Danny Kwok

There’s no box

Recent Posts

  • Running Cost of Data

    Data permeates everywhere now. You may notice that more service providers are starting to charge for data storage and usage. Is data not free and created by you? Unfortunately, data do add up to big running cost. Why will you pay for the running cost?

    Data Running Cost

    For a layman understanding, your data running cost will mainly consist of the following:

    • Storage
    • Maintaining the storage
    • Resources to maintain the storage
    • Archival and housekeeping
    • Security and Privacy
    • Data transfer and exchange

    Data as a Service

    Paying for all the running cost of your data do come up to a significant amount. In fact, most of the data may not be required often and could be duplicated elsewhere. Data as a Service (DaaS) is gaining popularity for on demand data. Now, you can avoid spending hefty running cost for data like your data analytics. Instead, you can opt for DaaS to achieve similar objective.

    The running cost of data is a growing concern for many as we move towards digital transformation and data analytics. You may consider DaaS as an option to reduce your cost and achieve the same desired outcome to your data analytics initiatives.

  • Location Data

    Location is one of the most challenging data. This is why many countries created postal codes. That way, your mail will not get lost in delivery. In reality, many Asian countries are not using postal codes. Thus, the mismatch of rates to location for TMS often creates a lot of discrepancies. It is also one of key concerns for maintenance team as dirty location cannot be match to correct rates.

    Find My Address

    There is no standard way to name the address except to split to different fields like block, street, city or postal code. Small country like Singapore actually do not need a city field. New data form allows saving entire field naturally. You can also subscribe to map services to query by differing parameters like postal code or Lat/Lon. However, there is no standard return format and results varies among different maps providers.

    Handling Location

    If you are moving to digital transformation and data analytics, it is worth the investment to have some sanity to handle your location data. Commons techniques involves standardised usage of city or postal code. Usually, list of values (LOV) are used. Sometimes, you may face with refusal to clean up those data. If this is the case, you end up expending more cost and efforts go handle the chaotic data.

    Location data is gaining importance for many applications especially TMS (Transportation Management System). However, it is a cat and mouse game to handle the different formats of location. Hopefully, as we move to smart data. All this can be automated and relieve the burden of users and application owners.

  • Extra XML tags

    Data today and the past is very different. We are living in a period where two types of data overlap each other. The data today looks toward free format usually in JSON. On the other hand, the yesterday data exists in field types, xsd and fixed formats. Even an extra xml tag is enough to break such fixed mapping. Many legacy systems and integration team exist to support such old data formats. How will be the new data challenge these teams to transform?

    Photo by Ethan Kwok
    Data Transformation

    Unlike digital transformation, many underlying data remains in legacy format. Data transformation remains at a slow pace for various reasons. Cost and time are common reasons. There is also a lack of data transformation experts to convert these legacy systems. Ironically, the key reason is humans resistance to change and transform legacy data. If it is not broken, do not change it remains the key mindset.

    Data Transformation Team

    Organisations continue to rely on legacy integration team for their existing systems. The tomorrow system will no longer require such team as more transformation takes place. Instead, these integration team must take ownership of data transformation and support the move to unstructured data. These evolved team will also be the subject matter expert for migration towards cloud and vice versa.

    In conclusion, this article comes to my mind that resonate with data transformation team – Do you need a CDO (Chief Data Officer)? The trend will continue to push towards data of today! As digital transformation push forward rapidly, we must not neglect the historical data that are left behind.

  • Depends on Customer

    Today, I encounter another interesting requirements which state “depends on customer”. Being in project implementation for so long, I am still amused by this response. Why are there such requirements? Do not be surprised as such response is actually very common in Asian countries.

    关系 as requirements

    Asia cultures plays a big part in influencing the customer requirements. The “关系” aka as customer relationship is an unseen and very strong force. This practice is much prevalent in China, Japan and South Korea. It is no surprise that requirements can change upon customer requests. Naturally, it create challenges for the organisation as system is driven consumer customisation.

    Customer is King

    “Customer is King” is very common in Asia. With lower switching cost and labour cost, customers tend to be more fickle minded in Asia than American or EU countries. With the differences of leverages, organisations tends to accommodate customers for quick wins. Digital transformation also make it easier for customers to migrate their data across different platforms.

    In Asia, requirements are driven largely by cultures. Power is a common play by customers to get what they wanted and as requested. You will usually need local help to elicit and mitigate such requirements. Only then, you can satisfy your customers and gain their trust.

  • Singapore Phase 1.5 Day 2

    Just when everything looks rosy, life going to be normal. Singapore is hit with another wave of COVID-19 outbreak. This time, the variant or mutant virus is contagious and affect kids more. Sadly, dinner out is not allowed as you need to mask down when eating or drinking. This time, my kid is more adaptable to Home Based Learning (HBL). However, more still need to be done to educate online effectively.

    Usage of Physical Textbooks

    Singapore education is still very textbooks based. Yearly, the kids have to buy 10kg of books yearly. My son is already training to carry 5kg of books daily! It is no wonder there is a disconnect between HBL and physical books. It is also time consuming for teachers to manually convert learning material digitally from textbooks.

    Digital Tools

    Camera, lights and action! Another common issue is the digital tools like laptop and internet connection. Not all students have these tools at their disposal. Thus, schools have to remain open to cater for these students. I also rush to download the various applications for my son like Zoom, Google Meet and login to more than 3 teaching platforms. It will take some time before schools realise the need of a unified collaborative learning platform.

    There is still room for improvement on HBL in Singapore. The pandemic have presented a good push factor towards eLearning model.

  • Co-Located Scrum

    With remote working from Covid-19, Scrum is now more co-located than ever. Stand up meeting become daily call in concall. Scrum emphasis on inspection, discipline and self organising teams, usually within same location and time zone. So, how should you adapt Scrum to to cater for remote working?

    Photo by Ethan Kwok
    Challenges of Co Location
    • You cannot have daily stand up meeting daily.
    • High discipline teams members are required to deliver on time daily.
    • Your team must increase synergy as they cannot bond face to face.
    • Stick it notes have to be digitised.
    Tips for Co-Located Scrum
    • High self organising capabilities is required of team members.
    • Scrum master will need to manage co-located synergy.
    • Scrum will need to move to digital platform.
    • Teams size will be preferably be from 3 to 7 instead of 9.
    • Teams within same time zone is preferred.

    Scrum is a simple yet difficult Agile framework for many teams. For co-location, a digital Scrum platform is essential. Another key aspect is the high professional capabilities that is required of team members. Without those, co-located Scrum is likely not to succeed and is a common reason not to Agile.

  • Pop It for Work from Home

    Work from Home (WFH) or Remote Working is back to default for Singapore Phase 1.5. I recently learn about a new destress toy call Pop It from my son. This toy may help those working from home especially those with kids. Its purpose is similar to fidget spinner or the traditional popping with bubble wrap. It helps you to relieve stress and anxiety and also to keep your kids entertained as well. Why is stress easily build up during WFH?

    Photo by Ethan Kwok
    Managing WFH

    Work and personal boundaries will blur during the period of working from home. Time and space coexists with your family, in-laws or housemates. In the initial start of WFH, I often flared up due to interruptions and overlapping tasks of home and work. It is even more challenging with kids “Home Based Learning” (HBL). Knock off and Paid Time Off become meaningless as you are constantly within the working location. Gradually, stress and anxiety build up among those WFH or HBL at the same time.

    Pop It and Time Out

    An important aspect of WFH is division of time and space among the occupants of the home. Usually, this comes with trial and error to work out the area with your housemates or family. Hopefully, you can get a room with a door! Setting working hours break period and lunchtime is good for everyone to proper time out. If all fails, hide yourself to pop it. You can also get your kids distracted with pop it as well.

  • Singapore Phase 1.5

    Papa, Singapore is in Phase 1.5.

    Ethan Kwok

    Today, I have an interesting discussion with my little son over dinner. He exclaims on how he and his friends name the new tightened measures on COVID-19 “Phase 1.5”. Just a week ago, Singapore went back to Phase 2. Yet, the numbers keep increasing despite many had been vaccinated on the frontline. What goes wrong?

    Photo by Ethan Kwok
    Cracks in Phase 3

    A rollback is typical of system deployment. We can view virus like bugs in the system. Another example is Matrix where Neo mutated and evolve. Vaccines are usually developed on known virus. Many become complacent when vaccinated and goes back to business as usual. Unknowingly, vaccines becomes a two way sword for human mindset. The vaccines are working. The implemented phase 3 is successful. Humans are the variables. Cracks are formed and this seeped through via humans.

    Lesson from Deploying New System

    Like all new systems, users will challenge the new system with old ways. COVID-19 measures are designed with fixed assumptions, rules and laws. However, it is obvious that some measures are vague in nature and leaves room for interpretation. Working from Home is such measure which have been always subjective and interpreted very broadly. With new processes, human behaviour will naturally select the shortest and most convenient methods. Ironically, the cracks appeared in places with “stringent checks” like hospital and airports.

    The monitoring phase after Go Live is the most challenging part of system deployment. We will always aim to let go and get to steady state in the shortest duration. However, can the vaccines turn around fast to solve new bugs that evolved? If no, what is the contingency? The end result is a rollback until new measures comes in place. Vaccines 2.0!?

  • OTM Screen Issue

    The slowness of OTM screen loading is a known issue. This is worst in Asia with some offices having lower internet speed and network. As a result, OTM is not suitable for deployment for such areas. Have you ever wonder how to solve it? A common approach is to increase the server CPU or network bandwidth. You may even try to upgrade the user laptop or proposed faster browser.

    Root Cause

    The root cause is due to the SQL used to generate the screen. You can turn on your logs and include the SQL option for the log file. Get the SQL used in the slow screen and run explain plan for it. From the results, you will notice the root cause is caused by the usage of sub tables like status and refnum.

    Simple Ways to Fix

    Before you go and upgrade your server and network, you can try the following simple ways to improve the screen loading.

    1. Reduce usage of status and refnums in screenset.
    2. Use VPD. This will constraint the query data.
    3. Add domain name in Screenset criterion.

    If you have any other good ideas to speed up the screen loading, drop me a DM.

  • Handling Vague Requirements

    Have you ever encounter vague requirements? What are usually the issues? I will have a standard strategy to handle vague requirements. This is a quick and systematic approach to manage such requirements.

    Photo by Ethan Kwok
    1. Identify the stakeholders for the requirements.
    2. Get sample data for the requirements. This can be existing data or copies of excel records.
    3. Consolidate user communications and understand interactions of users and the requirements and the sample data.
    4. Agile or prototype to elicit sample data or to clarify the requirements.
    5. Separate clarity and vague once you identify each part of the requirements.
    6. You should be able to proceed on the clear requirements and put the vague part into the backlog.
    7. Iterate the approach from Step 1.

    Requirement gathering is never straightforward. Those documented are usually clear requirement while the vague part exists somewhere out there. It takes a lot of practice to clarify vague requirements. You can consider to approach it in a systematic and agile manner.