Brainstorming.

Last week I got a hands on experience with brainstorming. So far it had been something that I have read in books. As a student I have always failed (not subjects) to see the benefits of brinstorming. In fact I thought that this could at best throw out some whacky ideas if we can find some one bold enough to cough out such crap. Researchers seem to think in a similar way as they have generally failed to find evidence of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of ideas generated(wiki). But my experiences have been encouraging.

Situation 1: Accepting the responsibility of another department.
What we get: One "no- body wants" kind of employee.
Issues. Incompetent staff being diverted to us, Using a new system (software) and Trouble in man management.
We had a discussion with the Dy.GM and she wanted us to take this responsibility. Her argument was that we gain an additional pair of hands. However we were apprehensive of the whole proposal and could not find a way to wriggle out of it. Then back in our division we went on discussing about the various options and found out that we had none but to accept it. Without knowing we started brainstorming. We went on to ask why this step was taken. What is the need? It is because our old way of doing things was slow in updating. Many ideas started flowing from our staff to ensure that the data gets updated fast enough. Then we had struck the exact answer. Providing of data at periodic intervals. This way the other division need not divert their staff to us and we were free from all the issues mentioned earlier.

Situation 2: Extending a service to another product.
Issues. Non-compatible data, No support.
This too was not announced as a braintorming session but we were encouraged to offer ideas.It did lead to a solution whereby we can use the same data structure with a few substitutes. A field that is to denote invoice number was used to mean account number and so on. However at the end of the meeting I accepted to do something I do not do. I had to write a program. (FYI - I am an accountant not a programmer.) Anyway, I guess it helps me in my career as a person who takes on challenges and gets it done( Yes. I did it.)

The post may at best be rated as vague, as I did not divulge much of the information about the problems, making it difficult to see where is the brainstorming. The reason can be found here in an old post.

Finally, the reason why I feel that these are brainstorming is we did not arrive at these solutions thinking about it.

See Wiki, here and here.

Standing meeting

I read a post in Lifehacker about conducting meetings without chairs. Seems to have helped them in finishing meeting in less than half the time. I wanted to try that out in our office. But then something struck my mind. The average age of employees in our organisation would be around 50. I'm not expecting a good response.

Things to come.

Brainstorming.
Productivity.

Any requests?

Template changes...

I'm planning to change the template so as to exclude the currently reading and just finished reading sections. Either I don't get time to update the section or I am reading a lot or nothing. This is not a very good combination. Especially the not updating as often can be explained like this.

The Personal excellence and goal were completed so long back and did help me. I exercise regularly (except for the ;last few days when I'm down with back pain), identified critical tasks in office and streamlined them.

But then I have read Cat-O-Nine tales by Jeffry Archer, பாரதி இருந்த வீடு, கற்பனைக்கு அப்பால், both by சுஜாதா and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The tamil books were completed in half a day. It cannot progress from currently reading to just finished. So this section is finished. It goes off the page tommorrow.

Update: Done. 9th March 2007 0715 hours IST.

அனைத்து வலிகளும்....

தலைவலியும் பல்வலியும் தனக்கு வந்தால் தெரியும் என்று பழமொழி. அது உண்மை அல்ல. எல்லா வலிகளுக்கும் பொருந்தும். இன்று உடற்பயிற்சி செய்யும் போது கர்லா கட்டை (எம்.ஜி.ஆர் சத்யராஜுக்கு கொடுத்தது மாதிரி) தோளில் இடித்து முதுகு வலிக்க துவங்கி விட்டது. அடி பட்ட இடத்தில் ஒரு வலியும் இல்லை.ஆனால் உட்கார நிமிர முடியாமல் முதுகில் வலி. ஒரு வேலையும் ஆகவில்லை. Officeக்கு மட்டம் போட்டது தான் மிச்சம்.