amount deducting a service fee of Rs 50/-. The locker key has a band and can be wore on the wrist, no chance of losing in the water. Do remember to keep the Receipt in the locker itself, its required to get the refund (I lost mine but the lady at the counter was considerate).
                      Besides thousand of lockers, the building has toilets and showers in adjoining area. Women and Men have lockers on separate floors, men in the basement and women in the first floor. If the weather is good, keep your slippers/floaters as well in the locker, if its warm take it with you, as you need to walk on slabs and concrete path.

People generally approach the park with dry rides first, then wet rides and finally the wave pool. On weekend really long queues at each ride. I did the reverse to beat the crowd.

I have experienced the wave pools before in Water World Mumbai, it was really impressive. Wonder la has also architected the wave pool very well. Three different sections, really wide, lot of benches to sit and watch, plenty of surveillance guards and a lighthouse as well.
                   The intensity of wave is perfect, if one really wants to experience the aggression, he has to go near the start of the wave. Thats where I spent most of my time and it was amazing, around six feet and relentless, took every ounce of energy out of me.
   
The water looked clean with tolerable amount of chlorine and at comfortable temperature, advisable to keep your mouth above it and go to the pool early before it starts getting dirty. Pool was really crowed btw.

After spending over 1 hr in the pool, we went to rain Disco Dance building. Rain dance happens every 1hr and its really good. Good lighting, lasers and plenty of water showered. People really seem to be enjoying this artificial rain and were dancing like crazy. There is separate area for couples/families and singles.

After rain dance I decided to take the wet rides. There are over 1/2 a dozen wet rides for all kind of hearts- faint to strong. I tried quite a few, not all, Wavy Falls are really sick. Every time you slide down, one has to take the stairs again to reach the starting point. People also spend lot of time in Play Pools, just lazing around and playing with their small kids.

We had lunch at the open restaurant near the wave pool. One can get tandoori chicken items, south indian meal, biryani and some other stuff. Food is okay, fair priced and the place hygienic.

Next we moved towards the dry rides. Since we started in reverse, most of the rides were empty now. We started with the Wonder Splash and Hang Glider and moved on to some crazy high thrill rides. High thrill rides do all kinds of spinning- revolution, rotation, sideways- with varying speeds and height, not for the faint hearted.

After completing the dry rides, it was close to 4 pm in the evening and we said it was enough for the day. Yes, there are some items as well, like musical fountain and documentary, which we gave a skip.

We took our stuff from the locker and claimed the refund, same with valet and started our journey back.

About Wonder la: It is a very well managed park. Courteous and well trained staff, neat and clean surroundings, secure rides and every thing seemed to be in place. A must visit while in Bangalore even though its a bit far. It has everything for all age groups and the money spent is completely worth it.

The entire Wonder la amusement park tour in 20 minutes:

Trip to Rameshwaram and Madurai From Bangalore

**Checkout the 6 HD videos embedded in the blog for visuals of Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi and Madurai Meenakshi Temple**

After a rather stressful week, I decided to unwind by taking a weekend trip to Madurai and Rameshwaram. Getting train tickets at short notice is impossible so I booked a Volvo bus (Train{runs daily} is the best option {irctc.co.in} but one has to plan at least 3 weeks in advance). There are plenty of private buses plying on this route, fares vary from Rs 500-900. Expect mismanagement and lack of punctuality on these buses and only select the buses from top 3 travel companies. Its a overnight journey, takes around 8 hours and covers around 450 kms. My bus started at 11 PM and dropped me at 7 am near Periyar bus stand in Madurai.  

My itinary: (I wont change it for repeat visit as well)

Sat Morning: Reach Madurai in the morning and start immediately for Rameshwaram

Sat Evening: Overnight stay at Rameshwaram

Sun Afternoon: Leave for Madurai

Sun Evening: Visit Meenakshi Temple

Sun Night: Board the bus to Bangalore

A normal Indian traveler is interested in sightseeing and tries to cover as many places and as fast as possible. I don't like this idea, and I am more interested in soaking the place, taking in the ambiance and really relaxing and that means selected site visits only.

On reaching Madurai, I found out that the best mode of travel to Rameshwaram is train at 5 am and I missed that. They told me that govt bus stand is 8 kms away, so I opted for private bus to Rameshwaram-which is around 170 kms from Madurai. 

The auto rickshaw took me for a 1/2 km ride to a tour and travels company for private mini bus travel,  Rs 50/- snatched. The travel company was complete unorganized and mismanaged. One person taking bookings for over 20 people. He charged Rs 350/- for travel to Rameshwaram (Govt express buses charge somewhere around Rs200/-) . The old, filthy and uncomfortable minibus started at 9 am, 2 precious hour completely wasted; I wont repeat that experience. The travel company(unfortunately I forgot the name) was a cheat, I heard lot of people complaining about various tours that they mismanaged. And most of these people were from northern and eastern part of the country, traveling several thousand kms and have spent thousands of rupees and they were from lower middle class. Somebody should stop this rampant cheating. 

First Tip: The Madurai private bus stand is near the railway station (1/2 km) and Madurai govt bus stand is some 8 kms away. Always book the bus from Bangalore which claims to reach before 5 am. Never miss the local train to Rameshwaram, this is the best and hassle free mode of transport. Try to avoid private buses and private tours operators wherever possible.

                                            Rameshwaram

I reached Rameshwaram around 1 PM after 4 hours of journey. I had already booked a hotel, so I checked in. The town is really simple, laid back and completely reliant on the temple for its survival, the place has a religious feel to it. Most of the tourist do a day tour from Madurai to this place.

Took a cold bath and lunch and slept for 3 hours, somehow bus travel stresses me out. In evening I went to the sea shore to have a stroll. Pleasant breeze and beautiful view of the ocean, spent several hours there taking videos and enjoying all kind of eatables being sold. The town sleeps early as it rises early. I followed their routing.

I woke up at 4 am in the morning to do several things- a) Visit Ramanathaswamy Temple b) Take sunrise videos
Its really amazing to see how many people visit early mornings. There was 100s of vehicle lined up at the sea shore and town was abuzz with thousands of pilgrims. The sunrise is really breathtaking. It becomes even more beautiful with religious chants, buzz of pilgrims and people worshiping to the sun while taking the holy bath at the sea.

I took bath in the Kunds, took a dip in the sea and offered my prayer at the Ramanathaswamy temple. I opted express darshan for Rs 50/-.  One get a lot of time to see the idol at the temple, a welcome change from other religious places. 

At 8 am I decided to visit the confluence of Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean en route the ghost town Dhanushkodi. Dhanuskodi is a town/village at the southern tip of the Rameswaram island, at the eastern coast of the Tamil Nadu state of India. Hindu scriptures says that at the request of Vibeeshana, brother of Ravan and ally of Ram, Rama broke the Sethu with one end of his bow and hence the name Dhanushkodi, Dhanush meaning Bow and Kodi meaning end.

                  A severe cyclone in 1964 completely destroyed the flourishing town killing over 1000 people. Since then it has been declared a ghost town. 


Just before start of Journey in sand to Dhanushkodi, 8 kms from town (Rs 5/- bus), is a long and pristine beach. Travelers usually enjoy this beach and spend more time here. One can really spend hours and hours , amazing view of wide expanse of ocean and crisp sound of relentless crashing waves. Beautiful!

I hired a Mahindra Jeep (1970s model) for Rs 1000/- for the tour. Total distance to the confluence of oceans in Gulf of Mannar is around 18 kms, 10kms in land and 8kms in sand. The land part of the distance was covered in no time, one can even reach till this point through buses, fare Rs 5/-. The journey in sand is bit troublesome, normal vehicles will get stuck here and are not allowed.

One can see the remnant of Dhanuskodi town enroute-platform, church, school, railway tracks.

The beach at the confluence of ocean is really wide, pristine and breathtaking. Its a pity that mostly religious tourist come here and is still virgin for others. One can spend hours and hours here-place completely devoid of crowds and is very beautiful.


         The two oceans are very different in character. The Bay of Bengal is really aggressive with really strong waves crashing the shores, while the Indian Ocean is very silent almost like a river. The beach here can put world's top tourist destinations to shame (Pattaya beach is 100 times worse). I spent two hours here and felt like spending some more. Amazing place, its pity people take it as another sightseeing place. One should keep aside at least 6 hours for the Dhanuskodi and beaches around it and that won't be possible in a day tour.

The deal with the Jeep driver was to show me some other sightseeing places as well, but the time constraint of 4 hrs meant that I have to skip those. The sea beach is breathtaking and its deserves that 4 hrs and more.

I went back to my hotel and checked out. Took a auto (town bus also available every 10 mts, Rs 5/-)  for the city bus stand(Rs 50/-) and boarded an express govt bus for Madurai at 1 PM. The fare was around Rs 200/-. The unclean bus running at 60 kmph took 4hrs to cover 170 kms to reach Madurai bus stand at outskirts of city.

The people in the town speak fluent Hindi. There are lot of hotels for stay and restaurants serving authentic south Indian food. There is even a cyber cafe near the temple.

Rameshwaram Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rameswaram
Dhaushkodi Wiki/Cyclone Story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhanushkodi

                                                      Madurai
Meenakshi temple is around 8 kms from the Madurai Govt Bus Stand. I paid Rs 60/- for an auto rickshaw to reach there. There are lot of lodges and hotels in and around Meenakshi temple. I checked into one and negotiated the tariff for 4 hours stay, cost me Rs 500/-. I think there is locker at the temple as well for keeping the luggage.

Meenakshi Sundareshwar temple is really huge, ideal for huge number of pilgrims who visit here. All Indian temples should match at least this scale keeping the huge hindu population in the country in mind. I took ticket for entrance and for photography (Rs 50/- for still and Rs 500/- for video). Guards at the temple do ask for camera tickets so one shouldn't cheat to avoid embarrassment but one can sure take videos using normal digital cameras (paying Rs 50/-) which I did.

You will be greeted by temple elephant at the entrance and one can see people even taking blessings from the animal. I formed the queue and took the darshan of the deity, completely hasslefree. Bought the prasad by paying Rs 100/-, really unadulterated and made using pure ghee, and extremely tasty. I spend lot of time appreciating and taking videos of hallways, stone sculptures, various deities and temple architecture in general.

There is 'Hall of Thousand Pillars' within the temple premises and is a must visit. There is separate entrance and photography ticket ( I used the same photography ticket bought before and it worked). The hall has 985 stone pillars and lot of engineering and artistic sculptures and statues. The hall also has a small museum displaying the 1200 years of temple history.

It took me over two hours to cover everything in the temple and the experience was really very good. At 8.30 pm (temple open till 10.30 pm), I went back to my hotel room, checked out , had dinner and boarded my bus for Bangalore at 10.30 pm. There was mayhem at the Periyar private bus stand and my journey back was very troublesome. I will plan in advance and take train for all my future journeys.

[Foreigners are not allowed beyond a certain point in Meenakshi temple]

Meenakshi Temple Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meenakshi_Amman_Temple