September 2006 - Posts
After a good 10 days in Mumbai, India, I'm back in the US and getting acclimated to cooler weather, cleaner air and wider, faster and much quieter roads.
It has been a truly unique experience working with our offshore team on this project, and visiting them in their office afforded me the opportunity to observe project triumphs and pitfalls from their perspective. Often in offshore delivery models, you loose a sense of the person at the other end of the horizon. Working with these folks one-on-one -- them traveling to the US -- definitely helped build the relationship between Architect and Developers; however, I feel this trip to India really underscored the importance of clear and concise communication in the successful delivery of offshore projects (which really requires travel to the offshore location, wherever it may be...)
I took so many damn pictures, but rather than make you suffer through all of them, I consolidated the good ones into a photo journal at the link below:
Mumbai Trip Photo Journal
If you are working on an offshore project and have to opportunity to travel to such a location, I would strongly recommend you take it. It's an enriching experience, both professionally and personally.
Namaste.
Over the weekend, our driver took us on a whirlwind tour of Mumbai. Starting out in South Mumbai, we stopped off at the Gateway of India, Taj Mahal (the hotel) and all of the other typical tourist spots. However, it was on Sunday that we experienced some real Indiana Jones action -- the Kanheri Caves.
From Wikipedia:
The Kanheri Caves are a number of rock-cut Buddhist caves located in Mumbai, India. The caves date back to the 1st century BC when the area was under the rule of the Maurayan and Kushan empires. The caves lie deep inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, a National Park in northern Mumbai at 19.205° N 72.907° E. The caves are at a height of about 450 metres (1,500 feet) above sea level and command a panoramic view of the surroundings. The Arabian Sea, and the Vasai Creek can be seen in the distance.
All I could think of was Anthony chanting, "cover your heart, Indy!" It was such a cool feeling to be standing at the stairs of history (literally.)
Oh yeah, the monkeys were cool, too!
I almost forgot... whilst checking out the caves, a group of Indian teenagers were following us around, recording us on their camcorder. Not sure if they thought we were celebs, or if they'd never seen Westerners in person, but it was nevertheless humorous. They eventually approached and asked us to pose with them, after which I asked to take a picture of them (below):
Considering we were pretty tired of being sold things every five minutes, this was a great end to a long, tiring weekend.
Taking a break from my India-related postings…
I must say, my experience over the past month working with Team Foundation Server has left an awful taste in my mouth. From licensing to migration issues, it’s very evident that TFS is a version 1.0 product.
In lieu of such issues, we recently had to put together a stop-gap solution to provide access to our TFS environment whilst trying to migrate to new hardware. As part of this solution, we had to remap Workspaces on each client machine (which were a pain-in-the-ass to find in the first place.) This may not seem like a big deal, but trying to communicate such an activity to 25 non-technical folks who are also using TFS (i.e. Business Analysts, UI Designers, PMO types) can prove to be quite challenging.
Fortunately, the Team Foundation Source Control command-line client came through to the rescue. Using the following command, you can wipe out Workspace cache:
tf.exe workspaces /remove:*
Package this up in a nice little batch script and viola! Note that this command deletes ALL cached workspaces for the user, so be careful (this is the behavior we were after.)
Sorry for the rant, but I had to vent somewhere!
Today was the first day it wasn't rainy, and the sun actually broke through to say hello. Here's the view from our hotel lobby, overlooking Powai Lake.
It's interesting, in such a vast urban sprawl lies immense natural beauty.
So Anthony and I decided to visit an American eatery for lunch yesterday, and found a Pizza Hut in a mall nearby in Thane... and this wasn't your ordinary American Pizza Hut! We were greeted by a host, who sat us at a table and offered menus to select our choice of the "Great Indian Treat." After getting over the initial shock of a sit-down Pizza Hut we ordered a Chicken Tikka Pizza and some Chicken Satay Sticks, and I must admit -- it was fantastic! They need to bring this combo to the states!
Check out the fancy Pizza Hut dishware:
Our trip to Mumbai just so happened to coincide with Ganesh Chaturthi, a festival celebrating the birthday of the Hindi deity Lord Ganesha. As part of this celebration, the entire city is adorned with vibrantly colorful banners, elaborately decorated vehicles and effigies of the deity, which are immersed in the sea at its end.
From Wikipedia (link):
Ganesh Chaturthi (Ganesh Festival) is an occasion or a day on which Lord Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati, makes his presence on earth for all his devotees ... It is the birthday of Lord Ganesha. The festival is observed in the Hindu calendar month of Bhaadrapada ... [and] lasts for 10 days, ending on Ananta Chaturdashi.
Ganesh, the elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati, is widely worshipped as the supreme god of wisdom, prosperity and chance.
Unfortunately, we were unable to witness the immersion; however, we were able to capture some video of the city as decorated for this occasion.
Driving in India is such a unique experience (not that I'm actually driving, but just being a passenger is nuts!)
So, not only is this my first posting using Windows Live Writer, but it's also my first post from India... we arrived shortly after midnight, and jetlag is finally hitting me. Talk about sensory overload! I've seen many things which I've not seen before... will post more musings (and pictures) soon. Here's the view from the front of the office in Thane.
Our liaison here took us to a very good North Indian restaurant, and I'm now stuffed to the gills! Time to try and get some work done.
Cheers.
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