I am on the bench
With some snacks to munch
Growing my tummy as I work on nothing
Waiting for the day, that brings an end to everything
I am on the bench
Along with some pathetic bunch
Worrying about my future,
As Idleness evades me and causes torture
Any software engineer on the bench would have this common apprehension. But fortunately I was never benched before, for none of my employers had the concept of free resource pool. Every dog has its day. I too had that day. It was in my go-plus (global orientation) program held at ICRISAT resorts. It was a two day out-bound programme where we had some interesting management games. Every game had some values to teach like evolving a strategy, prototyping, collaboration etc. And on the final day we were given a real time project management scenario. We were divided into three teams with a team lead for each. Also a project manager to coordinate the three teams. Our task was simple (appeared at first). Each team must construct a similar kind of arrangement as shown in fig1 sequentially in the stipulated time(120 seconds). We were given time to analyze and practice and there were also progress reviews before the final demo.
My team developed a good strategy using modular approach. And in the reviews we were able to do in 26 seconds. The next team didn't have any such strategy in hand, yet they were able to produce the output in 35 seconds. The third team were in a pathetic situation as they were no closer to completion. Our PM sucked big time. He had the faintest idea about shuffling the teams and knowledge transfer. He brought external trainers to impart the new technology which was already in place in my team, at the cost of all our hikes for the next two years. After training the third team were able to do it successfully in 16 seconds.
With everything set we were ready for the final demo. We were given three chances of which we were asked to perform the demo without a fault at least once. The first demo ended in a fault as my team didn't notice the small gap shown in fig 2. We placed a plank in the reverse order. This fault never occurred in the initial reviews lest we would have been careful. Once we confirmed with the reviewer that it was the only fault made by us, we gave the second demo. As our team got tensed we took a little longer, so the we were not able to complete the entire demo in the stipulated time. We were left with one more chance.
"It was a Do or Die situation. Our team lead encouraged us by his powerful speech. And we all gathered our momentum and performed exceptionally well in the third round". This would have been a possible ending for a movie. But the rules are very much different for the real life. Considering our team's track record the PM asked us to step aside for the third and the final demo. And the team which got external training were asked to do the demo twice. We had no choice, but to sit on the bench over there and watch the other teams perform.
At first we got angry on our PM but after giving a deep thought we realized that it was the only good decision made by him in the entire project life cycle. In the postmortem analysis our facilitator argued about the fairness of our team. We contributed to the success of our project by not participating in it. In other words we never stood as a hurdle to the success. Though these soothing words comforted me, yet it failed to expunge this unhappy memory : on the bench.
With some snacks to munch
Growing my tummy as I work on nothing
Waiting for the day, that brings an end to everything
I am on the bench
Along with some pathetic bunch
Worrying about my future,
As Idleness evades me and causes torture
Any software engineer on the bench would have this common apprehension. But fortunately I was never benched before, for none of my employers had the concept of free resource pool. Every dog has its day. I too had that day. It was in my go-plus (global orientation) program held at ICRISAT resorts. It was a two day out-bound programme where we had some interesting management games. Every game had some values to teach like evolving a strategy, prototyping, collaboration etc. And on the final day we were given a real time project management scenario. We were divided into three teams with a team lead for each. Also a project manager to coordinate the three teams. Our task was simple (appeared at first). Each team must construct a similar kind of arrangement as shown in fig1 sequentially in the stipulated time(120 seconds). We were given time to analyze and practice and there were also progress reviews before the final demo.
My team developed a good strategy using modular approach. And in the reviews we were able to do in 26 seconds. The next team didn't have any such strategy in hand, yet they were able to produce the output in 35 seconds. The third team were in a pathetic situation as they were no closer to completion. Our PM sucked big time. He had the faintest idea about shuffling the teams and knowledge transfer. He brought external trainers to impart the new technology which was already in place in my team, at the cost of all our hikes for the next two years. After training the third team were able to do it successfully in 16 seconds.With everything set we were ready for the final demo. We were given three chances of which we were asked to perform the demo without a fault at least once. The first demo ended in a fault as my team didn't notice the small gap shown in fig 2. We placed a plank in the reverse order. This fault never occurred in the initial reviews lest we would have been careful. Once we confirmed with the reviewer that it was the only fault made by us, we gave the second demo. As our team got tensed we took a little longer, so the we were not able to complete the entire demo in the stipulated time. We were left with one more chance.
"It was a Do or Die situation. Our team lead encouraged us by his powerful speech. And we all gathered our momentum and performed exceptionally well in the third round". This would have been a possible ending for a movie. But the rules are very much different for the real life. Considering our team's track record the PM asked us to step aside for the third and the final demo. And the team which got external training were asked to do the demo twice. We had no choice, but to sit on the bench over there and watch the other teams perform.At first we got angry on our PM but after giving a deep thought we realized that it was the only good decision made by him in the entire project life cycle. In the postmortem analysis our facilitator argued about the fairness of our team. We contributed to the success of our project by not participating in it. In other words we never stood as a hurdle to the success. Though these soothing words comforted me, yet it failed to expunge this unhappy memory : on the bench.
