Wednesday, September 28, 2005

GEMS

Although I intended to blog on the experiences in Denmark I really want to write about GEMS.. Please bear...

GEMS
Why do I remember GEMS so much... well the reasons are more than one....the fact that it finds a mention in my blog which was solely meant for recording the experiences in Denmark
GEMS was my first project... fresh out of ITP... joined TCS Mumbai (TCS SEEPZ then)... the best TCS centre in the country.... and was allocated to the group GEMS..... the largest griup in GE which is the biggest client for TCS..... all over India around 2000+ consultants are working for this CMM level 5 company which knows IT like the back of their hand....

My first few days in GEMS were spent in the Borivali and SEEPZ libraries where we were made to sit n wait until we were absorbed in projects ... thankfully that happened soon and I was off to my Siebel internal training along with 4 more ITP batchmates... it notable to mention that all the people from my batch who landed in Mumbai were selected for GEMS....

The training, at Borivali, was for 10 days at the end of which I was a internally trained Siebel consultant .... only I know how much of Siebel I got to understand when the training concluded...Then off to SEEPZ, to meet Mr. Lij0
J@c0b Mann@raprayil (I admit having goofed up in pronouncing his last name the first time... but never again)...who was to be my account manager for a long time to come... He managed Services CoE, which was a new CoE added to GEMS specifically for the purpose of the Service Workbench Siebel implementation... Lijo was one of the most frank and open guys I have come across in the company… very very approachable.. he is one of the guys one wouldn’t forget easily… I hope I don’t… he entrusted me some responsibilities in the team and always showed confidence in my abilities..
He has had a lasting impression on me… although there do exist certain points on which our thoughts didn’t(rather don't) match and were source of constant arguments … overall I am quiet happy to have a manager like him early in my career…

The whole team there was new to the technology and the initial days were fun… subah se shaam tak fight marte the … everyday was a new learning experience… always discovering something or the other…filled with a zeal, common among the freshers, to learn and try out new things….


I met one of my greatest pals in this team. Altaf. He n I set off like a house on fire...Those work breaks in between the sutta/tea/coffee/TT breaks, the many evenings when we drowned our frustration at work @Maharaja Bar and many such memories would be incomplete without him. He is right now in Dubai setting up his own business.. the bureaucracy in the company got too much on his nerves.
Another worthy guy to mention is
Nilendu… gem of a person… he as my module leader and together we cracked many a challenges and had some night outs in office and some more in pubs… He is right now in US as a lead configurator in a project
Ashish who was my PL is another extraordinary person.. cool clam and composed… Always. Whatever happened he was always there with a smile to answer your questions effortlessly…somehow he also had a solution to all the problems… he is also in US right now as the project manager for a project for 20th Century Fox… I have made a conscious effort to be in touch with these people…

Some of the other things I learnt at GEMS was … the need to follow processes… and the way they influence the final product…the need to be in harmony with all the people… the need to think about others also…


Some other very imp things I learnt are ….
The way one should tackle unwanted or unprecedented situations
The way one should stay awake during meetings
Use as much techno lingo and stuff, as u remember or can remotely associate with your work, while to your PL/PM/manager :-)
Learnt to use the following words/phrases as often as possible, preferably at least one in each sentence:-


RCA - Root Cause Analysis
FBA - Fish Bone Analysis
KPI - Key Process Indicator
CTQ - Critical To Quality
ROI - Return On Investment
SnS - Snags n Spikes
CSI - Client Satisfaction Index
best practice
benchmark
reverse engineering
retrofitting
repeatable process
quantifiable
lessons learnt
hightlights n lowlights
consistent
optimized
performance tuned
peer review
360 degree feedback
wholistic view
futuristic thinking
avoidable bottlenecks
congestion points
sigma level
ISO
CMM
pCMM
showstoppers
hotfixes
quality conscious
version control
customer satisfaction
quickwin
breakfix
staging environment


And kabhi bhi koi tedha question pooch le to do sentence yaad rakna:-

1 I will get back to you on this
2 Let's take this offline

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Goteberg Trip - II



Continued from my previous post

Then later in the evening went to the botanical gardens… beautifullllllllllllllllllll…
Simply awesome.. we would have spent around three hours in the gardens which lead to a forest(I don’t remember the name right now)…


After that it was time for dinner. Now since Aalborg doesn’t have any Indian restaurant we decided that our dinner should definitely be in an Indian restaurant… nd what better that New Delhi restaurant….

“Heyllo ji” greeted the proprieter pujabi lady… “First of all welcome to New Delhi restaurant”…
“Kahan se hain aap log”… she realised that we were indians … and wanted to know where in europe we come from… it was clear form the cameras hanging from almost everyone’s necks that we were tourists…

Anyways we proceeded with the dinner and tore down the nans and chicken which on special request was made extra spicy…..mazaa aa gaya yaar!!!
Back to hotel and a hot shower and then it was sleep time… slept like a log..


Next morning we tore down on the breakfast and again deposited the luggage at the locker room and proceeded with the tour of the city. We started with Universum…. Which is a aquarium, space center, zoo all rolled in one…. But alas ..it started to rain and we were left in the Universum for 3 hours…

Thankfully the rain stopped but the sky was still overcast …. Next stop was Liseberg which is the largest amusement park in Scandinavia…. Entry to this park was courtesy the City pass which we bought the last day…. Suggest people should use such facilities coz it allows you to use many facilities like the guided tour of the moats , entry to amusement parks. Travel in trams etc…


Had to wait in the line for 50 mins to get to the roller coaster ride … 10 mins out of that delay were caused due to my principle of always being on the first seat in a roller coaster… I have observed this rule religiously till date and plan to do so in future also….
After the amusement park we were back at hotel to pick up the luggage and reach the Stenaline cruise which was to leave at 4 pm…. It being a Sunday .. no booze was available anywhere in the city at ay shop… anyways the cruise which we had choosen for the return journey was slow one … which reached Fredrikshavn in 4 hours as compared to the 2 hours in the fast one….
This cruise liner was far more grand than the last one… 12 decks , casino, bars, food courts, et al… totally fundoo… kya kya hota hain yaar ship ke andar….


Finally back to Fredrishavn and then took the train to Aalborg… in the train we started with an antakshari (much tpo the dislike of the rest of the other passengers.. read non-indians)

Back to Aalborg … had a pizza and went off to sleep… agle din office jana tha !!
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Here is the link to the pics from Goteberg
http://community.webshots.com/album/428842010yYtIid

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Goteberg Trip - I


I finally find some time to write about the Goteberg trip....it happened on 13-14 Aug… on 13th morning we gathered at Aalborg Station and from there took a train to fredrikshavn… Its approx 1 hour away and in the journey you get to see loads of country side meadows, windmills and stuff like that… Fredrikshavn is also like Aalborg… well almost…
Its not too big… you hardly get to see people… and the roads are more often than not empty !!!





Train journey was fun… after getting down at the station there’s a 10 minute walk till the Stenaline cruise at the harbor… and then you are on board…

the cruise that we took was a fast one.. it covers the distance in 2 hours,,, everyone was at the deck most of the time… enjoying the wind and the sea… went in to play a bit at the slot mahicnes but had terrible luck with it …

Finally we landed in Goteberg.. it is much bigger than Aalborg or Fredrikshavn… we had to walk down till our hotel which was just 10 minutes away… somehow the hotel was always 10 mins away and after a good 30 minutes we finally made it there ….lekin a shock was waiting for us there
The check in time is 3 pm.. WTF…. What are we supposed to do till then… so then it was decided ki we keep our luggage in the locker room and explore the city…



First stop in the city central where we head straight for Burger king to fill our tummies… after a long wait at the counter we were finally out at 2:45 from there ….and at a pavement there was some performace going on … some tribesmen from Mexico/Equador who were performing .. nice music and great costumes….



From there we moved on to take the ride in the moat… we bought a City pass at the hotel which allows you entry into lotsa parks etc and free rides et al…. the moat ride was fun… we literally scanned the whole moat scene and the guide gave good inputs…

More in next post ......


Adlof Gustav II - Founder of Goteberg/Gothenburg/Gotteberg

Read More about Goteberg at
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/G%F6teberg



One of my fav pics from the trip: A couple getting married on a bridge on the moat.