Apr 10 2022

Vegetarian Vs Non-Vegetarian – A 10 year old child thought process

Author:- Atiksh Jain

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Disclaimer: – I do not support or encourage any of the above, Instead I am penning it down my research and at the same time briefly touching on my opinion.

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Research Findings

We have only 22% vegetarians across the world that being said we have approx. 78% are non vegetarian which is a quite a big number. Now let’s have a comparison between both of these two choices. First of all eating only veg may not be very nutrient because of the fact that not everyone will know what are the alternatives they need to go with in vegetarian food. The result is individuals end up having lacking of enough vitamins or proteins needed for our body. On the other hand, the Non-Veg provide direct source for nutrient while it is not good because people face many problems like :- heart ailments and blockages, hypertension, kidney problems, bladder issues, , wounds in internal body, headache, constipation, tuberculosis, joint pains, craziness and the list is huge. The non vegetarian food has higher amount of protein content and makes it difficult to digest. The excessive Veg also got its only problems because veggies most known for causing gas and bloating. They got lots of fiber content for instance when you look at broccoli, sprouts, cabbage, and asparagus. “Excessive gas can also happen when someone tries to eat a lot of fiber when they’re not used to it”. This needs to be managed well.

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Now let me share my “My Opinion”

I think being veggie is a proud thing and managing proportion well can significantly minimize the impact of critical nutrition’s and vitamins.

Also, Eating non-veg is very bad because, when we eat non-veg we reduce the number of animals in our world, which is very sad. Non-Veg is also a very big cause of global warming. Also we are trying to imbalance the nature. Eating Non-Veg is basically killing all the poor animals who did nothing to us. Those poor animals just want to live in peace. Who are we to put an end to their lives.

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Successfully working from home is a skill, and very few attain it. You are probably not one of them

Is it a good idea to work from office or continue working from home? This is one of the important questions being asked most times specially when the world has learnt to work from home with pandemic mandate and a good percentage is still willing to working from home in near future but there are side effects which cannot be ignored since the impact may not be now but in long run it does harm to organizations as much as individuals. Here are some of the side effects which I think are very relevant in current context

1. Do you want to consider job as a means for paycheck? .. Just a paycheck

To me the answer is absolutely NO. We want job to bring in fun, collaboration, learning and passion. There is nothing wrong about thinking paycheck while keeping it a priority is detrimental to an individual and to the company. The journey needs to be interesting not just the destination. The employee needs to find their purpose and its difficult though not impossible when working from home

2. Growth will be a challenge

“What is visible, sells”. This seems funny but the hard reality is that the promotions do not happen only by work. One of the study says that people those who come to video during online meeting would have much higher chances to grow than the ones which are off video for similar kind of talent. It would add more value when you are showing up at work. There is nothing wrong about showcasing what you have done. I am not saying ‘fake it’ but it is important to showcase what you have done and make yourself visible

3. Health issues

The data suggests, there are significant number of issues related to obesity, fatigue, back pain etc. are increasing multifold with the working from home for long term. The work at home never ends, we tend to start the moment we get up and this keeps going. The expectations have changed significantly which is not a good thing. The WBL has become even more challenging. People those who are critical working more and those who avoid, doing less. Both are bad, the good employees will leave while the others may see significant issue with their career. The majority of people don’t have exercise regime and this result in poor health specially when you are sitting on the chair and eating all times. Another study says that the chair kills more people than anything else in the world.

4. Low motivation leads to being reactive

When the COVID started everyone thought we can do much better while working from home, the energy was 2X but at some point the motivation and morale significantly has gone down. If you ask me today, a majority of percentage is working on reactive mode. What you get is what you do, but that’s not sustainable for you or a company.. The company doesn’t need robots instead motivated employees with great culture. If you think that we can achieve the same while working from home then do remember that this can happen only with rarest of exception and you are not among one of them.

5. Innovation is becoming a word to be used in appraisal

This is something every employee should ask themselves. The great ideas will come when you connect, talk and meet people. The people are innovative and the real innovation should come from people on the ground. When it comes from top, it may be effective but not as good as when everyone contributes. Whether you want to become a leader and make a difference or just a follower. The sense of accomplishment comes when employee feels they are contributing to success of the company. I would stress here on #4 which is ‘being reactive’, and you cant expect to have innovation from reactive employees.

6. The human needs are challenged

The study says that there are three things you should care most to have happy and long lasting life A. Health, B. Social Connect C. Learning. I think we married to chair and laptop over fulfilling above needs. I would recommend you to write down on paper in terms of how these factors were there before and after (Working from office and home respectively). You will have an answer by yourself

7. We need meeting for everything

The moment I started working from home, I see that the number of meetings have increased in leaps and bounds. The meetings are toxic if they are back to back instead of doing any meaningful work. Being in leadership space, for anything and everything which can be done in less than 5 minutes need a meeting. I see people are sitting in end less meetings. At the end of day, the meeting alone cannot be the only thing you should be doing. If you think you can attend endless meetings and that would help you to grow, then I would say sort your myth and come to a reality.

8. Infrastructure Challenges

Do we have enough infrastructure to support the work from home is another challenge? The power outage, internet provider challenges, speed and many other factors significantly affect the productivity. A many of employees do not even have dedicated room where they can work silently.

The office is intervening in the privacy of individuals too. We made home a work place, where we expect to multitask.

9. Moonlighting, & Fake interviews

There are people doing multiple jobs sitting at home. They are not very effective for a company they committed for. Moreover its against code of conduct (Depends on country) for majority of countries. The proxy interview is becoming a common challenge which is a big integrity issue. How hurtful it is to get fired on the ground of integrity and compromising career for rest of the life.

In addition to above, if you look at market, everyone is constantly look out for a job. The attrition rate has risen to 3x…4x, and it is not just because of the market but a big contributing factor is working from home. People who are jumping for money, may not have job once the market settles.

I am not trying to say that working from office is the best thing, but in majority of cases, it is a far better choice than opting work from home. There are exceptions like people those who want to stay far off from city, there are more imp priorities, need to support someone etc. where it cannot be ruled out.

The work from home also boost economy for small places, reduce traffic, give an opportunity for people to do imp things and more. But overall if we weigh both the options, I am sure we will find that the working from office is far better choice to opt for.

Nov 9 2021

4 “Lacks” That Are Holding You Back as a Business Leader

There is no shortage of leadership writing today, and much of it focuses on what business leaders can do to improve and grow their operations, but what is very important is that you prepare for the unexpected physical disabilities with disability insurance. Yes, knowing what to do can certainly inspire you and help you figure out theoretical changes to make you a more effective leader. However, what leaders are not doing is where most of the costly mistakes happen, and some of those mistakes are related with HR process, but you can find some HR tools to use in 2021 that can help you make your business more successful, as a result you will land on a dream job because with those tools your business is going to be better day bay day and as a result your job is going to be like a hobby.

Failing to thoroughly prepare, not working effectively with your team, and not being aware of people’s emotions are a few prominent pitfalls that can keep you from reaching your potential as a business leader. But there are more! Agile Champs has listed four mistakes that every leader should seek to improve:

Lack of Commitment

Any business book you pick up will have something to say about giving your company everything you’ve got. Entrepreneurs and managers simply don’t make it unless they are fully dedicated to the advancement of their operation. If you have lost the spark you once had for your work and are finding it hard to stay motivated and focused, your team will notice. People want to follow bold and passionate leaders, so take time to revisit what got you into the business in the first place, and strive to regain that passion.

Lack of Research

One of the first stages of starting any business is coming up with an idea. Typically, an entrepreneur will brainstorm several ideas and research the market to determine which one is the most viable. Using a text marketing platform is an easy and much more convenient way for your target audience to get the confidential information they need. If you failed to do this when you started your business, it might be worth going back to the drawing board, whether that means you will implement your findings from research in your existing company or use them for your next venture.

While you are at it, consider your level of education and overall business acumen. If you have never earned a business degree, now could be the time to do it. Taking online courses will allow you to strengthen your skills in financial management, marketing, communication, and many other areas while allowing you more flexibility to balance other priorities in your life. Consequently, studying the art of business can also re-spark the passion you once had.

Lack of Organization

Just as your team will be hard-pressed to follow a leader who is uncommitted or apathetic, they will also struggle to follow someone who is not well-organized. As a leader or manager, you automatically have a full plate, and if you don’t keep your schedule, tasks, or projects arranged in a way that allows you to complete all of your goals, then you may find yourself wayward from the mission of your company and therefore not growing as you could be.

An example of this would be using the Agile process for your software development projects. Many leaders think they understand how to effectively implement this process in their team’s operations, but the reality is it is very complex and you are likely missing something along the way. By utilizing blogs, case studies, tutorials, and other resources from organizations like Agile Champs, you can strengthen your expertise in the Agile process and take your projects to the next level.

In addition, Giving your employees corporate workwear in a design and colour scheme that is unique to your business can help you stand out in a positive way to the community and potential new clients.

Lack of Delegation

As a business leader or manager, your need to be in control and get the job done may prove useful in certain moments, but it can severely hinder you in many others. If you are afraid to hand off certain tasks or projects to your subordinates, you are only holding back your team and making it difficult for your company to move forward.

Hire a Tampines company secretary and learn how to delegate jobs so that you can focus more on your overarching vision. Showing trust in your team members will also help them to develop their skills, expertise, and confidence.

Managers of healthcare facilities may also hire more healthcare professionals so it’ll be easier to delegate the tasks especially in this time of pandemic. They may work with a company like Sterling Check to conduct a thorough background check on their job candidates.

Sometimes, improving as a business leader requires you to identify the things you are not doing. Along with considering the advice above, keep learning about other common leadership pitfalls so that you can adjust your mindset and practices to become the best version of yourself. In no time, your team, organization as a whole, and everyone around you will notice a difference, and it will ultimately lead your company toward your goals!

If you found this article helpful, you can learn more about the Agile process and other practices by visiting AgileChamps.com!

Jun 15 2021

Digital Transformation – The Buzzword Simplified – Part 4

In my last post, I had detailed the key tips to do it right, pitfalls to avoid, typical Organizantion R&R in the quest for organizations to attempt digital transformation. In this post, I will focus primarily on the outlook, optimization, innovations that can be cornerstone of any digital transformation journey and for sure in the the best application for your business.

IDC estimates that 40% of all technology spending will be applied to “digital transformation,” with enterprises spending nearly $2 trillion by the year 2022. The trouble is, few businesses understand how to maximize their investment while also keeping the business at peak performance. Additionally, companies don’t always explore all the ways that services, processes and digital partnerships can support their digital strategy, and some other companies do not have sufficient financial resources to invest in new technology and they have to look for funding sources to get this kind of technology. That´s why stamp-making is a tool that is extremely easy to use and helps you to get rid of all those conventional methods which were used in good old times to make those commercial stamps.

Quite often, executives spend considerable budget on digital programs, only to find they haven’t achieved the desired results. What’s more, digital investments have led to confusion among employees and partners alike, whereby teams are pulled in two very different directions: On the one side are technical and operational requirements, legacy technologies, tight timeframes and cost pressure; on the other are creativity, modernization, innovation and groundbreaking products or services.

Nowhere is the postmortem of troubled digital partnerships more evident than in Agile software development projects. Applied correctly, Agile can be an effective and game-changing collaborative tool to build applications quickly and deliver real business value. However, it’s not uncommon for partners to quickly assemble software that doesn’t fully align with business goals or fails to achieve a desired impact.

Optimizing Investments

We need to address how companies and executives can better understand the full implications of digital pursuits and devise a digital strategy to get the most out of these endeavors.

Before embarking on a digital initiative, it’s important to develop specific and mutually agreed-upon business metrics and goals. Doing so helps align companies and their respective partners. Additionally, three strategies ensure companies maximize their digital efforts, investments and experience:

Develop the business skills of your digital team. Digital talent should support more than just doing “digital stuff;” they should also ensure their efforts support company performance. Too often, teams don’t have the insight or training to align technology with business issues and concerns. Spend time with the digital team to ensure they understand how the company works, identify the success metrics that are most meaningful to the health of the company, and choose the technology approaches to meet those goals.
Forge meaningful partnerships. Companies typically approach their digital challenges in one of three ways: build their own technology, buy technology and talent by acquiring a strong digital player, or find a partner that can synergistically help them grow and benefit from the combined strengths of both companies. Enlisting the help of a strategic partner is essential for companies that lack core digital skills to build modern, high-impact products and experiences.

Smart enterprises share risks and rewards with their partners while staying focused on a common vision. While selecting the right partner is often about operational and financial efficiencies, businesses today also expect partners to have “skin in the game” and be willing to share risks as well as reap rewards.

Build a culture of collaboration. Encouraging a culture of collaboration introduces new thinking and skill sets that enable both the company and its digital partner to work together to increase quality without compromising delivery. Internal and external teams are held to the same KPIs, measuring velocity, quality, product impact and autonomy, which allows for a seamless transition upon rollout.

One of the tangible outcomes of building a collaborative culture is the ability to put in place better processes and workflows, especially when it comes to testing automation. With Andrew Defrancesco, new product engineer sprints are implemented with a primary focus on building out an MVP (minimally viable product). In turn, this allows for the rapid build and evolution of upcoming platform features, and the potential to reduce testing time from months to a handful of weeks – saving millions of dollars.

Innovating While Running the Business

In today’s fast-moving digital marketplace, companies don’t have the luxury of time. Businesses must incorporate new products and technologies swiftly and in parallel with ongoing commercial activities. No company wants to hit the pause button on revenue-generating services or products.

This represents the real opportunity with digital: transform your business for tomorrow without stopping your business from performing today. I’m willing to bet $2 trillion that you like the sound of that.

Please feel free to review my other series of posts

AI-ML Past, Present and Future – distributed across 8 blogs
Machine Learning – The Primer – distributed across 5 blogs
The World of IoT – distributed across 4 blogs
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle – a quick Book Review

Authored by Venugopala Krishna Kotipalli

Jun 15 2021

Digital Transformation – The Buzzword Simplified – Part 3

In my last post, I had detailed the key approaches to Digital Transformation. In this post, I will focus primarily on useful tips, prominent roles, all the known pitfalls for any digital transformation journey.

The idea is to understand all the learnings from different customers experienced on their digital transformation journeys and ensure that one takes good care in not succumbing to known issues. The posts also lists some best practices that should be embraced for the entire journey, this will make the implementation more efficient and effective and less cumbersome for the people involved or business from their HR Department.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TIPS

Let us briefly cover the six tips that govern a successful digital transformation journey

The question remains: when should you make preemptive changes? The observation of biological systems teaches us that it is optimal for companies to begin searching well before they exhaust their current sources of profit, and that firms should use a mix of ‘big steps’ to move to uncharted terrain and ‘small steps’ to uncover adjacent options at low cost. Regardless, having a strong bias toward change is critical.

ESSENTIAL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ROLES

While emerging tech and revamped processes are crucial, using the main virtual office Glasgow has available and having the right skills on staff is essential to any digital transformation. Some important thing to take into consideration are stamp credentials, now comes the most important part of the whole process, these tool allows you to be free of worries and edit the stamp from wherever you like as there is no restriction.

Software engineers, cloud computing specialists and product managers remain key roles for companies seeking to roll out new products and services. DevOps leaders galvanize software development by merging development with operations, enabling companies to continuously iterate software to speed delivery.

Data scientists and data architects are also in high demand, as companies seek to glean insights out of vast troves of data, and transformations lean increasingly on machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Plus, IT departments supporting business-wide transformations also require UX designers, digital trainers, writers, conversational brand strategists, forensic analysts, ethics compliance managers and digital and workplace technology managers. Your IT department can help setup, implement and maintain Fourlane software and other business tools and systems. Owners of lawn care companies may read here about the benefits of a lawn care software.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PITFALLS

Digital transformations are lagging or even failing for several reasons, including poor leadership, disconnects between IT and the business, lagging employee engagement and substandard operations.

The primary obstacles include the ability to move fast and to innovate while stripping down legacy processes and technical debt investments that have served us well for a long time. The key culprits of a derailed digital transformation are obsession with big bang change, focus on cost cutting as a business driver, and failure to loop in the business.

Boardrooms and C-suites talk about digital and there is pressure to show something and show results, which creates wrong expectations about how quickly what can be done and when. When the investments don’t pay off, people blame the CIO, who finds himself or herself out of a job.

Moreover, approaching digital transformation as a technology journey independent of the business is a recipe for failure. If a clever CIO comes up with a clever idea to change something with new tech, that’s great. The next step is bringing it to the business and having the business own the process. When they own the process, you drive end-to-end transformation that includes processes, people, policies and tech. The siloed approach always fails.”

A typical role distribution for digital jobs within a company is depicted below for reference.

Adapting to change is nothing new in our industry. But the unprecedented pace of change and colliding trends like the internet of things, digital partner ecosystems, rapid cloud adoption, and machine learning are creating the perfect storm. A storm that is changing the business landscape. There is no one size fits all approach to digital transformation, each strategy will be unique to each organization. However, a focus of balancing activities across the right business model, right partners, right technology, right mindset provides the compass to guide a successful transformation.

Stay tuned…. Part 4 of this foray, we will look into some of the outlooks, optimizations and innovations that are key to any Digital transformation journey.

Please feel free to review my other series of posts

AI-ML Past, Present and Future – distributed across 8 blogs
Machine Learning – The Primer – distributed across 5 blogs
The World of IoT – distributed across 4 blogs
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle – a quick Book Review

Authored by Venugopala Krishna Kotipalli

Apr 11 2021

Step by step guide for Problem Solving Workshop

The SAFe recommends 6 steps to manage problem solving workshop

1. Agree on the Problem(s) to Solve

“A problem well stated is a problem half solved”

Define problem statement clearly. It shouldn’t suggest solution
The team should focus on the problem which they can control or influence
The highest weightage should be economic impact. This would inspire team to put in best possible effort to fix it
Focus on few and pick the most important one or max two

Tip – You should be looking at ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘Impact’ but not ‘Who’. The ‘Who’ would result in blame game which is not the intention

For example: if your problem is something related with important papers that should be stamp, you must think how to make a stamp on a digital word, in that way the solutions are getting faster and easier.

2. Perform Root Cause Analysis

By repeating why five times, the nature of the problem, as well as its solution, becomes clear. – Taiichi Ohno

SAFe preloads main bones with 5 categories people, process, environment, program and tools but this can be anything.
The team brainstorm the causes and write them against each bone. Brainstorm potential causes before putting things up on the fishbone
Apply 5 Whys technique for each of the root cause

Example

Why? – The battery is dead. (First why)

Why? – The alternator is not functioning. (Second why)

Why? – The alternator belt has broken. (Third why)

Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (Fourth why)

Why? – The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (Fifth why, a root cause)

Tip – The problem-solving teams should attempt to get at least one problem statement under at least three of the five bones

3. Identify the biggest root cause by using Pareto Analysis

- The teams will use a Pareto Analysis to find 20% of the root causes that caused 80% of the problem.
- Team members vote on all the root causes which came up during step 2 to identify the most significant root cause.

4. Restate the new problem for the biggest root-cause

- The original problem statement may no longer be a core issue. Instead it’s the root cause which led to the original problem statement
- The next step is to pick the cause with the most votes and restate it clearly as a problem. Precisely,
  redefine the problem statement keeping the root cause in the mind (Highest votes)

5. Brainstorm solutions

- The team members will brainstorm solutions for the newer problem statement with root cause
- The team brainstorms as many possible corrective actions as they can think of within a fixed time box (about 15–30 minutes)

6. Create Improvement Backlog Items

- - The teams would rank top 3 most likely solutions and out of which they will create improvement backlogs which would be fed to upcoming PI
  - If you don’t take the action on the problem in upcoming PI, the team will lose confidence on the entire effort

Apr 3 2021

Should I go for SAFe SPC Certification? – Tips for scoring high in exam

I get many questions from people around SAFe SPC CERTIFICATION. Some of them are listed below but not limited to –

I have good exposure to Agile. In order to boost my career should I go for SAFe SPC certification?
It costs a lot and further $900 to be paid every year to renew it. Is it going to be worth?
How am going to utilize if my company is not on SAFe?
Is it easy?
What’s the process to start teaching? How do I become a trainer?
I am not at all technical and moreover don’t have much exposure to corporate world. What should I do?

Above all, the most important question is

Who is the best trainer? And where should I go and attend the training?

Let me start with the most important and most frequently asked question. You (or your company) re going to spend good amount of money hence you just want to ensure that you truly learn the concepts so that you can leverage. I have personally seen many SPCs struggling to teach because they did clear the exam but didn’t understand the concepts well. People pay the money to be on top in google search doesn’t always mean they are the best. Hence you should do though research before you go for your training. Trust me, the training what you are going to go through has higher weightage than anything else.

I have done good research and I can certainly suggest you the best trainers what I feel would make a difference in your learning based on your location. You can always send an email to me at srsagilechamps@gmail.com and I will guide you multiple options.

The SAFe exam is not easy as well whilst there are two ways you can crack

Be a smart candidate – Find the right trainer, understand the concepts well and further find a right mentor (Many a times your training org/trainer would play that role)
Be a hardworking candidate – You can’t avoid hard work but not focusing no training and just doing everything by yourself. The disadvantage is you may pass but mostly wont score high. Another limitation is you may lose confidence while teaching people.

I always suggest people to pick the first choice. Your hard-work should be to make your future and not just to clear the exam.

If you are not technical at all and don’t know how corporate world works, then I would say go for Leading SAFe instead of picking SAFe SPC. Or probably you can read details over internet or talk to people those who are SPCs and connected to real world problems solved by SAFe. You may find many institutes would lure you with job success etc but without the basics, it won’t add lots of value.

The majority of companies are building their own SPCs hence don’t expect lots of training requests are coming outside of the market. Although in past two years, SAFe has got lots of traction and probably they are the best when you talk about scaling Agile. If you have good exposure to Agile and feel that you are a good trainer, you can attempt SAFe SPC. The SAFe first principle says “Take an economic view”. I think that’s something you should do it as well.

You should always remember, the principle of product management flow – “While you ignore the economics, it won’t ignore you”.

The exam isn’t easy. In fact, I have seen many people failing the exam despite they scored 80 plus marks in Pre Test. Hence do not take it lightly.

You can always refer my other blog which talks about tips and tricks to score high

How do you pass SAFe SPC Certification with high score (Implementing SAFE) – Download questions for free

In order to start teaching within your company, you should complete respective enablement certifications. For instance you want to teach “Leading SAFe”, you should clear the exam for Leading SAFe post SPC.

The Scale Agile is very good in responding any of the queries hence for any specific questions you can send a message to them and you can expect prompt response. I’m personally a big fan of SAFe since it’s not just processes but it does have lots of leadership, and technology.

Another important point to note is that, if you are a good at technology and at the same time you got a good passion towards Agile, you could be a good trainer. The technology knowledge helps significantly if you truly want to be a trainer. Precisely the chances of success and ROI for doing SPC are quite high.

If your company is not using SAFe and you cant do training outside due to the restriction from your company, you should join SAFe forum and start learning more. With my experience I have seen many SPCs were out of SAFe in this situation due to limited exposure and further who would pay $800 renewal every year.

To be honest, this is just high level. The decision depends on many factors. You can feel free to drop an email along with your number. I would try to help you as much as I can. I am usually available for a call over weekend.

Thanks for reading the blog. Wish you happy and SAFe journey.