Dear Friend,
Techkriti is the annual International Science and Technology festival of IIT Kanpur scheduled to be held between 12th to 15th Feb 2009. Over the years it has grown into one of the largest festivals of its kind in Asia. Since its inception, Techkriti has not only enriched the technical spirits of young minds, but has also been a source of novel solutions to some interesting engineering and scientific problems. From talks by eminent personalities, cut throat competitions, challenging workshops to incredible exhibitions and fun filled shows, Techkriti has got something for everyone.
Continuing the legacy of unparallaled reputation from the past years we bring to you Techkriti '09 which is all set to transform your thoughts. We have a multitude of events ranging from International Online Programming Contest, Software Corner, Robogames, Electromania to Rubiks Cube solving puzzle, Bio Business plan, RC Flying Contest and many more which are set to explore all possible arenas of Science and Technology. New events such as the Rube Goldberg Challenge and the National Spaghetti Bridge Making Contest will further add to the vast diversity of competitions we already have.
Techkriti, in the past, has been graced by the legendry talks by Dr Peter grunberg (Nobel Prize in Physics 2007), Mr. Ankit Fadia, Dr. Kevin Warwick (First Human Cyborg), Mr. Harsh Manglik (MD, Accenture India). This year we invite you to be the audience in the enthralling lectures by following noted illuminories in their field of expertise.
Prof. Martin L. Perl (Nobel Prize in Physics, '95)
Prof. Hod Lipson (Self aware robots)
Prof. Peter Naur (Turing Award Winner)
Prof. Edmund Clarke (FORE systems professor, Carnegie Mellon University)
Registration for Techkriti 09 has already started with many of the events having their preliminary elimination deadlines by December itself. Visit us at www.techkriti.org and check out the problem statements. Watch out for the online events. And to add to it prizes worth more than 10 lacs of rupees are at stake!
So, what are you waiting for! Register yourself at our website and together we will make the event memorable.
Regards,
Friday, November 14, 2008
attrition basics
Attrition – If one looks up this word in Microsoft-Word, the synonyms that I get are abrasion, erosion, eating away, wearing away,etc. This shows that this is a very dangerous issue. This is prevalent very significantly in the IT industry, more than any other industries, for a host of reasons. If you talk to any Manager in the IT industry on what is the most biggest challenge he would face in a project, the answer will be not technology, not schedule, not cost, it will be more often than not the resources and the attrition that comes along. We will try to find out why we have the high levels of attrition in the IT companies (especially in India) in the due course of this blog.
There are several theories that are in place – Maslow's Hierarchical theory of needs, McGregor's Theory of X and Y, etc. - which deal with the psyche of any person and what are his needs, motivations and other factors which will retain a person in any organization. Here, I will try to split the associate who form the focus of this note to 4 different categories based on their experience:
Less than 3 years experience – The nucleus of this group belongs to freshers and comparatively newcomers in the industry. For these associates, money is the primary factor. The company that offers these associates more money, irrespective of the work that they do (let it be maintenance, production support, documentation, etc), will be able to attract them. There is not much of a retention plan that can be built for this group of resources – What the Manager will have to prepare is a Work-around, not a Mitigation strategy. The trigger can be anything as small as a dispute with another team-member or as big as dissatisfaction in the work-content, if not money. Mainly, the point I am driving at, is that “Prevention is better than cure” doesn't work in this case. One has to be alert to be able to
gauge the mindset of the associate and have an alternative available. Effective usage of Buffer resources is one of the alternative solutions. Most often, the associates tend to compare themselves with their other fellow associates with the nature of their work and feel that the Grass is greener on the other side, whether it is to do with money, technology, culture, etc.
3 to 7 years experience – Most of the associates having this experience are virtually non-existent in India. If they are present in India, it is either that they are forced to, because of some constraints like family, health, etc. Otherwise, these associates will be forced by the organizations to go onsite since they are one of the senior members in the team, if they haven't already voiced their interests to go onsite. Also, typically, the average IT person will leave behind his bachelor phase and would want to work in a less-demanding environment, more like an extended honeymoon (which according to him, is possible in onsite Maintenance jobs) – in fact, the organizations also motivate these individuals in this way so that they can bill these associates in foreign currency. The associates who stay back in India ideally become either an Architect or a Project Lead, which gives them a good sense of responsibility in the organization, ensuring that they remain satisfied. If you lose associates in this category, the organization is in a big soup for the future nucleus of the organization (who had proved their value all this time) are suddenly missing. The organization has to groom another person at this juncture and this will again take time. So, how do you take care that these associates stay on in the organization? Give them technically challenging projects which will keep them satisfied and probably give them less time to think about any changes that will crop up automatically in a person with less-intensive work environment.
7 to 15 years experience – The category of people here will get into Management roles and hence have an idea of what goes on in the organization and understand the rationale of the same. The organization also would like to take advantage of their vast experience and hence, give more responsibilities to the individuals. Money ceases to be the most influential reason for this set of associates. The reasons for this set of people are more often the challenges that they face in the project. They would require work that will involve them in a larger capacity than that of a mere developer or designer. They will want more challenges, responsibilities, decision-making abilities, more power. Lack of any of these will typically make them restless and start looking at other avenues. There is some amount of fear in this set of resources of how any change in the Higher Management will impact the way in which they have been working so far and that might also impact some of the associates. There have been instances where the associates have worked on high-technology projects with stiff deadlines and tough client interfaces. Once the project was completed and the associates moved on to a less demanding project, the tempo dipped, and people started looking outside for want of more similar challenges. Providing these resources with more challenging responsibilities and maybe, if possible, stock options are definite means of retaining these associates.
>15 years experience – These are a small set of associates typically, in an organization. They move out usually when there is a change in the guard in the organization or if there was a change of focus within the organization and they feel that they might not be able to cope with the change. These resources typically give way to a lot of chaos and disturbances among the minds of the associates much junior to them, regarding the future of the company and how it might affect their immediate future. Also, there is a tendency for these associates to take with them a core group to their next company so that their comfort feel is retained even in the new work-place. These are the people who take care of other associates and avoid retention of the junior resources. Hence, retaining them is probably a task for the CEO and his immediate successors.
There are several common factors that are prevalent irrespective of the experience, however:
Money – This is one factor that can attract anyone away from his organization, though the probability will change based on the person's experience and the person's need at that instant.
Morale – This can be one's own morale or generally the team's morale. If your morale is down, the associates will feel immediately that this is the time for them to make their move.
Motivation Factor – This has to be provided by the Project Manager and the Team Leads. Without this, the team members feel lost and think that they don't have a clue of where they are in terms of the organization and what is their career plan.
These factors will change for each person. In all, the retention of associates within a project group, forget a company is a major challenge that all Indian companies are facing in recent times.
In order to reduce this, we need to have a retention plan customized for each associate (as each of them have a different need) and this plan has to be visited regularly with the associate in order that there is no lag in the aspirations of the associate and what his expectations are, from the organization. Without this, the attrition levels will never come down at all. That will not be good news to the Senior Management and the various stakeholders of the company.
There are several theories that are in place – Maslow's Hierarchical theory of needs, McGregor's Theory of X and Y, etc. - which deal with the psyche of any person and what are his needs, motivations and other factors which will retain a person in any organization. Here, I will try to split the associate who form the focus of this note to 4 different categories based on their experience:
Less than 3 years experience – The nucleus of this group belongs to freshers and comparatively newcomers in the industry. For these associates, money is the primary factor. The company that offers these associates more money, irrespective of the work that they do (let it be maintenance, production support, documentation, etc), will be able to attract them. There is not much of a retention plan that can be built for this group of resources – What the Manager will have to prepare is a Work-around, not a Mitigation strategy. The trigger can be anything as small as a dispute with another team-member or as big as dissatisfaction in the work-content, if not money. Mainly, the point I am driving at, is that “Prevention is better than cure” doesn't work in this case. One has to be alert to be able to
gauge the mindset of the associate and have an alternative available. Effective usage of Buffer resources is one of the alternative solutions. Most often, the associates tend to compare themselves with their other fellow associates with the nature of their work and feel that the Grass is greener on the other side, whether it is to do with money, technology, culture, etc.
3 to 7 years experience – Most of the associates having this experience are virtually non-existent in India. If they are present in India, it is either that they are forced to, because of some constraints like family, health, etc. Otherwise, these associates will be forced by the organizations to go onsite since they are one of the senior members in the team, if they haven't already voiced their interests to go onsite. Also, typically, the average IT person will leave behind his bachelor phase and would want to work in a less-demanding environment, more like an extended honeymoon (which according to him, is possible in onsite Maintenance jobs) – in fact, the organizations also motivate these individuals in this way so that they can bill these associates in foreign currency. The associates who stay back in India ideally become either an Architect or a Project Lead, which gives them a good sense of responsibility in the organization, ensuring that they remain satisfied. If you lose associates in this category, the organization is in a big soup for the future nucleus of the organization (who had proved their value all this time) are suddenly missing. The organization has to groom another person at this juncture and this will again take time. So, how do you take care that these associates stay on in the organization? Give them technically challenging projects which will keep them satisfied and probably give them less time to think about any changes that will crop up automatically in a person with less-intensive work environment.
7 to 15 years experience – The category of people here will get into Management roles and hence have an idea of what goes on in the organization and understand the rationale of the same. The organization also would like to take advantage of their vast experience and hence, give more responsibilities to the individuals. Money ceases to be the most influential reason for this set of associates. The reasons for this set of people are more often the challenges that they face in the project. They would require work that will involve them in a larger capacity than that of a mere developer or designer. They will want more challenges, responsibilities, decision-making abilities, more power. Lack of any of these will typically make them restless and start looking at other avenues. There is some amount of fear in this set of resources of how any change in the Higher Management will impact the way in which they have been working so far and that might also impact some of the associates. There have been instances where the associates have worked on high-technology projects with stiff deadlines and tough client interfaces. Once the project was completed and the associates moved on to a less demanding project, the tempo dipped, and people started looking outside for want of more similar challenges. Providing these resources with more challenging responsibilities and maybe, if possible, stock options are definite means of retaining these associates.
>15 years experience – These are a small set of associates typically, in an organization. They move out usually when there is a change in the guard in the organization or if there was a change of focus within the organization and they feel that they might not be able to cope with the change. These resources typically give way to a lot of chaos and disturbances among the minds of the associates much junior to them, regarding the future of the company and how it might affect their immediate future. Also, there is a tendency for these associates to take with them a core group to their next company so that their comfort feel is retained even in the new work-place. These are the people who take care of other associates and avoid retention of the junior resources. Hence, retaining them is probably a task for the CEO and his immediate successors.
There are several common factors that are prevalent irrespective of the experience, however:
Money – This is one factor that can attract anyone away from his organization, though the probability will change based on the person's experience and the person's need at that instant.
Morale – This can be one's own morale or generally the team's morale. If your morale is down, the associates will feel immediately that this is the time for them to make their move.
Motivation Factor – This has to be provided by the Project Manager and the Team Leads. Without this, the team members feel lost and think that they don't have a clue of where they are in terms of the organization and what is their career plan.
These factors will change for each person. In all, the retention of associates within a project group, forget a company is a major challenge that all Indian companies are facing in recent times.
In order to reduce this, we need to have a retention plan customized for each associate (as each of them have a different need) and this plan has to be visited regularly with the associate in order that there is no lag in the aspirations of the associate and what his expectations are, from the organization. Without this, the attrition levels will never come down at all. That will not be good news to the Senior Management and the various stakeholders of the company.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
abe kabhi to khol
hey everybody, if u r not alien then try to open this technology of the earth on the earth.........please open this site....at least twice a week..........................
Monday, August 4, 2008
please write something over here yar..
the day we came to nerist we have almost became uncommunicative. its going to cost well in future.. leaving ratnesh and sattu the rest members are having interest in blogging.. its very important to keep the momentum going.
hav a very good beginning of the semester..
please write some scraps yar.. it is valuable as u all know..
hav a very good beginning of the semester..
please write some scraps yar.. it is valuable as u all know..
to manish
hey how r u? me fine over here.. doing masti in the final year.. kal maine apna birthday treat sabko diya.. it costed well. how r u preparing 4 gate.. give some tips yar.. kya tum cat de rahe ho. if possible communicate well.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
subah se baizatti karwa raha hai.................
ho dosto kaise ho????????????
aaj to chale gaye hoge........................
rajkumar alok ki scanning kaisi chal rahi hai??
baki sab kaise hai???
aaj to chale gaye hoge........................
rajkumar alok ki scanning kaisi chal rahi hai??
baki sab kaise hai???
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
ending of our session
we the ec guys of nerist are leaving this auspicious place on 23rd of july morning (its a mourning for us)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
trinning ki dard
dard me bhi ye dil muskura jate hain.......................................
MAJA to tab atta hai jab dard me bhi koi saaat ho aur woh bhi jab raat ho..........
MAJA to tab atta hai jab dard me bhi koi saaat ho aur woh bhi jab raat ho..........
Thursday, July 17, 2008
trainning ne to mere waat laga deee hai .....................
7 weeeks ki trainning to faato hai.................
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
विकास दुखी था?
why vikash was unhapy, the reason being he was nt having a single girl in the group he had. he was getting bored and sleepy,though the mistake was his only,being a girl maniac he has nt been able to impress any girl.... lets see what happens to him.
अज का प्रैक्टिकल खास नही था?
WHAT do u say abt today. it was an absolute fun for rajkumar and tiwari who have made a special breakthrow being able to include some girls in de group they have formed.. this is good on the part that it would surely enhance their confidence..
hey guys its fun out here....
share ur views on some interesting topics. we have a formal relationship amongst us and this could continue later on which could be beneficial for all of us.
so today's topic is HAVE U LEARNT ANYTHING FROM TRAINING?
so today's topic is HAVE U LEARNT ANYTHING FROM TRAINING?
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