Spin Newsletter Spi Nnacle Issue 02[1]

SPINNacle - Newsletter from SPIN Chennai April‘10

Issue 02

From the President’s desk

Interesting Links

Inside this issue

8

SCAMP v 1.3 Changes

Visit : SEI Website

SPICON 2010 Presentations

Visit : http://www.spinchennai.org/

PMI Chennai Chapter events

Visit : PMI Chennai

eWIT Excellence award

winners

Visit : http://ewit.co.in/

> SPICON 2010 –Snapshot

> From the Editorial board

> Perspective : Keynote from SPICON

> Learning unlimited...

> Crossword

> Voice of the community : Sevalaya

Dear SPIN Members

SPIN Chennai has begun the year 2010 on a very positive note. It feels great that our biggest event, SPICON 2010 was received very well by one and all.

I would like to wholeheartedly thank the delegates for their participation, sponsors for their support, speakers for their spirit in sharing the knowledge and the organizing team for the meticulous planning.

SPICON 2010 saw delegates participating from different IT organizations and the full-house sessions demonstrated their quest for learning new concepts and sharing their experiences with the community.

Delegates were delighted because their expectations were met. Speakers were happy because they had a responsive audience who made the sessions interesting with their volley of questions. SPICON took up a lot of time and energy on the part of the steering committee. We are all very happy to know that it was worth it. This has given us encouragement to organize more such events in future. SPICON 2010 also proved to be a good networking forum for profession-als to meet up with the who’s who of the industry.

As we move ahead in the resurgent times , there is a lot more to do. Software processes are no more just about standards and maturity models. Organizations are now proactively looking for opportunities to optimize and continuously improve their processes .Organizations are adopting Lean , Innovation programs and leveraging on Application Lifecycle Management tools (ALM) to build an effective stream of a process ecosystem to meet the increasing demands of customers and the challenges of competition.

On the other side, information security and service management are now becoming hygiene factors . The increasing awareness of processes speaks a lot about the commitment of senior management in organizations to build a quality-conscious, process-driven culture.

In coming months SPIN Chennai would continue organizing SPIN talks , Panel discussion and other events to bring the community together to think and act on the next wave of transformation in process improvements.

I look forward to your active participation . With Best regards - Chandrakumar Raman

SPIN activities at a glance

• SPIN member handled the Anna university MBA Faculty development Program

• SPIN President was the Chief Guest of Madha Engineering College Alumni meet

• SPIN member nominated to teach Software Quality Engineering for ME (Quality ) at Anna university

• SPIN steering committee members were the judges ( jury ) for Excellence award for quality @ eWit

• Supported Cloud Computing Seminar organ-ized by ISACA, Chennai

Academia Interface

• Conducted a half -day session on ‘ Process Performance Modeling and Simulation ‘

Other associations SPIN talks and Seminars

Establish a leadership forum for open exchange of software process improvement experiences and ideas

Promote achieving higher levels of process maturity and software quality .

Our Mission

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Events at a glance

SPINNacle

SPICON— 2010 : Snapshot

SPIN Chennai , organized its annual conference titled SPICON 2010. The theme of the conference was ‘Operational Excellence ‘. The conference was a great success and the feedback by the attendees was overwhelming. Attendees opined that that the range of topics , caliber of speakers and depth of the subject cov-ered was highly informative.

SPICON 2010 organizing committee sincerely thanks all its sponsors , speakers, attendees and volunteers for their support to make this event a grand success. In the coming year , we look forward to organizing SPICON on a much larger scale.

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From the Editorial Board

SPINNacle

Welcome to the second issue of SPINnacle! The response to the first issue has been excellent and the comments received so far from the readers have been very encouraging. Thank you dear readers!

The launch of SPINnacle was a part of the SPICON 2010. Just like the earlier SPICONs, SPICON 2010 was also a great hit, attracting top notch speakers and about 250 delegates both from the academia and the industry.

SPIN members who could not make it as part of SPICON 2010 , can use the following links to access the key-note speeches and few of the conference presentation materials.

Key-note speeches : SPICON 2010 key-note talks

Presentation materials : SPICON 2010 presentation deck

We want to convey our congratulations and thanks to G.S.Vijayakumar for coming up with the title of SPINnacle. We also want to congratulate the winners of crossword in our last issue. Thanks for your enthusiastic participation!

SPIN Chennai continued its tradition of monthly talks. SPIN Chennai conducted a session on Process Performance Modeling and Simulation which was very well received and supported a talk on cloud computing .

We request your valuable feedback and suggestions on how we can continue to reinforce the stated objectives of this newsletter – of reiterating the important role that quality plays in an organization and emphasizing the integration of quality into mainstream business and acting as a vehicle of dissemination of best practices from industry and academia.

Some of the thoughts we have had in this regard are:

• Introducing a “Book Shelf” column wherein we will review some of the recent books that are of interest to the software quality community

• Publication of the research trends in the areas related to software quality.

• Examples of applicability and universality of quality principles from other disciplines

We welcome your suggestions for enhancing the above list as well as contributing articles in the above categories.

We are continuing the intent we introduced in the last issue to highlight the social contribu-tions made by people. We are pleased to have coverage on the institution Sevalaya – an organization doing yeomen service to the society for over two decades -- in this issue, espe-cially because it is being championed by Muralidharan, who also incidentally was a top notch software quality professional in TCS for close to 25 years!

We look forward to your continued encouragement and feedback to take SPINnacle to even greater heights! Thanks in advance for the same

-- The Editorial Team

G.S.Vijayakumar

Cognizant

Winner of SPIN newsletter naming contest

Editorial Board

Editorial Board Members :

Ramesh Gopalaswamy , Latha Ramesh , Ananth KN , Sulochana Ganesan, R.Chandrakumar ,Balaji O.S

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Perspective

SPICON 2010 saw two eminent personalities delivering the key note addresses. Both the speakers are achievers in their own domain and have been an inspiration for thousands of people. Each of their addresses was well received and greeted with a standing ovation from the attendees. Here is the glimpse of the perspectives shared by the two speakers.

Mr.K.Dinesh co-founder of Infosys was one of the key note speakers. He

shared his experiences at Infosys . He talked about their vision of building a

world class company, respected across the globe, their value systems and

the journey that has brought them to where they are now. The key points

were pursuit of Business Excellence, customer centricity, good leadership

system and the long term perspective. He emphasized the need and the

willingness to change or scale up to the dynamic requirements in business

being an important factor for success. The establishment of the Leadership

institute, the value system , building of processes around the core values,

employee empowerment , reward and recognition, role of leadership,

leading by example, data based management, creating a scientific mind-

set, a holistic approach are some of the other points he touched upon.

Regarding the use of models, he spoke at length on the Malcolm Baldrige

model and the adaptation of the model at Infosys - the ISOP (Infosys Scal-

ing of Performance) to improve process and performance of individual

units. However , he cautioned that the models alone cannot make the dif-

ference, it is the people who finally make a difference. His final message

was - ‘ be Adventurous, Believe in your journey, build good Character,

Dream big, Execute relentlessly and Work Hard for Success.

Dr. Bala Balachandran—Professor—Kellogg School of Management and

Dean, Great Lakes School of Management ,enthralled the audience with

his quotes, acronyms, anecdotes, examples, timely jokes and very practi-

cal management advice.

His topic "Understanding Customer Profitability to create value" set us

all thinking in a new direction. He discussed the impact of cost reduction

on the bottom line, the relationship between variable cost and

profitability and the levers to maximize profit and gain customer advan-

tage. The key message was to concentrate on Innovation, Excellence and

Customer centricity for building a successful organization. He also

touched upon the different perspectives and levels of performance from

a customer standpoint—Customer Satisfaction, Exceeding customer ex-

pectations, Customer Delight ,Customer Astonishment and Co-creating

value with customer. He explained his concepts with interesting case

studies . ‘Uncle Bala ‘ as he is fondly called , held the audience spell

bound during his entire talk .

Did you miss attending SPICON 2010 conference ?

You can listen to Mr.Dinesh’s talk in You Tube . Go to www.youtube.com And type 'SPICON 2010 ‘ in the search bar .

Did you miss attending SPICON 2010 conference ?

You can listen to Dr.Bala’s talk in You Tube . Go to www.youtube.com And type 'SPICON 2010 ‘ in the search bar .

SPINNacle

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Learning unlimited ...

Quality and Customer orientation : Day in life... “Welcome to Timbuktu Customer Care centre ! Dial 1 for our products, dial 2 for other products, dial 3 for billing, dial 4 for technical queries on our products, dial 5 for learning how to use our products and dial 6 for going over these menu options again” rattled a female voice. ‘Dial M for murder !’ I mumbled to myself, feeling irritated. I had a problem that didn’t fit into any of the options listed and I thought it was best to listen to the menu again. Here was my problem : I was trying to login to my account, and I had forgotten my password as usual. I had written it down but last time when I logged into my account to transact, I was informed that my password had aged (as though my ageing was not enough) and I had to change it. I picked my favorite, which was my dog’s name: ‘tintin’. The system rejected it outright saying six letters were not enough and it had to be a minimum of eight. So I remember adding my date of birth, ‘08’. That too didn’t go through ; at least one letter had to be a capital letter. I thought it was the first letter. But I found that it wasn’t. I felt humiliated being denied entry to my own account. It was like being locked out of the house when all the other housemates were having fun

After several failed attempts, I decided to check the secret question. I remem-ber choosing, ‘the last book I read’. Alas, every name I typed, was rejected by the system. I felt worse than one attempting the board exams. Finally as a last resort, I clicked on the ‘forgot my password’ button. But only a mail would be sent to my e-mail account, which I held no longer. Now you can guess my pre-dicament. None of the options reeled out fitted my problem. I needed to talk to some one. I decided quickly to press 1 and ask for the company’s products. My guess was right. Straightaway, I was greeted by an unknown Anu who was ready to help me choose their products. She listened to my woes and politely transferred my call to the appropriate person.

Customer-orientation is all about putting oneself in his shoes. It is no rocket science. A customer is not concerned with the internal processes of an organi-zation. Nor does he have the time and patience to learn to use any complex process or system. How many of us read through the manuals or go through the FAQs before starting to use a system ? Very few. Ease of use should be borne in mind while designing processes.

Automation and core banking software could have simplified consolidations and reconciliations from the banks’ point of view, but the number of times these systems have left the customers frustrated is no one’s guess. Automation, no doubt has simplified life. However, one needs to question systems such as the one that would insist on complaining about the internet failure by sending an e-mail. How often do we come across automation cited as a reason for a faulty system or a process? While adopting new technology, organizations need to reengineer their processes to become more customer-oriented.

In organizations, if employees are not customer-oriented, that also reflects in the processes they implement. Most often, reward systems are tied to internally perceived successes and not through customer perception.

The disconnect between what organizations profess to be and what they actually are needs to be bridged. However, the current trend of adopting best global practices with respect to customer-orientation is encouraging. Thanks to the IT and ITES companies working with global customers, the fast spreading culture of treating ‘Customer as the king’ (King punishes if not attended to!) is a welcome change. If this trend continues, we would see a paradigm shift in the culture of corporate India.

- Latha Ramesh is a Quality and Process Improvement Consultant and can be reached at [email protected]

SPINNacle

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Voice of the community

Ever thought that Software Quality profession and principles are not integrated into main stream business? Well, think again. One of the main messages that we want to highlight is that the principles of quality that we espouse in our profession make sound business sense and are indeed widely applicable. In this issue’s Voice of Community, we are privileged to present one of the success stories in social and community service, championed by someone from our fraternity

V Muralidharan worked in the process quality group of TCS for over 25 years. Like other professionals from our industry, he has traveled often, far and wide, consulting on process, quality and ensuring compliance to quality standards like ISO-9001, CMMI, etc. But what is different and amazing is that despite this heavy and demanding schedule, Murali (or “Sevalaya Murali” as he is popularly called) has managed to found and grow a highly successful social service institution Sevalaya.

SEVALAYA : Serving to transform lives with process oriented approach

SPINNacle

Inspired by the teachings of what Murali calls “BGV” – Bharathiyar, Gandhi and Vivekananda trinity – Murali started Sevalaya in 1988. This institution started off by taking care of 5 orphan children from very poor economic conditions and funded their upbringing and education. From this, over two decades, Sevalaya has grown to be the home for more than 160 orphan children, 60 destitute senior citizens (with no one else to care for them) in an old age home and a go-sala to take care of dry cows. What is more, Sevalaya also runs a school in Thirunindravur near Chennai that provides completely free education to over 1050 students in the neighboring villages, most of whom are first generation learners. The villages where 22 years ago, children worked as daily wage labour-ers in brick kilns can now boast of 20 of them pursuing their higher education in Engineering Colleges. 100 of them have gone on to various other colleges for higher studies. But for the free education provided by Sevalaya, these children would have been school drop outs.

This school has produced 100% results consistently in the state board exams for 10th and 12th and has been rated as one of the best schools in the district. In addition to aca-demics, Sevalaya offers vocational skills, soft skills, com-puter skills and so on to make the students fully rounded moral citizens, grounded on firm ethical and human values.

“In Sevalaya, we consciously apply the various quality and management practices we talk about in the IT industry”.

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Voice of the community

Sevalaya shares a deep sense of environment conscious-ness – Students are trained in organic farming, part of vegetables and fruits are grown on the campus; a bio-gas plant is in place which supplies cooking gas to the old age home; a vermicompost plant supplies natural manure to the farm; kitchen waste and other bio-degradable waste are converted into natural manure.

There is a large number of accolades got by Sevalaya over the years: TCS – Education World Awards Committee 2006 has declared Sevalaya’s Head Master Mr.Chittibapu as the best innovative teacher among 25000 schools from all over India. Most recently, Sevalaya won the Karuna Ratna award for propagating vegetarianism, protecting of dry cows and maintaining a green campus.

Murali, his wife, Bhuvana, and rest of the selfless team at Sevalaya have set a high standard for working towards so-cial causes. And, next time if any of us say “we don’t have time”, we need to look at how a software quality person globe trotting half the time (like we all do) has made a difference to hundreds of lives.

About the Founder and Managing Trustee

Muralidharan, the founder of Sevalaya, has 25 years of experience in software industry and out of that around 15 years in the process and quality area. He is an authorized CMM lead, an ISO auditor, CMMI ap-praisal team member, a PMP . He brought into Sevalaya the various techniques of Management, suitably adapting them to suit the conditions in a service organization.

Muralidharan’s thinking is shaped by modern management concepts and is deeply rooted in Gandhian philosophy. He has a degree in Engineering, and has also done post Graduation in Gandhian Thought. Sevalaya is richly benefited by this unique combination. He is the author of a book titled “Vaiya Thalaimai Kol” (Lead the world). The book discusses the modern management concepts and the live examples of Bharathi, Gandhi & Vivekananda. He was recently conferred with Karuna Rathna award . For further details visit www.sevalaya.org or contact Sevalaya at [email protected];[email protected]

SEVALAYA : Serving to transform lives

SPINNacle

CONGRATULATIONS ! Winners of SPINNACLE Crossword –01

One lucky winner would be selected and presented a award during the next SPIN talk

Page 8

Relax and Rattle your brains

Mail your responses to

[email protected]

with subject line as

“SPIN 02-Crossword”

Gift vouchers would be given to winners !

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So , hurry up !

Last date to send your response : 20-May-10

# Name Company Mail ID 1 Kalpana Sudharsan CSS Corp [email protected]

2 Ramanathan, Lakshmanan Philips [email protected]

3 Lakshmi.R 3i Infotech — 4 Sudha Ramkumar Birlasoft [email protected]

5 Divakar V Sify Technologies Ltd [email protected] 6 Karthik Ramamurthy Keyresultz [email protected] 7 Ravi.P SRM Technologies Pvt. Ltd [email protected] 8 N.Ravi Thesys Technologies Private Ltd., [email protected]

ACROSS 3. Is it not better to get comments from .... ,than from Customer ? 4. Usain Bolt loves this ! 5. One of the basic measures used to calculate Scope creep 6. Foul in Football and Contract breach results in 8. One of the stages in 5 stages of team formation where team members have some difference of opinion 10. Dare not change this without a change request 11. Statistical Tool to optimize regression test cases( 2 words)

DOWN 1. In Japanese, this is one type of waste 2. QC tool to find represent performance trend over time(2 words) 6. In SCAMPI, tool used to map the practices against evidences 7. For teams to perform , everyone needs this.. 9. In Six Sigma, when p value is LOW , null must ..

SPINNacle

Winners of Crossword –01

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Comments

Please send us your comments and suggestions.

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at : [email protected]

© All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred. They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose .

Global Spotlights

Security Quality Requirements Engineering (SQUARE) Tool Is Now Available

Carnegie Mellon University staff within CERT, part of the Software Engineering Institute, and CyLab announced that a robust tool has been developed by a team of Carnegie Mellon Master of Software Engi-neering (MSE) students to support Security Quality Requirements Engineering (SQUARE).

The SQUARE tool is a free, downloadable application that gives step-by-step guidance on how to implement a requirements engineering process focused on security

Read the full story

Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself

Reflections on Management brings together Watts S. Humphrey's best and most influential essays and articles—sharing insights that will be indispensable for anyone who must achieve superior results in software or any other endeavor.

Collected here for the first time, these works offer compelling insights into everything from planning day-to-day work to improving quality, encouraging teamwork to becoming a truly great leader. All of these writings share a powerful vision, grounded by a life in soft-ware that has extended across nearly six decades. The vision is this: To succeed, professionals must effectively manage far more than plans, schedules, and code—they must manage teams, bosses, and above all, themselves.

Refer : SEI Website

SPINNacle

Page 10

Know your SPIN Chennai team

SPINNacle

SPIN Chennai Steering Committee Members

R.Chandrakumar

SPIN President

Other Steering Committee Members

• Dr. L.N.Rajaram

• Dr.Ravichandran

• Ananth K N

• Emani BSP Sarathy

• Kannan Veeraraghavan

• Rama Sivaraman

Major Chandrasekharan .V.V (Rtd.) Treasurer

Dinesh Ganeshan

Jayakumar K.R

Ramkumar. R

Secretary

Suriyanarayanan R

Sulochana Ganesan

Latha Ramesh

M.Rajamanickam

V.Vinayagamurthy