Friday - trips back home!

end of working week...

This has been a constant source of joy to me. Ever since, I started travelling for work, the trips back home, had always been great fun. My recent consulting engagement is with a firm in Zurich, Switzerland. After a week's work, i.e. Monday to Friday, most of us get back to our respective home countries - ranging from USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

Fellow consultants from the US and Canada, stay longer, but still go back on a Friday.

[fig: @Zurich Apt with Jack from the Netherlands]

The taxi ride from office to airport start with a rush, almost every week, particularly, as we seem to start working really hard on Fridays :) We make every effort to stay away from work-discussions and bring on all sorts of stories and weekend friendly banters or plans together, to bring up the spirits. All good fun!

This is how most of the weeks go. My engagement will end by end of 2010. I am not sure where my next port of call is, but one thing is for certain that these trips will continue to come.

the coffee ...

The most enjoyable part of the short stay at the airport then is "the coffee". Some of us have coffee regularly, while some resort to other colder forms of refreshing liquids. Beer mostly!

There are obviously many forms of coffee and Swiss colleagues happen to like the espresso a lot. The main difference I felt here is that they take a sip of still water, every now and then to keep the palate clean.

[fig: coffee at the center Bar , Zurich airport ]

Flights to Zurich

Wake up at 3am...

Early morning flight to Zurich. It is 3am. I, invariably, woke up half a dozen times between 11 and 3, to check if the alarm went out. The night before, always get to end in a lengthy conversation over dinner and often a movie as well. My wife never forgets to reminds me of booking a cab, finish packing and getting ready for the trip.

[fig above: the long walks at heathrow]

the mini-cab driver...

I book a private cab (as popularly called 'mini-cab' in UK) to get to the airport. That is not to avoid booking the publicly registered taxis, as known as 'black-cabs'. The mini-cabs are locally managed small-businesses that operate quite efficiently, often in a group of drivers themselves. They are also known to be a "profitable" business, under the current climate. Time flies in the cab, during the morning as I get to pass by some of the busiest streets of Harrow, Hayes and Heathrow in almost no time. The min-cab drivers, most cases from the Arab countries, invariably tune into a radio-channel that plays Hindi/Bollywood songs. That is a delight to hear!! You bet, its not easy to find one :)

Heathrow airport security starts operating from about 4:45am. Once I drop my bags in the Swiss check-in counter, I get to the Costa coffee bar for a fresh cup of Americano and a croissant.

[fig above: a view of the morning sky]

Security Checks in Heathrow have gotten a bit better in the last few months. It is less often these days that they ask passengers to open shoes. This is good, however, it is still quite possible to be stood behind a long queue, even very early in the morning. Its Heathrow!

Long Walks...

The walk from the security check to a boarding gate could easily be a long 15- 20 minutes. My fate has so far not been very helpful. The Swiss flights nearly always park outside gates, far out in the newly built terminals (within Terminal 1).

As much as I like the new seating areas, around the gates and the architecture, I dislike the notion of having to walk that long to board the aircraft. The wheeled trolleys are a safe bet for that matter. I switch bags a bit. Not because of fashion, I choose bags to make my trip comfortable or efficient as possible. The other day I had to carry two laptop computers in my bag and I chose a leather handheld bag as opposed to a wheeled one. This was more to keep the laptop safe.

[fig left: the coffee and muffin - served in the plane]

 

Walking around Zurich city

On a good day, not rare in summer, a walk-back from work into the high streets of Zurich city, would undoubtedly be a pleasant experience. The main train station, Hauptbahnof, also known as "Zuirch HB", lies at the heart of the city. I recently did take a stroll back; and, that was rare too (honest!) and it was truly exciting. It amazed me how fast the minutes (35 or so) flew by.

I started walking from Zurich Binz, where my customer's offices are located. The journey was like this - follow in direction of Sihlcity and then continue along the tram-route #13 to Zurich HB. Some streets, I could remember are Werdstrasse, Sihlstrasse, Uraniastrasse and then Bahnhofquai !! [No! by no means, am I competing with Google maps here ...]

These are some pictures I took along the way, from my mobile phone. In about half an hour, I reached the center. Zurich HB. This covers some of the most lively places around. Bahnofstrasse, the street reaching it is key to it. Regardless of the day of a week you visit the place, you won't be bored. Most, if not all, cafes and restaurants around the Bahnhofstrasse, the main street down the station, and the Bahnof quay have these open-air, "bistro style", seating layouts, during summer months. The very sight of it would lure visitors to stand by or even drop in for a drink.
A lovely walk, followed by a drink out in the open, is not a bad idea!! The variety of food, the limmat quay, the sidewalks, the hustle around HB, the cyclists, dazzling shops around Bahnhofstrasse, open cafes, the trams and the sheer variety of people (especially tourists!!) make it an all the more exciting experience to walk around...

Summer in Zurich, is not to miss.

Kanban Dashboards - how useful are these?

One of the many challenges, in software development projects, is clearing out a large backlog of design and application code fixes. The challenge that goes with it is of "tracking work in progress"...both for individuals actually doing the design or code and for managers tracking 'em. In search of methods, especially used in Agile environments, I came across Kanban dashboards. I might have briefly written about kanban sometime ago.

Disclaimer: I am not sure if "Kanban boards" are regarded as best - however, it looked quite useful to me. I cannot 'advocate' using it. I am just 'aware' that it exist.

I wonder if you could make use of it at all within your development projects. All you need is a white board or a wall paper and sets of post-it notes. (No, I don't have 3M shares).

This might help as a reading too - http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-kanban-boards

Please let me know, how you found using it.