Software career at stake

Future at stake

I am an Indian software professional working for a top notch MNC in Bangalore. I am nervous and depressed these days. I never felt like that in my career. Some of the reasons to feel so are below:

1. The value of US $ is going down (1 US $ = INR 39)

2. Reports say that China is becoming the favorite destination for outsourcing jobs

3. Resources are becoming expensive in India

4. The margin of profit is going down for companies

5. Projects getting flop/closed

Is our software career at stake? Do you feel that your future at risk?

Our umpteen veteran technologists like Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems), Vinod Dham (Intel Pentium), R. Narasimhan (Mainframe), Mohan Tambe (C-DAC), Vijay Vashee (Microsoft Powerpoint), Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail), Arun Netravali (Lucent Technologies), N. Jayant (Bell Labs) rendered their lives in establishing the Brand India as the perfect destination for outsource software jobs. We must be indebted to the generation and we must take it further. If we do nothing, we will end up in the condition like our national game “Hockey”.

Getting nervous and doing nothing will be of no help.

Only fittest will survive. Survival of the fittest!

The only savior I see is
“Deliver Maximum Quality in Minimum Amount of Time (DMQ-MAT)”.

“Seeing but doing nothing will not be of any help”

Today we have lot of jobs. But to continue to have this boom, everyone must have commitment towards DMQ-MAT. Doesn’t matter wherever you are or whatever you do. All required is commitment. Ensure whatever you deliver is Quality. Start practicing quality. Reduction in delivery time will happen with time and experience.

The big question is how?

Mentioned below are few leads to achieve the same:

1. Technology based user groups

a. Propose to form forum/email based user groups based on technologies like .NET group, Java group etc. at organization level

2. Reusable Code Repository

a. Form group of volunteers (fresher to experts)

b. Volunteer one Saturday in a month

c. Analyze the source code of ongoing or last delivered projects

d. Identify the components/modules/procedures/functions etc. that can be reused

e. If required, modify to make them reusable

f. Subject for review by experts/peers and testing

g. Once the quality is achieved, submit them to the code repository

h. After submission, a mail can be send to the relevant user group. This is necessary for awareness. Relevant group will know that a particular solution exists in Code Repository and can be reused.

i. Every entry in Code Repository is developed, reviewed and tested to meet the maximum quality. With reuse, considerable efforts can be saved. Thus the goal of DMQMT can be achieved

j. The process can be done for any or every project (C, C++, C#, VB, Php, java etc.)

3. Best practices, guidelines, checklists

a. Analyze the guidelines, checklist, best practices in ongoing or last delivered projects

b. Identify the items that can be reused

c. Consolidate them on the basis of technology/domain

d. Expert/peer review them

e. After submission, a mail can be send to the relevant user group. This is necessary for awareness.

f. The process can be done for each project

4. Fresh development and Code Reuse

a. On start of new project/module/task, consult seniors and Code repository for possible reuse of code, guidelines, checklists etc.

b. Reuse whatever possible

c. While developing new procedures/components/functions always keep in mind about future reuse

d. After development, review and testing, update Code Repository and send message to relevant group

These are few guidelines. You can make it as beautiful as you like.