Startups and Funding

The startup I have been assisting finds itself in a bit of a tight corner financially. On one hand, we don't have enough money to expand our team because we only have a few small projects in the pipeline. On the other hand, we can't get bigger projects till we expand our team, in terms of both headcount and skill sets. Despite all our efforts, we haven't been able to attract any VCs or angel investors. So I asked myself - what is it than an investor looks for in a startup?

First and foremost is a business plan. A good business plan shows your would-be investors the company's potential and convinces them to invest their hard-earned cash in a startup. It tells them what you would provide your target audience that is different from the offerings already in the market, attracting customers  towards your firm and growing its market share. After all, why would an investor put money into a company that doesn't promise good returns

Next comes a good core team. An entrepreneur (or set of partners) may have a great idea, which has the potential to be the next Facebook or Twitter. But do they have the right mix of skills to develop the idea and start earning money? If they have a good set of people to start off with, they may be able to gradually build a strong and successful organization around it. The core team should cover all aspects of the business, from technical work to management

Last but not the least, the entrepreneur must be clear about his goal and must remain focused on it. It is easy to get swayed by trends and deviate from your business plan. For instance, jumping on to a bandwagon like Android apps just because everyone else is doing it (just an example, no offence intended to Google). Angel investors especially would be very attentive to this aspect, since they generally remain invested for longer than Banks or VC firms

Today India has many firms that provide both capital and business advice to startups, especially those in the IT and telecom sectors. Any one with a business plan that leverages the power of the Internet, but in a way that is different from the competition, has a good shot at getting funds. The impact of the recession on this sector has been relatively mild. For a budding Indian entrepreneur who follows the above rules, this is as good a time as any to attract funding

Client-side Business Analysts

By definition, a Business Analyst is someone who analyzes the existing organization and design of systems (whether business processes or IT systems) and helps to define the improvements needed. In an IT project, the BA's role is to understand the high-level requirement statement(s) in the project charter, deep dive into the client's business processes and prepare the product scope and project scope. Generally this role is performed at the vendor's side, either by the Project Manager himself or by a specialist BA who has more likely than not worked his way up from a technical role

But sometimes, especially in international projects, one finds the Business Analyst role being played by someone at the client side. This may be an employee of the client organization, or a contractor appointed by the client management to speak to their employees and note down their detailed requirements. The intention is to save the additional time and effort of requirements gathering by the vendor, by giving them everything they need to know. But if you are the PM from the Vendor organization, this is not necessarily good for you. In fact, it can do more harm than good

Since the client's BA has already given you a detailed set of requirements, their management expects you to jump right into finalizing the scope (if not executing the project). This means you or your BA cannot try and find any crucial points that their BA may have missed. Hence you are more likely to face issues with scope approvals, or worse, with scope verification. Also you miss the chance to personally interact with the client employees and understand the power structures and political relationships within their organization, which would have helped you later in the project

Project Closure

One of the projects I am managing is near its end, and though we are facing some last minute scope creep because of a weak SOW and the lack of an SRS document, I have already started working on a template for the Project Closure document. During this process, I browsed through many websites on the Web and observed what others had to say on the subject of project closure. Some define it as "a process, with deliverables, to successfully conclude your project". Other consider it the last phase in the project life cycle, "in which you will formally close your project and then report its overall level of success to your sponsor"; this "involves handing over the deliverables to your customer, passing the documentation to the business, cancelling supplier contracts, releasing staff and equipment, and informing stakeholders of the closure of the project". Whether you see it as a project phase or just a process, the fact remains that closure is a very crucial part of the project life cycle, which should not be taken lightly. There are many ways in which a project can end, which can be positive (inclusion, addition, integration, etc.) or negative (extinction, collapse, starvation, etc.). The most important management documents related to project closure are the Project Closure report and the Post Implementation Review document. As the names suggest, the first document is created as part of the project closure process while the second is created some time after the formal closure of the project, as part of the project manager's analysis of the success or failure of the project

Nokia Pureview 808

Ever since the Nokia Pureview 808 was launched in India last month, I've been researching the pros and cons of this not-so-smartphone with the powerhouse camera, trying to figure out if it can replace my almost-2-years-old Nokia N8, which doubles as a decent point-and-shoot camera whenever and wherever I don't have my DSLR handy. I say not-so-smart because unlike the N8, which was quite advanced for its time with three home screens, online widgets and social media integration, the Belle-powered 808 does not offer any new features that are not seen in other Belle phones (other than perhaps NFC)

So essentially it comes down to the monster camera, with its 41  megapixel  sensor, and whether it is worth spending Rs 34,000 (minus whatever I would get for turning in my N8). But is the camera of the 808 really going to give me gigantic 41 MP images, and what would I do with them anyway? Not really - the default image size is only 5 MP, though theoretically the camera can be used to record images as large as 38 MP. So why use a 41 MP sensor to produce 5 or 8 MP images? The answer lies in the Pureview technology that Nokia has developed over five years, to provide lossless zoom up to 3x and better performance in low-light conditions (the latter being a major weakness of the otherwise solid N8)

Pureview as I understand it works by combining details from all the extra pixels captured by the sensor to create sharper 5 or 8 MP images (when compared to the other camera phones, not digicams). This approach helps the phone's image processor to discard visual noise in low light photographs. Also, since the phone has so many pixels to play with, what it actually does when you zoom in is to select the relevant area of the image, rather than scale up the whole image as other camera phones such as the N8 do. In other words, Pureview technology can put out of business not just rival phones but even basic digicams without optical zoom (Wow! Can't wait for a chance to test such an awesome camera)

But that brings us back to the question of whether the phone is worth buying at this point of time. Let us consider the cons:- heavy and bulky body, single core processor, low RAM, low resolution screen, outdated OS, fewer apps than iPhone or Android, high price tag. Tempted as I am by the single but crucial pro of the camera, I think I shall hold off till the market price comes down a bit. Given the cons and the lack of any other "game changer" features, I believe the Pureview 808 should have been priced around Rs 25,000 to be really competitive in the Indian market. For Nokia's sake, I hope that they choose a more realistic pricing when they come out with a Windows phone using Pureview technology

Importance of Innovation

In a hard-hitting article in today's (3rd July 2012) issue of The Economic Times, former NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik makes a strong case for promoting innovation among Indians. Karnik says that the three 'i's of innovation, invention and ideas are essential for any individual, organization, society or country to gain a decisive edge in today's competitive, globalized world. He bemoans the fact that India today is dominated by political elements that seek homogenization at the cost of the immense diversity that has traditionally defined our country, and which along with adversity is the prime driver of innovation. Other roadblocks for innovation in today's India are censorship, moral policing and the feudalistic mindset symbolized by the beacons on VIP cars

What Karnik says about India as a country is also valid for organizations. Every company tends to have dictatorial leaders or cliques that seek to impose a particular culture on the entire organization, while muzzling any independent voices in the name of hierarchy and respect for authority. What they don't realize is that such lack of diversity ultimately results in total absence of innovation, leaving them with a complacent workforce that is happy to maintain the status quo, without ever thinking out of the box or coming up with more efficient and effective solutions. Also, while many companies have started allocating a significant proportion of their budget to draw out new ideas from their staff, they don't usually put in as much time and effort to develop those ideas to fruition. A good manager has to not only inculcate the spirit of innovation in his employees but also nurture it and ensure that it produces tangible results that add value to the entire organization

Managing Scope Creep

However well defined your SOW document, however detailed your SRS document, some amount of scope creep is inevitable during the development phase of a software project. When a customer previews the system that is being developed, they are bound to come up with new ideas on how a particular module, report or web page should look. Of course, a strong project manager or project sponsor would try and negotiate a corresponding increase in either the budget or schedule or both, in which case, the increase in scope would be treated as an acceptable change request. But if the customer is a VIP client, or if your initial project documents were not specific enough about the scope, you end up having to accept the changes and work them into your schedule and budget. Your best best in such a case is to try and minimize the impact of the scope creep, especially on the confidence of the development team. You could do this by asking the customer to prioritize the changes and ask your team to target only the high priority items at first. At the same time, you would have to negotiate with the customer and set reasonable and realistic expectations about the timely completion of the changes. Most customers would be willing to concede some extra days for low priority changes, beyond the implementation date of the project. Of course, keeping the team engaged for longer on one project could affect the schedules of other future engagements. But, as a project manager, you would still end up having made the best of a bad situation

Virtual Employees

An article in yesterday's (1st June 2012) issue of The Economic Times exhorts organizations to find ways to connect with their virtual employees. The author Abhijit Bhaduri, the chief learning officer at Wipro, stresses that virtual workers do not only mean employees working in another country or city and in fact could be people working in an office just across the road. The plight of such employees typify the saying "out of sight, out of mind". There is no emotional connect with the leader, the team and even the organization. This results in a major drop in employee engagement, which may ultimately result in higher attrition levels

Having seen this first-hand in my last company, I cannot help but agree with Mr. Bhaduri. The top bosses of our Business Unit were based in Bangalore and rarely visited Mumbai. Obviously they would interact more often with Bangalore team members, in the hallways and cafeterias, than with employees at other centers. As a result, even the most minor achievements of Bangalore staff got recognized at the highest levels in the organization, whereas their Mumbai counterparts would slave away all year only to receive "average" ratings and infrequent promotions. This resulted in many Mumbai team members attempting to leave the BU, and when that did not work out due to headcount politics, opting to leave the organization itself

The lesson here for all leaders having virtual employees is to try and personally interact with them as often as possible, even if they work at multiple offices across various locations. Making employees feel wanted and appreciated is the best way to keep them engaged. Bhaduri reminds organizations to use technology, process guidelines and informal rewards to ensure that virtual workers have what he calls "a share of mind, voice and wallet"