Santosh's Blog, page 55

Curtain Raiser: How did bug happen?

Writing a book is a great responsibility. When you write a blog or article you aim to reach a certain audience, however book intends to reach a wide variety of audience.

Even though Bug is aimed for IT Professionals and Software Testing Community, anybody can read this book as the Daily lives of people working in organizations is unfolded here.

Lets think about the following:

We read a lot of technical books, articles and that helps us a lot in our work
We hear or feel a lot of things between our friends and peers at work, one that impacts our work and also decisions we take

Bug explains b with a little bit of technical jargon mixed.

Not clear ? – Please wait for the book to get launched.

In this article, we like to share with you what ideas we had and which went into the book in a nutshell,

Many IT professionals / freshers / college students now a days know what to read, how to crack interviews. Do they know enough of organizations, people, expectations and so on?
What happens behind the scenes during interview process? If candidate knows such things will it help him succeed in the interview and appreciate the process. 
Many a times after finishing an interview,the candidate might feel   ‘it was a cakewalk’ , but still gets rejected – how does one find answers for such rejections?
Answers given by candidates may be the best but does it resonate to the questions the interviewer asks.
What are various parameters that factor in for selecting the right candidates – Is it just technical skills or anything more?

Book talks about all this and also nice stories of how employees work / talk in an organization. It has drama, action, suspense and a lot of learning.

Updates on the happening: click here

~BUG: Since 2014~

48 Birthdays

48 people have birthday today among FB friends list. It seems to be an interesting day! Seems to be a most productive day for doctors! Have a great birthday fellas!

Question to Google

Simple & the Best

Simple & the Best : The story is beautifully narrated and holds the reader attention till the end. Watch for the climax, you will be happy reading it. Worth reading. – P Vinay Kumar ‪#‎She‬ ‪#‎EklaCholoRe‬ book review.

Over 100 promising reviews of She: Ekla Cholo Re at : Goodreads

 

Why partying could be dangerous?

“The use of self-control is like the use of brakes on a train. It is useful when you find yourself going in the wrong way direction, but merely harmful when the direction is right.” – Bertrand Russell

Welcome to the next article, today let’s try to explore the causes behind ‘people losing their sense in groups’. I’m sure we have come across characters in the movie that has ‘no life’ – a nerdy, career focused and goal orientated then there is another character that describes oneself as ‘full of life’ – always happy-go-lucky, parties each day and so on. The second character makes the first character to believe that life is no that one s/he is leading, its all about partying! But I see it is as a deceptive character because the likely trend that is likely to follow is decrease in self-awareness and its leads to deindividuation (labelled by Leon Festinger, Albert Pepitone, and Theodore Newcomb). This behavior is often observed on consumption of alcohol. Let’s look into few examples on loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension that occurs in a group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.

We have come across lynch mob often believes that they will never be caught or prosecuted, as the action is perceived as a group’s work. Faceless looters are often take advantage of the situation. Now a picture people storming out after watching their team win or lose to celebrate or mourn/vent angry. They can quickly lose self-awareness and create chaos this can be attributed to arousal or distractions. This scenario is observed across several places when their favorite cine star is rested in peace!

These examples suggests us that people fail to make conscious discrimination. Individual consciousness gets replaced by collective unconsciousness.

Does it mean deindividuation is is bad mostly? Certainly not! Deindividuating group experiences such as dancing, worship, positive activity to bring cohesiveness is encouraging.

The bottom line could be, ‘Party! but don’t forget who you are’.

I hope we had some interesting understanding on deindividuation. In a group discussion if some people in a group lingers to their initial inclinations over reaching a consensus, what that would be like? Let’s look into this in our next article. Till then, Good day!

Do individual contribute less in the group?

“No one is accountable if individuals are unaccountable” – Santosh Avvannavar

Welcome to the next article to understand, why often people in a group feels that others aren’t contributing as much one think so? Let me take this out of my experience meeting an HR Manager of a company. Manager had invited me to discuss on the concern that is likely to exists in others. The following points were raised:

How to make employees to take ownership of their work?
People often make or take excuses while working on a project and this is heightened during deadlines. There is blame game everywhere!
But this blame ceases when appraisals happen. Each individuals want to credit it as their project.

The case above and several others like at college project (like group project) Social Loafing is seen (labeled by Bibb Latane, Kipling Williams and Stephen Harkins). This happens because of the ‘common goal’ over the ‘individual goal’, where people tend to put less effort than otherwise. This is true because for a common goal, individuals are not accountable.

The case of Social loafing from Manager’s perspective could be tackled with combinations of following points:

Developing a model to mechanize the evaluation apprehension.
To provide/make task challenging, appealing and involving. This will lead individuals to feel that their efforts will be recognised.
Incentive or reward or promotion could also be reflected on case basis.
Helping people grow in their role that will give a vision to their expectations.
Creating a team with like-minded people, likely to create a team.

The above mentioned five points could probably arrest social loafing by creating a culture of ‘us’.

If social loafing isn’t addressed, will people lose their sense of self in the group? Let’s look into this in our next article. Till then, Good day!

Seasons of Life

When the sunburn I blind,


When the sky showers I cover head,


When the wind blows I blanket,


When the death calls I undergo,


When would I experience the nature?

Does crowd presence really arouse people?

There is a puritan saying, “A good house is a full house”. Welcome to the next article to understand, if individuals (or we) are really aroused by others presence? In the last article we see that social facilitation happens and we respond to others. Out of my personal experience I could recall of being there for a friend while he took an arrears during a semester examination. I although had finished the examination few days earlier but decided to stay with him to complete his only a paper. I walked with him till the examination room. I told him that I wouldn’t move, till he receive the paper and nods his head confirming that he could clear the examination. This was an example to mention that during stress, companion can be comforting. But this was just complete opposite during normal semester time when he had to make a class presentation. He often perspire more, and showed the indicators of stress by sweat trickling from his brow. This extreme pressure he was found to be choking. Otherwise he wasn’t being with a known group.

In order to understand this affect of crowd in a movie hall, I went to see a English movie thrice in the same hall during the same week. I chose a seat that had crowd around me. I realized that some percentage of crowd was unable to follow the British accent. At some scene I intentionally laughed, and found that neighboring members were also induced to laugh.

There was another experience of handling three sections of a computer science students on a training module. Section 1 had 65% attendance and the class didn’t seem lively because of the empty chairs and grouping the students (friends were separated). Section 2 had 90% attendance, I noticed students felt warm and lively (some friends were made to sit together). And section 2 had 100% attendance and the students felt warm and lively (friends were made to sit together). This experimentation showed me that crowding can enhance arousal with people being seated with liked people and results could be easy behavior that facilitates the dominant behavior.

These example and others tells us crowd can intensify positive or negative reactions. But the question is, why does presence of others arouse us? Let’s look into this in our next article. Till then, Good day!

Does ‘Mere Presence’ of others affect us?

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” – Karl Marx, Das Kapital

Earlier article we had some exposure on Group Influence (click here). Today, lets look into to understanding the blurs between the arguments on, does mere presence of others affects us? The mere presence argument is to mean that people aren’t competing, no appreciation or reward or punish. The situation is like passive audience. Norman Triplett (1898) noticed that cyclists’ times faster when racing together than when racing alone. In his own experiments with children on a task to wind string on a fishing reel as rapidly as possible. He found that children wound faster when worked with others than when worked alone. Several other experiments such as simple problems of multiplication, motor tasks and others confirmed the understanding of Social Facilitation.

However this might have seemed good but several others studies tasks which had complex multiplication problems or learning a maze hindered the performances. This confusion on sometimes facilitates or hinders, had ground to a halt. After nearly two and half decade, Robert Zajonc used basis from experimental psychology: Arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant. This principle actually helped in understanding the confusion that otherwise that remained for awhile. Mullen and others, found that others’ presence will energize people or arouse people. Performances showed easy behavior in easier tasks because of the social facilitates dominant responses and difficult behavior on difficult tasks because of the social facilitates dominant responses. This is often seen during a game/match that a supportive crowd responses can energies the players to performer. Does this mean larger crowd always help others performance? Let’s look into this in our next article. Till then, Good day!

Likely Definition: Social facilitation is the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present.

Group Influence

As Margaret Mead says, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” World contains formal and informal groups. How do they influence individuals? The interactions among the group seem to have dramatic effects. The questions to be addressed how do these individuals affect behavior of the people in the group? and how decisions are impacted?

Before we look into these fascinating questions, lets first see, what is a group? According to Marvin Shaw, an expert of Group Dynamics, ‘All groups have a common thing and that is interaction.’ Does it mean people sitting in a movie hall aren’t a group? Shaw argues that mere collection of people would not be a group. There seem to be a blurs with several others arguing that ‘a mere presence could also sometimes influence one another.’ In the next article we shall try to understand ‘how presence of others can affect?’ under social facilitation topic. Till then, have a great day!