In optimism we trust.

I have learned a new skill these days. Its called "how-to-be-optimistic-even-in-this-recession". Economists have urged the public to not use the "R-word", but i am going to defy them. (Brave me). People have gone through some tough times this recession; my heart goes out to them. But I have learned to look at a silver lining in this dark cloud

How so? Mainly though Wall Street, banks and CEO's. They keep my optimistic spirit high. Huh what? How?

"Earlier this week, The Financial Times reported Bank of America (BofA) needed to raise about $10 billion as a result of the stress tests. The FT's report was "completely inaccurate," a bank spokesman told Reuters."

This got my spirits high. Wow good news: The bank does not need $10 billion.They are self sufficient.The good days are back.....but wait..."The FT dramatically underestimated BofA's capital needs, which are closer to $34 billion. " (34B more... you gotta be kidding me)

...Don’t be disheartened yet. There is good news in the bad news.

You think this is a case of underestimation. BofA thinks otherwise. They think its over-estimation. CEO Ken Lewis thinks this is "good news because $33.9 billion is less than the $45 billion on TARP funds the government has pledged to the bank. "I knew optimism would work. This is fantastic.

Let me decode the above for you

BofA: We have great news. We dont need $10B
Tax payer: yeahhhh
BofA: We dont need 10B. We now need $34B
Tax payer: You sneaky $%#%^^#
BofA: Look Mr. Tax payer, its good coz 34 B less than the $45B you (TARP funds) promised to owe me. (So now we'll have 11 B surplus. TOGA parties!).

I am not trying to batter the banks or the system, there are enough analysts doing it. (For the record i hate the TARP and the bail out, but that’s me). I am just trying to laugh at the so called "good news". BofA you are a big bank. You serve clients in over 150 countries. My desi hommies have multiple accounts. But if you continue this way there will be more sites like http://www.bankofamericasucks.com/.

It’s been a rough year for all of us. But it almost seems that grammar adjectives I learned in high school, good-better-best has changed to totally sucks-bad-good. I think we are looking for "better". Oh but the Wall Street "better" is different that we all think. I mean look at the news I was watching on TV

Citigroup Inc. reported its smallest loss since 2007. The bank on Friday posted a first-quarter loss to common shareholders of $966 million after massive loan losses and dividends. The results were better than expected.

Once again a perfect example of looking at the positive in the dark hour. Now do you agree? Don’t look at the $966 mil loss or thousands of employees laid off....look at the better than expected.

I had an old email with good/bad news jokes which i found in my inbox. I think they perfectly which fit the situation. But then what do i know........

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wife: I have some good news and some bad news.
Husband: What's the good news?
Wife: The good news is I found a picture that's worth $500,000.
Husband: Wow! That's wonderful! What's the bad news?
Wife: The bad news is that the picture is of you and your secretary!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawyer: I have some good news and some bad news.
Client: Well, give me the bad news first.
Lawyer: The bad news is that the DNA tests showed that it was your blood they found all over the crime scene
Client: Oh no! I'm ruined! What's the good news?
Lawyer: The good news is your cholesterol is down to 130!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wife: I have bad news. I lost my wallet
Husband: Really. I have good news
Wife: What
Husband: My Credit card won’t be maxed out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Consulting and perspectives

Being in consulting has taught me some very valuable lessons. It has made me realize the importance of the 3 C's in consulting...Customer, Customer, Customer and Customer (Oh, so that’s 4 C's ..Damn it I should have paid attention in the math class). The age old mantra "Customer is always right" is tweaked and remixed in consulting. It goes something like "Customer is always right, when they exactly do as I say"

Being in consulting you get to experience the good, bad and ugly of every business . Not only the perspectives are different within an organization but sometimes they are two ends of a spectrum. My favorite part of consulting is not the challenges i face while solving an issue but trying to bridge the gap between the members of the same organization a.k.a "My Customers"


A CFO's perspective almost reminds of me the McDonald's commercial.



"What can i get for a dollar". Its almost seems to be their favorite Q (and I don't blame them).

The response to that is very different, depending on who is giving the answer. If you'd ask the sales guy...He would say "we can get it way under your budget; for $0.99* instead of the whole dollar."
(* of course that means we will off shore the project and get it done for $0.10)
If the CFO asked me the same Q, I would say that "we can further save $0.01 by using cost saving methodologies*.
(*which means, my team cant expense their lunch and I will work from home)

A CTO's perspective is varied from other management heads. He goes mainly like, "how can we get the cutting edge technology out there, improve efficiency, and build software that should be intuitive for any user". By that he really means get me something which is newer than a super computer technology, build software that will solve all my business needs and something my agonizingly painful users can use w/0 asking too many Q's.

Now the tech sales guy would promise a Intel neon quad core i7 processor with 23 Total Compute Nodes (14,336 Total Cores) with 28,672GB Ram and a never ending disk space with RAID and a 27x7 availability. Also free license of Linux loaded on top of Vista which runs on Solaris.(
I on the other hand would have to say the same above things (since the sales guy already promised that and that's how we got the contract). But would have also added that "we can build a bug free, highly scalable enterprise software solution from some in house reusable software assets which are very user friendly and improve efficiency in business."

(By that i mean we are going to use open source software which is in pre-alpha-beta-theta version and while we are fixing your bugs we will also solve world hunger)

I usually find the business stake holders' perspective the most interesting. They usually begin the conversation by letting us know when they would like the project to end. So they go mainly like, "we would like to end the project this summer so what kind of functionally can push to the users by that time-frame?" Now that's a trick Q. Why? The reason this is a trick Q, coz they will follow the Q by an answer of itself. "Oh don't forget the 1,735 page requirement document we sent you. It is extremely imperative we have all the 160,489 use case in the live system."

Now this usually has a predictable and consistent response from sales and a consultant like me. WTF!!!

In consulting different terms mean differently, depending on who's perspective you looking at. Its kinda like when you tell your wife, you are going to out drinking on sat night with a bunch of guys and she says "Go ahead, do it"....
Woman's perspective: "I dare you to do it" (don't do it bro..)
Mans perspective...YEAHHHH!!!

The same way in consulting terms mean different for a customer and consultants. I tried to get a few which I could think of.

	Customer perspective	Consultant/Consulting perspective
Bug free system	Bug free system Something the sales promised to the CTO who promised to CFO who promised to CEO who promised to stake holders …you get the idea	Imaginary system. Kinda like santa clause ...doesn't exists.
Onsite	Need someone to whine to and blame for our problems	A guy you keep in front of customer so that they can kick his a$$
Offshore	The best cost-reducing strategy known to man.	Mid night calls. (I am not allowed to write more on this)
Open source software	The second best cost-reducing strategy known t.	Usually used when there is no budget for software No documentation.No support. Plenty of bugs.
Project status = Green	All's well and project on track	All's well and project on track (but we don’t know when is dooms day
Project status = Yellow	There is a small issue and we need to resolve it	There is a major problem we have no idea but we cant tell the customer right away.
Project status = Red	Dude, we are doomed	Dude, we are doomed. Doom's day milestone achieved a day early
Priority 1 bug	Need it fix ASAP. The color of blue should be changed to Red	Need it fix ASAP. Solve it before the bug report is sent to PM or call it a “new feature”
Change Request	Nothings a CR. Everything is in scope	Running behind schedule then all bugs are tagged as CR
Quick response is appreciated	I need the answer right away	Please delay as much as possible so that I can lurk around in the cafeteria a little longer
Loyal employee	Can’t get a job anywhere.	No such thing.
Teamwork	Lot of people doing what I say	A Team that does all the work
Appreciation	John is an invaluable "ass"et to the project, could he start working week ends also	Something which looks good on paper and has no influence or value on appraisal
Appraisal	Does not exist.	I concur. Does not exist

I just wanted to reflect on some thoughts i have had during consulting. There are way more dimensions and perspectives to consulting then i could simplify here. And there are plenty of things you will agree/disagree/laugh or curse me for. I just tried to scrub the surface of this versatile industry as i understand.....But then ....what do I know