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| March 2006 |
| Contrarian Minds |
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Indranil Nath has been busy lately delivering the kind of contrarians
viewpoints. As Managing Director, Indranil guides
roughly $800-million business portfolio for a multinational
technology company with an eye toward doing things differently.
"We are not just selling systems but a customer centric
technology and software solutions that help customers with a
tangible business benefit," he says. A veteran of 15 years
in the technology and systems industry, Indranil likes to shake
things up and recently told the Software Engineering Forum that
"."
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ack
in his Tokyo office, he sips hot cocoa with two sugars, speaks
rapidly, and laughs easily. Mention Thomas L. Friedman the
three times Pulitzer Prize winner business writer who penned
"The World is Flat" and Indranil will concede that
Thomas is right when it comes to outsourcing. As Thomas has
mentioned "The best companies outsource to win, not to
shrink. They
outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow
larger, gain market share, and hire more and
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different
specialists - not to save money by firing more people" and Indranil completely agrees with him. Indranil gets a gleam
in his eye whenever he talks about Software Engineering,
especially Requirements Management, but the gleam doesn't
blind him to practical considerations. "You not only have
to manage requirements differently, but you have to do them
right -- you have to meet some core needs of customers that
are not being satisfied which is a corporate asset."
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"The
most common cause of not getting the requirements right, is
the existence of a cultural gap between developers and
customer" say Indranil. "These differences
result in poor uninhibited communication between stakeholders
during the requirements gathering process, leading to an
incomplete or poorly defined statement of user
requirements." The
development of commercial software is managed by splitting it
up into suitable units of
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| decomposition
or composition in
order to divide the various development tasks into logical
units of manageable size. Among all potential areas of concern
that may an do trigger such decomposition, three are generally
fundamental for software development the Software process -
the system's logical views and - the software architecture. Present Software Engineering literature addresses an only
partial or one-dimensional model that organizes real life
software development only in a limited way, because constraints
and parameters relating different domains of concern are not
modeled universally and hence can't be easily enforced. o
what
makes this strategy contrarian? "It is all about sweeping
simplification around software requirements management and
release," Indranil points out. "There is a need for
a formal method of requirements manager under the evolutionary
life cycle approach and show how requirements development and
management can be integrated with
a release planning approach which is an |
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innovative way to
capture, control and evolve the user requirements ".
ull of energy, Indranil
tends to move about his office as he talks -- standing,
sitting, sipping cocoa -- and seems most comfortable with a
marker pen in his hand and a white board in front of him. "Software
solutions seldom carry the process information on how
requirement development, analysis and management are done
during the various stages of |
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| the development life cycle of the
software. Only the final outcome of the development process
(the software product) is subject to various tests. Process
retrospection is the most critical element in improving the
maturity of the software engineering process. Software
Engineering is a conscious activity where software managers, designers
and developers try to bring about improvements on
aspects of integrated product and processes of a software
solution, but the development process within the software
design activity is never well documented for future use,
specially software requirement development. Unfortunately most
design processes or activities are poorly understood domain of
Engineering Sciences". |
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"Business
users have some hard problems that they're trying to get
solved and they aren't being able to optimize on their
application releases that would help them to get the most
return," he says. "The 3 degree of freedom
network is introduced to support requirements management
within the software process along with a mathematical model of
release management, which incorporates progressive software
release with requirements
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or
changed. Each components is identified by a
unique combination of constituents of each of the dimension of
the 3D model. Requirements management considered in this way
could be unique to each organization and can be considered as
an art - a corporate asset". Those customers will, in
theory, be able to differentiate themselves from their
competitors. "If you really want to differentiate,
there will be groups of people who say, 'That's just not
right.' I think we tend to, as a company, appeal to a user
population that wants to move most rapidly into new
ideas."  |
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| About
Indranil Nath |
| Dr.
Nath is a result-driven IT Executive with extensive experience
in managing the five-mega process of an organization - People,
Knowledge, Sales, Service and Culture and project teams,
implementing and overseeing technology programs, and
administrating multimillion-dollar budgets. Possess an
in-depth understanding of emerging technologies and their
commercial applications. He has been responsible for business
turnarounds and change management initiatives including
formation of new business portfolio, merger integrations. |
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Managing Director and Chief Technologist.
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In charge
of Technology Solutions Practices and Solution Sales.
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International Who's Who of Professionals, Who's Who Historical
Society, USA. Nominee of the Distinguished Leadership Award for
outstanding contribution to Engineering Management. Certified IT
Project Manager, endorsed by National IT Skills Certification
Board, the INFOCOMM Development Authority of Singapore,
Chartered Information Technology Professional endorsed by
British Computer Society. |
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"Software Engineering is not Science but an Art"
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“Indranil always demonstrates professionalism and an
ability to get things done". - Andrew
Shuttleworth
"Indranil is methodical, has attention to details,
takes care of his people". – Vijayanandam
V M
"He has solid experience managing Information
Technology development projects ... and understands how to
effectively leverage resources on a global scale". – John
Ghanotakis
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Multidimensional model that integrates different concerns of
software development from the point of view of Requirement
Analysis, Derived Metrics for software release in an
evolutionary life-cycle.
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Last Read Books: The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen.
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A forgotten musician and active member of Society for
Promotion of Indian Classical Music Among Youths (SPICMACY).
Accompanied great mastro like Ustad Zakir Hussian, Pandit Anindo
Chatterjee, Pandit Bhajan Sapoori and many others.
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Fellow of Royal Chartered Management Institute, UK, Member of
IEEE, British computer Soceity, Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute,
Project Management Institute. Life Member Indian Society for
Training & Development, Member of Gerson
Lehrman Group's Council of Advisors.
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Member of Royal Institution of Great Britain, ASQ Six Sigma
Forum, CIO Best Practice Exchange Forum, National Geographic
Society, Singapore Computer Society, Institute of Internal
Auditors, Japanese Committee of World Energy Council UK,
Internet Society, All India Management Association, Institute of
Linguists UK.
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Bachelor's degree in Japanese & Linguistics, Master's in
Management Science and Doctorate in Engineering Management.
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Requirement Engineering, Software Engineering, Business Process
Innovation & Re-Engineering, Program
& Project Life Cycle Management, Change Management,
Application Delivery and Business Management & Strategy.
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More
than 15 years experience in the technology and Software
engineering services industry: Adjunct Professor of Software
Engineering Management & Economics, Temple University, Japan
Campus; Visiting Faculty for Strategy, IUJ Business School,
International University of Japan, Niigata
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Sports: Badminton
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