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Is it not cool to look like James Bond and attack every problem coming to us at runtime ? My answer is, it does not take us too far if we are not using the manuals for the tools we use unless it is extremely simple like a hammer and has only two steps to use it.

I some times wonder that if search engines had made people lazy to learn something from the grass roots up. This is not just an one off observation, I have known developers who thrive on search engines for everything from silly to complex ones. Of course, the search engines made a huge repository easily accessible to us; but not everything can be solved using them. If any one argues that they can get lots done just by intuition, analysis and net search then; why not we have technological marvels built by almost everyone.

We should not shy away from understanding the details or referring the manuals (It is not cool to act like James Bond). Only with a strong understanding of foundations we could go very far or tackle difficult situations with ease.

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While travelling to office, I always take the inroads instead of the arterial ones to avoid the rush. Most of times, the travel is smooth but if there is one small break in the flow, then the narrow roads gets crowded and jammed in a matter of seconds. I observed the attitude among the bikers who want to keep moving at any cost, has contributed to the sudden jams. If all those on the road obeyed the rules and stayed on the left side of the road, then the chaos could be avoided or the traffic would not have jammed.

This behavior gets carried over to the workplace as well. When we are too concerned about our own learning and improvisation, without our knowledge we tend to create a situation like the traffic jam where the onus is on us individuals to pull ourselves up. Everything depends on the individual to claw her way up anywhere (school, workplace, even queues); doing something against the rules and getting an edge is considered to be great talent.

This creates an environment where team work is most likely to be division of labour and the learning is always an individual’s responsibility. Awards, recognitions follow for individual brilliance; but what is not realized is that sum of all individual efforts is always lesser than the collective output. One of my peers highlighted this very well by relating this to a story Birds that flock, seem to learn faster

We should realize that our own learning is dependent how much the peers also learn; individual learning and moving up the ladder is just an illusion or is beneficial only for the individual and that too it comes with a great cost.

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Games people play!

This is not about the politics but the real games people play in the office like Ping pong, video games (Wii, PC), board games etc. My general observation is that people who started playing a new game and started improvising on it rapidly, showed the same kind of approach towards coding. Apart from the improvisation part, games also provided a platform for people to get together in an informal setting which is not very easily available in the offices other than the coffee table or water cooler. The gaming zones are the breeding ground for people identify like minded ones and also develop camaraderie.

In the last few years I have worked with teams which plays a team game regularly (twice or thrice a week). I noticed many positives after people started playing team games.

  • People got more comfortable with each other and were quick to share feedback about something not going on fine, those feedbacks were also well received and often in a jovial way.
  • The teams were anxious to play almost every day which meant the work on the day had to be finished on time, this made the entire team focussed on becoming very efficient to save time for the evening.
  • The post game retrospectives were so great for some of the strategy games that people made use of that data to plan for next games, which is similar to having iteration retrospectives and planning for the next week. Though the same kind of passion was not evident in the workplace retrospective, I have seen some people referring to a game’s retrospective and set the tone for the team at work.
  • Overall, games reduced the stress levels for individuals who had been pre-occupied with work the entire day.

Apart from games I have observed music, code jams, craft and arts also help people in similar ways mentioned above. which means

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Play games at workplace!