News from the IIBA - Greenville Chapter

I have been elected to the post of Director - Education of the Greenville chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). My primary responsibilities include arranging trainings, speaker sessions, study groups and mentoring business analysts interested in the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) certification.

Currently Reading : A Peace to End All Peace

I am currently reading David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace", which deals with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern middle east. The Middle East has long been a hotbed of conflicts. All of these - including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis, and the violent challenges posed by Iraq’s competing sects—are rooted in the region’s political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War.

Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East.

Seminar at the IIBA Greenville Chapter

I recently gave a talk on Project Scope and Product Requirements Management to a gathering of Business Analysts at the Greenville chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysis. Here is my presentation :

Project scope and requirements management

Historicon 2010

I reached Pennsylvania on Friday ( 9th July 2010 ) evening and after taking a quick shower at the hotel, I rushed to the Valley Forge Convention Center located in King of Prussia. As it did in 2007, the Historicon drew hundreds of enthusiasts and visitors from different corners of the US and from several walks of life.

My first game called "The Savage Wastes of Germania!" was hosted by Game Master "Howard Whitehouse" using the ancient wargaming rule set : "Clash of Iron". "Clash of Iron" is a simple, straight forward rule set designed by the Game Master himself, who is an employee of the Wargames Factory. I was formation leader Cornelius Junius, who took charge of one of the cavalry units of the Roman Army that had crossed the Rhine to suppress the Germanic tribes that were giving Rome relentless migraine.


A wilderness of forests, bogs, streams, and hills, the terrain was one that offered a cavalry commander very few options. I stayed behind, letting the infantry units march ahead and deal with the sea of barbarians that the Germans had amassed. They seemed inexhaustible, with waves of men armed with motley weapons rushing into the Romans again and again. I stayed to the left of the infantry and lagged behind, promising to charge the flank of the attacking German hordes. I did charge and rout two waves of attackers before taking a Javelin on my chest.

The Romans pulled off a marginal victory in the end.



On Saturday I attended Capt.Dale Dye's talks on Hollywood, Military History and the making of Band of Brothers and The Pacific. I asked Capt.Dye a question. Let me recollect and quote the question and answer here :

Sarath : I think it was in the 9th episode of Band of Brothers that you show a Nazi concentration camp. How did you pull that off ? It was shot very well.

Capt. Dye : To film the concentration camp, we needed several extremely emaciated people and it was hard to find so many of them. So, I did something that makes me feel like a butt hole to this day. I went to a hospice for terminal cancer patients and told them that if they would like to make a contribution towards preserving history, I would like to hire them. In the end, we had about 85 volunteers, two of them were brought in ambulances. That's how we filmed it. Most of them could be dead now. It is something that haunts me to this day.

On the same day,I fought a battle set during the days of the American Revolutionary war and a 1953 dog fight over the skies of Korea. More about these two games in the next post.









On Sunday, I attended two seminars : Col.David Glantz's "Soviet Operations in Hungary (Jan- Mar 1945)", which described the Soviet planning and conduct of operations to capture Budapest in January and February 1945. It was an excellent effort by Col. Glantz and included translations of Russian and German war diaries that depicted the movement and shifting positions of the two armies on a day to day basis. The next seminar was "The Bear is back - Russia's new cold war" by Col.(Retd.)Jerry Morelock in which the Colonel presented his thoughts of how the Putin- Medvedev regime is redefining the Russian national philosophy with "Super Power dreams".

HISTORICON - 2010

Here are a few random shots from Historicon 2010. I'll write more about the event over the coming weekend.

Happy Birthday Arjun

My son, Arjun turned two today. I still remember the moment like it were just yesterday - thanks to the American form of couvade in which I could stay with my wife during the delivery and see my son being born.

Here is a wish that my wife and I received for Arjun from a very dear friend :

“IF..” by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

The Post - American World by Fareed Zakaria

The book, "The Post-American World" arrived at my doorstep a couple of days ago. Written by Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, the book is NOT a grim tale of America's future, although the title makes one think so. It is rather about the political and economic ascendance of the BRIC nations and others. Mr.Zakaria rightly calls it "The rise of the rest". I picked up the book just to read the preface and found myself glued to it. I plan to finish reading it tonight, before I return to what I was reading before this book arrived.

Currently reading "Too Big To Fail" by Andrew Sorkin

I've just started reading Andrew Sorkin's "Too Big To Fail" The book is said to be a true-life financial and political thriller that details the backroom deal making and secret alliances made in the rush to save the world economy from collapsing - from the machinations inside Lehmann Brother's offices to secret meetings in Washington and Moscow. I have never read any of Mr.Sorkin's writings before and want to see whether this book really lives upto its reputation of being a gripping financial narrative.

Dear Gandhiji......Wasn't that a little too much ?

I am currently reading Jaswant Singh's JINNAH India - Partition - Independence. In Chapter 5 : A Short Decade - A Long End Game, Mr Singh quotes Gandhiji from his open letter to the British, published in the "Amrita Bazar Patrika" dated 4th July 1940 under the title "Method of non-violence - Mahatma Gandhi's appeal to every Briton". It read, in parts to say :

"I appeal for cessation of hostilities....because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans....I venture to present you with a nobler and braver way, worthy of the bravest soldiers. I want you to fight Nazism without arms or...with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity....Invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but not your souls nor your minds..."

This outrageous idea struck me like a bolt of lightning !! Befuddled, I scratched my head and read the paragraph again, rubbed my eyes to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. No! I wasn't.

I hope he was not serious and that the politician in the Mahatma was trying to taunt the British by conveying the message that to conquer a nation one needs to conquer more than its geography. Anyway, after the initial shock I burst into a paroxysm of laughter as I tried to imagine the Mahatma, with a straight face, hand over this letter to the Viceroy.

I wonder what the Englishman did after he read the letter !

I'll be back shortly to post my opinion of the book.

Tip of day for parents with toddlers - How to remove permanent marker stains.

I have a budding artist at home whose creative instincts flare up whenever he sees clean and white surfaces. All he needs then is a pen or a pencil or a crayon. Unfortunately, he found a permanent marker yesterday and this is what happened:

I googled and learned that the best way to remove permanent marker stains is to use alcohol or an alochol based hand sanitizer. So, I made the painter undo his painting !!

Great minds