Human Resources in Egypt

HR Management Training in Egypt

2008-12-25T20:17:00.004+02:00

Last week I started delivering an intensive HR Management training course to FGF trainees through Talal Abu Ghazaleh Professional Training Group. It is an intensive 13-day training course held at the FGF facilities inside Cairo University.

The aim of the course is to introduce new comers to HR to the field of Human Resources Management. Through six modules, the intensive HRM training course introduces trainees to some of the fundamental concepts of HR management including recruitment, job analysis, training and development, performance management and compensation and benefits. Other topics covered during the training are designing orientation programs, writing job descriptions, c0nducting interviews among other things.

I have attempted to use an interactive workshop approach to the training emphasizing teamwork, critical thinking and problem solving skills. The aim was to equip trainees not only with basic HR awareness but also with the confidence to tackle new situations they would probably be facing at an HR department.

Trainees seamed to enjoy group activities most. Trainees were divided into groups, provided with directions and given time to work together. They produced some creative presentations which got better and more creative with each further training session. Their presentations explained recruitment processes, commented on case studies, explained methods of job analysis and designed orientation programs for actual organizations. Role play was another activity that helped trainees experience performing some basic HR roles such as interviewing candidates.

I am planning to add some tips for HR trainers later on my Born Trainer website.

Resala Nasr City - Now Open!

2007-08-25T11:04:00.000+03:00

I am excited to announce that at long last, Resala has opened its Nasr City branch.

Resala is an unconventional youth-fueled charity organization that is expanding at a staggering speed while maintaining its stability at the same time. The Nasr City branch marks the seventh Resala branch in Cairo and the thirty second Resala branch in Egypt. Each Resala branch is a whole building with several services present in each floor. Services offered include:

Free computer courses.
Illiteracy courses.
Free private lessons for school students.
Services for the blind, the deaf and children of special needs.
Hosting and bringing up of orphaned children.
Collecting and distributing used clothes to the poor.
Distributing food for the poor.
A regular monthly blood donation campaign.
Direct assistance to poor families.
Free medical checkups.
... and much much more

The above are just a few of the many activities that Resala offers in each of its rapidly expanding number of branches across Egypt.

Even the traditional service of taking care of orphaned children, Resala implements it in a nontraditional way. Each orphaned child in every Resala branch has a number of big brothers and big sisters whom take full responsibility of visiting him/her, applying for his/her school, taking him/her to the doctor ... etc and visiting him/her on a regular basis.

Another successful Resala initiative was the 10 LE initiative. Each volunteers participating in this initiative agree to donate 10 LE to Resala each month. Although the amount of money is small from each volunteer, yet the stability of the income to Resala helps it to survive and be able to offer its many services to community in a stable way. Of course those who want their monthly payment to be more (or less) than 10 LE per month may do so. The idea is to have a constant income to enable better planning instead of getting random burst of donations. A collector can be sent to your house to collect the donation.

The used clothes project is also one of the most successful activities at Resala. If you want to donate your used clothes, you do not have to bring them yourself to a Resala branch, all you have to do is just call Resala and tell them you have some used clothes you would like to donate and they will send someone to you to collect your used clothes.

The idea behind Resala started several years ago by Dr Sherif Abdel Azim (PhD) who lectured at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University where Resala was born. He now lectures at the AUC. Resala was and is still fueled mainly by university students and fresh graduates yet younger and older volunteers also participate. Resala relies heavily on it's large and growing volunteer base to achieve its goals and offer its wide range of services to the community.

My first involvement with Resala was several years back at their Mohandiseen branch. I was involved in the training service they were launching there. A few years later, I was so glad that the Masr El Gedida (Heliopolis) branch of Resala was launched. It was much closer to my home than the Mohandiseen branch. I started volunteering there and delivered a number of computer courses. I also attended sign language training there in order to be able to communicate with the deaf.

My dream finally came true when the Nasr City branch of Resala opened last week. It is 15 minutes walking distance from my home. The Nasr City branch of Resala is located in 2 Zaki Rostom street from Hasanain Haikal street which is near the intersection of Abbas El Akkad and El Batrawy streets. Here is a map of its location:

View Larger Map

The vertical blue line is Abbas El Akkad street. The fork and knife sign is Genena Mall. The accessibility (wheel chair) sign is Resala Nasr City.

The Resala dream is to have a Resala branch in every corner of Egypt just as McDonald's.

If you would like to donate your used clothes or need to ask about anything related to Resala just call 19450 and the Resala branch nearest to you will answer.

Selling my IT Recruitment Agency

2007-06-14T20:56:00.000+03:00

Due to some health issues, I've decided to go on a farming project away for computers, mobiles and the Cairo pollution. I have thus decided to sell my IT recruitment agency www.genie-jobs.com within the next two months.

CV Guidelines from Google

2007-05-24T02:10:00.000+03:00

It's an amazing exercise for both HR professionals and software engineers to read and think about the CV writing guidelines provided by Google.

Massage Interviews

2007-05-19T15:51:00.000+03:00

Now that's really interesting. The interviewing process can vary from a strictly formal procedure to a casual informal meeting with a number of candidates one after the other. Yet Google has broken the normal once again by having this interesting interview: a massage interview!

Wishcraft

2007-05-14T20:39:00.000+03:00

Wishcraft is one of those many books about how to achieve your goals. Like all such books, it goes on trying to motivate you all the way along telling you that anybody can achieve his or her goals in life. Yet unlike most of these books, Wishcraft does not put the load on your "will power." Instead, it says that will power is not necessary and that can go along achieving your dreams without having any so called "will power."

Another interesting aspect of the book is that it does not say you can achieve just about any dream you may think of, but instead, it says that every one of us has a special dream, finding such a dream is the first step, then one can go along attempting to realize it. Trying to just randomly pick any goal will simply not work.

Instead of will power, Wishcraft shows you a practical method that can work for people, even those who do not have any sort of will power. Instead of relying on will power, one would use the support of other people and help him or her in achieving their dreams.

You may also read Wishcraft online.

Promoting the Company Culture

2007-04-04T17:31:00.000+02:00

Google has a unique company culture that is well suited for young creative minds who are engineering great software. Google constantly promotes its internal culture giving the world a peek into it in the hope of attracting yet more bright and creative minds to join it.

One of the unique cool things at the Google work environment is free food. Google repeatedly stresses on this unique point and entices young minds by showing the diverse appetizing free food it offers its employees. Another point Google kept stressing in the last period was it's welcoming of pets, specially dogs, at its premises.

As if that was not enough, Google's stress on its free informal work environment did not stop there. Recently, Google has showed the world how caring a work environment it possesses by relating this story of a pet snake owned by a Google employee and how a thriving team spirit from colleagues at Google resulted in the pet snake being found at the end and returned to its owner.

Recruiting Heats Up in Cairo

2007-03-29T11:36:00.000+02:00

In their March article titled The War for Talent, Egypt's Business Today magazine sheds light on how multinational as well as local companies in Egypt are fighting hard to recruit and keep high caliber employees at their companies.

Starting My IT Recruitment Agency: Genie

2007-01-22T20:23:00.000+02:00

Since 2001 I have been managing Egypt IT Jobs. Fast forward five and a half years later, I am just about to reach 9000 members subscribing to receive my IT job ads. Over 300 additional new members are subscribing each month. I am now starting my own IT recruitment agency specialized in providing recruitment services for the IT sector in Egypt. I selected Genie to be the name of my IT recruitment agency.

Having worked as HR Manager at the Cairo branch of a Seattle based US software development company has given me a feel of the difficulties software companies are facing in finding and retaining competent software developers and other IT professionals. Now I am happy and excited about launching Genie because it will give me a wide opportunity to assist in pushing the IT industry in Egypt forward by facilitating the search and selection process of software developers in Egypt.

Visit www.genie-jobs.com for more information.

Jobs at Google Egypt

2007-01-12T14:44:00.000+02:00

Here is a list of jobs at Google Egypt.

1300 CVs Every Day!

2007-01-11T11:07:00.000+02:00

According to CNN Money, Google gets 1300 CVs a day! Google has been selected as the #1 company in the list of 100 Best Companies to Work for 2007 in the US.

Writing IT Job Ads

2007-01-04T10:40:00.000+02:00

Now that's what I call a well written IT job ad. This job ad presents a vacancy for a Web Developer at Google's Seattle office.

Well-Informed Employees

2006-12-26T06:55:00.000+02:00

One of the big mistakes of management is not to make your employee aware of exactly how he/she will be evaluated, what is expected from him/her, what is his/her duties and responsibilities, and how he/she might get rewarded or punished. Despite the fact that this might sound natural and logical, yet unfortunately many managers and companies fall into this very trap.

Managing the expectations of an employee would make him/her less resentful when he/she is evaluated and rewarded or punished. A workpace where an employee does not know exactly what his responsibilities are might foster friction between employees due to taking decisions instead of others and some not doing their duties and blaming this on others.

The best thing to do is to take each new candidate through a brief orientation in which he/she gets to know the policies and procedures of the company, a clear written statement of his/her job description including clearly stated duties and responsibilities and finally the method by which the employee will be evaluated. Investing in such an orientation would save companies a lot of headaches caused by employee friction, a lot of frustration on the sides of employees due to unmet expectations and a lot of waisted energy on the side of employees who might be waisting a lot of their energy on low priority activities that do not really add to the bottom line of the company.

Branding Workshop at Zedny

2006-12-25T22:02:00.000+02:00

I just came back from a session about branding as part of the Zedny marketing workshop. The session was really great, mainly due to the presentation skills a hand-on real-life experience of the presenter. The session was delivered by Basem Abdel Ghani, currently Category Marketing Manager - Dairy at Juhayna Food Industries.

Secretaries No More?

2006-12-11T12:11:00.000+02:00

The role of a secretary is changing with time. The more technology evolves and spreads at our workplace, the more our work style changes and the role of the secretary in particular changes.

The role of a secretary was traditionally to do typing of correspondence or typing of reports for the manager on a manual typewriter, to sort out mail coming to the office, to answer and make phone calls and arrange appointments for the manager. Things are changing now, specially at companies that use technology more. At a software company now for instance, a manger has a computer and probably can type by himself. Most communication and correspondence takes place via email, so snail mail is limited. Appointments can also easily be scheduled via software. The only secretarial task remaining might probably be answering and making phone calls. Even this one might have been reduced due to the increased reliance on email which is by definition fast.

When I worked at Sakhr 8 years ago, they did not have any secretaries (although they had hundreds of employees). Well, actually they had a position for secretaries, but they did not call them secretaries, they called them Assistants instead. Perhaps naming is not a big deal, yet I believe that software companies, which are big consumers of technology and are staffed by highly computer literate people, are usually less reliant on secretaries.

Sure we are a long way from not needing secretaries any more. After all, there are so many companies that are run by managers who are not technically savvy. They still need someone to type their messages and will rarely use email, or even my ask their secretaries to type it for them!

Google for Education in Egypt

2006-12-09T13:23:00.000+02:00

I am excessively excited about Google's deal with the Egyptian Ministry of Education to provide Egyptian students with Google applications as part of Google's Google Apps for Education program.

Microsoft has long known the treasure hidden in the large population of Egypt and the will of the Egyptian government since 2000 to transform Egypt into the digital economy stage. Now Google is doing the right move. Google will spread into the Arab world through Egypt. After all, Egypt is a big exporter of ideas and has tremendous cultural influence in the region.

Google Selects Egypt!

2006-11-08T10:21:00.000+02:00

I have previously mentioned that Google has selected Egypt as the Arab country of choice in the region to open up its presence in thus creating Google Egypt. Some have questioned the validity of this information claiming that it was nothing but a hoax. To those I only point to this job ad at Bayt asking for an Administrative Assistant for the Managing Director of Google Egypt.

Resala and Dr Sherif

2006-10-14T09:52:00.000+02:00

I remember Dr Abdel Aziz Hamuda once told us in a lecture at Cairo University that one way to know a good work of art from a bad one is that with a good work of art you can read it over and over again, each time discovering new things and experiencing the emotions once again as if you were reading it for the first time, while in the case of a substandard work you read it only once then it's 'burnt' and will never want to read it again. I remembered this yesterday when I was at Resala, Masr El Gedida branch, listening to Dr Sherif's same introductory session for the third time! Resala is an NGO and Dr Sherif is its CEO.

I told a friend of mine about Resala the day before and he expressed interest in visiting. I told him I was going to Resala the following day, so he wanted to come and see. The following day, which was yesterday, we went together to the Masr El Gedida branch of Resala and by coincidence it was the day, and time, when Dr Sherif was giving his biweekly introductory session about Resala for new volunteers wishing to get introduced to the activities of Resala. The interesting thing is that such a session provided by Dr Sherif is always more or less the same, he mentions the same stories in almost the same sequence and says basically the same things in every session, of course those attending the session are different people every time. But sometimes a person attends this same session more than once, and that was my case yesterday. It was actually my third time to attend this session by Dr Sherif, and the amazing thing was that I felt his words deeply and I was listening with great interest despite that fact that I've heard what he was saying twice before! That is what brought to my mind Dr Hamuda's words about works of art and the simple rule one may use to differentiate between a good and a bad one. Even though this sesson of Dr Sherif cannot be defined as a work of art, yet indeed this literary rule of quality applies to it.

Web Standards Seminar at OpenCraft

2006-09-20T15:28:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I attended a seminar at OpenCraft about Web Standards. It was interesting. The point I liked most in the seminar was what Omar, the presenter and an OpenCraft team member, termed as "the zero principle" or the zero rule. He coined this term to indicate the first rule web developers (and designers) should keep in mind when making web applications or web sites. The princi0ple is: when (and where) to use what. I find it a pity that there are still many making with sites with a dreaded "Flash intro". Yes the customer sometimes insists, but in my opinion it is the duty of the developer/designer to educate him on what professional websites of good companies look like.I really loved Omar's approach of showing us a succession of web sites pointing out to us the good, the bad and the ugly. I'll learn from this approach and perhaps try to use it in one of my next training sessions or seminars.

Google Egypt

2006-08-26T09:30:00.000+03:00

Although I do not know him personally, yet, I was excited to know that Sherif Iskander is working as a Business Manager for Google, handling their interests in Egypt. I do hope the day nears when Google opens up a development center in Egypt similar to the one it has in India. That would result in technology transfer, more jobs in the high tech industry for Egyptians inside Egypt and better Google services for the Arabic language and Arab countries. For Google it will mean tapping into a growing pool of creative talent eager to participate in creating all sorts of new and interesting stuff.

Resala Masr El Gedida

2006-06-25T11:36:00.000+03:00

I was at Resala Masr El Gedida branch last Friday. Dr Sherif's lecture was amazing.

Scrum Seminar at OpenCraft

2006-06-14T17:49:00.000+03:00

Karim Ratib, Co-Founder of OpenCraft contacted me to throw a seminar at OpenCraft's premises in Dokki about Scrum. I got hooked to the idea and was really interested to know that they have gone through a series of seminars attended by IT pros from different companies. Yesterday I delivered the Scrum seminar at OpenCraft and I loved being there. Nothing more refreshing than challenging questions coming from an audience with diverse backgrounds.

Working in Dubai

2006-04-25T08:48:00.000+02:00

I came across this interesting and informative post about the reality of working in Dubai. I believe it would be interesting and useful for any Egyptian considering to work in Dubai, UAE or any other Arab gulf country.

ITI Grads

2006-04-12T12:46:00.000+02:00

ITI, the Information Technology Institute in Egypt, started long before FCIS (Faculties of Information and Computer Sciences) were established in Egypt. The ITI gained a good reputation that some software companies in Egypt started explicitly mentioning in their job ads they wanted ITI grads. That's quite a testimony of the quality of ITI grads. Though not all ITI grads are excellent, yet many of them are rally good. To get the 9-month IT related training at ITI you do not have to be a graduate of Engineering (except for a specific branch at the ITI) nor FCIS, you can be a graduate of any faculty in Egypt provided you pass the tests and interviews for selection at the ITI.

Establishing the ITI was a strong step by the Egyptian government towards establishing a base of software developers in Egypt. Establishing FCIS faculties was another strong step towards achieving that same goal. The third step was providing condensed IT training to Egyptian university grads through scholarships. This ambitious program aimed at training five thousand Egyptian university graduates on software development and other IT technologies. Although such a program was not a tremendous success, yet it did produce many excellent software developers from among the large numbers that have graduated from it.

Being good in software development depends on your personal liking of programming. It also depends a lot on the level of your English language proficiency. There are many excellent developers who are graduates (or even students) of non-technical faculties, the Faculty of Commerce for instance, and have not even attended any of the training programs I just mentioned. Programming is a talent and depends on ones efforts end experience. Yet, from what I have witnessed, those who have strong academic background in software development usually win over those who do not have it. Exceptions do exist but in my opinion they are exceptions and not the norm.

Recruiting Software Developers in Egypt

2006-04-08T12:27:00.000+02:00

Recruit FCI or FCIS graduates (preferably Computer Science department) (7asibat wa ma3lomat). Recruit from Ain Shams, Helwan then Cairo universities. You may also recruit Engineering graduates (Computer Department): Alexandria, Ain Shams then Cairo University. Those are the best to attempt for. Make aptitude and English tests. If you recruit from those places and do those tests you are SAFE. You never have to worry about developing software in Egypt as long as you've used this winning formula. Then do the technical tests and interviews. This can make you bring an excellent team.

You can provide them with short training and give them books to read on the technologies you will be using. Remember, they love to learn and continuously improve their skills. If they feel at any point in time during their work that their skill-set is not going any further, that they are not learning something new or not improving their technical skills or doing the same thing again and again, be sure they'll start looking for work at some other place.

Scrum Seminar at FCI

2006-04-05T13:11:00.000+02:00

Last Saturday I delivered a short seminar about Scrum at FCI, Cairo University. Scrum is one of several agile methodologies for managing the development process of software projects. FCI is the Faculty of Computers and Information Sciences. The seminar started at 10:30 AM and took 1.5 hours. What I liked most about the audience, who were mainly third and fourth year students, was that I got intelligent questions from them during the seminar.

I'll try to upload the video of the seminar to Google Videos and link to it from here when I get hold of it.

Orbit Channel Visits

2006-04-02T13:12:00.000+02:00

A team from the Orbit channel visited me today for an interview. That was an exciting thing! They asked me about what a blog is and about the blogging scene in Egypt. I then made a quick demo for them to show how I write in this HR Egypt blog of mine and publish what I write instantly. I'm looking forward to seeing the program on Orbit.

IT Jobs in Egypt

2006-03-28T19:18:00.000+02:00

A Canadian born fresh university graduate who has Egyptian parents was asking me about career opportunities in the IT filed in Egypt. She lives in Canada and is entertaining the idea of coming to Egypt to work and live here. This idea seems to have come to many Egyptians whose parents have immigrated to Australia, Canada, USA and other countries. I try to give them an idea about the IT job market in Egypt as well as the style of life here which is great switch from style of life in Western countries with all it's positive as well as negative sides. Not everyone is able to adapt, it depends on your personality and on the effort you put into trying to understand a culture you are not used to or have never experienced before. Here is part of my reply to the latest one who asked me this question:

As for life in Egypt and a career in the IT field in Egypt, it's good that you asked me. I work in the software company in Egypt, I've been delivering IT training in Egypt, and I moderate a 6400-member yahoo group called Egypt-IT-Jobs. I also made this site: Egypt IT Jobs.

There are around 1500 IT companies in Egypt (in 2005). You said training in IT is the best match for your personality. But it's good that you got in contact with me to tell you about this. Delivering training in the IT field in Egypt is not financially rewarding (any more). Delivering English language training in Egypt can be anything from 3 to 5 times more rewarding financially.

As for certificating, we've got loads of certified people here, it's not expensive (any more) to get certified and the Egyptian government gives scholarships for around 5000 Egyptians every year to get such IT certificates (not only is the training + certification free for them, but sometimes they even get a small monthly allowance too!). The certifications in abundance here are: MCSE (MCSA), Cisco certificates, also Oracle ones and MCSD (but much less than MCSA). (Also there is one called CIW which is present in so much abundance).

Forget about working with MCSE, or as Network Administrator. Your best bet is to work as a Systems Analyst or better yet a Business Analyst. Your good English and strong communication skills will give you a plus in such valued positions here as well as your Canadian flavored personality. You can also find a good job for J2EE (Java) or C# if you're into programming and like it. Companies like IBM Egypt, ITWorx and others are hiring and they focus on checking English language and aptitude first. It's a strength in a company like ITWorx for instance if you were exposed to the Western culture ('couse that's where they sell sell their software).

As for life in Egypt, you'll need a LOT of adapting. If you stay in Egypt trying to live your life as you lived it in Canada then forget it, you'll just get frustrated and will find every word that your parents have mentioned to you correct. However, if you try to adapt and absorb the style of life here and discover the ties between people and the different way by which they go about living their lives perhaps then you will find out some warm areas in Egypt which some people highly appreciate and give up other luxuries for. (Ex: Before coming to Egypt, try, at least temporarily, to wipe out the word "organization" from your dictionary. You'll notice the disappearance of this concept from all aspects of life here in Egypt. Also places are not clean here. As for the bright side, people here are warm, they'll help you when you need them and they have warm feelings.) The best thing if you have relatives here, that would be a good thing. They will guide you and make the cultural transition a smoother one.

Fuul Medammes and Team Building

2006-03-27T13:42:00.000+02:00

In the US fast food restaurant are nothing but what their name indicates: fast food. When you are in a hurry, you eat fast food. When you don't have the money to afford to dine out at an elegant restaurant, you get fast food, when you don't have the time to cook you also go for fast food.

In Egypt however, fast food has a different twist to it. First of all, fast food here in Egypt is anything but fast. Whether you're getting home delivery, dining in or even take away, in most cases you have to wait and sometimes for a bit too long. But that's not the greatest difference between such type of restaurants in Egypt and the US. While in the US fast food places are considered to be on the lower end of the food-price chain, in Egypt eating at fast food restaurants is considered the classy thing!

At work, we ordered food, not from a US-like fast food chain, but from the traditional full and falafel type of shops. We could have used Gad, but we went for Shabrawy, a popular chain in Egypt offering traditional fuul and falafel (tameya). We did not order sandwiches like is commonly done, but surprisingly, specially for people working at a US company, we ordered fuul in plastic containers and we sent the office boy to buy bread (balady bread). We then emptied the full into a large container and started eating all together crowding around it!

By some, this might seem unhygienic, all of us eating from the same plate, and boy we were many. To the Egyptian who still views eating from US-like fast food chains as classy, this action of ours would seem not appropriate and not 'classy'. This has to do with the class structure that is unfortunately still rooted in the Egyptian culture, and how different classes in Egypt eat in different ways. But the lovely thing I noticed was not only the better taste of the fuul eaten in this way, but that our crowding around the plate and all eating from the same large plate together sparkled a team spirit which although we could not see with our eyes yet we felt with our souls.

It might sound funny to hear that eating from one large plate can be a team building activity, yet I believe one should do what it takes to promote a team spirit. It's much better to use an activity that stems from our culture than to try to forcefully inject 'foreign' objects inside the body of an Egyptian team. We should learn from the West, then adapt what we learnt to our own culture. Never should we take things as is and just apply them blindly in a forced way to our culture, because they will get rejected, not work or in best cases cause annoying problems.

US Companies in Egypt

2006-03-26T15:03:00.000+02:00

My mom once asked if the increase in foreign investment in Egypt was good for the country. I told her yes it's good. Foreign investment in Egypt fuels the market increasing its momentum. Not only is money injected into Egypt and new jobs created but international level technology and business practices are introduced which upgrades the skill-set of the Egyptian talent pool making it more competitive on an international level.

According to the Egyptian MCIT web site, IT companies in Egypt have jumped to over 1500 companies in 2005. Many of those companies are actually foreign investment. Some are US based companies, others are companies from Germany, France, Sweden as well as other Arab countries such as UAE and KSA. The majority of those companies though are Egyptian.

Sure getting in contact with international level technology and business practices is beneficial. Many of the Egyptian software companies have been started by entrepreneurs who have originally worked at foreign companies in Egypt. ITWorx is a good example of a software company that started in Egypt by two Egyptians. Ten years later, ITWorx has grown to a $10 million annual target. Business Today Egypt magazine has an interesting article about this.

I do work at the Cairo development center of a US based software company. Sure I feel the technology transfer that takes place. Graduates of FCI, Cairo University and FCIS, Ain Shams University as well as FCI, Helwan University are among our employees. We also employ computer engineering graduates from Ain Shams, Alexandria and other universities. Those bright software developers are getting exposed to bleeding edge technologies and are developing software systems on an international level. This is what I call technology transfer. In addition, the business practices and general work atmosphere they are getting exposed to further enhances their capacity and skills.

Company Lunch

2006-03-23T13:06:00.000+02:00

We have company lunch each Thursday. We get out all together and have lunch at some place. Sometimes we just order the lunch and have it at the company. This company lunch thing has been a strong team builder. Expenses of the company lunch are way lower than costs of turnover which this weekly event helps in reducing.

Employees Adapting

2006-03-22T12:24:00.000+02:00

When interviewing for a vacancy, you try to pick someone who fits the profile of the job and of the company culture. However, you have to put in mind that even if the person you are interviewing does not have all the personality traits needed, he or she may still change and adapt after joining the company. This change can be affected through an induction program made for new recruits.

We once recruited a guy who had terrible communication skills and was a hard liner, yet we still recruited him because we were in need of the technical skills he had and we were unable to find such skills easily elsewhere. So we recruited him knowing his communication and other related problems. A few months later, this employee did not of course turn into a first grade communicator, but at least he changed a lot. He started to adapt slightly after a few weeks of working at the company. Gradually with time, his communication skills started to improve as well as his attitude. Again I say he has not turned into a skilled communicator, but at least his communication skills have advanced noticeably. Although we did not provide him with communication skills training, yet a weekly seminar program in which each employee has a turn to deliver a seminar helped enhance everyone's communication skills. A note is due here, this employee was aware of the communication skills issue he had after we informed him of it and accepted it. Not only that, but he did a continuous effort to improve himself in this regard.

Sure I am not asking you to recruit people with poor communication skills, yet my point is that people can change with time specially if you guide them and put them in the right environment to help them change. When conducting an interview, you should look not only for current skills and traits, but the candidate's potential to grow and change.

T-Shirts and Team Building

2006-03-19T16:32:00.000+02:00

It's surprising how some simple things such as distributing t-shirts with company logo on employees can go a long way in building a team spirit. Today we asked our team to come pick t-shirts with the color, size and style of each one's choice. It was like a mini-party where each went through the different t-shirts checking for an appropriate size and a color that he liked. After that we all had a group photo, actually many photos together. It was very nice. Then several of us got their camera phones and kept taking still more photos of us together. When we went back to our desks, still wearing the shirts as none seemed to want to take them off even after we were finished with taking the photos, everyone appeared to get back to work with a better spirit. That's what I call team building. It's amazing how simple things as t-shirts with company logos given to employees can go a long way in inducing a team spirit.

Zedny

2006-03-16T11:47:00.000+02:00

Zedny is one of the many entities that have sprouted quickly in Egypt over the last few years delivering human development training. Zedny is by large the most popular, and I believe, best of them all till this date.

Zedny started a few years ago by providing human development training courses such as time management, job hunting, CV writing and the like. Zedny offered low cost training sessions for a large number of youth. A training session may be attended by 200 or 400 attendees. It is more like a seminar. The large number of attendees makes up for the low cost of the 'course'. Zedny made good use of the Internet to spread its word among youth. It used mailing lists, groups and the power of forwarded emails to spread its word among the rapidly growing Internet-savvy youth population of Egypt.

Currently, Zedny is operating from the premises of Rabaa Mosqe, which is located in Nasr City, Cairo. They have an office their and they used the wide halls present next to the Rabaa Mosque. Anyone who wants to attend one of the courses pays a minimal fee, something like 20 LE or 40 LE to attend a course of perhaps 8 sessions (around 2 hours for each session). It varies from course to course but this gives you an idea of the price and time range of courses offered by Zedny. Courses focus on human development topics and topics that are of interest generally to the youth. One of the courses for instance was how to select your life partner.

If it is the first time you are attending a course at Zedny, when you go and pay for that course you fill out a form with some info about yourself (name, address, phone ... etc) and they make you an ID card which you go get it from them at a later day. If you later go and register for another course, you use this same ID card. The interesting thing about this ID card is that it has a barcode on its back, so whenever you enter a session that you have registered for, they just pass your ID card in front of a barcode reader, much like the one used in a supermarket by a cashier on a product, then you enter to attend the season. It's a cool way of keeping track of attendance in an easy way and verifying who is registered in the course, given the large number of attendees.

You can find information about courses currently available at Zedny and who delivers them at their web site Zedny (the web site is in Arabic). Those who deliver the sessions are volunteers, they do not receive any monetary compensation for their efforts. The money goes back to Rabaa for charity purposes. Al Ahram Weekly has an article about Zedny: Concept Promotion. Zedny also have a group online: Zedny Group.

The word Zedny stems from the Quranic verse "Wa koll Rabbi zedny 3elman" which means "Ask God to increase your knowledge."

Ethics 3

2006-03-15T16:32:00.000+02:00

Dr Sherif's sessons are a model for how to deliver training, the kind of training which leaves an effect on the minds and hearts of people and moves them to positive action. It's the kind of training that not only leaves people hoping and wishing they should do so and so, but makes them go beyond that and actually move and do what they see has to be done.

Dr Sherif uses a lot of stories while he is talking, real life stories that he has either experienced first hand, learnt about through a friend or knew about through other sources. The session he delivers is composed mainly of questions he asks to the audience, stories he narrates and comments he provides on the answers the audience give or the storied he narrates. His comments comprise the smallest part of the session content, while stories and questions directed to the audience compose the bulk of the session.

Dr Sherif derives his conclusions from the voting or response of the audience and from the stories he narrates. This method of stories, audience feedback and delayed or audience-derived conclusions are what make his words convincing to the mind and soul and drive people not action. Another thing which helps produce this effect is that he does not talk in idealistic, theoretical and impractical ways, instead he talks real-live, he talks day to day events and actual scenarios.

Dr Sherif, Ethics

2006-03-13T11:25:00.000+02:00

Dr Sherif mentioned 5 mental tests that help you find out if an action is unethical. I remember 3 of them now:

Put yourself in the other person's shoes. Do you find this action okay if you were in the shoes of the other person? If so, then the action is ethical, if not then it is unethical.
What does religion say about this action? If religion forbids it or says it is bad, then it is unethical.
Imagine this action is generalized and is now done by all people. What happens to the community and the world if this action is generalized? If the world falls into chaos due to this or is harmed, then the action is considered unethical.

Zedny, Training and Ethics

2006-02-27T11:58:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I attended my first session at Zedny. The session was delivered by Dr Sherif founder of Resala, a rapidly-growing youth-fueled Egyptian charity organization. The subject of the session was Ethics. Dr Sherif used to deliver a Work Ethics course at Cairo University.

The content of the session, which was about ethics, was fine but what really interested me and was exceptional was the way Dr Sherif delivered the session. His method of delivery and the instructional tools he used were a model to learn from in delivering training.

The sessions was more like a workshop, despite the large number of attendees which was nearly 400. Dr Sherif kept relating many stories along the session, true stories that happened to him, his friends or his students. He gave a break during the session. He asked the audience a lot. He let the audience give their views. He listened. He then reached his conclusions after listening to what the audience said. He also took votes and used the whiteboard to jot down what the audience said or condense it.

Daily Scrum

2006-01-17T14:13:00.000+02:00

Today as we were just about to start our Daily Scrum meeting, we discovered that one of the team members has switched to another team! After getting over our initial astonishment, we reassigned him to attend the daily scrum of the other team he has now joined. If it was not for the daily scrum, this team member would have been working with the other teams for several days without the rest of us even knowing about it! That's a demo of how Scrum practices lead to high visibility.

Retention of Software Developers

2006-01-02T16:23:00.000+02:00

Working on developing interesting and challenging software solutions.
Using cutting edge technology, tools and methodologies to develop such software solutions.
Continually learning new things and improving ones technical abilities (knowledge and skills).
Getting a fair salary within the lines of the competition of the local market.
Seeing a career advancement path, expecting promotions and reward for performance.
Getting recognition, feeling valued by the company and having an important role in the project.
Having a say in the design and direction of the project. Exercising ones creativity and being heard.

Egyptian Labor Law

2005-12-29T22:04:00.000+02:00

Here is a sum up of the 'new' Egyptian Labor Law by Business Today Egypt: Egyptian Labor Law.

Bluetooth

2005-12-21T18:10:00.000+02:00

My cousin told me about bluetooth a couple of years ago and he was so excited about it telling me how the 'new' mobiles can do all sorts of interesting things with it. A popular example of bluetooth use was pinning a bluetooth enabled pin on your shirt upon entering an exhibition and as you pass by every booth, those in the booth can automatically read information stored in this pin on your shirt using their bluetooth enabled equipment. Looked and sounded exciting at that time.

Although I've not seen myself this example in practice, the bluetooth pin used at an exhibition, yet I found bluetooth to be a very interesting technology when used on mobile phones. After taking several photos with my Nokia 6630 I then went near my computer and transferred all photos and videos from the phone to my computer without connecting any wires. It's cool.

Starting our First Sprint Backlog

2005-12-06T14:30:00.000+02:00

Today we created and started writing in our first Sprint Backlog. After two Daily Scrum meetings, we decided we can make use of a Sprint Backlog to get used to writing in it and get a better feel of the project progress.

We used a single spreadsheet in an Excel file for the Sprint Backlog. We share this single file through SharePoint so we can all have read and write access to it without conflicting with one another (by using check in and check out).

After today's Scrum meeting, I passed by the team members one by one each at his workstation (there were 9 of them) and showed him how to use the Sprint Backlog, how it fits in the whole process and what each of its elements means as well as its significance to the whole process of our project.

I believe again Scrum has proven to be good and showed promising signs. I believe now by starting to use two of Scrum's elements, Daily Scrum meetings and a Sprint Backlog, we are starting to reap some of the benefits already. I believe Scrum could be our way to go in the next phase of the project. I believe we can start implementing it fully by then. The good thing is that by then we would have a stronger grasp of it having used it, if only partially, at the last part of our current phase of the project.

Our First Daily Scrum Meeting

2005-12-05T15:36:00.000+02:00

Today we had our first Daily Scrum meeting. We all stood up in a circle (similar to the standup meeting in extreme programming). We were 10 all together: 9 developers and the 10th was myself, acting as the ScrumMaster in this case.

Each developer mentioned what he has done since the last Scrum meeting, what he will be doing till the next Scrum meeting and any obstacles that stand in his way. Although the team were not yet that comfortable with the Scrum meeting and did not talk in the best way, yet they started to get the feel of it. As the ScrumMaster I guided them through the process by first reminding them of what the Daily Scrum meeting is all about and how it is done. I had already given them a brief training session about scrum in the previous day. During our first Daily Scrum meeting, I tried to keep them on track by guiding them to mention the 3 things required (what they did, what they will do, obstacles facing them) and keeping them from talking about things that are not to be talked about during the Daily Scrum such as how to solve specific problems they faced or discussing alternative paths for some elements of the project.

Although it was our first Daily Scrum and we did not actually do it in the best way, yet I feel we did benefit from it. I think now team members will be more motivated to do useful work each day because they will be mentioning what they have done in front of the rest of the whole team. It also keeps everyone informed of how the project is progressing and how its different elements are going forward. Furthermore, two pairs of developers found out they need to meet after the today's Scrum meeting in order to further discuss specific things in their project to resolve problems that showed up during the Scrum meeting.

I believe the Daily Scrum meeting is a very good idea. Although we have not yet implemented Scrum in its entirety and only started by implementing this small part of it, the Daily Scrum meetings, yet it is already showing promising effects. Perhaps gradually we can introduce the whole of the Scrum process to our team and start using it fully by our next iteration of the project. Bottom line: Scrum looks promising and we will continue to integrate more of it in our work till we fully implement it. We feel that this will result in better productivity and better project management of our software development efforts.

Outlook Nightmares

2005-12-04T10:40:00.000+02:00

Been using Gmail for quite a while now. My hotmail and yahoo accounts I just keep in the background and try to dry out by not using as much as I can. I use Gmail for all my email communication and all my serious needs. I've come to depend on it now totally and got used to its cool way of organizing information (aka: conversations, labels and easy search).

At work now I have to use Outlook to check and send email from my work email account. It is utterly a nightmare! No conversations in Outlook! That's extremely terrible. When using Gmail I can easily follow up on back and forth emails between me and another person. I do this so easily. On Outlook however, I keep digging my way trying to find the scattered emails that went back and forth between me and another person. That's utterly terrible. I really need to have Gmail-style conversations in Outlook so I can find it palpable.

Scrum

2005-11-29T15:52:00.000+02:00

In my search for a software development methodology to help us out of fighting with deadlines and long working hours, I've stumbled upon Scrum after being interested in XP and trying to figure out what MSF is all about. Scrum turned to be interesting specially after it has been refocused more towards project management of software projects repositioning itself as a complement to eXtreme Programming (XP) rather than a competitor. While XP focuses on the software development itself and its details, Scrum focuses more on higher level activities such as project management.

I'm trying now to understand more how Scrum works and then I can try borrowing some of its elements and implementing them gradually to enhance our project management practices. Perhaps we can start benefiting of XP as well later on and integrate both Scrum and XP into a system tailored for us that works with us and improves productivity.

CVs to Interviews Transition

2005-11-23T19:58:00.000+02:00

If a CV looks promising:

Call the candidate on his mobile. Arrange a time and date for an interview.
Add his name and mobile number in an Excel file.
Enter the time and date of the interview in the Excel file.
Make an appointment in your Outlook Calendar.
Send the candidate an email with time and date of the interview and the address of the company.
Move the email (containing the attached CV) to the Promising folder.

Screening Software Developer CVs in Egypt

2005-11-23T11:31:00.000+02:00

In order to help me create a mental image of an applicant upon scanning his or her CV, and to help me quickly classify the CV in my mind as a preliminary step for further deeper examination, I look at the following pieces of information in the order presented below:

Name, gender
Location of residence.
College and university.
Graduation project, what it is about and technologies used in it.
Previous employers, role and achievements there.
Date of birth.

This enables me to create a mental picture of the person behind the CV. After that, I scan for specific technologies needed using the Find command. Examples of specific technologies I scan or are: web services, XML, AJAX, JSP, struts, Linux, JavaScript, CSS, UML … etc.

This quick way of scanning the CV helps me quickly weed out unsuitable applicants and sort out the promising ones. After that one can start having a deeper look to see who will be asked for an interview.

Visual Studio Team System 2005

2005-11-21T10:28:00.000+02:00

VSTS 2005 has some cool features supporting MSF (Microsoft Solutions Framework).

Benefits of using MSF features in VSTS:

Reduce time wasted by developers asking, figuring out or arguing about how a feature should work. By using and sharing scenarios such wasted time would be eliminated.
Tasks can be divided and followed up easily by project manager. This enables tracking of progress and also helps measure productivity of each developer.

Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF)

2005-11-17T20:57:00.000+02:00

I've started wandering around MSF (Microsoft Solutions Framework) in hope of grasping the essence of it. I've went through MSF version 3 and MSF version 4. I've been to VSTS (Visual Studio Team System). I've gone through MSF for Agile and MSF for CMMI. I've read about MSF Formal. I've been reading in the guidelines, in Microsoft's view about UML and all that stuff. Bottom line: I've immerged from a lot of confusion to still more confusion but then at the end things started to clear up a bit for me yet still are somewhat vague.

Microsoft's MSF though seems to be interesting. I've started today writing a Vision Statement and a file about a Persona. I plan to start writing next about scenarios then quality of service after that.

Windows SharePoint Services

2005-11-16T09:38:00.000+02:00

I've often heard about Microsoft's SharePoint but did not really think high of it. I just recognized it as an over-hyped new thing by Microsoft but not really something useful. Yesterday, this view of mine changed.

I remember once working at a huge place where communication was extremely bad. We had and internal phone system, internal email, actual physical mail boxes as well as office boys that can pass paper messages around. All those different media of communication we had in our hands but they were used in very inefficient way. I really hoped for an intranet with a web portal that could make communication between the large number of employees easier and streamlined. Yesterday, I discovered that SharePoint can be the answer for my long sought dream.

We have not yet fully used SharePoint or even made use of some of its features, but I've started to realize its potential. After playing around with SharePoint trying to figure out and use its features, I realized I need to learn more about it to be able to discover its features and potential. I started reading in a book about SharePoint and the first few lessons were interesting and of benefit. I'm more aware now of what SharePoint is capable of doing.

Group Interview

2005-11-14T09:22:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I had no interview scheduled. A colleague told me there were 4 guys at the door handing out their CVs and asked if I wanted to interview them. I told him to let them in and seat them. I went and found to of them inside and the others were still out. I was not sure how to proceed. Shall I ask one by one to take an interview with me? That would be fine for me and perhaps the best approach, which I am used to also. But the problem is that I'll keep the others waiting. So, I decided to make a group interview for the 4 of them at the same time! Sure it will not be as efficient as a standard one-on-one interview, yet one has to deal with different situations as they arise.

I had not heard about groups interviews before, let alone made or even had any. The idea just popped in my mind at the moment, and I was not even sure if would be 'feasible'. My previous experience in delivering training and meeting surprises that come up on class made me able to handle this situation with relative ease. I am used to dealing with new situations as they come and do on-the-fly 'planning'.

I made them sit on 4 chairs and sat on a chair facing them (without a desk in between us for better communication through body language). I then proceeded to ask them about their names, and numbered the CVs in front of me in the same order they were sitting in front of me from left to right. I then asked them one by one about their projects, tools they used in the project and other questions. Finally, I probed more with one of them who seemed to be of special interest to us because of his J2ME based project and we did need a J2ME Developer. At the end I thanked them and told the J2ME guy that we might call him.

That was the first group interview I made and it was kind of interesting yet sure a one-on-one interview would still be needed to know more about a candidate before hiring him.

DSL Nightmares

2005-11-09T15:18:00.000+02:00

Ok, yesterday it took ages to download windows and office patches. Actually, I came this morning to find the patches still downloading! And guess what, we have a 1.5 Mbps ADSL line (feeding 9 or less workstations).

Today after setting up my Outlook and connecting to Exchange Server to download my emails from there, it took ages to download them (they are still downloading till this very moment I am writing in).

I called our ISP trying to figure out what the cause was and to vent some of my anger out, but guess what, the phone kept ringing ringing and ringing and no one answered! I decided to pay a visit to their office. That I did and did it with force. I met the person responsible for sales there, she was good and explained the issue honestly so I asked her for a refund and she did not mind. At least she was honest enough to tell me that the problem will not be solved any time soon and that it will not be before one complete month from now that the upgrade they have issued will take effect and be implemented. She also did not hesitate to agree on a refund upon my asking and just requested some more details from me.

I'll try to check with another ISP to see of a switch in ADSL providers will cause us to be cut off from the net for a while or not.

Update: I have contacted the other ISP and they told me it will take from 3 to 4 days to install their service after I provide them with what she called "cancellation number" which she said I get from our current ISP to indicate their service with us has been cancelled.

Sense Of Direction - Employee Dissatisfaction

2005-11-09T10:31:00.000+02:00

Sense Of Direction - Employee Dissatisfaction: "Diminished investment in up-skilling and life-work planning may reduce the competitive advantage of your business."

Lunch Break

2005-11-08T16:46:00.000+02:00

A sandwich in one hand and the keyboard in the other. That's been the state of software developers in the company. With ten hours of work per day, who would need a break anyway! The underlying logic for the sandwich-at-the-monitor practice was that they did not want to waste time eating away from their work-station!

Anyway, all this changed today. We moved a desk to the outside hall away from the workplace. We then set a time in the middle of the day to have lunch. We went at that time to the table and had lunch all together away from the monitors and keyboards and sitting with each other.

Benefits

A real break revitalizes the mental energy of the software developers, specially if it's taken away from monitors, keyboards and tail or tailless mice.
Sitting all together instead of each at his desktop during this lunch break was enjoyable and made us chat together and got us closer to one another. We even discussed some side issues that affected our work or that were laterally related to it.
The third benefit is to mentally separate lunch and break time from time for work. If they two are blended together like was the case before, then when it comes time for work the feeling one having lunch and having a break may blend with ones 'feeling' of work and reduce ones alertness, concentration or readiness to work.
Finally, the naive idea of eating in front of the monitor in order not to waste time for work is absurd. Come on, give me a break! How can one be productive programming on a computer and writing code when one has a sandwich in the other hand? What kind of productivity do you expect from this? Besides, not getting a real break in itself will reduce performance due to continuous work and absence of time to regenerate and revitalize ones energy.

Social Security Number

2005-11-07T07:54:00.000+02:00

Social Security
Who said government employees are lazy or inefficient? Today I went to the social security office in Nasr City, and the lady at the windows gave me a scrap of paper with my social security number jotted upon it after I gave her my ID card. She entered my name (I think) into the computer (for a number of times it seems though) then asked me if my mother's name was so and so, and I said yes, then she jotted my social security number on a small peace of paper and gave it to me. That was it! I did not believe myself, the process was way easy and fast, far from what I had expected to be honest.

The social security office is found in building 59 of Rabaa Estethmari buildings. If you are going down El Nozha street with Midan El Saa behind you, turn left 3 roads before reaching the Tiba Rose shop or Dar El Defa El Gawwy. The social security office is near the end of this road on the right side (building 59).

Despite the absence of a smile, and the presence of what I would like to politely put as the "opposite of a smile," in addition to a lazy attitude in performing the duty and giving me the impression she is absolutely tired, yet she did do her job and I was so glad. I did not pay anything, I did not wait a lot and I got exactly what I wanted, my social security number by showing her my ID.

Ka3b 3amal
I went to the labor office which is found at the end of the street where Genena Mall is, not the end towards Abbas El Akkad street, but the other end. It is found at its corner, on the left side. There they informed me, after asking about my address, to go to the other labor office and the guy gave me directions on how to reach it and also told me what papers I needed when going there. Was kind of cool. I thanked him, went back to get the papers then went off to the other labor office just as he directed me.

I reached the other labor office which happened to be in building number 16 right in front of El Ahly bank, which is in front of Dar El Defa El Gawwy. It was there that the (at last) smiling woman told me I had to provide her with my social security number and directed me to the location of the social security office which was thank God nearby. By the way, all those places I went walking! After getting my social security number, I went back to the labor office and there I did not find the lady who had asked me for it, but there was another one there. I waited till she finished with someone, then she gave me the paper I asked for after filling it and looking at my ID, university graduation certificate and social security number. I was so glad upon leaving the office with the paper I wanted in my hand. I did not pay anything, I got it in the same day and I got what I wanted. Thank God. Who said government employees are no good in Egypt. Perhaps a bit lazy and give you the impression of being really tired, yet they seem to do their job ad the end. It least that had been my experience today. After all, their system of work has nothing much to motivate them, so we must understand their conditions well and not expect from them the energy boost we may ask from private sector employees.

Seminar Evaluation

2005-11-02T11:04:00.000+02:00

Strengths

Well prepared.
High confidence in delivering seminar.
A member of the audience asked a question. This indicates build up of interest in the seminar.
Use of whiteboard for explanations greatly increased interest and alertness.

Weaknesses

Low faint monotonic tired voice causing the audience to lack interest and made them sleepy. Gave the impression of doing a chore. Lacked enthusiasm, motivation and energy causing the seminar to be mostly boring.
Visibility of text on monitor was not high for all the audience.
Did not set context strongly for the seminar by giving at the beginning of the seminar the big picture in which the topic of the seminar fits.
Should have explained technical concepts without asking audience if they did not know its meaning. This embarrassed them to ask for its meaning even if they did not know it.
Giving too much details trying to cover all points in sequential order with no regard to their level of interest or the need of the audience to them. Appeared more like an academic lecture. It is better to use interesting attention-grabbing points as pigs upon which to hang the rest of the presentation.
Should have related seminar content more to actual daily work of audience on their current system specially when giving explanatory examples.
Smoother communication, a clearer message and a higher level of interest could have been achieved by using down-to-earth words instead of elaborately elegant wording in an attempt to create a technical or professional air.
Dependency on the PowerPoint presentation and reading its points sequentially instead of making a conversation with the audience. This caused boredom and reduced interest and attention.

Presentation Tips

2005-11-01T13:34:00.000+02:00

I found this wonderful PowerPoint presentation about how to deliver a good presentation. It is packed with useful and practical tips that are clearly written by someone who has been there done this and not just a bunch of theoretical and unpractical points. The point I praised the most from among all those mentioned in the 41 slides of this presentation is: "Have a conversation with the audience, rather than lecturing them." I cannot stress that more strongly. It was actually the lack of this very point that caused our first seminar to be way too boring.

Legal Accountant

2005-11-01T10:15:00.000+02:00

He was very polite and friendly, the legal accountant I called today for the first time. Let's see what he'll be able to do. I've set a meeting with him tomorrow at noon. There's a sense of relief in having someone do all the paper work for you. Now one can focus on what really needs to be done and requires a higher degree of creativity and 'domain' knowledge such as recruiting brilliant software developers.

Seminar Fruits

2005-10-31T22:32:00.000+02:00

The seminar took longer that was originally planned for it. It went on okay, while of course there were some sides of it that cried from improvement. The tone of voice of the presenter was so monotonous and tired and it lacked energy and enthusiasm. The presenter also did not let the audience interact with him except in a very limited manner. Both those points caused the seminar to be rather boring and made the audience feel rather sleepy and it was more like attending some old boring lecture at the days of university. Another drawback was the inability of the presenter to simplify the concepts enough or present them in a clear way. A lot of 'floating' words were used without giving clear meanings or putting them in context.

One of the main draw backs was lack of focus on specific points of interest and of high practical value. The session was more like a monotonous sequential listing of points. The PowerPoint presentation on the laptop was not a good tool. It was just a tool for more boredom as the presenter went through it trying to talk about its content point by point. Interest however started to increase after the first part of the seminar as the presenter moved from the PowerPoint presentation on the laptop and used the whiteboard to illustrate his concepts. This was a much better way of communication and grabbing people's attention and interest.

Seminar Kick Off

2005-10-31T09:54:00.000+02:00

Today is time for the first seminar or let's say mini-seminar as we've hinted upon it before when introducing the concept of mini-seminars and our attempt to integrate it into the work system. I'm looking forward to the results of that 'mini-seminar' and hope it would turn out fine. I'm preparing evaluation forms to give to attendees in order to fill after attending the seminar.

My aim from the seminars is to enhance communication between team members, give them a break from their mono-type coding work and revitalize their energy. Of course the content of the seminar itself will have its positive effect on them not only when the technical subject touches on their current work directly, but even when it talks about some part of technology which is used for developing part of the system that the developer is not working on. In this latter case, the seminar will broaden the scope of the developer and make him see the other side of the story. This in turn will have an indirect positive effect on his own work after that.

Update: I now managed to finalize the seminar evaluation form. Instead of making it in Word, I switched to Excel which I found to be a better idea. The main reason for this switch is to enable me to make calculate statistics easily from the collected evaluation forms after attendees have filled them.

Case Study

2005-10-30T14:23:00.000+02:00

Problem
Deadlines are not being met.

Analysis
After analyzing he situation, it was clear that the reason behind the inability to meet deadlines was the absence of a system for allocating and keeping track of task.

Solution
We started researching methodologies for describing and documenting the system in a clear unambiguous manner. We then delivered seminars to the whole team on such methodologies and their basic concepts. Next, we started implementing such concepts in the project. An agile methodology was followed for developing, documenting and keeping track of the project progress.

Results
Deadlines were met within a much narrower margin. Project was delivered on time. A bonus was that developers were less anxious during development as the path was much clearer in front of them. We also got productivity increases as a result of the added clarity of the project components, enhanced communication and reduced time had previously been wasted in redesigning parts of the projects that did not fit with other parts due to absence of comprehensive planning before starting on the development phase.

Weekend Refreshes

2005-10-30T09:06:00.000+02:00

I'm back from the weekend. Wow, how refreshing. It's nice and refreshing to have a weekend. One feels revitalized back at work. I intend to do some good stuff at work now that my brain is revitalized once more.

Role of HR Consultant

2005-10-28T19:22:00.000+02:00

My role as an HR Consultant is to attract, develop and keep great employees for the company.

CV Rush

2005-10-27T18:38:00.000+02:00

In less than 8 hours of posting my job ad at the Egypt-IT-Jobs Yahoo! group, I've received over 50 CVs. How amazing!

I've noticed however that most CVs are applying for the fist job mentioned in the ad. Perhaps the first job attracts the attention more. Maybe I should be putting the more important jobs at the beginning of the ad. I'm not sure however if the high number of CVs that were sent applying for the fist job in the ad is a result of this or if it's simply due to the availability of more professionals for the first job in the ad. In any case, the job we put at first was indeed the one we wanted to fill most.

I'm glad the results look good. Hope screening and selection goes safely and smoothly till the end. I hope we get the most suitable members to our teams.

Job Ad Sent

2005-10-27T10:48:00.000+02:00

Today at last I finally sent the job ad after putting a lot of energy and work into designing it. It contains 7 different positions with detailed and focused requirements set for each one of them. I hope we get great results from them God willing.

HR in Ramadan

2005-10-27T00:26:00.000+02:00

Companies start crying out for HR people in Ramadan. This is when performance drops start to show they heads. Perhaps the best time to market ones recruitment services is in mid Ramadan of every year.

Time Wasters

2005-10-26T15:54:00.000+02:00

A Pain in the Neck
No. Today a lot of time was wasted. The majority of time wasted was in configuring my email account to work from the Outlook client on the Exchange server. Finally it did work, but after eating up a lot of time and good will. Perhaps automating such tasks and creating a policy and procedure for them would be best. It would save a lot of company time not to mention the headache.

Exchange Server
I admit though that after everything was setup and working it was a breeze. So happy now to have everything working now on the Exchange server like magic. Kudoz for team members who have helped me and done the troublesome configuration process for me.

Mini-Seminars
Today we've done something nice. We've agreed at last to start testing the grounds on letting team members conduct mini-seminars on technical topics. I like to think of it as what Google have and call TechTalk. I got the inspiration for it from them anyway.

English Test
I've also started working on creating the English test for use during screening of candidate developers. It'll be short passages taken from technical books with multiple choice questions on them to determine comprehension abilities of applicants.

Writing Technical Job Ads

2005-10-25T22:27:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, I sat down with the Senior Developers to determine the company's requirements of new recruits. It's best to consult with the people who are senior and those whom have their hands and minds involved inside the project. That's something I had learned during my work at Sharm in the HR department of a 1600-employee operation. It was a piece of advice given to me by the HR Director. Indeed, it does bring good results. Not only does it help tailor solutions to the real problems, but it also makes people feel better for being consulted and see results in a more favorable way in addition of course to producing better results.

Today I started outlining the job ad for the several positions required. Due to my insider knowledge of IT technology and programming I was able to write deeper and better targeted job ads, specially in the requirements section. My insider knowledge of programming and IT technologies gave me an edge. I started fleshing out the outline with bits and pieces from what I had gathered yesterday from the input of the senior developers in addition to my own knowledge of the available talent pool in the market and their profiles. After adding points to the job ad here and there and finding it has flashed up reasonably well, I showed it to one of the senior developers for feedback whom in tern also showed it to another developer within his team. They gave me some more suggestions and additions most of which I took into consideration and edited the job ad accordingly. I finally submitted the final draft of the job ad to the other senior developer (who is higher in rank than the firs one) to have a final look. Probably I'll be posting the ad tomorrow God willing if he gives me feedback on the ad by then.

It's been tough work, but the results I believe are promising and exciting. It is quite rewarding to find some deep and hard work evolve finally into a nice piece of work, it's like the feeling you get after completing working on a work of art!

Refining Clouds

2005-10-24T13:21:00.000+02:00

Today I started to create some clouds then refined, re-refined then created more smoke then refined some more. The end result are a bunch of open-ended documents in different parts of the HR function. These documents are the seeds and skeleton of the HR documents and forms. They are the core upon which the whole system will be built.

HR from Scratch

2005-10-24T02:02:00.000+02:00

Starting an HR department from scratch is a tough task even if it's only in a tiny company. One has to design and build all sorts of HR forms from scratch, build if even a simple information system to keep track of employee information even if such system is nothing but a bunch of spreadsheets in Excel.

Then one has to took into the ailing problems of employees that had been accumulated over time in the absence of any proper HR function. One has to work in parallel trying to give instant relief from such ailing pains while at the same time working on a more long term remedy for such problems by treating them from the source. This way there would be a balance between achieving long term stable goals while at the same time showing fast results in no time.

Google Pizza

2005-09-17T01:08:00.000+03:00

Google's HR hand reaches far and wide, grabbing the eggs even before they hatch. It does so not by offering any sort of poultry food (no pigeons involved here) but this time it offers pizza instead.

CiteHR

2005-09-09T10:23:00.000+03:00

While searching Yahoo! for "competency mapping," I stumbpled upon this forum which surprisingly came near the top of the Yahoo! search results and had a good piece of writing about competency mapping, even better than that present in 'normal' web sites! The site HR forum site name is CiteHR.

Employee of the Month

2004-06-30T09:22:00.000+03:00

At first I told myself there was no use in this Employee Party that is held each month. Some employees are selected as employees of the month and given certificates and some cash during the party. I though this process of offering some kind of recognition to employees of the month is just another routine tasteless thing that is uselessly done.

Yesterday, during the Employees' Party, I gave it a second thought. At first I did not want to attend this party, but I just had to, I was ordered by my boss to attend as I'm working in the HR department. I was standing near the place where employees of the month received their certificates plus cash prize. I saw for myself how happy they were getting this kind of recognition and shaking hands with the General Manager, HR Director and other key persons there. Their colleagues clapped for them and cheared loadly while they came out to receive their crtificates.

Although I was just standing there watching not really interested and not doing much at first, yet after a short while I found myself clapping with the people and feeling happy. It's like the stream of feeling happy spread out of these employees of the month and their colleagues and resonated inside me.

We stayed for some extra time after the party ended clapping with the music and dancing around. It was mostly HR staff. Then we left the place with a nice feeling of happiness. What made it feel nice too and made us stay for this extra while was that one of the HR staff was selected as employee of the month. His happiness was just indescribable.

I have now changed my mind. Making an employee party and selecting an employee of the month is not just another routine task to be done. It's something that does really matter to our staff and does make a difference.

Investigation

2004-06-25T16:18:00.000+03:00

One employee talks to the other in the phone in an inappropriate way. The second employee delivers a written complaint about the insident to the HR department. Our work starts from here to investigate this complaint.

We start by reading the written complaint carefully and trying to determine which parts sound logical and which appear to be exagerations or untruths. We then call for the first employee whom the complaint is against. We crossexamine him then he signs on what he said. We then crossexamine the second employee who wrote the complaint and also let him sign on what he said.

After this, we may also make hearings from other employees who have witnessed what hapenned. They also sign on what they said. Finally, we look into all of this to determine who was in fault. The employee who is found mistaken is penalized according to the penalties chart.

Before going through all this long process, and after reading the initial complaint report we try first to fix things between those two employees in an unofficial way. Only when this does not work do we revert to making an official, and time consuming, investigation that may in some cases penalize both employees at the same time if they were both found in violation of the rules and regulations of the place.

Organization Chart: Visio Style

2004-06-24T18:55:00.000+03:00

Using PowerPoint to draw the organization chart was really tedious, specially in a place where there are over 1500 employees! Visio seems like a breez. I was finally able to download a trial version and let Visio create organization charts automatically from data in an Excel file! Now I'm satisfied.

But it seems humans are always greedy for more. After the first feelings of extacy on seeing the automatically generated organization chart, I found that it still needed adjustment. First of all, there was no way of determining the "level" of the employee. My wish was that employees of the same level be on the same vertical level in the chart. But it seems that this was not possible and even not present in organization charts at all whether automatically or manually generated. Some other features were also absent such as specifying in the Excel file if the person was an assistant or a secretary so that it could be placed in a special way in the organization chart.

Perhaps after all I might discover that Visio does some of the features I need but just don't know how to use it to do them. Yet most probably it'll still lack some features that I do need. Anyway, nothing's perfect in life after all. Perhap's I'd just have to do those adjustments by hand after visio does the tough work. At least now I'll not have to struggle any more with PowerPoint's primitive organization chart creation features.

Exit Interviews

2004-06-24T17:03:00.000+03:00

The form we have for exit interviews needs to be updated. In addition to recording in it the dates of hiring and departing we try to evaluate things such as the salary, benefits and working conditions of the ex employee on an excellent-good-average-poor scale. Also, we record whether the resignation was voluntary or involuntary, of course the name and number of the employee as well as the reason for his/her leaving. We also ask about what was good in the place and what will the employee miss here when he/she leaves.

A question is also present to determine whether adequate training was received and how it may be enhanced. The form is finally signed by both the interviewee and the interviewer and the date of the interview is recorded on the form.

At the end of each month, an exit interview report is made summarizing the number of people who left from each department and the reasons for their departure.

Exit interviews are fine but the form we are using right now can be enhanced a lot. Perhaps I ought to read more about exit interviews and attempt some enhancements to the exit interview form currently in use.

Hiring Process

2004-06-18T16:44:00.000+03:00

There are 4 levels of screening tests. Each one is for specific positions. Test A is the most difficult, while D is the easiest. The test should be completed in 20 minutes. They test proficiency in the English language. This written test is followed by a verbal one to determine the verbal proficiency in the English language of the Applicant.

The procedure of applying for a job here is as follows. It starts by the applicant emailing or faxing his or her CV, or giving it by hand or through someone. In any case, they all end up in the HR Department. Then the CV is checked. If it is found promising, the applicant is phoned for an interview. If the applicant is not in Sharm, he/she is brought here by the company's bus from Cairo and accomodated in the Hotel till the interview ends. When the applicant arrives, he/she fills in an application form then takes the screening test followed by the verbal one. His or her CV together with the screening test form which also includes the results of the verbal test are all stapled together with the application form. This bundle is then delivered to the manager of the department to which the applicant is applying for. The application includes the applicant's photo. The department manager then makes another interview with the applicant based on which he/she either signs or rejects the application. The applicant may or may not also be interviewed before or after this by the HR Director.

If the application was signed by the department manager, it is then signed by the HR Director followed by the signature of the general manager. Then and only then does the hiring procedure of this person start. The applicant delivers his or her birth certificate, 12 photos, highest education certificate, security clearance and in case of males a certificate showing the completion of or exemption from military service. That's all.

The HR Department then takes care of filling appropriate forms for this newly hired employee and putting everything in a newly created employee paper file. In addition of course to recording all necessary data on a software system.

Performance

2004-06-16T10:21:00.000+03:00

Set belief system. Set vision. Set mission. Set goals (smart ones). Set objectives. Design strategies for meeting objectives.

Link everything together. Start implementing strategies to meet objectives within the framework of mission, vision and belief system.

Monitor performance while implementation is in action. Refine strategies based on analysis of feedback. May also refine objective, goals, mission and even vision based on analysis of feedback.

Keep everything dynamically integrated. Analysis of feedback from performance monitoring will be echoed back and integrated into the work system to refine it.

The above system will guarantee you optimum performance with minimal effort and cost.

Why this system is guaranteed to work?

How is this system implemented? I need examples of it in action.

CVs

2004-06-16T08:53:00.000+03:00

Excel seemed like a good way to keep a record of incoming CVs. They came mostly via fax, some by email. Some people also called to ask for work, but I told them to fax their CVs. Email is not widely accessible specially for positions such as waters bus boys housemen or the like.

I started by creating an Excel file that had fields for name, date of birth (which I converted to age by a simple formula), education, marital status, languages ... etc. I should also have added one or more fields for experience, previous work experience. But I left this for later on for it seemed too consuming a job and I wanted to hurry up and enter the largest number of CVs first then perhaps get back later on and refine the data add experiene fields and so on.

Actually, the 'project' collapsed as there were too many CVs to enter at one time and I just gave it all up. Perhaps if I was in charge of getting the CVs right from the beginning this would not have hapenned. Yes, but this is a pretext I'm saying to myself. I could have still persisted on putting the CVs into Excel. Silly me.

Policies & Procedures

2004-06-14T12:40:00.000+03:00

A place with not policies and procedures faces many problems. Organization is important. When it is a big organization, policies, procedures become even more important.

I had an idea about creating policies & procedures for the place I work at. I wanted to model it on the way software applications are being built these days.

I've been delivering training for a while at IBM Authorized Training Centers in Cairo. Among the courses I enjoyed most was Object Oriented Analysis & Design.

Organization Chart

2004-06-13T17:19:00.000+03:00

Using the Diagram tool in PowerPoint or Word to make an organization chart seemed a good idea. But after playing with it for a while I discovered that it is so limited. It really annoyed me. It was tricky and I was unable to draw things with it as I wanted. At the end I gave it all up and tried to search for other organization chart creation tools on the net. I found a couple, and tried their trial versions but still was not so comfortable.

I knew that Visio was one software good for the task. But unfortunately I did not have it installed. Perhaps I can try it and see how well it will work. It's important too that the tool be easy to use and not just have too many features.

Connecting Visio to a database from which to read positions of employees and automatically and dynamically create organization charts seems like a breeze. I hope one day I'll be doing that. It will make things much better.

For now, maybe I'll just have to settle for the diagram tool in PowerPoint.

Casual Staff

2004-06-09T09:25:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I was sitting with the supervisor of the 340 casual F&B staff who came from Cairo to help out during this week. He told me that stff should rest in order to give better performance.

A more interesting topic he talked about was that many hotels are now expanding and new ones are opening all over Cairo. He specifically mentioned Al Haram area as a particilar place where a lot of tourism is going on.

I had tea after dinner with him. It was a good evening.

Salary Survey

2004-06-08T17:20:00.000+03:00

Yesterday was my first time to do a salary survey. I did it via phone. I wanted to know the salary range of IT department staff working in different hotels. So, I called a dozen or so hotels. Most of them did not want to realease any salary information and told me that it was confidential despite my mentioning my name and the name of the place I work at and that I work at the HR Department! Other hotels though were more cooperative and gave me either salary ranges for different IT positions they have or actual salary values for the positions. The final survey was full of hoels, but at least I had my first try with conducting salary surveys.

First Day

2004-06-06T19:51:00.000+03:00

Doing an exit interview for someone. That's one of the things I do. Conducting a screening test for another, that's something else I do. Making a salary servey, still another thing. Day to day HR activities can some times be interesting. They involve interacting with people. They also involve interacting with computers and paper.

This place I'll use to post my daily thoughts about HR activities I'm performing. Also thought on how I imagine how things should be done or my fantacies about doing all things that are HR. It may include far fetched dreams, but there is no harm in stretching one's imagination, as long as such ideas won't be implemented except after trimming and evolving to become more realistic and applicable in the real world.

I also hope that this small place be a tiny hub around which HR tidbits are exchanged in the Egyptian HR community.