triDeveloper - Open-Source Extensions and Applications for the TRIRIGA Platform→

Interesting group for Tririga Developers, created by Eric Glass of Serco. It is refreshing to find a group like this, in the vast vacuum of open discussion forums on TRIRIGA despite the decent sized user base.

“This project provides open-source extensions, applications, and useful utilities for the TRIRIGA Application Platform. In addition to providing useful functionality in its own right, the open nature of the various subprojects can be valuable tools for learning how to develop integrations with the TRIRIGA platform.”

Business Process Mix

In general I have come to a realization that every organization needs to have an optimal ‘business process mix’. Firstly, what is a business process ? A business process can be defined as a sequence of elemental steps, which are required to ‘get a task done’. In terms of computer science, a business process is essentially an algorithm, i.e. a well defined sequence of steps which is required to transform an input to a desirable output. 

I believe for that for the ‘de-risking’ of day to day operations of an organization, having well documented business processes is essential. This helps in making the organization less dependent on a particular individual / resource for it’s day to day operations. This helps in increasing employee / management confidence in running a sustainable organization. A sustainable organization is one which is ‘fault-tolerant’, i.e. which has built-in redundancy. This means that the absence of a resource will not overly affect the core operations of the system / organization. A sustainable organization always tries to make itself redundant. It clearly identifies the core-strengths and functions performed by it’s resources, and tries to duplicate / cross-pollinate these functions all throughout the organization.

It seems to me that smaller organizations have a much higher need for documenting business processes, than larger organizations. This is because smaller organizations, by definition, have fewer resources and hence the responsibilities per resource increase. This increase in responsibilities leads to higher risk, per individual resource. This increase calls for a more aggressive business process documentation approach in smaller organizations, than in larger organizations. On the other hand, I have heard that it can take forever to get anything done in larger organizations, due to the highly structured processes. This can also be called as the ‘meeting for a meeting to organize another meeting’ syndrome. In such cases it would seem that it is important for someone at the top ( or the bottom, or at any layer in the hierarchy ), to be able to see through all the layers of management from top-to-bottom, and devise newer / more streamlined business processes. 

Thank You Google - for Google Docs

I just love Google Docs. The primary driving factor, which initially prompted me to use Google Docs was the easy collaboration feature, which has improved over time. Also, it seems to gel well with other Google products as well, which is an added advantage. I have started a flight training course, and after every flight I perform a self-debrief, on what my thoughts were. I began documenting the same via a spreadsheet. Within my ‘paper’ notes, I had drawn a simple line illustration of the pre-flight inspections. I imagined it would not be an easy task to obtain the same in a spreadsheet, out-of-the-box, i.e. without using another tool to do the same. However, I just thought of checking if I can do the same in Google Docs. Imagine my surprise when I discovered, that I can indeed do it, right within Google Docs, without any external program, and with Edit History being accessible as well ! Just wanted to say thanks to Google for making Google Docs.

#AppReview - LinkedIn Android App

Pros:

1. Contains a 'browser' view which keeps you inside of the App, even while reading external articles. This is good in the sense that it avoids context switching between the App and the browser while reading content

2. Has a fairly professional looking interface.

Cons:

1. Consistently lacking in 'Activity Indicator' / 'Busy Loader'. It is highly surprising that an App coming from a big company like LinkedIn would not have the Activity Indicator for any of it's screens.

2. Seems like the Application is not able to maintain it's state over the course of a complex navigation scenario, especially when you navigate back to the Activity after a period of time. In this case, the Application view appears to be a 'default' layout. A screenshot is shown below.

Test hardware = Galaxy Nexus, Android OS V 4.2.1

Returning back to Blogspot from Tumblr ?

As of today I am seriously considering switching back to Blogspot as my default blogging platform, rather than using Tumblr. Here are some of the reasons:

1. In Blogspot / Blogger I don't have to go to an external hosting provider to host an image which I want to post in my blog post.

2. The post is auto-saved during the time of composition.

3. Overall, it feels easier to format a post on Blogger, with the plethora of formatting options being easily accessible.

4. Also, the blogging experience / speed is faster on Blogger.

India Trip

1. Traffic in Indore has improved over the last year.

2. Roads have definitely improved.

3. Maybe 1. and 2. are inter-related.

4. Food is awesome, as usual.

5. St. Paul's hasn't changed much over the last year. A welcome change though is that Father Thomas Matthew now the new Principal, Thankacchan is now gone. Some sister is the new Vice principal. Mehra sir just got a heart attack, I hope he gets well soon. John Mathew sir is fine, and is in Kerala to take care of his father.

When nothing goes as expected ...

Over the past few days quite a few things have been going wrong. I am talking about several aspects of my life. The situation did seem grim initally. However, with a little bit of self-confidence, hard work, help of friends and I might add luck as well, I have emerged better off than I was before the calamity started. As part of this process of recovery, some concepts, have been reinforced in a more concrete manner than they were prior to these problems. These concepts are:

1. You always learn a whole bunch more from failures, than you do from a simple, straight-forward success.

I believe that no one will disagree with me when I say that the taste of success sure is sweet, but what is wrong to take so much pleasure from one success so as to become negligent of facts and fail to do a critical analysis of reasons for success. Life is a battle, everyday. This being the nature of life, it is best to convert every *attempt* at doing *anything* into a learning opportunity. Such an attitude helps in making one's character more resilient and *silently* self-confident. It maybe argued here that success implies victory, so what more is left to fight for if one has already won. This would be true, if life was a single *shot* affair. But, the fact is that life is *always* a fight, a daily one. While some aspects of life are under our control, the others are simply not. Hence, one may not always achieve success but there is also a chance of failure. The reason why failures help are because they make you much more prepared for the next battle as compared to a success. ( This does assume however, that one is willing to learn from one's mistakes !)

Another related aspect is the more battles you fight, the more prepared you are for the ones which are waiting for you. Here, the term battle is loosely used to mean *attempts* at achieving something, without caring for failure. The more one is obsessed with a potential failure, the more one gets discouraged from trying something. Therefore, one should never be shy of trying something new. As they say, leaving your comfort zone makes you a stronger person.

2. Hard work *always* pays.

Over the years, I have had some very vivid examples of the above, proven to me in a very direct manner. What has varied is the duration over which your hard work will pay, but for me I have found it always does. This lesson was reinforced again during the recent /battles/. When I say hard work, I especially mean hard work in areas which you are passionate about, and where you have *not* been asked to do that work by anyone else. Such activity is, to put it in another way, *pure* because it has not been performed due to any external prompting, but has been done completely due to your own passion. There is a chance that the quality of work while undertaking such an activity will be high, simple because it is borne out of an innate interest.