Goodbye 2016

It's time to part with 2016, time for a new beginning. I've in my hand massive projects coming my way and I'm getting all excited already. Right now, I am building a team to do that. It is something like the Bill Gates scenario, fully focused on the outcome and then take massive action to ensure its success. It is sort of do or die attitude that I would have to take for now.

It is great to come in with such a big mega project in hand, and also like to thank the folks that I worked with in my previous project. It has been a great journey but then again, it always come to an end inevitably. And my learning from my previous project (or lesson learned/retrospective) are

1. Business priority changes all the time, so when it changes, it sends waves of changes throughout the organization. Sometime it is in our favor and sometimes it isn't. Whether it is or it is not, learn to be grateful and thankful for whatever it is.

2. Be flexible with change, always try to be agile to changes as the new constant are the changes. And changes are the very essence of survival for organization.

3. Play team, and they'll always be people who doesn't. But we play team. It is an attitude of life, and one may win by benefiting from others, you might never know what the real outcome is. Play team gives us truly genuine friendship that will last a lifetime.

4. Accept the outcome that is not within our grasp. Don't worry about things that we cannot change, because it is useless. Instead focus on everything that is within our grasp so that we can change the outcome no matter how small it is.

Thanks 2016, you truly humbled me. I have learned to be more grateful and more conscious of others.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Pick of the week: Story on CHANGE

Interesting bulletin I received from Heera that I decided to put here both for myself and friends...

This month I want to narrate a great story on change.  There was a monastery in a faraway land where thirty monks lived. Every morning without fail at 5 am, they would all gather at the great hall of the monastery and pray and meditate. One day as they were praying, a cat started to play in front of them and this affected their concentration. The chief monk then told the youngest monk, Zun Zi to tie the cat to a pole and give it a saucer of milk, so that it would not interrupt their prayer session. This was done and the monks carried on their prayer in peace.
           
The next day, the cat appeared again and the chief monk again told Zun Zi to repeat what he had done the previous day. The third day, the cat appeared again and soon this act of tying the cat to a pole and giving it milk every morning became a ritual. One day, after almost three years of this ritual, the cat died. The monks carried on their prayer the next day but somehow felt something was missing as they had not carried out their usual ‘cat ritual’. At the end of their prayer, the chief monk told Zun Zi to go get another cat from the village below so that they could continue this ‘cat ritual’. And thus the practice continued. This went on and on until the chief monk himself died. Soon Zun Zi became the chief monk, and in the process seven cats had died. One day, Zun Zi himself died, which meant that there was no one alive who knew the origins of this ‘cat ritual’. The ritual however was still carried out.

One day, after their prayers and as they were having tea, one of the younger monks asked the senior most monk, “Sir, why do we tie the cat to the pole and give it a saucer of milk before our daily morning prayer and meditation session?”  The senior most monk surprised by the question replied, “I really do not know. All I know is that ever since I came to this monastery we have been doing this and I am sure our past generations must have had very good reasons to do it. So let us not question them, let us just carry on with this very important ritual”.

Isn’t the above story a very true reflection of what happens in many organizations i.e. there are many systems and processes which are obsolete or out-dated and yet they still carry it out because ‘it has always been done this way’. I have personally seen this in many organizations and the excuse has always been, “I didn’t create this system, it was already here when I joined.” My view is that no system or process in any organization is ‘cast in stone’ i.e. all of them can and must be changed when necessary. It is the job of any incumbent manager, head of department or CEO to change whatever is redundant, obsolete or out-dated. This could be from people, to products, to systems and processes, to documentation.

I think however that many managers are usually very comfortable with the status quo and therefore do not make any concerted attempt to change to the detriment of the organization. They normally use inheritance of the system as an excuse. My belief is that every system and process in any organization must be examined on a regular basis and changed if it is not in line with organizational strategies. Only with this can an organization develop and be relevant in the present very competitive business environment!

Thank you so much for reading this newsletter and I do hope I have added a little to your change management knowledge! Have a great month of July and do take care.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

2012 A New Lean & Agile Year

Every new year I sort of take stock what happened last year, what were the achievements and what I could have done better. Overall, we see a trending towards a leaner and more efficient way of doing things. Agile concepts and Scrum methodology flourished. A few years back, we were looking for that perfect foundation or framework to be the overarching framework of how things to be done, sort of like a unified theory of the perfect testing framework. Only for the recent trend of Agile tells us that, the only best way to get something done is to do it in small repeatable yet emphasize on transparency and openness. This is the way to go...

I personally have seen the successes in Scrum and Agile methodology in organizations. To this I would like to add, how is the software testing world adapting or taking part in Scrum or Agile. Some Scrum still leaves testing out of the sprint, some adopt testing into the sprint but seems isolated in the way testing work is done and most have no ideas. A have seen a book or 2 on how agile testing is supposed to be but to bluntly put it, it is still not very commonly practiced, at least, not in Asia Pacific.

The ever changing software industry required us to move with the pace, and I believe that software testers have to keep up with the methodology and concept and learn how to work with the agile developers now. This is the best way I know of how to provide good value to our organizations.

I wish all of you a great New Year and happy 2012: the New Lean And Agile Year.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

SCRUM

Recently, I attended a workshop discussing about an interesting framework of software development. It injects a rather new taste into traditional waterfall software development that I know of. It is called Scrum. Scrum is one of the many Agile methodology founded upon or built up from the Agile Manifesto. The manifesto concentrates on areas that my generation of IT professionals tried to move away from.
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

The catch is items listed on the right is important, Agile adopters 'value' more, the items on the left.

Interestingly enough, a very loosely defined Agile Manifesto now has several framework that is designed based on this manifesto. Some of the more famous ones are: Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Lean, Crystal, Feature Driven Development (FDD) and Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM).

Scrum in a nutshell is quick shot of software development, that attempts to produce working software within a period of about every 2 - 4 weeks. One period of 2 - 4 weeks is known as a sprint and every sprint produces a working product. Team works things out among themselves and they produce what Product Owner wants with the facilitation of a Scrum Master. The team is independent and the core of how this works is that, the team has to be protected and trusted to get the work done.

The traditional Gantt Chart that serves us so well with a lot of other tracking tools are thrown out if you decide to use Agile. In place of that, we have burndown chart and product/sprint backlog. Though a lot of tracking tools are thrown out, we have to follow a few Scrum rules closely, meaning, it should not be skipped to ensure success.

Of course there is a lot of debate on whether it works, it is not difficult to understand, but it may be difficult to implement and blended into our traditional environment. It may seem that a lot more issues will crop out as it is implemented, but then again, nothing good comes easy. Anyone who has implemented Scrum, do share your experience with me. I am all ready in reading your experience :)

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Is Quality Relevant in 2009?

We first start to explore what happened to the Big Three automaker in USA. Ford, GM and Chrysler are the 3 top brands and are movers and shakers of the automobile industry in USA. We heard about them going to the Congress meeting and proposing a bail out plan to the Congress. You must be wondering what really happened to them, certainly their products do not lack in quality as compared to that of the Japanese giant like Toyota's.

In the past, according to ASQ Quality Progress Jan 2009 edition pg. 14, Toyota has a defect ratio of 1.5 defect per car compared to 3 defect per car for US automakers in the 1980s. Currently it is about level, i.e. Toyota has 0.9 defect per car compared to that of 0.95 of US automakers. So the quality is about the same which implies that quality did not cause the pitfall of US automaker. HOWEVER, the perception of quality did. Toyota cars are perceived to be high quality for the long commitment and continuous commitment to the capital Q. When we speak of Toyota, first thing that came to mind is quality, compact, fuel efficient and affordable. This bold well with consumer who has for a long time wanted to save on fuel consumption and have a good lasting car for usage.

Second area that we see defeat in US automaker is the COST. The CEO wages for US automaker is scandalous to start with and Japanese company like Toyota has a more hierarchical and controlled wage structure for them, even to the CEO, I believe. And in line with quality, Japanese company like Toyota also has a systematic quality, cost, improvement and effective mind set where continuous improvement is an everyday thing. What is inefficient is immediately taken care of. They do quality thinking everyday from top to bottom of the organization. At the end, since the quality right now is about the same, I believe the cost in producing a car of the same quality by both Toyota vs US automakers must be a huge gap causing the cost of non-quality being passed on to the user. Meaning if you buy from GM, Ford or Chrysler, chances are your car is more expensive than a Toyota not because it is better, but because you pay for 'a not so effective way of doing things'.

A summary from above, concentrate on Quality and Quality mind set across the organization, is the key to business survival in the long run.

And next question you may be asking, what about us Quality Professionals? Are we relevant or should we be the first on the chopping board because we are not exactly in the production line to produce goods for our customer? Or some management may brand it, it is time for survival fight, it is not time to think and spend more on Quality. Well, the time to invest and really push forward for us Quality Professionals is now.

In this economic environment, it is important that quality professionals demonstrate the ability and the promises of Quality as we have seen in articles, text books and concepts, adapt it into our environment and yield the benefits of it. Here are four ideas of how to start with:

1. Communicate the need of Quality across organization. Form action teams to get quality project executed with the buy in from management. Put yourself on the line, and get the buy-in from management to support such cause as to see the result that can be yield. As the environment is turbulent, go for short and effective projects that can yield a lot of savings for the organization or greatly enhance sales.

2. Communicate the need of Quality upwards. Speak to management using Cost of Quality (COQ) concept. Attempt to decipher and study the cost of failure and show how can quality projects and quality initiatives reduce that. Again put yourself in the line, and be pro-active to push through the understanding to management team.

3. Be pro-active and continuously look for ways to improve in terms of quality, processes, reduce wastage, improve output, reduce time and improve output even from each and every employees.

4. Record the results and outcomes of this projects as bolster for your future quality projects. This will be prove to you, your management and also to your organization that quality thinking and quality initiatives is important during good time, more so during the bad times. Sell Quality to your organization so that they embrace it.

So to answer the question, quality is relevant in 2009, and I can see that organization that is able to embrace quality by each and every employee shall emerge from this economic slump stronger, better and more competitive than ever before.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 4 - LAST DAY)

Happens to be the last day of the trip. We have not scheduled much for today, it will just be the regular Sunday church celebration at Kampung Bukit Serok. Morning, we prepared ourselves, bathed and ready to go. We went off first to the same place for breakfast. And roti has never tasted that good before. We took our fair share of roti telur over the last 2 days, but we did not want to miss this for the 3rd day and I myself ordered exactly the same thing as 2 previous days. Only later, I found out that their Roti Sardin is nice as well. We'll see whether I would have the chance to come back here for breakfast :)

We reached back the church after our sumptuous breakfast. Cleaned up the church hall for the service and I went off to pick up the kids. It was an enjoyable ride on the old little van. It felt totally different from driving car. It is really heavy and the feel is just different. Noticeably, the reverse gear needs to engage in a little pull before moving to reverse. How weird.. Luckily I was told how to engage reverse gear by a team mate. Although it is just a stretch of road divided by a trunk road, I went around back and forth 2 rounds AND it took me 1 and half hour. The weather was hot and we just keep encouraging children playing by the road side, near their house to come right up the van and join us. Of course they recognize the van and as the van passes, they keep looking at us.

Back at the church, the kids gathered and they decide to have an adult fellowship session. So the kids (making up 80 - 85% of the crowd) has to be taken aside for children's activity. As we have ran out of our previous days material, because we have been here for 2 days of activities, we have to resolve to last minute ideas. Finally we had some question and answering session and then moved on to the story of creation. It was tough handling the kids, and I think we had 4 adults trying to do that. It was still not easy. At the end they could be faster, louder and their volume could easily have drowned anyone of us.

At the same time, the adults were doing their own fellowship which I hope will be a good beginning to grow the number of faithful Christian here.

All done, we packed up, sent the kids and adult back, did a debrief, bid farewell to our Pastor there and we were on our way a little bit after lunch our. We decided to stop in a town called Bahau to get ourselves lunch at about 4pm. Yes 4pm, and that is the time we had lunch. We went for Chinese food, and as we circled the town for this restaurant, it gave me a great chance to come back to this town that I have a lot of memory when I was younger. I have friends here. But I think they have all left town now or I don't know, probably not staying around anymore as most of them I have not contacted for years. Anyway it was great to come to this town again after more than 14 years. I could recognize the town and some part of it, but it has grown much more.

Hitting the road after the meal, I saw a dead python on the road, and it looks really big. On our way back, it rained, and rather heavily at certain stretch, reminding us the goodness of God for all our days that we had activity, we didn't have to go through the rain at all, not once. But things are done now, and rain can come. We reached back to our starting point at about 8pm +. It was a journey well remembered, one that God moves before us and prepared the place for us. One that God lead us and not by our strength...

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 3)

Time to continue to write the 3rd day of the trip. Here goes... The night before, it was raining quite heavily. We had a good rest on the hard flooring of the church building. Though I found that in the morning for the 2nd day consecutive, the space I had to sleep on is much smaller because my team mate tends to lean towards my side. Anyway over here, the 'cock' helps by giving us morning call come 6-6.30am. The cock will make a comeback tonight, which I will detail towards the end of the 3rd day :)

We woke up and pack our stuff into the van. This is because we are on a mission to 2 more villages or Kampung. We went to the same place as Day 2 for breakfast and then off we go to Kampung Inoi, which is the furthest from the church location. The journey was long and we have to take the Oil Palm Plantation roads to get into this village. We have to travel through the oil palm estate that the road is far from being good, was hard for the van to go through. After about 20 minutes of this road, we arrived into the village. The Orang Asli here is very shy, small sized and skinny. They also do not have electricity and they were using old water pump, like those I saw in Tom and Jerry. Being a town folk, I am a little bit surprised at the condition that they are living in.

We wasted no time in kicking off with our activity. We started to sing and dance to our song to attract children and adult alike. And the kids start to come and see what is happening, though they are very shy. We have to ask them a few times and give them balloons to get their attention. After what seem to be a long singing session, we finally got together a bunch of kids (10 - 15 range) and taught them the 'Fruit of the Spirit'. They are somewhat shy, quiet but some of them are quite intelligent kids. To our surprise some of them are much older but the body size still is very small and their hair brownish, probably a sign of mal-nutrition.

Given all the Fruit of the Spirit training, balloon, jelly and stuff as present, our other members starts to arrange and disseminate clothing to them. Most of them, the cloths seem worn, some even bare their top (guys / boys I meant) and seem to walk around like that under the hot sun. Most of them seem happy grabbing those clothing running back home. Also the pastor had a little session playing 'doctor' by providing medical aid to some of them who requires them, especially those with skin problem. We decided to visit the Tok Batin (village head) to give him a present and have a chat with him. On the way, we saw a small black snake crossing the road while we are in the van. The pastor told us that it was poisonous. I am quite surprised to see a cobra crossing the road literally in the middle of the town!!

We reach the Kampung Inoi Tok Batin's house and notice the simplicity of it. it was plain and without anything special. He is an easy going man and nice man. We gave him the gift and then had a few chat with him on what is happening in town, then went off to gather up the rest of the team member to move on to the next town. Next stop is Kampung Gadak.

Gadak is a much nicer town, with electricity and water supply. Houses are arranged nicely and there seemed to be a lot of land. People here is nice and friendly. As we reach this Kampung, I think we skipped lunch and started to prepare for the telematch and movie in the evening , much like the 2nd day schedule. Before that, we went around to hand out flyers and we even had a chance to visit the Tok Batin of Gadak. All is well, he is very supportive of our work here and gave us a resounding support for our activity there in his village. We left soon after a nice chat and we asked him to join us later on in the evening.

Back to our church member's house, we prepare for the activity to come. The food is prepared by one of the local Orang Asli church member there. Again, we repeated of what happened on Day 2, the only thing is that the crowd is different, the kids is different and the crowd here is much more easier to control then in Day 2.

We did all those with the presence of the Tok Batin for most part of the movie and we enjoyed dinner together. The food was great and every one of us, the kids and adult alike all join in for the great feast of nasi lemak and ayam.

The evening and darkness soon sets in. We started to clean things up and move on our way home towards the church. Along the way, our van got lost after we sped of with pastor's van right behind. We turned into a wrong turning and was frantically waiting for pastor's van to pass us, only that he is in front of us. We waited for a long while before we were able to communicate via the mobile phone. All is well, we reached back to church, cleaned up, debrief and falling asleep. As I remembered, while I was bathing, a 'cock' was sitting right at the corner of the bathroom watching me bath. I didn't realize at first but was told by someone who went to the bathroom before me. So I did see that cock, sitting comfortably at a corner, peeking at each of us taking bath. This is the same day I saw the longest centipede in my life. My blood was already cold looking at the 20cm odd poisonous creature. It went off as fast as I could take a closer look at it.

The night was suppose to be short but was lengthen by our team mate in charge of journal. They were having a meeting after debrief to put down the facts and points throughout our adventure for the last 3 days. Myself and team lead was fast asleep when we were woke up again with the sound of laughter. I am not sure, I sat up and was offered noodles. Why not, right. I had it, done with, drink water, brush teeth and ZZZzzzZZZzzz. Look out for Day 4 (Last day)

Learning of the day: Life is already very good where we are, cherish and thank God for it. A lot of people live with much less, so don't complain.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 2)

Day 2 starts with the 'not enough sleep' symptom. My eye could barely open and I have to force myself up to clean myself up and bring myself to do devotion in BM. It is not easy. I have to think of how to say it after having not spoken BM for a very long time. Well, fortunately it went quite OK with the topic being James 1: 2-4, talking about 'Suffering is Good'. Indeed. Having remembered from the 1st day that it would be working non-stop from sunrise to sunset, it motivates me to have everything prepared and ready early on in the day.

The day started well with we traveling to a place our team lead call Karatong. It was a small little nice township complete with buildings, mini-market, several rows of shops, some government building, a MARA bus-stop and a field. Overall it looks like a small little township area just like you see it in town. We went to one of this Malay store that serves normal Malay and Mamak food. I ordered the famed Roti Telur. The Roti Telur here is different because it not only has egg, but also some other mixed spices and also onion. Tasted good actually. The drink here taste OK as well. I think I drank teh tarik for this first morning of OA.

Soon after breakfast we went back to church, prepared and set out again to hand out flyers from house to house of our activity in the afternoon and night. We found that shape-able balloons is a very attractive tool for kids. The afternoon activity was Sukaneka (what we meant was telematch - targeting the kids) and evening time event is the Jesus Story movie. We went around on our old faithful van to pick up the kids and adults alike. The kids are very excited every time the van passes and they wouldn't miss the opportunity to jump up the van. Some kids are shy though, which requires a little bit of persuasion by their friends.

The afternoon under a little shade, we played telematch such as 3 legged race, racing with ping pong ball balanced on a spoon, pair crab walk with balloon between them etc, all played as a team game. We permutated the games as it fits to keep the kids' attention. All is well, no injuries or sort, but a lot of fun and the kids were given regular breaks because the weather is very hot. Still we have to thank God because there is no rain, so that all this can be carried out. After what we believe to be a joyous outing for the kids, we cool things down with some individual games, and also a station prepared to teach children how to sing.

We kick start the evangelistic event with prayer, singing of songs and then when straight for the Jesus movie. Then we went for John 3:16 and prayed together with the kids. It was an event to highlight I must say. Kids was the most responsive and although they were a little bit restless during the Jesus movie which lasted for an hour, the rest was quite cool and accordingly done. We finished early, cleaned up and then send the kids home. No dinner for the night, we decided to visit one of the houses, which is going through a wedding ceremony. Apparently some of our team mates know her. We went and witness some sort of wedding ceremony. It was nice, and it was very joyous occasion. They were 'food', dance and music. It was very much like Malay wedding, only it is not. And we got to learn that Malay wedding and Orang Asli wedding has some similarity.

We had our late dinner there at the wedding and took some photos. We went back shortly cleaned up and prepared for bed time. It was a good night except that our room (the church floor), was visited by 'water ant', bees and similar small insects. Prior to resting, we had a debriefing with the pastor to discuss the day and to highlight the activities tomorrow. Without proper break in between, for the entire day, my body starts to become very tired and I fall asleep shortly with the rest of the team.

Learning: Kids are really hard to control especially when they come as a big bunch. God is good to each and everyone of us, as he has given us a gift of life and a gift or happiness. Human heart though always wanted more and part of our human is always looking for more. I believe I would like to challenge myself parallel that is, to have a better relationship with God and to expand my human wanting that is of more positive and useful for people around me. Shape-able balloon is very attractive for kids, they make sword out of it and start to chase each other for a fencing sword fight.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Orang Asli Mission Trip (Day 1)

The journey starts from church where we travel first to Seremban -> Senawang -> Kuala Pilah -> Kampung Bukit Serok. The journey was somewhat weird. As I have motion sickness, I couldn't or wouldn't want to remember too much about the trip prior to me driving. I just closed my eyes so that I wouldn't fall sick of my motion sickness which I have been having since I was a kid. I was driving my teammate's car (Camry) and I do think that it was much more comfortable then the van, which we decided to use 2 vehicles instead of one because of the amount of load we are transporting. 7 person + loads of stuff including food, stuff and bags.

The van were not so lucky because it wasn't filled with enough water causing it to have to make a half an hour stop at Perhentian Nilai. My teammate meanwhile already drove the Camry all the way to the next stop, having missed the Perhentian Nilai, where we were suppose to meet up. We then met up again at the exit of toll where I became the Camry driver. I am then able to open my eyes and not fall sick, though I have to put a lot of concentration on the road.

We made a stop at Senawang for brunch. It was great, and our team lead seems to know the owner of the shop. They were chatting a bit while plates of food being served. The food is not extraordinary but it was nice and tasty. Enjoyed and happy, I was quite amazed with the ticketing system in Senawang. It seems that we will only pay the parking when someone put a ticket on your windscreen. So if they don't, you don't have to pay. I didn't get one.

Continuing the journey, we went through the windy and hilly roads to Kuala Pilah and then from there we went on our way to Kampung Bukit Serok where the Church is. The journey was OK, coupled with my teammates chatting. It really make time flies. So without knowing, by about 1230pm we arrived already at the Kampung. There is a left and right side to turn in for the Kampung. The church was located on the right, so off we went through. We arrived at the Church and were greeted by Pastor Joham and family.

We have no lunch and since we were scheduled to arrive earlier, straight away, we unpacked, refreshed and set out to prepare for children ministry in the afternoon. Part of the team stayed back to prepare the material for 'Pinochio' while myself and team leader went on to fetch children. The turn out wasn't that fruitful and we have found only handful of kids for the children ministry. Not that it is a bad thing, we were able to teach better, communicate better with a smaller crowd.

Pinocchio mask making

Scrambling for their project

Children sitting in a row

Boy does the kid have fun listening to the story of Pinochio getting a long nose and so on. After learning the values, we top it up with Pinochio mask and chompers making.

Group photo with the kids put on their 'mask'

After that, we cleaned up ourselves and had dinner. Dinner was nothing great, just something pre-prepared and heat up type. Yeah, we did not want to waste too much time on this. After the dinner, we will have to go over one of the houses for Cell Group Meeting. The night turn out was great. We fit in 30 odd people in a house, 80% kids again. So we did a great round of worship and as the adults view a short story on Addiction issue, we brought the kids behind the house for a session of 'Fruit of the Spirit'. It was again very challenging with the kids and some of them are very good boys and girls BUT others were terribly hard to handle.

Singing Praise

Fruits of the Spirit

Kids at Cell Group Night

There we concluded our activities with a lot of fun and had some time for a small supper. Along the way actually we prayed a lot of which I did not mention above. Also the weather was very good, contrary to the weather which is rain every evening back in town. Also we heard from them the weather was raining most of the time, until we came with a lot of prayer for good weather. And God is good indeed for an opportunity for us to conduct activity in good weather.

Learning for the day, at least for myself on the first day is ONE goodness of God in my life TWO God miracles is more apparent here in mission work THREE this trip has a lot to do with kids.... In spite of the need to control this kids really scares me, I had peace in my mind despite my body being very tired. Will talk more about the trip, wait for my posting about Day 2

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

The Power of TeamWork

There is something about team work which is important in the society today. I glanced through the other day, on a newspaper article, regarding how workers nowadays do not need to be micro-managed. Instead the managers is suppose to provide room and space for the worker to enable them to demonstrate their ability and facilitate their creative thinking to be brought into an organization. Often time, the idea provided by this empowered workers may turn out to be one of those that has the most impact to the organization.

Apparently there is a story in the company 3M regarding the glue that they are trying to develop turns out to be a flop. The glue is suppose to be tough and sticky, however it turned out the opposite. The creative idea here was to re-use this to create post-it-notes. And today, the post it notes is one of the most popular tool in office. See how a flop turns out to be a multi million product with a stroke of creativeness. I bet that didn't come from top management. I am not discounting the contribution of top management here by the way, but, to emphasize the vast possibility that may come from the workers working on the floor and are in fact the subject matter expert (at least in what they are doing). Soliciting their ideas is a MUST.

Some of the advantages of empowering workers and managers as team lead and motivator are:

1. Free flow of new idea from the worker who is on the ground level performing the job day in and day out.

2. Creative ideas (and sometimes not so creative ones) flows out from every level on the work floor. This gives an opportunity for the expert who is doing the work to be able to tell what is the best way to get something done. Traditionally, this has always been held by managers, but time has changed now and most knowledge workers will appreciate this.

3. We are at a Knowledge Economy where work is not limited to what the hand can do, but rather what does the head knows that turns out solution for the client. Client wants solution at the end of the day and company is selling them solution to their every day problems. Empowering thinker from every level in the company does create a little 'structure-upset' but, it improves the overall idea that is flowing out from an organization. Imagine 5 heads thinking compared to 50 heads. The 50 heads scenario, by normal rule should churn out more solutions.

4. Motivation to workers that indirectly promotes the organization. Motivated workers will produce much more compared to de-motivated ones. And more than often, people will be attracted to work for this organizations, either from word of mouth or by recommendation one to one. Knowledge Economy worker appreciates that they are able to voice out and their voice and contribution at least being heard and understood.

5. Friendship - I believe in this. People who help other people to become successful. The world is no longer how we keep knowledge to ourselves. It is no longer scarcity of information or knowledge. Now the knowledge is abundance. How are we going to empower team members to learn from one another and to create a network of learning workers who enrich each other by open sharing and open learning from one another. 1 head learns just this much, but 10 heads learn 10 times as much and as fast as each person master a subject and train the rest. This will also create a positive working culture and also enrich each other to a healthy knowledge gaining society instead of a worrying knowledge scarcity society. This in turn will create a long lasting bond and friendship.

Well, team culture is here to stay I say and if Malaysia is going for Vision 2020, we better cultivate the team spirit fast...