Introduction                                                                                                          (top) 

The BbyB Beacon is an electronic publication to keep the members of Bit by Bit informed about the current affairs of the company. It contains announcement of important events like training programmes, Management Review Meetings, etc.

We have started a ‘Guest Column’ in this issue of BbyB Beacon. We are looking forward to contributions to this column from all the members of Bit by Bit for the coming issues.

Contact Information

Any contribution to the newsletter in the form of technical articles, or items of general interest, are welcome. Please send them to pratima@bbyb.com or sreedhar@bbyb.com

From the Management

Have been away most of this month but from the sheer numbers of Project Info emails that land up in my mailbox every day I am sure that we are adhering to our ISO procedures. Please remember that continual improvement is what ISO and we are interested in, so any suggestion for improvement of our procedures will be most welcome.

On 24th July, I was part of a StaffBank meeting that also involved Chris Lee, Paul de Lacroix and Ian Saner. As there are a lot of Trusts which are going live in the next few weeks, we met to decide a way forward. It was decided to try and use GoToMyPC to allow BHP staff to come directly onto our network. The plan is for BbyB to have Microsoft project loaded on our server and BHP staff will directly modify this so that all of us are aware of the project plan and go live dates etc. The meeting also decided to standardise terminology as this was causing a lot of confusion. For e.g. The Trust Hampshire and Isle of Wight sometimes is referred to as Southampton. That is Ok for BHP staff as they know the geography of England but is totally confusing some one else.

MESaLS also had their team meeting on 23rd at the BHP office and Chris Reed, Mark Gorman, Sue Martin, Asa Acton and Roger Mitchem attended this. Naveen spent some time with them explaining the Manage Failed Transaction screen. The manual that Vinay has written for this was appreciated.

Looks like there are exciting times ahead for StaffBank, MESaLS and Sepia, as the scale of the projects grows everyday. There have been quite a few enquires for StaffRoster as well which means that may be the next software to take off !!! Looking forward to getting back soon.

Raghu.

From The Editor

Repetitive Strain Injury

People working on computers, especially, programmers need to be aware of the hazard of Repetitive Strain Injury to the hands and arms resulting from the use of computer keyboard and mouse. This can be a serious and very painful condition that is easier to prevent than to cure.

Repetitive physical movements cause damage to tendons, nerves, muscles and other soft body tissues. The growing usage of computers and the advent of flat, light-touch keyboards that permit high speed typing have resulted in injuries to hands, arms and shoulders. Use of pointing devices like mice and trackballs are also the culprits. Thousands of repeated keystrokes and long periods of clutching and dragging with mouse culminate in damage to the body. This condition is also referred to as Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD). This happens as a result of typing technique and body positions that place unnecessary stress on the tendons and nerves in the hands, wrists, arms and even the shoulders and neck. Lack of adequate rest and breaks and using excessive force aggravate this condition.

Symptoms

Tightness, discomfort, stiffness, soreness or burning sensation in the hands, wrists, fingers, forearms, or elbows;
Tingling, coldness, or numbness in the hands;
Clumsiness or loss of strength and co-ordination in the hands;
Pain that wakes you up at night;
Feeling a need to massage your hands, wrists, and arms;
Pain in the upper back, shoulders, or neck associated with using the computer.

Prevention

Correct typing technique and posture, the right equipment set-up, and good work habits are much more beneficial than ergonomic chairs, split keyboards and palm rests.

The chair and keyboard should be set so that the thighs and forearms are level (or sloping slightly away from the body), and the wrists should also be straight and level. If the table is too high to permit this, the keyboard can be placed on your lap.

Sitting straight, not slouching, so that one does not have to stretch forward to reach the keys or read the screen is good.

Even if the posture is right, sitting in the same position for a long time may cause problems Relax, move and change positions frequently.

Adjust your workplace, and use good posture and change it often.

Keep your head balanced over shoulders, with the shoulders relaxed and comfortable.

Keep your wrists straight, lower back supported. Do not slouch. The feet must be set on the floor and forearms and thighs should be parallel to the floor. Do not stick your neck out and do not type while looking at the monitor at an angle.

Use chairs that provide comfortable lumbar support.
Use chairs whose height and arms can be adjusted.
Use chairs that (have five legs) offer greater stability.
Use chairs that have seat pan that fits and swivels.

Increase the font sizes so that you do not have to bend forward to peer into the screen, thereby, reducing the pressure on nerves and blood vessels in the neck and shoulders. Select colours that go easy on your eyes. Eyestrain is a common problem that can be taken care of by using anti-glare screens.

Go easy on the keyboard – Do not pound the keys.

Do not hold the mouse hard and place it within easy reach. Use the keyboard equivalent whenever possible.

Use two hands to press shortcut keys (like CTRL + V or CTRL + C) instead of straining one hand.

Take a break once in an hour and stretch your body, especially your neck and shoulders. Yoga, stretching, or dancing may be useful in reducing a great number of computer related problems.

Pratima.

News From Abroad                                                                                              (top) 

Shenoy’s Trip to UK (From 2-Jul-2003 to 4-Aug-2003)

Below are the photographs of the NHSP call centre at Paddington and the Scot Nursing head offices in Glasgow taken by Raghu Shenoy. He took these photographs during his meeting with the users of StaffBank.

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge)

On 24th July, Raghu Shenoy was part of a StaffBank meeting, which involved Chris Lee, Paul de Lacroix and Ian Saner as well. As there are a lot of Trusts, which are going live in the next few weeks, they met to plan the course of action.

It was decided to try and use GoToMyPC to allow staff belonging to Baum Hart & Partners to come directly onto Bit by Bit’s network. The plan is for Bit by Bit to have Microsoft project loaded on their server and Baum Hart & Partners’ staff to directly modify this so that all concerned, are aware of the project plan and go live dates, etc.

The meeting also decided to standardise terminology, which were causing some confusion.

Naveen’s Trip to UK (From 16-Jul-2003 to 20-Aug-2003)

Naveen, a member of the MESaLS team, left for UK on the 16th of July 2003. He will be there for about 5 weeks.

The purpose of the visit is to train the users of the MESaLS system at Hungleigh.

Other News                                                                                                          (top) 

John and Eirian in Bangalore (18-Jul-2003 to 25-Jul-2003)

John Hart, Senior Partner of Baum Hart & Partners and Eirian Hart, Senior Consultant at Baum Hart & Partners came to Bangalore on the 18th of July 2003 in order to touch base with the Sepia team after the Trust Board (at NELMHT and ELCMHT) agreed to accept Baum Hart & Partner's offer to supply an eCPA system.

On the 23rd July 2003, Bit by Bit hosted a party for the two of them. It was a lively evening. Shenoy and Naveen were missed at the party.

They left Bangalore on the 25th of July 2003.

The Services Module

The Services module in the BbyB website has been revised. It now includes an overview of most of the major projects and the details of the project teams.

Achievements                                                                                                       (top) 

MESaLS

“For your information, we have two new installations occurring in Northern Ireland over the coming months.
1. Craigavon has been scheduled to go live in the week beginning 15th September 2003
2. Sperrin & Lakeland has been scheduled to go live in the week beginning 6th October 2003

Both will be WEB based installations, with Craigavon definitely and Sperrin maybe making use of the NETPAD hardware”

Chris Reed – Partner -Baum, Hart & Partners

Sepia

“FANTASTIC NEWS, TEAM!!!!
Thanks to you all for your huge contributions to this great success!
Now that we have NELMHT and ELCMHT (25% of ALL London), I foresee a tidal wave sweeping through London from the East.
Thanks again."

John Hart – Sr. Partner -Baum, Hart & Partners

“Devaki. Congrats to you and Shubha for ELCMHT !!!!”

Raghu Shenoy – MD – Bit by Bit Computers
…After Baum Hart & Partners got a contract from NELMHT and ELCMHT Trust boards for supplying an eCPA (electronic Care Programme Approach) system.

Guest Column                                                                                                       (top) 

Decision Making is not so easy

Almost all people take decisions in their daily lives. Some decisions require a great deal of deliberation. We think that the decision, which we have taken, is the best among the available choices, which may not be truly perfect.

Here is a scenario to explain why decision making is not easy:

There is a train track that forks into two different tracks. One is currently used by trains and the other is not. Eight children are playing on the track that is used by trains and there is one child who is playing on the unused one.

You are in charge of the train diverter, deciding which train track should the train move on to, by the mere flick of a lever. You see that a train is approaching the fork and you cannot stop the train – the train has to move on any one of the tracks.

If the train is diverted on to the used track, the eight children playing on the used track, may die. Now you have to decide as to which track the train should move on. Obviously most people would think that diverting the train on to the unused track is a good decision so that eight young lives are saved at the cost of one.

But if we were to look at it the other way, the child playing on the other (unused) track may know that the train will not use that track. While the other eight children may be playing on the other track in spite of knowing that the trains use that track. So, why should the life of the cautious child be sacrificed to save eight careless children?

The same reasoning, I think, holds well in real time situations – Why should one decide against a valuable person for the sake of a few worthless ones?

Also, the child playing on the unused track will definitely die if the train were to be diverted on to the unused track, for, the child would not be expecting it. Suppose, you were to divert the train on to the used track, it is possible that the eight children may not get killed because the children playing on the track are aware that the trains use the track and will be expecting it, and may just run away when they see the train.

This goes to prove that decision making is not always easy, since what we think is the right decision may not be so.

- Santosh Patil, VC++ Team Member

ISO Overview                                                                                                     (top) 

The ISO Certificate is expected in the first fortnight of August.

I am glad that my job of MR in this organisation has been made easy by the fact that everybody has started using the ProjectInfo software as evidenced by the number of mails sent out by the application.

The Internal Project Management Software 'ProjectInfo' has undergone a few enhancements to ease Project management.

The various documents prepared such as Project Plan, Design Documents, Test cases etc., are now entered into the 'ProjectInfo'. The view button will allow viewing of the document from Visual SourceSafe.

Another major enhancement is the traceability grid. This facility helps us to link individual issues to other issues, hereby creating a chain of related issues ex., Change Control -> Design Doc -> Test Case -> Test Report -> Bug Report.

There is a detailed audit scheduled for August 2003, the details of which will be communicated shortly.

Suggestions for improvement in any area is welcome re-enforcing the ISO buzzword - Continual improvement.

Jayaraj, MR - BbyB.

Education & Training                                                                                           (top) 

ASP Training

The second session of the ASP training was held on the 11th of July at 5 PM.

Santhosh I P spoke about the ‘Configuration of IIS’. The session lasted for about 2 hours. The attendees were Manjunath, Vinay, Naveen, Aruna, Sreedhar, Anuradha and Ismail.

Workshop on Communication & Presentation Skills

A two day workshop on Communication & Presentation Skills For Managers & Executives, was organised by the Institute of HRD on the 18th and 19th of July 2003 at Hotel Atria.

The contents of the workshop:
Significance of communication & presentation skills
Effective communication exercises
Planning, organising & delivering effective presentation
Managing & controlling anxiety & nervousness while speaking
Use of audio visual aids in presentations
Individual & team presentations
Video evaluation and feedback of presentations
Handling press conference & group discussions

Usha V K and Manjunath (encircled in the picture) attended this workshop.

According to them, it was an interesting affair. What made the workshop interesting was the fact that it gave them an opportunity to interact with people from different disciplines. They were called upon to give extemporaneous presentations.

The team from Bit by Bit came back with a couple of prizes that they won at the workshop.

They told us that it was fun. They enjoyed being there and learnt a lot about their strengths and weaknesses as far as their communication and presentation skills are concerned.

Seminar on Project Management

A one-day seminar on project management was organised by the Lions Club-Bangalore East and was conducted by the Project Management Institute (PMI) on the 24th of July 2003 at The Capitol.

Sreedhar, Guruprasad Kini, Manjunath and I P Santhosh represented Bit by Bit at the seminar.

The objective of the Seminar:
The seminar aimed at introducing the candidates to modern project management and providing them with useful frameworks and concepts so that they could apply a structured approach to their projects.

The seminar contents:
Project management body of knowledge, project life cycle, project approvals, project stakeholders, work breakdown structure, work packages, project managers' tool kit, project mission and objectives, project success measures, activity dependencies, network analysis, critical path technique, float, Gantt charts, PERT, project brief, project scheduling, project success and pain factors, project scoping techniques, risk management and risk analysis, project parameters, action plans, quality of results, project budgets, deliverables, change control, milestone charts, project teams and team performance measures, responsibility assignment matrix

"It was very comprehensive but not exhaustive enough because there was too much to be covered in too little time. Had the Session been spread over atleast 2 days, it would have been very helpful”
- Sreedhar

Seminar on Algorithms

On the 15th of July 2003, Santosh Patil, a member of the VC team, gave a talk on Algorithms – their necessity, definitions, different strategies and examples of these strategies. He spoke of the ‘Greedy Method’, in detail.

The session took two hours. Due to paucity of time, the faculty could not touch upon the other design strategies. This was a very enlightening session.

It was one of the series of seminars that the VC team had decided to host and there are more in the offing.

Holidays                                                                                                               (top) 
15-Aug-2003 - Independence Day

Upcoming Birthdays                                                                                             (top) 

Many Happy Returns of the Day

Seven members of Bit by Bit are celebrating their birthdays in the month of August. Here's wishing all of them a very happy birthday.

Sai Ramesh: 01-Aug

Masood Imran: 05-Aug

Jayaraj: 11-Aug

Anuradha: 13-Aug

Deepak: 16-Aug

Sreedhar: 28-Aug

Usha V.K.: 31-Aug