Management Musings

For those living in Bengaluru these days, the one major source of discomfort is traffic on the roads. It is remarkable how much vehicular traffic seems to be increasing by, every few months! Obviously, we have not done a good job with executing on plans to improve the infrastructure in time for this increase. The Metro project may well be one of the most delayed of its kind, anywhere in the world. It seems like the Namma Metro has been in progress forever and all we see are new dates for completion every few weeks in the newspapers. The whining about the traffic is never ending, just as the traffic on the roads. For a daily commuter, the stream of vehicles, the abrupt lane shifts, the late decisions to turn, the bus and/ or truck breakdowns seem never ending and ubiquitous. Sometimes, I look at newcomers to the city, from smaller towns and villages and notice their lost look. They cannot fathom the volume of traffic and complexity involved in reaching a destination that is in line o...

I look at my daughter as she goes around testing waters every where. Given a pencil and told to not write on the walls, she tests us out. She spends a little time scribbling on paper and then, slowly, she starts scribbling on the wall. She runs a test on us. Are we watching? What repercussions will she have to bear? Given a new toy, she will play around with it for a little while before trying to take it apart. The curious mind of the toddler is fun to watch. Quality Assurance is very much like that. I am reminded of an ad for the LYF phones on TV nowadays. They bounce a Table Tennis ball off the screen, the drop it down from a height and show that it still works. How fun is that? The child in us would love to try all these little antics with our phones or whatever other equipment that we may have. Drop a phone from a table top - sure! Drop the phone in a bucket full of water - definitely. Does it still work after that? Yes, then the test passes. Nope? Oh too bad - the guys will hav...