Moving out of US? - A quick checklist to help in planning

I am a software professional. I stayed in Boston, MA in an apartment for 2 years.  I moved back to Hyderabad, India in June 2015. The following was the final checklist from my experience. I wish to share it with others to help in their planning:

1) Notice to employer: Request for release from project/delivery/work assignment as per policy: I did it 2.5 months in advance.

Visa/Green card related: Understand the immigration policy based on your visa and take necessary action. We have green cards and applied for I 131 about 2.5 months before travel date. Our appointment date came as 9 days before our departure date.

2) Notice to leasing office: Be compliant to agreement of notice period for lease termination or ending lease. Agree on the last date, termination fee and when it
should be paid, mode of payment, last month's rent amount, how and when to hand over keys + resources to leasing office.

3) Buy, dispose, distribute items: Decide on which items to bring to India, decide on which items to sell off/dump/donate. If a few items/gifts should be purchased, start doing it well in advance. Ensure that you have reasonable sized bags/suitcases, buy if needed.

4) Landline phone:If you have Vonage, Unovon, talk to their service desk, check the billing cycle start date and close connection before the billing date (again
based on your requirements) so that you do not have to pay for 1 more month. Unovon informed that they can close connection on a immediate basis only.

Inform Internet service provider :(Comcast in my case) about the service stoppage, expected end date. Understand if any equipment is to be handed over to provider.

Mobile service provider: Talk to them about closing the account.

5) Kid's school stuff: If kids are in school, inform school office about your last date, the need for certificates. Take them from school when school provides, check if all the progress reports are provided.

6) Bank account, credit cards: If there is a slightest possibility of using the card in future, you may keep bank accounts with minimum balance, otherwise, close it.
Ensure that you inform help desk (number is behind the card) before the card's expiry to ensure that bank does not send cards to your address in US.

7) Power connection account: (National grid in my case) talk to them or go to the website and close the account as per the final date. You may submit your
request about a week before your last day.

8) Clean the apartment: Thoroughly clean the apartment's carpets, kitchen, bathroom, etc. The way it was handed over to you is the benchmark. Start this activity at least 1 week in advance.

9) Book a cab:  Based on need, book a cab at least a day in advance. Explain the space requirement based on your luggage/baggage so that you will get a required sized vehicle.

10) Hand over to leasing office: Hand over keys, belongings of apartment/leasing office in leasing office (based on details from point #2)

Win-Win proposition with my 8 year old son on getting ready to school

Background: Our 8 year old son Mohith has school at 815AM. He does not get up at 7AM and lots of times, he gets up at 715AM, curses me and my wife, does not eat or drink. Mood is tense / angry at home. He gets ready at 745AM and watches TV for 20min, leave home around 810AM.

Challenge: Waking him up on time without getting yelled at.

Idea: Mohith presented this idea. He will get up at 650AM, finish off everything, eats breakfast, drinks milk. As an exchange, he should be allowed to watch TV from 715AM to 8AM.

Decision: For us, this idea appeared great. As a bonus, he will get up earlier, no bad words exchanged, good mood prevail, etc. He approved the idea.

Implementation: Since 2/25, he is implementing this idea. We wake him up at 655AM, he negotiates and gets up at 7 AM. Completes everything before 715AM, watches TV for some time, eats and drinks. Now, he is happy and we are happy.

My ITIL @2011 Foundation Certification Journey

I wanted to share my ITIL certification experiences with others so that they can leverage from it.

Quick background

I am an IT service delivery manager and am working on a support/application management activity since last 2 years. Having come from software development background, I wanted to learn and improve my skills on IT service management.  Preparation for ITIL foundation certificate provided me the way to accomplish it.

For people with service management experience, it is not a difficult certification to achieve. You may find these links useful:

https://www.axelos.com/best-practice-solutions/itil/what-is-itil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Infrastructure_Library

Reference book

ITIL Foundation Exam Study Guide by Liz Gallacher and Helen Morris (Sybex publication)

Steps I followed

1)      Read the book “ITIL Foundation Exam Study Guide by Liz Gallacher and Helen Morris” (Sybex publication). Read chapters in the same order as presented in the book. Write notes related to important definitions, objectives, scope. Seriously take the chapter end tests and record results (in 1 text file/chapter in each reading cycle, result file will have the responses for all questions in a test. Incorrect response will have a comment beside it with correct answer)

2)      Repeat the above step. Do not edit the result files. Create new set of files for chapter end tests. Update your notes. You will also add points in notes based on incorrectly answered questions.

3)      Take the assessment tests (3 assessment tests from the book) and record results. If you get less than 90% score in any test, you need more reading/understanding.

4)      Now, review the results (count of incorrect answers) from step 1, step 2. You should improvement in results from 2^nd reading over 1^st time reading. If the score is < 90% from 2^nd time reading, you need to more understanding on that chapter. Compile the list of chapters that need more understanding based on percentage of score (in descending order). Repeating read the chapters from the list (lowest scored chapter will be the first one to read) and take chapter tests. >=90% score is the bench mark I targeted for each chapter.

5)      Read the notes from step 1 and take the 3 tests (step 3) one more time. Your target is >= 90% correct answers.

I started preparation on 23 Oct 2014.  cycle 1 completed on 15 Dec 2015, cycle 2 completed on 30 Dec 2014, cycle 3 completed on 30 Jan 2015, Exin registration and exam complete on 1 Feb 2015, result confirmation and certificate on 6 Feb 2015.

How to book exam?

You can take training or you can self-study. I studied it myself. We need to register in https://www.exin.com/NL/en/exams/&exam=itil-v3-foundation and pay the exam fee USD 225.

How to take the exam?

If you have computer with webcam, audio, you can take it from home or you can also take it from authorized exam centers. I took it from home. There are 40 questions and we should get 26 correct. You will get score immediately after the exam. I answered 38 correctly out of 40.

When will you receive certificate?

The Exin authorities will review the video recording and send the result within 10 days after taking the exam. For me, it took 5 days. Then, certification is official.

Quick note: 

The reference book I mentioned is great to cover all the areas.  The more the number of times you read, the more will be our clarity on service stages. I do not suggest reading it like a novel in 1 sitting.

Tests in the book are of the same pattern and difficulty level as actual ITIL test. That's from my experience.

More knowledge on the service management is outcome, certification is an output.

All the best.

What is next after successful completion?
There are intermediate level certifications from ITIL for more knowledge. You may refer to https://www.exin.com/NL/en/exams/&fw=itil-v3. Training is prerequisite for certification. 

Our resolutions for 2015 and a quick review of 2014 resolutions

At home, we have practice of yearly resolution management. This exercise starts in the month of December. My wife and I shortlist various goals based on current year's experiences and we finalize the resolutions in the first week of January. We ensure that the number of resolutions is not too many, goals are moderately difficult (simple goals will be achieved without being tracked as an yearly resolution) and they are measurable. We will display it at prominent places at work and home. I am accountable for work related resolutions.  Wife, I and kids will also follow them if it is a family item. Every time, we tend to violate a resolution, our inner self gives a warning. In a few attempts, we consciously correct ourselves. We are seeing positive results. Here are our goals for 2015:

Here is a quick review of 2014 goals:

My son's letters to his parents

Our 8 year old son Mohith  is good at expressing his emotions in writing.  Here are a few letters he wrote to me and to my wife in the last 1 year.

Appreciation letter on 25 Dec 2014:

Feedback on 22 Dec 2013:

Want to work well with several soft locations, urls?

Want to work well with soft locations, urls? Here are a few tips:


1) Bookmark frequently visited sites: Intranet sites, internet sites for bank, email, Facebook, LinkedIn, any YouTube links, etc. Every time, you do not have to key-in from your memory. Saves time and mood. If you are a reader of online pages, book mark the last page read before closing the session and open it from bookmarks when you want to resume. For effectiveness, when you bookmark the latest page, you should delete the old bookmark.


2)Save frequently accessed network locations:
Frequently accessed status reports, knowledge base, project plans, etc may be at various locations and may be confusing to remember the full paths. Save the most frequently accessed locations in a text file and save it on desktop. When you want to see the folder or file, just copy and use it.

How I leverage email application for planning and tracking

I am a software delivery manager (in a Fortune 500 company) working with a 15 member team at onsite and offshore. I work with various stakeholders from technical teams, testing (QA) teams, senior management, customers. At times, it is challenging to track various action items in the context of receiving more than 150 emails/day. I have provided a few steps that I am following and I am able to prioritize and track the action items successfully. 

Follow up on Items

1. While going through your emails, identify the items where you or your team need to respond and set them as action items or todo items. After identification, you will see all the action items in the email tool.

If you have to provide response, please do that. If the action is from a team member, please ensure that someone responds. If nobody responds within 1 day, follow up with the team for response.  Upon providing the appropriate response (and recipient is ok with the response), remove the flag “todo” or “action item” for that item. (When I say appropriate response, I mean that the response is complete and sufficient. We should not get questions on what is missing in our response.)

2. For important items, defects, acknowledge the receipt of email even when you do not have complete answer in hand. Follow up and keep recipients posted as you/team get clarity.

Set up Appointments/Reminders  

3. If you need a reminder to do something (like registering for an event or completing timesheet before a due date or doing payment, checking for readiness of a deliverable, etc), set up a gentle 15min reminder in your calendar to yourself , preferably, 1 or 2 days prior to the expected day of action. That will give you enough time to take action or follow up.

Set up Discussions in Place of Emails

4. If there are more than 5 email responses on the same subject and they are still flowing-in, set up a discussion. That will reduce the email traffic and turnaround time.

Inform on Non-Availability at Work

5. Vacation, planned short term leave, sick leave, out of office: In general, provide a heads-up by sending an email to stakeholders well in advance.  Please set up out of office message in the emailing tool clearly (to work during your absence) indicating the start date of out of office and end date of out of office, point of contact in case of any urgency, etc. As soon as you are back, remove the message.

6. Coming late, going early to office: Drop a note to colleagues, managers and other important stakeholders that you will be coming late or going early. Provide tentative time for arrival or leaving. When you reach office, you may reply all informing that you are in.

7. Public holiday for offshore team: Drop a note to stakeholders in advance about the holiday (which is not a global holiday) at offshore with clear details on the schedule, any plan to continue the business/work, etc. Send a meeting invite for 15 minutes to be scheduled for early morning as a gentle reminder that should occur on the holiday we wanted prior information on, on the previous day. This is for information to manage dependencies among the team members.