My ideal workplace is…

  • A place that treats people as its most valuable asset
  • A place that provides me opportunities to challenge myself, learn new things and grow not only professionally but personally
  • A place that allows me to have a work and life balance
  • A place that encourages open communications
  • A place that see failure as an opportunity for teams to learn and grow from
  • A place that recognize and appreciate good people and good work
  • A place where there is team spirit

What’s your ideal work environment? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below. 🙂

A photo taken in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Leadership is NOT

  • Leadership is NOT about holding a position with a fancy title in an organization.
  • Leadership is NOT about being in charge and telling people what to do.
  • Leadership is NOT about having a loud voice and being right all the time.
  • Leadership is NOT about finding weakness in others and shifting accountability.

I will call you a leader if you stay relevant to the people you serve and work with, by engaging them regularly, listening and validating their needs carefully and creating a culture of collaboration by working on building trust and respect with everyone involved.

I will call you a leader if you work on empowering employees who have the needs, answers, knowledge and expertise in their field to make the decisions on how to get their job done, and done efficiently to best serve the need of our customers. You believe that best idea must always win regardless of your position, background and experiences.

sunrise

Watching Sunrise From 92nd floor at Signiel Seoul in October 2018

Know your business needs first!

Are you looking to retire your legacy applications or invest in new technology platforms to serve the need of your business better?

It’s important to remember that Technology is a Business Enabler

  • Buying a new technology will not fix your broken and/or inefficient business processes.
  • Do not choose and invest in new technologies unless you clearly understand the business problems you are trying to solve.
  • Technology will drive process improvements and transform the way business function if and only if it’s carefully chosen based on the business needs and used to support optimized business processes.

Here are some questions that will help you when formulating the migration strategy for your legacy applications:

  1. What are the purpose of your applications?
  2. What business processes do your applications support?
  3. If you have multiple applications in scope for the migration, are there any commonalities between them?
    • Important! Do you see an opportunity to consolidate them into a comprehensive, integrated enterprise system to reduce technology footprints and improve business processes?
  4. Are your applications integrated with each other? If so, what are the integration points?
  5. How large, complex your applications are?
    • # of forms, screens, menus, # of reports, complexity of reports…etc
    • # of databases and database tables, and its association to applications/forms/screen
    • Any plugins?
  6. Are they all internal applications (i.e. internal corporate use only)?
  7. Are they external facing applications (i.e. external users/stakeholders involved)
    • What are external users’ impact?
    • What are the risks involved?
  8. How authentication and authorization are handled?
  9. Is database migration also in scope along with the applications?
    • Is there a central database that your applications are currently interacting with?
    • If so, what are the integration points?
  10. Can each of the application be broken into individual modules (or group of functionalities) to migrate them in groups/phases?
    • You can use this as an indicator for determining how you can run the project in agile way.
  11. How well your applications are documented (i.e. business rules)?
    • Is there any tools that you can use to scan existing code to extract business rules?
  12. Are all functionalities exists currently being used and that they all need to be migrated over to new platform?
    • Any unused functionalities that you can retire?
  13. Can you determine the migration priorities?
    • If you have a limited resource capacity, priority must be determined.
    • Which application will provide the most business value when migrated over?
    • Which application will be most simple to migrate over?
    • Which business groups are most open for changes and new technology adoptions?
  14. Any enhancements that must be considered?
    • Are there any pain points raised by the stakeholders that you would like to address right away as part of the migration?

Once you define the strategy, a key to succeed in any migration project is planning, with an understanding that each migration project is different.

Remember:

  • Set a clear migration vision, goals, expectations
  • Not one approach fit all, spend adequate time on planning really goes a long way.
  • Use agile approach as appropriate for executing development work (see a diagram below for one of the potential agile approach you can take when migrating legacy application)

Database Application Migration

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Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in various digital transformation and migration projects as Applications Architect, Developer, Quality Assurance, Technical Team Lead, Business Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Project Manager and Scrum Master. To name a few:

  • Website platform migration
    • Oracle WebCenter Interaction > Oracle WebCenter Portal
    • Oracle WebCenter Portal > WordPress
  • Enterprise search platform migration
    • Oracle Secure Enterprise Search > ElasticSearch
  • Enterprise Identity Management platform migration
    • Oracle Identity Management > EmpowerID
  • Online collaboration spaces, Intranet & Records Management platform migration
    • Oracle WebCenter Spaces > Igloo Collaboration platform
    • Oracle Universal Content Management > Igloo Collaboration platform
  • Database Application migration
    • PostgreSQL/Java Application to > MariaDB/Custom PHP Application
  • Enterprise E-learning platform migration
    • WebCT/Blackboard > Moodle
  • Enterprise In-house Legacy Applications (analysis only)
    • Custom Visual Basic applications > Java application

Let’s connect on LinkedIn. linkedin logo

 

Me, Myself and My Beliefs

Think Why first then How
I clarify and analyze the cause behind the problems before I start thinking about the solutions. I believe that clearly understanding the problem is the first and most important step in finding the right solution.

Analyze before Act
I don’t react to issues. I gather facts, analyze and develop most sensible and appropriate action plan based on analysis, knowledge and experience.

Value Quality than Quantity
I value the quality of work more than the volume of work. I want to feel proud in what I do and put my name on, rather than just getting the work done as much as possible. 

Own Mistakes and Learn
I take responsibilities for my mistakes and learn from it. I don’t just sit back and not bother trying because of fear of making mistakes. Nobody is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. I believe that making mistakes is just part of learning. We will fall in our journey but will get up together much stronger each time.

Think, Plan and Do!
I am a thinker and planner but more importantly I am a doer who is ready to get hands dirty and work together with the team to get the job done. I enjoy walking with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the doers and the problem solvers who are honest, open minded and believe in “We are in it together, let’s work together to make it happen!”. 

Believe in Simplicity
I believe in beauty of simplicity. Breaking down the complexity, making things clear and simple allows us to identify what is necessary and important, and focus our energy on those important things to get the job done.

Build the Trust and Respect
I believe that there is no ‘team’ without trust and respect. I work on building trust and respect by being honest, doing my best and listening to others. I believe that collaboration happens naturally when the team build the trust and respect for each other.

Night at the ROM, Spider Exhibition
Photo taken at the ROM in Toronto (Spider exhibition)

Connect with me on LinkedIn.