Platforms Everywhere – For All 50 Shades Of Developers

Right up front , this is not some official SAP strategy that I am trying to describe below, just some personal opinions and thoughts I am chewing on in my mind .

First I ever heard of a platform ever was in the context of Unix , when I was a trainee in TCS. I remember asking the guy who introduced the term and even more clearly remember him making a mess of explaining what a platform is . Then along came java – and the word platform was thrown around a lot again. I learned java without a lot of difficulty , but did not like it for the longest time , thinking it was not as good as C/C++ that I learned first.

When I started in ABAP , I don’t remember the term platform being used . But once Netweaver brand came out – platform came with it . And more loosely , it became common practice to say ABAP platform too . I don’t know what the SAP product and branding strategy was at that time , but will find someone for a history lesson. By this time the notion of platform was a bit more clear – if multiple developers can develop applications ( apps and applets were totally java, and hence I never used those terms at that time) in multiple ways – that is roughly what a platform is . And while there are probably better definitions for platform now, I still rationalize it that way in my mind

Despite having an array of options to choose from , Developers are generally loyal to a subset of tools , which they will invariably refer to as a platform . Same with vendors – they too latch on to the term platform quickly as they cater to various parts of the developer ecosystem. As a result, it is not uncommon for a big vendor to have multiple platforms – like SAP did for cloud , mobility, Hana et al. Initially I used to think this is confusing as hell – how would developers know what SAP means by platform?

Well, as I talked to multiple developers outside SAP – I was surprised to learn that very few worry about this . Mobile developers did not seem to have any significant interest outside mobility platform generally. A handful of architect types did make a case for convergence since they have end to end responsibility in their jobs . And from the provider side , there are obvious advantages in converging all platforms under one umbrella . But such convergence makes sense only in some cases – and is not a one size fits all type thing.

Consider ABAP – which is still very close to my heart despite the compiler yelling at me every now and then that I am obsolete . SAP business applications are built on it in most cases – and between SAP and its ecosystem , there must be several million lines of code . And I am sure there are a gazillion ABAP developers in the ecosystem , probably mostly in SI partners. So it is important that this big investment is protected somehow in long term. However , ABAP has its limitations for developers outside the traditional SAP backed systems . So while there needs to be an easy way to talk bidirectionally with ABAP systems , it might not make sense for ABAP to be a native development experience per se in SAP Hana Cloud Platform. This should not be confused with hosting ABAP based systems in cloud , which is a valid requirement and completely feasible.

The functionality in Suite needs renewal and modernization as business processes evolve . With Suite now capable of working on Hana , and ABAP understanding how to use Hana – this is easily solved when applications need to be fixed at its core. Another common use case is extending existing SAP applications – including SaaS offerings like Sales on Demand . These will probably need some non SAP data to be combined with SAP data . Such cases are easily done using the SAP Hana Cloud Platform , commonly using published APIs from source systems (without needing to deal with ABAP directly) , using maybe Python or some other JVM friendly language . Or if it is data intensive, a more native XS/SQL Script type developer experience might be optimal . Again, New functionality developed from ground up – including completely non SAP data ones – do not make sense for ABAP development . What about acquired solutions like Ariba and successfactors ? Long term – I think it makes sense to move everything to HCP , but it seldom makes sense to re platform for academic reasons . So for those applications , parts that could immediately benefit from Hana could be replatformed , and rest left alone for now . And of course extensions could use HCP wherever it makes sense.

So essentially , the platform strategy needs to cater to all types of developers . They all serve a useful and important purpose – and need to collaborate to build world class enterprise applications . And if there is one thing I could humbly suggest to my developer buddies – this time around, lets not create a deep division like “technical and functional consultants” in ERP market in the 90s. Lets try to learn a few more things outside our core skill set and interests .

SAP Hana and “The Killer App” Problem

Ever since SAP announced Hana , I and many others have wondered about what would be the set of killer apps that would come out and wow us. While several apps have come out , and hundreds of others are in the works at SAP and its ecosystem, this question has not quite gone away. Next week is SAPPHIRENOW in Orlando, and I have already been asked a lot by a number of people about what killers apps will be demonstrated there.

Obviously, we have cool things on Hana to share with you next week - and I have no plans of spoiling it here. I am pretty sure some of them have real potential to be killer apps.

There is no consensus on what makes a killer app though - if existing SAP applications like Business Suite and BW run on Hana and a lot of customers deploy it, would they be considered killer apps? There will be some who agree and some who disagree and both sides have good reasons for their stances. If a high value use case comes out for a specific niche industry – something that 10 companies in the world can use and get outrageous benefits, but no one else has any use of it – will that be a killer app? I guess the opinion on that too is divided. What if the app is downloaded by 10 million people , but it does not significantly alter the top line for SAP? Will that be considered a killer app? I have a feeling that we won’t get consensus on that either.

So what then is a killer app? and is it a goal worth pursuing? and if there is no one killer app – what happens then?

As you would have guessed by now, I am at a loss on the killer app definition – so I will leave it to my readers to define (ideally in the comments section below). However, I do think that this is not as big a hurdle as I used to think 2 years ago.

All the examples I gave above of potential killer apps are 100% valid for different people – and whatever is the solution should cater to all parts of the ecosystem. However, it is probably different parts of Hana that help each scenario . Some apps need more of Hana’s raw power to process lots of data in quick time , others might need industry specific libraries, yet others might need Hana’s predictive capabilities and so on. And for existing customers – they need the ability to modernize their existing SAP systems with minimal trouble, as well as extend them and even build brand new apps from ground up.

So what is the solution – the solution in my mind is to treat Hana as a platform. Not a “run of the mill” platform – but a modern, standards based platform that caters to a wide variety of developers and customers. It should make it easy for developers to have a native, open and integrated development experience and should scale with their needs. And hopefully some of the apps built on this platform will get to a consensus “killer app” status.

SAP Hana Cloud Platform does this, and a lot more. Come to SAPPHIRENOW or follow along online – we will share a lot more on the platform direction there. Trust me you will like it – so don’t miss it

 

An Ex-Influencer’s take on influencing

I read this today morning http://getlittlebird.com/2013/04/how-to-influence-the-influencers-ask-for-their-advice/ and thought it was good advice . Influencers – they are an invaluable source of information to any vendor , and the good ones can help you do course corrections before you do something awful .

For a brief period , SAP considered me as an influencer . First as an SAP mentor and then also as a blogger . It also probably played some part in SAP hiring me . And now I deal with several influencers as an SAP employee, similar to what I did as an IBMer till last year.

I never quite figured out why there are multiple categories of influencers – analysts, bloggers, press , mentors et al. I am not a communications expert – so I trust there is some good reason that such distinctions exist . As someone who talks to most of the “50 shades of influencers” , I don’t personally see any difference in the quality of input I get . Maybe it is just organizational inertia to change an existing model .

In my opinion – choosing Influencers is exactly like choosing your mentors . It is never easy . It is a complex balancing act – you need to establish long term relationship with the best of them, but you also need to keep bringing in new ones to negate any bias . All influencers have some bias – which is why you should have more than one to begin with . However , if you stick to the same ones for an extended period – your chance of getting fresh new ideas will decrease quite a bit . And after some time passes, you would have influenced your influencers too much in reverse and will start painfully wondering why you seem to be stuck in echo chambers all the time .

In my opinion, it is probably safer for both sides to introduce a retirement scheme for all influencer programs . A change of scenery can do wonders for ones perspective . And if it is a planned activity, it will feel more like a nice vacation than a divorce . Sure you will lose a bit of continuity and comfort feel – but it is a small punishment compared to the doomed echo chamber !

Big Data Solutions – Do Questions Matter ?

I have Ray Wang to thank for this post. Off late, I have a serious problem of writers block. I just cant find a topic interesting enough to write about, and consequently have become a ratherirregular blogger – at least compared to last year. Any way – back to the topic of this post.

Ray tweeted this few minutes ago

MyPOV: start with the right questions to ask before you create your #bigdata business models #inforum2012—
R Ray Wang (@rwang0) April 23, 2013

A lot of BI blueprinting sessions from my consulting career flashed through my mind when I saw that. A key principle for a good BI system design is in finding out upfront most of the questions a user would ask the system, and then designing a solution around that. Unfortunately this is a blessing and a curse – while we can really optimize getting fast and accurate responses to predefined questions , this also curtails our ability to change our mind and ask different questions. More experienced BI experts will second guess other questions that users “may” ask and leave some room in design to cater for that, but it is clearly not a scalable way to do things.

Somehow, users were also trained along the way to agree to some lack of flexibility in BI systems. While the complaints never went away fully, most users think by now that it is normal for BI team to ask for some time to change the datamodels and create new reports and so on. It is a sort of “marriage of convenience” if you will – with tradeoffs understood by both sides.

So when we let go of “ordinary” data and embrace “big” data – what should change? I think we should use the big data momentum to make BI systems more intelligent than the rudimentary things it is capable of doing today. And this intelligence should be done with some business savvy. In other words both “B” and “I” of BI need some serious tweaking.

In my opinion, what should change right away is the expectation of business users needing to state most of their potential questions upfront at design time of the system . Or more clearly – the expectation should be significantly lowered, and business users should be allowed to ask more ad-hoc questions than they have done so far. Of course we can never guarantee full flexibility – so some subjectivity is necessary on where we draw the line. Just that the line should be drawn musch farther from where it is drawn today.

Accuracy of result for ad-hoc questions is not enough – the results should come back in a predictable and short time frame too. Ideally, all questions should come back with answers ( or a heads up to user that this is going to take longer ) within a predefined timeframe (say like 3 to 5 seconds or less).

Then there is the question of how the users ask these questions. SQL or NoSQL – querying languages do not provide democratic access to data. People should be allowed to ask questions in English ( or whatever language they use for business ). Some training might be needed for the system and for the users to understand the restrictions – but no user should be constrained with the need to know how things work behind the scenes. A minority of people should have the skills to educate the computer – the rest of us should not be burdened with that. Instead, the computers should be smart enough to tell them answers to what questions users ask.

There are very seldom exact answers to questions in business ( or life) – even apparently simple questions like “what is my margin in North America ? ” is ambiguous to answer. Most clients I have had have many different meanings to “margin” and “North America” and “My” within their organization. In real life, if these questions are asked of a human analyst, she will ask follow up questions to you to clarify and then provide an answer with necessary caveats. Why can’t systems do that? Wouldn’t life of users be vastly improved if systems answered problems like humans did, in a way humans understand? of course with more speed than humans

Big data or otherwise, there is always an issue of trust in the data from user’s perspective. Most analysts spend nearly as much time explaining how they arrived at their results, as they take for compiling and analyzing the data. The system goes through all the computation any way – even today in the non big data world. Why can’t our BI systems explain to the user how it arrived at the result all the way from source to target or backwards? Wouldn’t that increase productivity a lot?

When users ask questions – they usually will also combine it with external data (google, spreadsheets etc) before they take a final decision. Would it be possible for a BI system to present some useful contextual data to the questions from internet and intranet and allow the user to choose/combine what he needs?

And one last thing – if the system is intelligent enough to find answers, why can’t it have the smarts to also figure out the best possible presentation for the results? Today – we mostly have to predefine how output looks like visually. Why put that load on users? Can’t systems be smart enough to look at the question and the answers and figure out the best way to represent it to the user? This is not a “big data” problem – this should have been the case all along, but somehow never quite happened in a mainstream kind of way.

This is by no means an exhaustive list – I left out plenty of things like collaboration, predictive responses, closed loop BI and so on. I didn’t do so because they are unimportant, but only because of the boredom factor. These types of things are already happening to some extent, and hopefully will catch on more as time progresses.

So there you have it – its my birthday wishlist. And thanks again Ray for that much needed spark to blog again

Is “Out Of The Box” a Myth ?

I had a brief exchange of tweets with Ram Manohar Tiwari ( @rmtiwari on twitter ) recently on out of the box thinking , and since then a lot of thoughts have been brewing in my mind about this .

Everyone I know in corporate circles is a fan of “out of the box” . I don’t think a day has passed in my working life these past few years without someone mentioning it explicitly . It almost gives me an impression that there is this huge big box , full of regular joes like me – and a handful of smart people who stand outside and try their best to get us on their side .

My view on this matter is that there is no such thing as “out of the box”. People maybe able to get out of “A” box , but they will be in “some box” all the time . And because people are different from each other – most people should be able to tell others to get out of the box . All they can do is get out of their current box, get into a box with more space , and when that box fills up – then jump to yet another box .

Some times you might even have to visit the box you were in earlier – the one that you took pains to get out . If you need an example : think of people moving out of mainframes and now going to a similar model in cloud computing

I also doubt we are just in one box at a time – my feeling is that we are at the intersection of several ones at any point in time . This makes me claustrophobic just thinking about it . This is also the reason getting out if a box is hard – it is like a relational DB. All the dependencies need to be taken care off before you whack a table

All things considered , I now think teams will have more success by making use of diversity in its members than making a homogeneous team try hard to get out of the boxes they are in .

I think I have sufficiently bored you by now . If you need to be “un-bored”, try some out of the box thinking ….NOT

IT In India Could Use Some Help – Are You In ?

I woke up this weekend to this depressing news http://toi.in/ot3e_a

I have worked at various SIs all my life before deciding to join SAP labs in January of this year . So this problem hit me hard – and in some way, I felt that I am responsible too somehow for this dismal situation that the younger generation is facing .

This is not just an HCL problem – every SI I know of has had this issue of having a big mismatch between supply and demand . The irony is that these SIs all have very capable S&OP type experts who have done fantastic work for their clients solving this exact problem . Yet they can’t seem to solve it for their own business .

The academic world in India does not work as closely with Industry as it should. I am a mechanical engineer by training – but there were hardly any good mechanical engineering jobs when I came out of college . The only decent jobs were in IT – that too in SIs . There was practically nothing that I learned in Engineering that I could directly apply to my IT job . And yet, vast number of mechanical engineering students come out of colleges every year and look for IT jobs . Why isn’t there a supply adjustment to suit demand ?

It is not as if the education is much better for core mechanical engineering needs itself. The labs in most colleges still use engines that were obsolete 40 years ago . When I went to college – auto transmission was popular outside India . I remember just passing references to it in my text book – and that was it . I am glad I did not have to do mechanical engineering for a living . I just wasn’t well prepared for it . As I talk with young students now – I think the syllabus has barely changed from when I did engineering 20 years ago.

And yet – thousands of new engineering grads are churned out every year . This cannot be good – the average quality is not good for their core discipline nor is it good for IT .

IT education is not much better . People still learn C and java and come out of school looking for software jobs . I met a recent computer science grad last week who did not know why servers use fusion I/O cards or even SSDs. They very rarely have seen good code in college , because there is very little interaction with corporates . So corporates take them, train them and few years later they are productive . If academicians took a look at what the industry wants – these unproductive years could be absolutely minimized . But most of them don’t – they just love status quo.

The VC culture in India is nascent at best . All the major VCs have presenxe here – but several people who could use their investment have no idea where they are or how to get their attention . And vast majority of people don’t understand even basics of how startups work . It pains me to see some of them fall prey to local loan sharks . This lack of awareness results in several brilliant students live a “next best life” as a programmer at an SI, and rise through its ranks to varying degrees of success . It depresses me to no end . I try to talk to as many people as I can and try to give them pointers and help them build a network – and I know several others do it too . But it is not done at a scale that matters , given the magnitude of the opportunity cost .

This should change – and every Indian who knows better should spend some time and effort in helping those who don’t . If enough people take an interest at grass roots level – I am sure this could change for the better . Actually, I am not sure any more – but I sure hope and pray that it will change !

Insecure Middle Level Managers – Help Them !

Yesterday, I was most excited to see an email from my friend and mentee Tomas Krojzl . IBM’s CEO and her senior staff chose Tomas as one of the “Best of IBM 2013″ Winners. That is a huge deal in IBM – to be one of the few picked out of 430,000+ employees. No one I knew before personally have made it to that list. I, and many others I know, have made it to the “clubs” for selling more than our targets – but that is nothing compared to what Tomas got recognized for.

Way to go, Tomas – you are an inspiration to the rest of us – within and outside IBM !

As much as I like Tomas , I think there are some unsung heroes in this story – his management that put him up and supported his nomination all the way up. This is exactly what leadership is all about. They let Tomas shine bright as just reward for everything he did and continues to do – with no concern that Tomas will get more visibility and credit than they ever will. Hats off to them – I wish I had more managers like that, and I wish I acted that way more times in my own role as a manager.

At every employer I have worked for – I have had good and bad ( and sometimes terrible) managers. I am only 2 months into SAP , and so far everything is great – so I can’t say from first hand experience how it is with managers in SAP. I can certainly say I could have done a lot better as a manager than I have in the past.

Middle managers are a stressed out lot largely. They fall into a few buckets in generally – and some oscillate between these groups.

1. They see a clear career path forward and a rough time line to get to next levels.

2. They are happy where they are, and do not have a lot of growth ambitions for whatever reasons. Most often, they feel secure where they are.

3. They have no clear idea on where to go next or how to get there – although some might think they know, yet can’t stand scrutiny when pushed for an answer.

Those who know they have a path forward – I think they are of two types. One type is very secure – and will lead their team , and everyone will progress together. They will coach effectively , recruit people smarter than them, get rid of people from the team if they think coaching is not helping and so on. And they will never stand in the path of someone else’s progress. Not only that – they will go out of their way to smash obstacles in your way, and teach you how to smash the next obstacle you encounter. And when they need help – they have no shame in asking for it.

One of my mentors at IBM once told me “I can totally foresee me working for you in few years” . This is a guy I had looked up to for several years, and you can imagine my shock. But I could make out that he was proud that it was a real possibility that his mentee would forge ahead, and that he was part of the reason why that could happen. I know another senior executive at SAP who has hired and groomed several top achievers, and she now works for one of her recruits. Yet another friend of mine – whom I met last week at Bangalore – gladly introduced me to his boss, whom he helped recruit. These are all people I greatly admire. And I would love to work for them any day, or have them in my team any day. It is a privilege just to know them.

Then there is the other type – who are insecure. From the outside, they look exactly like the first type – the key difference is that they mostly care only about themselves. They “manage up” significantly better than other employees. In common parlance – they are awesome politicians. They are masters of stealing credit from their team. The best of them manipulate their teams to make them think that they are watching out for the best interests of the team. Sadly, it takes a while to know who they are . I even doubt they realize this is how they operate – I have asked some of these characters, and they seemed to have rationalized their ways somehow.

Getting stuck with an insecure middle manager is painful – and I have been unfortunate to occasionally have insecure bosses. And I constantly worry if I am (or f I will become) one of them.

It is not as if top management is free of insecurity and politics – they clearly are not. The big difference is that by the time they are in top management, most of them have a fair knowledge of what is next for their careers. So my observation is that only a handful are insecure – and they usually stick out like a sore thumb. And once you know who they are, you can work around them somehow in most cases – or you can leave. There is not a lot of guessing needed for employees, management and peers.

Every company I know think they have a talent shortage . In my opinion, before they look outside – they should evaluate their middle management layers. My bet is that there is plenty of talent usually in companies, and the only reason the top management can’t spot them is because a portion of middle management is insecure, and will hide their top performers. I readily admit that not all middle managers do it out of malice – some just have protective instincts , and like to shield their team. They don’t always think through whether the team needs that extra air cover.

Help these middle level managers – chart a course for them and help them navigate. And make sure you get to know more people up and down the org chain, so that you don’t always need a middle level manager to spot talent. And please amply reward the best of them – like the ones who saw Tomas through to his achievement . They are a big reason why good companies become awesome companies. And if you can’t coach them – move away their employees to another manager who is secure and can do them justice as a leader.

Congratulations again, Tomas – very proud of you. And I am looking forward to see a lot more stars being well recognized and not stifled.