Who Mugged him?

“How Secure is contactless payment? 4 common misconceptions”– An article in money control. I read this article 3 day back and from that time, I have been itching to write this post.

Banks have robust systems which can track every single rupee being transacted using its systems. It has different department to take care to monitor it. Despite all this, you could be like my friend, who could lose money through the cards provided by the bank and find not much help from the bank in recovering the money. Yes, this post of mine is about the ordeal my friend underwent when he was mugged in Paris, France.  Yes! such petty crime does happen in an advanced society like Paris.

January 2020, would never be forgotten by my friend or me, as I was with him through this difficult time.

Paris was undergoing one of its worst transport strikes, thereby making our commutation difficult. We couldn’t go and visit many historical places and have a pleasant memory of this trip. We ended up with a bad memory. We had stayed close to 2 months in this place and we started craving for authentic south Indian food. We heard about this place which housed many famous restaurants from our state and decided to try. There were many good restaurants in this place and nothing much else to do, we decided to try these restaurants for the remaining weekends we had. The first Sunday it went well and we were relieved to have our style food. The disaster struck us in the next week, when we decided to hit this place on a Saturday afternoon. To reach this place, we had to change trains, these trains were being operated for limited time due to the strike. Owing to the strike and being a Saturday, there was a huge crowd in the transit station. My friend kept reminding me to be careful with the wallet. As the train halted at the station and after lot of people getting out, we along with the huge crowd tried our luck to board the train. After trying and realizing that it is difficult to board, we retracted, only for my friend to realize that he lost his purse.

Within minutes of he being robbed of his purse which had multiple credit & debit cards along with identity proofs, and we realizing what to be done, he started getting sms of money being withdrawn. We both started contacting the customer care numbers to block the card to avoid further activity on the card, but couldn’t get through as we were getting automatic response saying the numbers are not valid. By searching the internet and repetitive calls, we were only able to block 1 card and during this time, my friend had already lost close to 4.5 lakh INR(21000 AED plus 15000 INR). One Indian bank had put a temporary block after one withdrawal, we also got some time to successfully block the other cards due to greediness of the fraudster, who was trying bigger denominations. After multiple attempts we managed to block the cards.

All our excitement of the day turned into gloom and we decided to go back to our room and decide the next course of action. On our way back, we reluctantly called a client side person to seek suggestion, she advised us to register a police complaint.

We as common man, have apprehension in going to a police station, blame it on films and news we hear and see. With such apprehension, my friend visited the police station and had to experience a long queue to register the complaint. He understood that many in this queue were unfortunate people like him who were mugged at various metro stations. He also saw one Indian, still frantically trying the customer care number of his bank to block the cards, this guy had lost close to 10 lakh INR. My friend's experience with the police was good, wherein they took his complaint and help him with multiple copies of official documents, so that he could use it for substantiating his story with banks and government departments (he had lost government issued proofs also). Police also told him they will check with the metro station video feed and if they nab the culprit, they will call him and suggested him not to frequently visit the police station. The last statement, brought back the apprehension and when checked with client, our fear was substantiated. We were told that; this is the best you can expect from the police.

 Armed with the police provide documents, we contacted the banks from India and Abu Dhabi to register the fraud claim on the money swiped from the cards. Abu Dhabi bank, had a bot to guide us on registering the fraud and after that case was registered, the call was transferred to the customer care representative, who further advised us to email the soft copy of the police complaint along with the claim form which had details of transaction which we wanted to dispute. Bank from India had also advised us to follow the same steps.

 We are quality assurance professionals, who have worked for such bank project implementation and know what happens during such dispute process. With this knowledge, he waited for the banks to respond.

Bank from India (15k INR) were the first to respond positively and acknowledged the dispute. The money was returned to my friend. The bank from Abu Dhabi, took time and had to be followed up before they responded. There was no positive response from the bank and we couldn’t reach the right team to reverse this decision.

From the day of response till mid of march, my friend had to run from pillar to post to make the Abu Dhabi bank to reconsider his case and reverse the decision. In meantime he had to arrange for the money and pay the bank to avoid penal charge amount. Our manager in Abu Dhabi was also helpless, as bank didn’t entertain the complaint from him and wanted my friend to visit the branch and lodge the complaint. After lot of explanation and follow up, bank finally relented to refer the cases to VISA, this gave my friend a ray of hope. VISA also took time to investigate the case, but didn’t give a positive response. Bank has also categorically refused to further investigate the case.

The reason given by bank and VISA is that, the transaction had happened by entering the PIN and hence the claim for dispute can’t be entertained. The fraudster, we believe had sophisticated simulators which helped him crack the PIN and withdraw the amount from multiple shop POS machines, which otherwise is impossible.

My friend during this time also tried to get help from French police to recover the money. He gave evidences of the Shop and the location (We googled with details in SMS to locate the shop) and requested them to investigate. To his disappointment, he was told by police that, they can’t investigate anything as there was no video evidence maintained in the Metro station and can’t go to these shops (which were in 1 km radius of this station), instead he was again given copies of same set of documents and asked to follow up with the bank.
Friends, I am not writing this to earn sympathy for my friend who has and is undergoing hard time in paying back the amount, but to warn you about the ordeal you could undergo in similar situation. After reading this post, who do you think mugged him, is it the fraudster, or the police or the banks. Banking systems are designed to prevent frauds and help people banking with them to safeguard the money.

Role of QA in Transformation engagement

This blog of mine is about the role of QA in a transformation engagement. I have written the same through my own experience and the experienced shared by my colleagues and seniors. Please give your feedback, correct me wherever I am wrong.

Trigger for writing this blog has been the article shared by my brother. The article is titled “Yin & Yang in Testing”.

IT projects are majorly classified as Transformational projects or Upgrade projects. Transformational project means, transforming from the current systems/practices to a newer qualified system. A project could be taken by organization due to various number of reasons. Revenue generating department could demand for systems which aid them to generate more revenue or the management could decide to bring in better systems to overcome operational challenges or to reduce cost.

Revenue generating teams, which mainly will be the Business users could have a large say in the budget for the project and what they expect in the new system. Technology team could have a say in what technology/product to invest in. They could also influence in the decision of whether to for in-house development or to purchase a product and customize to meet the requirements.

Success of such implementations dependent on the collaboration of both the teams. During the course of the project, there could be lot of clash of views, as Business would try to get the maximum out of the systems, whereas the technology team will have their challenges in implementing all the business requirements.

QA team, which reports to the head of technology team plays a crucial role and has to do a balancing act in such implementations.

In the Middle East market, from where I gained my experience, majority of such transformation engagements still continue to follow the traditional waterfall model of delivery, with certain clients attempting more modern development model. QA team, whether it is the in-house team or outsourced have to be the bridge between the technology and business team.  They have to liaise with the build team to understand the architecture of the implementation and on the other hand have to liaise with Business analyst, in their absence directly with business to understand the expectations.

The team, at least majority of them are not involved right from the conceptual stage of the project and have to rely on the documents made available to them. The team don’t have the luxury of time to ascertain whether these documents have captured the business expectations to the fullest. During the course of engagement, they have to remain unattached from the technology team and business team. However, they have to be mindful of what the technology team can deliver and how much of this meets the business expectation. The team has to bargain with IT team when they find gaps in the delivery, convince the business by explaining the limitations of the products.

Success of QA team lies in how they navigate the above challenges by continuously balancing both technology and business expectation. A successful QA team, will adhere to time tested processes, lay out clear objectives and should know to successfully YIN & YANG in the context of below points.

-Understanding a Software under test

-Designing Testing scenarios and cases

-Using the cases, to evaluate the software under test

Author of the article is titled “Yin & Yang in Testing” has clearly explained the YIN & YANG in the context of above points via a beautiful pictorial article. Please refer to the same.

Bias,Lies & Politics

After reading my previous post "Leadership Skills : an important skill for a successful manager", a good friend of mine, whastapped me to appreciate. He also put forth a question: “can a Manager be biased, indulge in office politics and Lie? “

While thinking of the answer, 2 characters from Mahabharata came to my mind. Let me reintroduce them to you.

Sri Krishna:  He played multiple roles in this epic story, he mentored, motivated, safeguarded the Pandeva’s.  He wanted to play a crucial role in this epic to retell the Bhagavad gita, which was being forgotten by the mankind. He recited the same to Arjun, when he was in the most vulnerable state of mind, which was during the Kursekthra war. Krishna had to be biased towards Arjun and Pandeva’s, do politics and lie many a times before and during the war. Pandeva’s victory in the war was not possible without Krishna’s role.

Shakuni: Prince of Kingdom of Gandhar, who couldn’t learn all warfare’s like many other princes of his time due to his physical limitations. A helpless brother had to see her sister Gandhari being forcefully married to Dhritarastra by the mighty Bheesma, who had to use pressure tactics on this small kingdom. He on the very same day, took a pledge to destroy the Kuru dynasty. He decided to stay with his sister to accomplish the same. During his stay, he could see, how the wise men’s of Hastinapur where plotting against his sister’s family and son’s. He took it upon himself to protect them using his sharp and cunning brain. This resulted in numerous clashes between Kaurava’s and Pandeva’s and the epic war.



Both Krishna and Shakuni succeeded in their objective but the action of one has had progress of mankind and the other brought an end to a dynasty.



Now coming back to my friend’s question. Yes, you can as a manager be biased, lie and play politics, if it does good for the project and the team involved, thereby having a positive impact for the company. No, you shouldn’t be biased, lie, play and allow politics if it to satisfy your ego thereby having detrimental effect on the company.



Managers or leaders are also humans, whatever be their actions, they are going to be seen as person who is biased to a set of people. Are you as manager, biased, because they are performers and future leaders or because they blindly listen to whatever you say, even if you are wrong.

Both Pandeva’s and Kaurava’s were cousins to Sri Krishna, but he had a liking towards Pandeva’s and amongst them he had a special liking to Arjun. Dharmaraj Yudhishthira was not chosen but Arjun was chosen to listen to Bhagavad gita. Shakuni too had liking towards Duryodhana and Dushasanna compared to the other Kaurava’s, as their behaviour and actions perfectly suited his plan. Similarly, in work, leaders tend to pick/side with people, who will help them to meet their objectives.

Many of us would have experienced bias, politics at work. If the experience has been good, you tend to not speak about it, if the experience hasn’t been good, you tend to blow the trumpet and ensure it is spoken in cafeteria’s.

 Are you a performer who want to be recognized by a leader like Krishna or are you an obsequious person who would resort to flattery to be in good book of a leader like Shakuni. To be Arjun or Yudhishthira or Duryodhana or Dushasanna, is in your hands. Based on your character and career growing choice, a leader will pick you up. You want to be benefited or face decline in your career is solely in your hand.

Leadership Skills : An important skill for a successful Manager

Companies direct expectation on managers is to deliver a project within the scope, schedule, cost and effort. A manager is rated as good, if he/she has the knowledge and capability to deliver the project with the above said parameters. Many a times, an individual strive hard to equip themselves with knowledge either through various courses available in market or being associated with another successful manager. The person tries to emulate the learning in a project but might have limited success, as I believe obtaining/possessing of these skills doesn’t make a person good manager. Apart from the skills, you need to know how to effectively lead people.

You as a manager may or may not possess skills, time required to complete a project and hence your organization assembles a team. Most of the time, you don’t get to choose the team that you end up working with.

This post of mine, discuss certain points on how to lead a team which may or may not share the same vision as you in a project. How you get them to work within the defined boundaries of the project will determine the success of you as manager, who is fondly remembered by your team.

There is a famous saying in Tamil

“Aadura Maata, Aadi than karakonam, Paadura Maata Paadithan karakonam”

This means a restless cow must be milked by force and a gentle cow must be milked with kindness.

Similarly, in a project, you would have people with different characteristics, different skills. Knowing what is required to get the best out of them is the foremost point to be focused. There aren’t one size fits all leadership method. Knowing each associate at the early stage of the project allows you to tailor your approach.  If you are required to manage a large team, it is impossible to know each associate inside out, hence it is essential to know your direct reports thoroughly and through them get to know the team.



Plan time for familiarization: Most organization/Manager during estimation for a project don’t factor time for familiarization and later struggle to find time. It is highly important to budget for time during the planning stages. Each Manager has his/her method of knowing the team. Some use formal scientific method whereas some prefer probing talks. Based on the method, budget the time. The most important thing to remember is to utilize this time effectively and not to consume this time for other project related activity.

Context setting of Project:

“Than Ratathin Oru Pathi Paalaka Piripathu Pasumatin Vellaiyappa” – a line from song from a super hit Tamil film “Annamalai”


Similar to this the project team mates put their heart and soul into the project, spend blood, sweat and tears in delivering the project. While doing this, what frustrate them the most is the feeling of working without understanding the context of the project. As their leader, it becomes your duty to give them the better understanding of the overall project purpose and objective.

Kick-off meeting shouldn’t be done just to tick the checkbox in the project management documents, but should be effectively used to detail out the plan for the project. Whenever there is change in the project or new team member is added to the project, the objective should be reiterated. An organization takes up a project with certain overarching objectives and if you are able to connect that with the team, then your job in making the project successful is half done.



There are other wise people in Project: Most manager behave as the sole custodian of the project and end up complicating and creating burdens for themselves and others in the project. Organizations hire/train people and place them in project and it will be beneficial for managers to remember that the team given to you is not completely novice at work. They might have experience in working in similar type of engagement or bring to table experience which need to be utilized. Involving them in various stages and soliciting their feedback at regular interval could help in making things better in a project.



Don’t Micromanage the team: According to me, lack of trust in team makes you to micro manage things and making it a living hell for the team to work. Trust the team in executing the plan laid out with their own judgement could augur well for the project and the team. You shouldn’t be cut off from the team and shouldn’t be seen as someone who tracks the project in systems or excels. By just having periodic check-in meeting to be aware of progress, in which you ask questions to know the health and give valuable feedback could mushroom future leaders for your organization.

You are a LEADER:

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more “– Jim Rohn

By virtue of leading/managing a project wherein the team spends considerable duration of their career, they look up to you for many things. Team members look up to for Inspiration, Motivation, Constructive feedback, guidance and some see a role model in you. Just like how your association with a successful manager shaped your career, many in your team would like to associate with you. It becomes your moral responsibility to provide them with their requirement. In course of the project, you too can be benefitted with constructive feedback which you should be glad to be receiving.



A manager’s success is dependent on the success of the team. I believe by looking and applying these points while managing a project, you could be viewed as a leader by your organization. I am in this constant endeavour to be recognized as a leader, How about you?

  

Why can’t I not have an opinion as Celebrity?

Is the question Katrina Kaif asked, joining the growing list of new age celebrities who are challenging the journalists who have been forcing them to express their view on topics of national interest.

If you have watched any of the Film promotion interview, the journalist ask the actors not only questions about their role and experience of working in the film, but also ask these celluloid stars to comment on the current affairs. The same comments are distorted according to the journalist talent for words and are both published and telecast to catch the eyeballs of the public. Dodging of these questions is also made into revenue generating articles and episodes.

People of our country can make a person a hero, if he/she represent or support their view; otherwise you see them use the filthiest language to belittle the person. A person who had been worshiped ,could quickly disowned by the same fans. Rajnikanth is biggest example for it.

Actors need to be respected and left alone, if they don’t feel like commenting on a topic. Channels and Magazines already have many means of keeping the TRP high, like wardrobe malfunctions, commenting on the dress worn for award nights, linking of co-actors and tearing their private life.

On the other hands, actors should also maintain consistency of not reacting or commenting on current affairs or take political sides by favoring any person or party. They shouldn’t be using their star value to influence people.  If you still want to use your stardom to payback your benefactors, then chose the right forums for it. By choosing to be careless of forum, you are asking for trouble, as well as allowing people to generalize your fellow actors.

Journalist can’t be entirely blamed, as they are forced to such dirty tricks by their paymasters. If this trend has to be ended, it is in the hands of these actors to think and act judiciously. You dont have to be the next MGR, Jayalalitha or NTR.

Roger's Muddled thought

Roger Federer, the player with most number of singles Grand slam titles in open era for a male player, has decided to skip the French open 2017 and most of clay court tournaments to concentrate on the grass court seasons.

This decision to skip a Grand slam in a year, wherein he is having a dream run has really surprised me.  Unless injured, I don’t see any other reason for him to skip a Slam. He could have his own reasons or being advised by his set of advisers for skipping the French open, wherein his record is not enviable as other slams. I though disagree with his reasoning and if I was he, would have given my best shot to win the slam.

Roger should consider, this year’s French open as his best chance to add to his tally of 18 slams and improve his record in the Clay. Roger’s improved fitness and with many of top ranked players not showing the consistency, he should consider only Nadal, his nemesis and king of clay as the biggest threat. His recent success against Nadal and improvement in his game should instill the required confidence to defeat him once more, if required and go on to lay his muddy hands on the trophy. This could be a double delight for Roger as well as his fans. Winning this year’s tournament, could have enhanced his legacy.

Roger is not getting younger and I am not sure, how many more opportunity he will get in French open to add to his sole trophy.  If, he doesn’t go on to win any more French open, it would continue to question his supremacy of tennis over all surfaces.

I don’t know , if it is too late to reverse the decision, if not I would urge him to reconsider and play these muddy tournaments to have a happy retirement and leaving nothing for critics to dig upon.

IPL- Edition of X Factor

IPL –X has caught my attention unlike few of gone by seasons. For an innocent viewer & lover of any game of cricket, this season has provided the much needed entertainment, wherein we had got to witness plenty of individual brilliance, collective contributions leading to many close encounters.

We are in the last day of league matches and we are yet to identify teams which will play the Playoffs. This proves the competitiveness of this league.

Mumbai Indians players have put their hands up and made them counted in whatever opportunity they have got and repaid the faith the team management had, thereby making the selection process look brilliant. They have become the first team to comfortably qualify and top the table.

The Knight Riders and Sun risers have been brilliant on most of the days to earn a spot in the playoffs, but will have nail biting time and wouldn’t know their fate until the King’s XI versus Rising Pune Giants match gets over. This match could shake up the table position.

Whichever be the teams playing the playoffs, there is one fourth possibility of new team being crowned the Champions. I for the, underdog have been supporting the Preity’s Kings and hope they qualify for the playoffs and go on to be crowned Champions.

Rising Pune Giants under the leadership of Smith, also stand a chance to claim their maiden title. Their title winning effort could further spice up the post edition discussions of future conduct of the league.

The X factor of IPL will continue even after this edition comes to a closure. There are plenty of questions lingering in the minds of IPL fans, about the future of the teams and the fate of players, who have played their hearts out to create fan base for their team. I expect plenty of actions in the boardrooms before we move to the next phase of IPL.

With lot of excitement and expectation, I look forward for remainder of this edition and course it takes to remain a competitive league, which has something for anyone associated with it.