Vision is the path to success. Vision leads to plan. Plan leads to action. Action leads to success. Image by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay.

Do you need a career plan? Yes, yes you do.

 
You know how when you’re young, your ambitions on your Kad 001 (pupil’s cumulative record card) always involve the usual suspects like a businessperson (whatever that means), a police officer, a firefighter, and/or a doctor? As the years progress, you move on to more advanced professions, such as a lawyer, an astronaut, a musician, and/or, Heaven forfend, an influencer.

The point is, our ideals of what our dream job is, can and will change over time. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a career plan. Most of the time, our plans will fail or at least, be totally different from the original. But as the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. In a nutshell, the purpose of a career plan is not necessarily just to set a goal or target to aim for, but instead, the act of planning is an end in and of itself. It’ll set you up to have a planning mindset, for whatever life throws at you in the future.

COVID-19 notwithstanding, it is already daunting for fresh graduates to determine their next turn at the crossroads of their career journey. Throw in a pandemic the scale of which the world has not seen in a century, now things are getting trickier than they already were. Additional variables include whether or not the industry you’re interested in, like say, airline or tourism, could weather such an event should it ever occur again.

But, what if you are passionate about finance and/or information technology (IT)? How then do you set up a career plan in fintech? This is an area where Juris Technologies (JurisTech) might be able to help you with.

Monash Malaysia, sowing the ‘Seeds’ of career growth

Monash Malaysia’s Virtual Career and Internship Fair 2020. Image by Monash Malaysia.

Four days before Hari Merdeka, Malaysia’s Independence Day, Monash University Malaysia’s Career Services [Facebook] division hosted a one-hour webinar via Zoom and Facebook Live, to talk about just that: ‘Get a head start! Build your career plan today.’ This is held in conjunction with Monash Malaysia’s Virtual Career and Internship Fair 2020 which ran from the 24th of August to the 28th.

Facilitating and providing technical support throughout the session, was Seeds Job Fair [Facebook]. Founded two years ago, Seeds is a local organisation providing a platform for virtual career fairs and webinars such as this one, for both employers and educational institutions alike. It also connects international students here in Malaysia, with jobs back home.

Panellist of the webinar. Clockwise from the top left: Santhana Rajmohan, Monash’s career services manager; Naaman Lee, JurisTech’s COO; Alex Tong, JurisTech’s presales manager; and Farhad Shababi, JurisTech’s product manager.

While Santhana Rajmohan, Monash’s career services manager, was there throughout the session as host, it was our chief operating officer (COO), Naaman Lee, that moderated the talk by fielding questions from the audience of students and graduates of Monash. Joining him were product manager Farhad Shababi, and presales manager Alex Tong, who were the two perfect people to answer those questions, as they are also Monash alumnus. Farhad was from Monash’s School of Business, while Alex was from the School of Information Technology.

The idea of the talk was, during uncertain times, including now, there is always an opportunity – a silver lining – when it comes to finding a career. It is crucial to be able to identify the opportunity fast, stand out from the crowd, and grab it at the right time. That requires vision and planning. So, where do you start, and how do you get a head start? The following are all the topics discussed and questions answered around this theme, edited for clarity.

The purpose of a career plan is not necessarily just to set a goal or target to aim for, but instead, the act of planning is an end in and of itself. Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash.

1. How do I pick a career plan?

 
Naaman pulled no punches by asking the audience right off the bat,

‘Do you even have a career plan?’
‘If not, should you build one now?’
‘In the era of COVID-19, how does it impact your career plan?’
‘In these uncertain times, should you stick to your career plan, or just grab any job that you can?’

Farhad dittoed, asking, should one have a dream job and reject other offers? Or, should the person just aim for a specific position to become, in a company? Is getting that position even viable in that specific company?

He went on to say that while you need a vision and a career plan, you need to be logical and realistic, too. For instance, if one studied business, the person could work in the accounting or marketing department. Not only that, he or she could work the same job in totally different industries as well. After all, almost all businesses need some form of accounting and marketing.

And therein lies the tip – first identify the field in which you want to profess, for the industry could come later. This is especially true during this unpredictable time, where you must identify which industry is mostly affected in order to avoid it, at least temporarily, while pursuing your career path. Therefore, it is OK for you to start your career in an industry you weren’t eyeing before, as long as the field you’re in is aligned with your goals.

Fortunately, in the financial industry, banks and other financial institutions are still operational. Farhad noted that during the six-month Malaysian loan moratorium, JurisTech’s work actually doubled.

Alex chipped in with a slightly contrarian view, highlighting the vision point, stating that it’s very important to have one, so that one will stay on course. For instance, if you’re into cooking, it does not make sense for you to be a server or waiter. No matter what, you need to determine a way to be a chef, even if it starts with becoming a dishwasher before you could become a cook.

Takeaway: It is important to have vision, to aim for a field that you’re passionate about and/or good at. However, regardless of field, position yourself in an industry that has a future. There is risk in every industry, but you might want to pick one that has a lower risk.

2. How do I set a vision for the future, if I don’t even know where to start or what to do?

 
Alex jumped in saying that generally, as a student, you don’t usually have a plan. You study what’s required at secondary/high school. You’ll only decide on a rough plan when you need to choose an academic degree, because that’s when it branches out and you actually get to choose. His tongue-in-cheek advice for students: Don’t fail your exams.

For him, he scored rather high in his MUFY (Monash University Foundation Year), after which he decided that he wanted to venture into computer science and ‘stick to computers’. In his software-related field, there are also high expectations such as the ability to solve issues, proficiency in technical skills, etc. He reached a juncture where there were two academic degrees to pick, and naturally, he went with the one containing the subject that he previously scored the highest on.

Later, when it comes to picking a career, he still had choices, like whether or not he wanted to be a consultant, a software engineer, or an IT support technician. Though competent, he’s not into doing tech support, therefore he committed fully into becoming a software engineer. He said there were two main reasons why he picked JurisTech. One, it is a technology company doing actual software development. And two, JurisTech has extensive onboarding and training programmes, the second of which intrigued him, because the training programmes extend to cover all levels in the company, including experience hires as well as existing Jurisians looking to expand their skill set. This shows the commitment to nurture Jurisians into all having a growth mindset.

Takeaway: Stay in school, don’t fail, and score high. That opens up more options for graduates to explore and finally settle on a career path that they’re passionate about, and hopefully, good at.

JurisTech COO Naaman Lee expounded his insights on the importance of a career plan and how to make one.

3. What are the characteristics and skills that employers would look for?

 
For JurisTech, Naaman explained how JurisTech looks for different things when it comes to senior/experienced hires, compared to junior/fresh graduate hires. Naturally, for senior hires, the hiring process is very elaborate, involving multiple rounds of interviews and assignments, with more parameters to consider including culture fit, and a longer decision time.

On the other side of the spectrum, the junior hiring process is much faster where JurisTech looks for basic and fundamental qualities. One of the things we look for, happens to be CGPA scores, though this is not necessarily to know how well they do academically. Instead, it is to gauge how serious the students are in their studies, how well their ability to learn is, and how hard they studied. Hiring of software engineers though, junior or not, has additional requirements, including knowledge of basic coding concepts, and logical thinking skills.

Takeaway: Experience for senior hires, CGPA for junior hires, and skills for jobs that require them.

4. What is JurisTech’s CGPA requirement when hiring?

 
Naman stated that we’re not looking for super-high CGPAs, and it’s also seasonal. On a presumably 4.0 scale, it is sometimes 3.2 and above, sometimes 3.0 and above.

Takeaway: Don’t fail your exams (according to Alex).

5. Do you hire expats?

 
This was an easy one for Naaman to answer. JurisTech’s newly crowned chief innovation officer (CINO), Kiarash Razaghiaval, and panellist Farhad, are both from Iran. At the time of writing, they have both been with us for eight and five years, respectively. In fact, our Jurisians are made out of folks from more than ten countries including Australia, France, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Pakistan, the Philippines, just to name a few.

Takeaway: Resoundingly, yes.

6. In a nutshell, what is the candidate selection process like?

1. Submit résumé and relevant documents (cover letter, references, transcript) to hr@juristech.net.
2. Curriculum vitae (CV) will be put through filtering criteria like the aforementioned CGPA.
3. If passed the filtering stage, you will be called in for an assessment.
4. The assessment has three sections:
   1. The English and mathematics section
   2. The logic section
   3. A smaller, SQL knowledge section. Note that it is OK to know nothing about SQL; this is just an assessment and everyone goes through the same assessment, even for non-tech positions.
5. The assessment result will be known on the day itself, or two to three working days later.
6. Should you be called in for an interview, the questions and even its length, will be based on the results of your previous assessment.

Takeaway: It goes without saying that one must prepare for the assessment and interview, but don’t fret if you think you didn’t do well during the sessions. After all, that’s the point of assessments and interviews – to find the right fit, not to change anyone.

7. If I have created my career plan, what more can I do to get my dream job in this unprecedented time?

 
Naaman offered two tips here. The first is to get prepared for the interview, even if the interview is six or twelve months away, ie, you’re not graduated yet or you have yet to apply to that particular company. This is a great way to signal to the hiring company that you’ve already decided to work there way before you even applied for that job. One particular instance that left a big impression on Naaman was how someone he hired (who is still working here by the way), was able to articulate everything about JurisTech during the interview. That showed how she’s really serious, took the time to actually know enough about the company to be able to recall facts, and came prepared.

The second is to pick a subject of interest and own it. The subject in question can be academic in nature, work-related, or even just a hobby. Whenever that subject comes up during the interview, you could then talk about it passionately. This is not merely for signalling purposes, but indeed, it is to show that you can actually be passionate about something, and can work your way towards being good at it.

Alex then highlighted something rather interesting regarding this. He professed that back in university, he scored rather low on his favourite subject, due to the fact that he actually tried to fully understand it, taking up time and effort, while for the other subjects, he merely memorised them for the exams. There is a lot to unpack here, but specifically in this context, a subject of interest or a hobby is something that you must be passionate about, and if you’re not good at it (yet), work your way towards being so. Notice that this is counter to the advice earlier about starting a job related to the subject that you scored the highest on. The difference is, one is choosing where to start, and the other is choosing what to aim for. They apply at different times along your career path.

He concluded that it pays to know what the company you’re applying for actually does, and determine whether or not you could do the job. For instance, if you’re studying to be a coder/programmer in, say C++, you could still easily learn PHP from scratch to be able to work in JurisTech. This is important because in order to know what programming language a tech company uses, well, you need to do your research.

Farhad echoed Alex’s sentiments, where he said that one must figure out what the expectations from you are for that job, prior to the application, and figure out whether or not you’re actually good at them and if not, work your way towards being good at meeting them.

His tip is more related to the question. He repeated that one should always approach it logically, not just during this COVID-19 time. Sometimes a dream job is not attainable or available at the moment, but you must still pick a job that could be conducive for you to work your way towards securing that dream job of yours, eventually.

He also agreed with Naaman’s first tip, stating that it’s very easy to research about companies these days – just visit their website.

Takeaway: Find a hobby. Be passionate about (and good at) your hobby. Be passionate about the company you’re applying for, too.

8. Do JurisTech interns have the chance to be permanent employees?

 
Naaman immediately said yes, stating that a lot of permanent employees here were once interns, where they were being subjected to the same training and same expectations. Both Alex and Farhad added that interns in JurisTech deal with real-life scenarios, will be able to show their fullest potential, and work on real projects here. It’s an actual job.

Takeaway: Most definitely.

JurisTech is hiring all year round. Find out more on JurisTech.net’s Internship and Join Us pages.

9. What are the internship positions available at the moment in JurisTech?

 
We accept internships all year round, according to Naaman. There are generally two positions available, software engineer and business/systems analyst, though occasionally we hire interns for other departments, like HR, for instance. The timing and stringency of the hiring process changes. It is a bit tightened now for obvious reasons, so one needs to perform better in the assessment and interview sessions mentioned earlier, to be eligible.

Takeaway: Open all year round. Visit https://juristech.net/juristech/internship/ for more information.

10. I’m an MBIS student, getting a master’s degree. Are there any jobs or internships available in JurisTech for me?

 
MBIS in Monash is master of business information systems, and Naaman pointed out that the business analyst position is a suitable start for graduates in this area. Or course, one should drop their CV to HR and go through the assessment, the latter of which could help JurisTech determine if the person is eligible to be, say, a consultant, or join the artificial intelligence (AI) team.

He also reiterated what was mentioned earlier, regarding students not knowing what to do after graduating. To that, he said that you must find what you’re passionate about, what you’re good at, and work as best as you can towards the two, even if your current profession doesn’t meet them yet.

Takeaway: A dream job is almost never an entry-level position. Work your way towards it.

11. What do you look for in software engineering interns other than their CGPA?

 
Naaman stressed that, while CGPA is used as a means to filter out applications, ultimately, what matters is whether or not you can code. Even if the only language you know is SAP’s advanced business application programming (ABAP), if you can code and ace JurisTech’s logic assessment, that’s all that matters. For what Alex said earlier in this talk, if you know coding already, you could pick up a new programming language easily.

Takeaway: If there are just two things that exams actually test, they are memory and time management. Real life is more than that.

JurisTech presales manager Alex Tong shared his experience as a student, a software engineer, and now, a presales manager.

12. What kinds of interview questions will JurisTech ask for the software engineer role? Data structures and algorithms?

 
Alex, while he joined JurisTech as a software engineer, can be considered a part-time coder now, for he has since joined our presales department not long ago to assist in the ‘solutioning’ process for our clients (which still involves some coding).

He said that our assessment is like an exam with a series of questions. Some are objective, while some will require you to provide conditional (if-then) statements written in pseudocode, a description of steps in an algorithm written in plain English. This is so that your logical thinking skills are tested, without you having to have knowledge in any programming language. Mind you that everyone will have to go through these assessments, programmer or not. Those applying for non-software engineer roles need not worry if they don’t score well here, but we pay special attention in this area for software engineer applicants.

Interview questions are more dynamic, depending on the applied role, and data structure questions may only come up for positions such as a data scientist.

Takeaway: Assessments and interviews are not exams you must ace. It’s more like a way for employers to get to know you more – to see if you’re the right fit.

13. How does one become a data scientist?

 
While at the time of writing, JurisTech is hiring a Junior Data Scientist, Naaman said that you’ll first need to ask yourself, ‘Why?’ as most people do not quite understand that role.

He randomly likened it to the role of a microwave maker. If you love microwaves and want to work in a restaurant, said eatery doesn’t need a person who can build one – just a person who can operate it. Most of the time, it is not about building the algorithm, because algorithms for XGBoosting and random foresting have been built and available as proprietary or open source software.

Instead, data science is all about numbers and models, about tweaking and manipulating data, boosting the model’s accuracy, etc. More often than not, folks who signed up to be a data scientist get disillusioned because they were expecting something else. But that’s the heart of AI – ‘working with numbers’.

Takeaway: By loving maths and being really good at it. And knowing your way around programming.

14. What do data engineers and data analysts actually do?

 
A data engineer, according to Naaman, is involved in a lot of data preparation. He or she sets up the data pipeline to process data from different sources, into a desirable format that’s presentable to business users.

A data analyst, generally, analyses data using statistics, presents said data in an at-a-glance dashboard, and extracts data into comprehensive reports, all for the purpose of turning data into insights.

Takeaway: Google is your friend.

15. What does presales do?

 
Alex, who is now in the presales business unit, is the right person to answer the question. He reminded us that our sales department, like any other (except better), is good with discovering the right lead to contact, maintains a good relationship with clients, etc. The presales team supports the sales team, as presales is made up of product experts who have in-depth knowledge of JurisTech software solutions.

Their in-depth knowledge transcends products, well into other areas including customising and mapping our solutions to customers’ pain points, preparing comprehensive request for information (RFI) and request for proposal (RFP) documents, running demonstrations and proof of concepts (PoC) of our solutions to clients, as well as making sure a project initiation is smooth as they hand it off to the project team.

Naaman added that another way to think of presales is that they’re the technical sales support team for our sales department.

Takeaway: Presales, professional product people preceding purchasing phase.

16. How’s the career growth like at JurisTech?

 
Farhad made it a point that a great company to work for is not just one with a vertical path to grow, but the option to horizontally switch to another path as well. He said that in JurisTech, there are a number of options for you to choose who you want to be, and it’s easy to grow here if you work hard and learn from your seniors.

Alex joined as a software engineer where he became a technical lead and worked on bigger and bigger projects. Dittoing Farhad, he said that when he wanted to move to presales, that option was available for him. Using his knowledge and experience as a coder, he is now helping presales to ‘solutionise’ the architecture for clients, among other things.

Takeaway: A vertical career growth allows you to master other people, but a horizontal career growth allows you to master yourself.

17. Is employment impacted during this COVID-19 time, and is it easier or harder?

 
Alex noted that for most industries, employment is negatively impacted, but not necessarily because they’re not doing well. Some are just scaling back and acting conservatively, due to the uncertainty of how the economy will be in the future. As a result, they may not be hiring, whether or not they are in need of people. That said, if there really is demand, and if you have the skill set for a specific role, you will still get hired.

Farhad added that this is a good time to tell whether or not a company is doing well. If they are expanding during this uncertain period, it is a good sign that they will grow even more in a normal period.

Takeaway: This is a difficult one. While it is good to be able to specialise in a particular field and work your way up – a specialist, it is also crucial to be able to quickly learn and do new things – a generalist. Perhaps the best choice is to find out which one you are and stick to it, specialist or generalist. Don’t try to be someone you’re not.

18. What is the career progression of a business analyst in JurisTech, and what do you look for in a candidate who doesn’t have a business background for that role?

 
Farhad pointed out that many folks in JurisTech come from different academic backgrounds. The two-week training after joining will equip you with everything you need to start. However, the real experience comes in when interacting with colleagues and clients, as well as when doing the actual work. Therefore, he said, your career will be built throughout your journey in JurisTech, as you have the opportunity, as a business analyst, to be a consultant or a manager.

Naaman commented that the business analyst role is the most versatile in the company, where one can progress to be a business unit manager, project manager, or subject-matter expert. Senior hires can hit the ground running, while junior hires need not worry if they are meticulous, good in critical and logical thinking, proficient in mathematics and English, etc. The hiring decision is made based on the assessment results as well as the interview. He noted that we even hired a fashion designer before to be a business analyst.

Takeaway: The world is your oyster. You don’t necessarily need to work on what you’ve studied, as what you’ve learned at school equips you to do more than you think.

JurisTech product manager Farhad Shababi recounted his journey in JurisTech as a business analyst and what he has learned along the way.

19. Farhad, how was your journey to find your journey? Did you do any internship?

 
When Farhad graduated from Monash many Julys ago, he wanted a career in finance, and was hesitant when he first discovered JurisTech, because we’re a (fin)tech company. But this ties back to the first tip, which is to first identify the field of interest – which is business/finance consultancy in his case. Industry comes second, and in this case, fintech is an industry that Farhad would later prove to be proficient in. He joined JurisTech in September in the same year.

Speaking of industry, Farhad also mentioned that he did a three-month internship in an oil and gas company, but alas, somehow the industry and the career growth opportunity in the company was not the right fit for him. But he kept looking, which led him to JurisTech.

He said that his and everyone else’s path to grow here is flexible where we could work with other business units, and if they choose to, have the opportunity to join the other departments to grow further. The paths options are available. The best example he gave was someone in his team who joined as a business analyst, but is now a software engineer.

This is not to say that any particular position isn’t important enough, and we’re just passing through while we work our way to the position we want. There is a reason why such positions exist and everyone plays an integral role in the success of a company. In JurisTech’s case, it is to craft enterprise-class software solutions for financial institutions which will trickle down to make people’s financial lives more enriched.

Takeaway: Find something you’re passionate about, good at, able to help people with, and get paid for. More on this later.

20. Fondest memories of Monash and JurisTech?

 
For Farhad, he was the president of the exchange club at Monash Malaysia for two semesters, where he met a lot of Monash Australia students while they were visiting. The silver lining to the COVID-19 situation, where he is stranded in Australia while working alongside a JurisTech client on a project, is that he got to meet said Monash Australia alumni again, most of which he still kept in touch with.

Naaman directed a different question to Alex, asking him what’s his fondest memory of working at JurisTech. For Alex, it is the many occasions he spent working with various JurisTech teams, where, regardless of how daunting the tasks at hand were (rushing a deadline, seemingly unsolvable issue, etc), they were able to pull it off, together as a team. The sense of camaraderie extends to hours beyond work, where they would do things like luncheon and even after-work sports together, further reinforcing their work relationship.

Takeaway: People don’t love their organisations; they love the people they work with.

Bonus: How to find your purpose

You do not find your calling – you fight for it. Image by Emily Pidgeon on ideas.ted.com.

Many years ago I stumbled upon an ideas.ted.com article called, ‘7 lessons about finding the work you were meant to do’, about finding fighting for your calling. Here, there is a Venn diagram made up of three things:

• Doing something you’re good at
• Feeling appreciated
• Making people’s lives better.

The cross section where the three things meet – that’s your calling.

This escalated quickly. With the help of this Venn diagram, find your reason for being, which is also known as your purpose or ikigai. Image from Big Think.

When trying to look further into this, a more common Venn diagram started popping up – this one from Big Think has a taller order of helping you identify your purpose. It has four circles:

• What you really love
• What you are good at
• What the world needs
• What you can get paid for.

I suppose you could lump the first diagram’s ‘feeling appreciated’, and ‘making people’s lives better’ to make ‘what the world needs’ in the second diagram. In that case, your calling, in the context of the second diagram, is any of the three things: (Guess which one’s preferable?)

• Delighted and fulfilled, but broke.
• Comfortable, but bored and empty.
• Your purpose, or ‘ikigai’.

‘Iki’ means ‘life’, while ‘gai’ means ‘value’ or ‘worth’, and ikigai is a Japanese concept that roughly translates to ‘that which makes life worth living’. Though your calling is to use what you’re good at to make people’s lives better by giving what the world needs, it is important to introduce the factor of you actually loving what you do. And let’s be realistic here; you would still need to be paid for your work, in order to make a living.

A career is anything that overlaps the circle in which you get paid for the work you do. Most people may have two circles overlapping, three even, if they work hard enough, but only a few managed to achieve all four, to have that sense of purpose, at least in their careers. To achieve ikigai, you’d have to plan your way towards it, all while continuously learning, and having the grit to stick to your goals. May you find your purpose. Unless, of course, if you want to be an influencer. The world doesn’t need that.

Takeaway: Identify your ikigai and everything else will be clear. But you can’t easily find it – you’d have to fight for it.

About JurisTech

JurisTech (Juris Technologies) is a leading Malaysian-based fintech company, specialising in enterprise-class software solutions for banks, financial institutions, and telecommunications companies in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

The post Monash webinar: 20 tips to build your career plan at JurisTech (and beyond) appeared first on JurisTech.

The following tips for working from home were first shared by our CEO, See Wai Hun, to fellow Jurisians in our town hall meeting, right before the Movement Control Order (MCO) began, on 18 March 2020. Besides a conducive home environment for work, the company plays a huge role in the success of its workers being able to work from home smoothly. If there are crucial files needed on the office servers, but remote workers aren’t equipped with VPN access, they wouldn’t be able to get them.

JurisTech had anticipated the looming MCO even before it was officially announced, and took steps to prepare and execute a business continuity plan (BCP) detailed by our CTO, John Lim. What John didn’t mention though, was how we carried out certain logistics during MCO like the fact that we’re continuing to hire new talent, how we have preloaded new employees’ laptops with additional software to facilitate remote work, and how someone has to actually hand-deliver those laptops to new hires to ensure that they get it on time.

All that being said, it still pays to know the best practices to follow and trappings to avoid, while working from home. Here are six simple tips Wai Hun shared that day, plus our comments to expound on her points:

1. Set office hours and stick to them.

This is not a holiday, folks. We are still doing our stand-ups and we still have deadlines to meet. The good news of course is that you will not be stuck in the jam and you save hours on the commute.

Life, and work, goes on. For us to retain some semblance of normalcy, and to not disrupt the existing workflow too much, we retained our working hours. A lot of in-office experiences cannot be replicated, like serendipitous encounters with office mates, but synchronous communication is still crucial, to be able to get questions answered and discussions completed, fast. Therefore, we still maintained our regular daytime working hours so that we could work together.

To add to what Wai Hun said, one silver lining amidst this pandemic is that for folks like us fortunate enough to be able to work remotely, we have the opportunity to shave off hours otherwise used for commuting, to spend it on something a little more productive. More on this later.

2. Create a routine and prepare for the day.

That means you still have to take a bath, shower, and dress comfortably to start the day. Don’t be in your jammies the entire day.

There is a lot to unpack here, but you should already be in agreement with most, if not all of them.

We are indeed creatures of habit, and habits are important to us as they determine what’s your constitution. The saying ‘you are what you eat’ also applies here as what you do determines who you are. If you want to retain the same productivity level while working in the office, perform the same ‘rituals’ before, during, and after work. Shower the same way, dress the same way, eat the same way.

Speaking of dressing up, studies have found that the clothes we wear affects a whole range of things including but not limited to, our behaviour, confidence, mood, performance, personality, and even the way we communicate with others. Another way to think of it is this: if you’re going to be working from home for a while, why not put your existing work clothes to good use, rather than letting it collect dust?

3. Set up your workspace.

Yes, find a place at home that you can be comfortable in for you to sit, work, focus, sip your coffee, and communicate.

Just like what was mentioned in the beginning, we need the tools of our trades to be able to work productively. The skills, we already carry them with us, but the equipment, we would need to set it up at home the same way we have it in the office. The right mindset to have here is, that your home workstation should be set up with permanence in mind, as working from home may be a new normal for the foreseeable future. Everything you need and have at your office workstation – the ergonomic height of your external monitor, the coffee mug, the printer, the access to office files– should be set up at your home workstation as well. This has a bit to do with habit too; when you’re already used to a certain way of working, you’d want to maintain that flow, to know where things are.

4. Take regular breaks.

Have your lunch breaks and coffee breaks but stay productive.

It goes without saying that sleep, rest, and breaks are important. The irony is, the longer you spend time working without any breaks, the worse your productivity will be. Resting actually helps boost productivity the next time you’re back at work. Just like the set work hours and routines, you should take your usual breaks such as lunchtime and teatime, at the same times, even at home. This also means that close attention must be paid to the clock. Do not get carried away with work well into the night, now that you no longer need to commute.

5. Communicate!

Now that we don’t have face time, we can communicate and update our statuses on electronic channels. Jump on the phone if you need to, or Skype if you are unclear. You don’t have to be physically together to have virtual face time.

Communication is so important in any relationship, including working relationships. As mentioned earlier, unfortunately, what we lost from remote work is the lack of chance encounters with office mates you don’t usually work with. This is something that cannot be replicated with software. But for work-related communication, we still need to be on top of it. In fact, we might even need to double down on remote communication. Things that are often expressed in person, like quips and appreciation messages, can and should be continued over text, to build and maintain that sense of camaraderie. Our Heroes Training Academy (HTA) team leader, Sheryl, shared her experience on communication and leadership which you can read about, here.

However, it doesn’t mean that we should just find excuses to have video meetings all the time, but only when they make sense. The ‘Zoom fatigue’ we’ve been hearing about may have been partly due to anxiety over being watched in an otherwise private setting. That, and the overcompensation of organising more video meetings than needed. Video calls are still important as a once-a-day thing when assembling your team for your daily stand-up meeting, but most communication, if it can just be done over a voice call or text, it should.

6. Focus on the positives!

By saving time on the commute, you’ll have more time. You can use the time savings and the opportunity to be at home to read a book that you have always wanted to read, or cook your own lunch. Just ensure that you are productive and not sacrificing your work whilst enjoying the perks of working from home.

This expands on the first and second points earlier. Even though you gain a couple of hours by not commuting, you should still ‘commute’ to work. What we mean by that is, usually when you’re commuting to work, you might be listening to podcasts, some music, or an audiobook. You might even be playing some mobile games or learning Klingon on Duolingo. Even though you’re no longer commuting physically to work, you should still spend that time in the morning for your rituals, before starting work.

And there you have it. Six work-from-home tips that Wai Hun shared that, if practised well, let us perform just as productively, if not more. In these uncertain times, it helps for us to regain some control and sense of normalcy. While you’re at it, also remember to take care, be safe, wash your hands, wear your mask, maintain that social distancing, and lift someone up today.

About JurisTech

JurisTech (Juris Technologies) is a leading Malaysian-based fintech company, specialising in enterprise-class software solutions for banks, financial institutions, and telecommunications companies in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

The post Wai Hun shared a few work-from-home tips appeared first on JurisTech.

Image: Jurisians at work together.

In his Stanford University Commencement address on 12 June, 2005, Steve Jobs said, ‘Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.’

It was an apt statement considering that the audience were graduates. But the fact remains even for those in the workforce for a while now. Because a huge chunk of our lives will be spent working, it is imperative then, for companies to instill a healthy culture of engaged workers, regardless of industry.

But what is a company culture, and why is employee engagement so important, anyway?

Organisational culture and its importance

Graph: Google Ngram Viewer for ‘corporate culture’ and its variants.

A search on Google Ngram Viewer for ‘corporate culture’ and its variants showed that the phrase first popped up in the early 1900s as the Second Industrial Revolution was in full swing. During this period, industries that arise such as banking, insurance, petroleum, rail, retail, and telegraphy, grew exponentially and more contemporary jobs were created. It took another six decades, but by the 1960s, the awareness of culture, not just in businesses but in other organisations such as universities, began to build. This was also the time when we began to take people’s well-being more seriously – to not treat workers as just cogs in the machine, but unique individuals that contribute to the growth of any organisation.

Contemporary company culture is described as a character or personality of a company. It includes general behaviours and beliefs, values instilled company-wide, management practices, work environment, and employee communications and relations. While company culture can be influenced from the top by national cultures and traditions, or from the bottom by employees themselves, it should be purposefully nurtured by the company itself. A culture of an organisation is simply too important to let it form organically.

Now, cultural fit can cut both ways. When there is a fit, workers are more likely to engage with the businesses of their company, and therefore be more productive. However, whenever there is a cultural misfit, through no fault of the company or the employee, it could take the pleasure out of work. For instance, a person may prefer working independently but works for a company that encourages constant collaboration. Therefore, it goes without saying that a company culture is important to employees whether they realise it or not.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean a company should only hire employees that fit its existing culture, as we will discuss later.

Employee engagement and its importance

We all intuitively know that engaged employees are ones that display a great deal of energy, enthusiasm, and motivation, which, in turn, convert into higher levels of creativity, performance, and productivity. Besides higher revenues and profits for companies, more engaged employees also mean increased satisfaction levels and retention rates. On the flip side, employees that are generally considered to exhibit low levels of engagement, tend to experience burnout, leading to lower output and higher turnover rates.

Remember the Steve Jobs quote earlier? If we’re going to be spending a long time working, the only way to be truly satisfied is to do great work that you love and believe in.

Engagement is a reflection of personality and culture

In recent years, it was believed that employee engagement depends mainly on extrinsic factors such as the nature of the job itself, the management, or the culture of the company. However, an HBR article offered a contrarian view, though not necessarily supporting that view, where engagement and motivation could also be due to intrinsic factors such as personality. Traditionally, this was a common view by companies, way before employee engagement was even a subject of discussion. This led to companies usually preferring to hire already engaged workers – generally positive go-getters who display a consistent level of dedication, regardless of situation.

The article cited a meta-analysis of 114 independent surveys of almost 45,000 employees in various countries. The findings of the analysis were notable, in that almost 50% of the engagement variables could be attributed to employees’ personalities, specifically, positive affect, proactivity, conscientiousness, and extraversion. This means that those that are more enthusiastic, optimistic, and positive, tend to display more ‘engagement’.

Companies looking for a quick fix to increase employee engagement, might be quick to reaffirm their notion that hiring generally positive people is the right way to go. However, this comes with its own set of drawbacks.

Cognitive diversity is as important as cultural diversity

The same piece also pointed out four caveats to think of, if companies only pick so-called ‘engageable’ employees.

Firstly, remember that personality only accounts for half of the engagement drivers. The other half is still based on extrinsic factors such as those mentioned earlier. While an employee’s grievances might be biased by their own personality, any problems faced could also be experienced by everyone, company-wide. To ignore these individuals, will not solve any of the company-wide problems.

Secondly, the issues raised may not be unfounded. And the employees’ raising said issues are indeed engaging with the company, just not necessarily in a way that the company agrees with. And naturally critical employees don’t necessarily mean they’re not resilient. If the emphasis on positivity traits like optimism and resilience is placed during the hiring process, a company may risk making cultural or operational issues harder to spot, when using employee surveys as signals. An analogue of this would be, a restaurant, instead of looking to raise the quality of the food and service to improve ratings, went on to only accept customers with lower expectations and standards.

Thirdly, speaking of critical employees, many innovators and pioneers we revere tend to be those who are not happy with how things are, and are looking to challenge and change the status quo, not for the sake of it, but to improve things. Screening these people out early on will definitely boost employee engagement in the short term, but innovation may suffer in the long term. People who are naturally content with how things are, are also naturally not looking to change things up.

Lastly, all this is to reinforce the fact that diversity in any company is crucial. When building a highly effective team, one mustn’t look for like-minded people who merely compliment each other, but diverse people who complement each other as well. We’re not just talking about cultural diversity here, but cognitive diversity, too. Cognitive diversity is when there is a variety in thinking, feeling, and acting – all of which will only lead to many distinct ideas and dissimilar eyes to spot potential pitfalls. That way, a monocultural society without the luxury of cultural diversity, could still benefit from having diverse ideas.

Don’t get me wrong, both sides of the equation are, well, equally important. We’ve established at length the need for critical employees, as long as their goals are aligned. However, naturally optimistic, positive, and proactive employees will also guide the team to be resilient through adversity, look for new opportunities, and keep morale high. We need to accept that this dynamic is necessary for a highly effective team.

Don’t just increase engagement superficially

Perhaps, we’ve been looking at employee engagement all wrong.

Often, when a company is looking to increase employee engagement, they may not even fully understand what engagement actually means in this context. Not understanding this may lead to superficial actions to promote ‘engagement’ in the form of getting employees to join company events unnecessarily, or forcing everyone to be more agreeable. Perhaps, employees offering dissenting opinions are an act of engagement, just not in the form you agree with. Perhaps, disengaged employees are a sign of unaddressed issues, and that disengagement is an act of engagement too, albeit an indirect one.

Companies should not dismiss employee engagements they don’t agree with, especially when they’re coming from employees who mean well. Instead, they should look to address looming issues, after which, employee engagements they do agree with will follow naturally.

Of course, hiring the right people is still important, to make sure their values and talents and purpose and goals are aligned. But just like ‘engagement’, the definition of ‘talent’ has to be expanded to cover a more culturally and cognitively diverse group of people.

We talked about how we can’t directly change intrinsic factors besides hiring (or not hiring) certain people. However, extrinsic factors remain equally as important and can be addressed directly by companies looking to improve employee engagement. In fact, to naturally promote healthy engagement, the company culture can be molded to encourage constructive feedback, to have inclusive company activities, to form an ethics committee to ensure all endeavours are conducted ethically and in accordance with the law, etc. The list goes on. Rather than hiring people that fit the existing company culture, the company culture should constantly evolve and update itself, to fit its people.

The Steve Jobs quote at the beginning of this piece about loving what you do, is continued with, ‘If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.’

While his target audience were graduates, the same sentiment applies to companies too. Some companies, after having found something that worked many years ago, just stuck to the old ways of doing things. To have a growth mindset is to have an open mind to continuously improve the culture and processes, based on data and results. Don’t settle.

About JurisTech

JurisTech (Juris Technologies) is a leading Malaysian-based fintech company, specialising in enterprise-class software solutions for banks, financial institutions, and telecommunications companies in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

Our 200+ Jurisians consist of not just technical engineers and data scientists, but business domain and subject-matter experts as well. This ensures that our solutions are addressing needs in a holistic manner. We employ people from various countries and fields, including those without technical backgrounds but have expertise in areas valuable to the business.

One of the ways we nurture our culture is by practising our GECO core values, Growing Heroes, Making Excellence Happen, Customer First, and Opening Up. Besides organising inclusive activities frequently, we also keep Jurisians on the same page by having monthly town hall meetings and by updating them through our Footsteps app.

The post You may be looking at employee engagement all wrong appeared first on JurisTech.

Our JurisTech co-founder and CEO, See Wai Hun, has been interviewed and featured by many over the years: The Star in 2014, BFM in 2015 and 2020, New Straits Times in 2015, and Digital News Asia twice in 2016 (here and here), just to name a few. However, the usual origin story we heard from these articles was how JurisTech was founded in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis when it was believed to be the worst time to start a business. That story of how Wai Hun got into fintech with her co-founders is now the stuff of legend. But have you heard of the origin story of why Wai Hun got into fintech?

Not long ago, JurisTech was approached by The Peak Malaysia, a luxury lifestyle magazine for entrepreneurs and C-suite executives, to feature Wai Hun in their cover story for March 2020. What seemed like another re-telling of JurisTech’s founding, turned out to be way more insightful, even for long-time Jurisians, on why Wai Hun does what she does.

The interview with The Peak’s Ellfian Rahim took place back in January 2020 at the posh EQ Kuala Lumpur Hotel, but not before the make-up and photo shoot sessions. You could check out two of the photos at The Peak’s article of Wai Hun (link at the end of the article).

Of course, during the interview, the obligatory JurisTech origin story is still there. But what’s poetic this time is that, in a way, it has come full circle for Wai Hun recently, as she was awarded EY Woman Entrepreneur Of The Year 2019, having worked there right after graduating from university.

Wai Hun revealed more about herself in this interview session. For starters, she expressed her gratitude towards the EY award, for JurisTech is a business-to-business company and it wouldn’t garner as much attention as a business-to-consumer company, if it wasn’t for the awards JurisTech and her amassed over the years.

While the publicity is beneficial to the business itself, this is Wai Hun we’re talking about here, the person who looks at multiple angles to gain a new perspective. Gaining visibility here also means that JurisTech could attract a more diverse group of people from different educational backgrounds including non-tech folks, not to mention getting more women to join tech to narrow the gap.

The other thing that stood out throughout the interview was that Wai Hun is an inherently curious person, always trying out and learning new things. This is evident during her school, college, and university years. She went from science stream, to arts stream, back to science stream again, then to ACCA studies, all the way to Computer Science, never afraid to change once she found her new calling. Growing up, her father also taught her the ways of organisational development through balanced scorecard, strategy handling, and meeting management. All this has shaped her into the person she is, a person knowledgeable in many areas, and strongly believe that anyone could excel in the tech industry through passion and proper training, even if they don’t have a tech background.

Often, when you’re reading a profile about someone successful that you look up to, you want to find out that secret formula to emulate. Besides the hard work, the belief in strength in diversity, and the curiosity to keep learning, I think two of the strongest values Wai Hun has is her courage of conviction – to go forth and do what she believes in; and the courage to course-correct even when there is a sunk cost – the audacity to be fickle and keep trying until you find what you love.

As to why Wai Hun got into fintech, it has to do with passion, but not exactly the way you think. Besides her educational and familial history, equipping her with the knowledge of both finance and technology, we actually went and asked Wai Hun about this, about the why. She said that it was a case of serendipity or what she calls a ‘God-incidence’, where whichever direction she turned to, she’d always ended up pursuing what she loved, which, in this case, is science and technology. The key phrase here is, ‘whichever direction she turned to’, because all of these would not have happened, if she didn’t just go and try them out. To have passion is one thing, but to pursue it is another. During the EcoWorld Women’s Summit 2019 last year, Wai Hun was asked about how young women should pursue their passion, to which she said, ‘I believe passion is overrated. If you want to do something, or rather want to get something done, even if it is something you do not like, you have to grit your teeth and strive to get it done. And once you become skilled in that line of work, you suddenly discover you are passionate about it. You can make yourself passionate about anything, as long as you want it badly enough.’

Got your interest piqued? The summary here is merely a takeaway from the piece, and there are lots more covered at The Peak’s feature story of Wai Hun, here. Registration and login are required to read, but trust me, it’s worth the speed bump. Alternatively, we’ve also uploaded the PDF version of the cover story, a representation of how it looks like in the physical magazine, which you can check out, here.

The post The Peak features JurisTech CEO See Wai Hun as she hits new highs appeared first on JurisTech.

Image: Marlyn Wescoff (standing) and Ruth Lichterman reprogram the ENIAC in 1946.
Credit: Wikipedia.

The title of the first computer programmer is often credited to a woman by the name of Ada Lovelace. Working on Charles Babbage’s proposed general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, she described in her notes an algorithm for the computer to compute Bernoulli numbers. The Analytical Engine was never completely built, but Lovelace’s algorithm is often regarded as the world’s first computer program. If you’re wondering what type of ‘PC’ this Analytical Engine was, you’re asking the wrong question. Babbage began his design of the Analytical Engine in circa 1833, a century before the advent of the digital computer.

In fact, historically, the term ‘computer’ was used from the early 17th century to mean the one who computes. Women were generally excluded from computing work, until they were increasingly involved from the late 19th century. By 1880, all of the Harvard Observatory’s human computers were women. During both world wars, women were hired to calculate ballistics and cryptography. Grace Hopper was the first to create a compiler for a programming language. NACA, which later became NASA, recruited women computers from the 1930s through the 1960s to solve problems for engineers, which led to the US winning the space race.

The drop

Image: Graph showing a drop in the percentage of women majoring in computer science.
Credit: NPR.

The trend of women studying and working in computing and technology were on the up, until the 1980s – specifically, 1984. NPR’s Planet Money investigated and found out that beginning in the mid 1980s, you could no longer succeed in a computer science programme without having a home computer to practise with. Back then, computers were often marketed as toys, and toy advertisements are generally targeted to one gender, in this case, to boys.

This became a narrative that perpetuates itself, seeping into other popular cultures such as movies and books. This is not to mention the persistent sexism and bias that continue to exist, of not equally recognising women’s contribution in tech, and the sidelining of women from tech opportunities.

While women are increasingly enrolling in law, medical, and physical science courses, the computer science numbers continue to plunge, down to under 20% of women majoring in computer science in the US today.

The dichotomy

Image: The number of male and female students who choose and continue with – or fail/withdraw from – CS/IT programmes at the University of Malaya.
Credit: Carnegie Mellon University.

This is where Malaysia comes in. While the US culture has a strong influence worldwide, Malaysia seems to buck this trend, at least in the computer science education space. A 2006 study published by Carnegie Mellon University found that there is no gender bias on the perception of computer science (CS) or information technology (IT), leading to higher women enrollment in CS/IT programmes. In fact, at the University of Malaya in the late 1990s and the first half of 2000s, the percentage of intake of female students is mostly higher than male students for CS and IT bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

The study noted that this could be due to a higher number of female role models and mentors like a dean, department heads, and faculty lecturers in both the University of Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, at which the study was conducted. Malaysia is also fortunate enough to have a very high computer ownership, at least in the universities studied, with little difference between female and male students (88% and 94%, respectively). The high computer ownership certainly addresses the issue mentioned earlier, where young women in the 1980s studying computer science didn’t have access to a personal computer after university hours.

The platforms

One positive influence that Malaysia did adopt from abroad is the many programmes that support and empower women who are interested in tech to actually pursue this path. The two we’re going to talk about are, a not-for-profit organisation, Women Who Code Kuala Lumpur, and a Google initiative, Women Techmakers.

Image/Credit: Women Who Code.

Launched in September 2014, Women Who Code Kuala Lumpur (WWC) aims to inspire women to excel in technology careers. Members of WWC get to benefit from its wide network to get coding resources, leadership opportunities, a global community to advance technical skills, the WWC job board, scholarships and free conference tickets, plus a platform to give and receive recognition for professional achievements.

Though focusing towards women, WWC does not exclude men. JurisTech co-hosted an event back in 10 August 2018, where Agile evangelist Andre Rubin talked about what lies beyond the code and how to deliver meaningful results rather than just meeting deadlines.

Launched in 2015, the Kuala Lumpur chapter of the Women Techmaker programme by Google also has a similar aim, providing visibility, community, and resources for women in tech. Members get access to communities, hands-on workshops, mentorship, networking opportunities, programmes, resources, scholarships, you name it.

The exemplars

Speaking of role models earlier, especially after graduation and in the workforce, Malaysia has quite a number of women leaders in tech, too. We don’t have to look far; our JurisTech CEO, See Wai Hun has been our visionary founder and leader for decades now. But here today, we just want to highlight a couple.

Image: Tan Hooi Ling.
Credit: Grab.

KL-ite Tan Hooi Ling, with Anthony Tan, came up with the idea of a ride-hailing service, Grab, then-called MyTeksi/GrabTaxi, after they met while studying at Harvard Business School (HBS). Their business plan was the runner-up of HBS New Venture Competition 2011, which gave them US$25,000, along with access to external resources like advisers. Launched in 2012, Grab was already inclusive right from the start, where customers could book a ride on Android, iOS, the web, and even Windows 8 and via SMS. She left Grab to serve out her bond with McKinsey & Company, that sponsored her to HBS, but after a brief stint there and at SalesForce, she came back in April 2015 to be the chief operating officer of Grab, a superstar company with a valuation of around US$14 billion as of March 2019.

Image: Goh Ai Ching.
Credit: Piktochart.

Another one of our favourite women in tech, is none other than Goh Ai Ching, who co-founded Piktochart in March 2012, along with Andrea Zaggia (CTO) in Penang, Malaysia. Known for her caring and relational nature, Goh, developed a mindset of ‘speak truth to love’, where she channels her nurturing nature to develop her team, while still being able to be upfront with candor to drive the team forward. A strong proponent in nurturing a healthy work culture, she looks for seven core qualities when hiring – humble, open, passionate, excellent, fun-loving, user-focused, and loving – HOPEFUL. It was reported that as of 2018, Piktochart has been used by over 11 million people worldwide. Oh, and fun fact: a similar service called Canva, which you may have heard of, was also co-founded by a woman, Melanie Perkins, along with co-founders Clifford Obrecht and Cameron Adams, just two months before Piktochart started.

The takeaway

Image: Honeypot’s 2018 Women in Tech Index.
Credit: Honeypot.

According to the World Bank’s report from September 2019, women comprised only 39% of the total Malaysian labour force, and it is certain that the percentage of women in Malaysia doing tech jobs, is even smaller.

While we don’t have that data for Malaysia, and the number varies by country, a study by Honeypot in 2018 revealed that in the US, only 24.61% of the tech workforce are women. The highest number in the study (which only covered 41 countries) goes to Bulgaria, at 30.28%.

It has been proven in countless studies that diversity is good, and such proof exists in nature as well. We at JurisTech firmly believe in diversity and are working hard towards achieving equality, with 10 out of our 19 business units heads, are women – more than half. That said, we are currently at one third female in the JurisTech workforce, or around 33.33%.

While our numbers are optimistic, we still have a lot more work to do to remove all the barriers to women workers, which, if so, will lead to Malaysia’s income per capita to grow by 26.2%, according to the World Bank. We have to continue to work towards narrowing the gender gap, not just in the tech sector, but also in the whole labour force. And this shouldn’t just be the work of women alone, but all of us.

The post Women in tech: The Malaysian perspective appeared first on JurisTech.

When we think of a debt collection system, we think of a software used to gather, display, and plan for how to proceed with any particular loan account. Planning revolves around whether a collection campaign is required for a defaulted loan account, or whether said account will likely repay since it has a good history.

These are what a bank or financial institution officer need to determine, before taking any next steps. The system with which they use to process and plan the collection process has to cater towards the likelihood of repayment. The following are three of the most important features needed in an enterprise-class debt collection system that ensures that this can be achieved.

View by customer instead of by loan accounts

It is a given that debt collection systems should have the ability to import loan data piped in from an origination system. We all expect that. But often, most of these debt collection systems only display loans to be collected, on an account-by-account view. The problem with that is, most of the time, a single customer may have more than one outstanding loan account involved, and that hampers bank personnel to get a higher-level overview about the borrower and their ability to repay.

For better handling, a great enterprise-class debt collection system should come baked in with the ability to view grouped loan accounts by customer. This will greatly streamline the collection process for banks, as their collection agents could see all the loan accounts tied to a particular customer. That way, they need not have to contact the same customer over and over again for different loans.

Intuitive interface for flexible collection strategies

Once a profile is loaded with all the customer’s loan accounts in full view, the next challenges are to make sense of all the information displayed, and to determine the next steps, should a collection campaign is needed for a particular customer or loan account. While debt collection systems are perfectly adequate in gathering information, said information is usually not being displayed in an easy manner for the officers and agents to figure out what to do next.

Customer profiling and collection strategies are arguably two of the most important elements in the entire debt collection process. Customer profiling is merely a way to create a portrait of a customer based on data the system already has, to determine the standing and likelihood to repay.

A strategy is a particular configuration of treatments (emails, calls, field visits, etc), set to be deployed each at predetermined times, and applied to a specific segment of the customer base. A great debt collection software usually houses multiple strategies, to cater towards different customer segments. The most fundamental version of the approach in designing strategies is using the value vs collectability matrix:

• High value, low collectability: more aggressive strategy.
• High value, high collectability: field visits.
• Low value, low collectability: send reminders.
• Low value, high collectability: call campaigns.

Value vs Collectability Matrix

A great collection software could gather and display the data available in a way that make sense, for bank personnel to determine the next actions. It needs to have a simple-yet-scalable user interface (UI) with drag-and-drop capabilities. Its user-configurable profile, strategy, and treatment must also be flexible enough so that they can be tweaked on the fly to determine the best approach.

Scalable software

Most of the time, when it comes to scalability, most debt collection systems falter. It is one thing to have an intuitive user interface, but it is a whole other level to have a robust back end that could handle all the operation that is happening at the same time.

It is an absolute must, for a scalable debt collection system, to be able to handle millions of accounts, taking into consideration that the number of bank transactions are usually enormous. And any batch job that is required, be it sending reminder messages to customers that their payment is due, or a recurring backup of all new and updated transactions, has to be done optimally in the fastest way possible, to ensure that there is no bottleneck and no downtime.

Putting it all together

While a great enterprise-class debt collection system like Juris Collect is catered specifically for large banks, it can also handle smaller-scale financial institutions. The point is, it is highly scalable and just like how the software can be scaled up to handle larger workloads, it can also work well with smaller hardware setups.

Its robustness on the back end is paired exceptionally well with an intuitive front end that could display all the relevant information needed and guide the officers and collectors to plan for what’s next.

Finally, a great collection system has to put customers first – realising that there is actually an individual behind every loan account – and customising each approach depending on the customer, rather than the account.

The post Top three must-haves for an enterprise debt collection system appeared first on JurisTech.

Image credit: rawpixel.com on Freepik.com

Debt Collection: the most important part of trade

Debt collection has been an important part of trade ever since the concept of loan was introduced thousands of years ago. In fact, both loan and debt are concepts older than money itself, as they both occurred before the invention of money, during the time when bartering was the norm.

While origination may be the backbone of the loan life cycle, debt collection remains the most important facet of the whole process because it is the collection of interests through which profits are made. If a loan becomes non-performing and eventually turns into write-offs – forget the interest – there may not be a way to fully recover that loss again.

Current challenges

Debt collection wouldn’t face any issues if everyone cleared what they owed, on time and in full. But we wouldn’t be here if that was the case. Challenges in debt collection have always been around since the invention of debt. For starters, the human memory is fallible, and many would just simply forget to pay their debt, until they’re being reminded to.

Increasing NPLs during recession

It has been noted that the proportion of non-performing loans (NPL) for every loan disbursed has increased by more than 50% post-financial crisis of 2007 – 2008 and throughout the Great Recession. As the economy is still slowly recovering, it remains relatively flat, causing high unemployment rate, pressure on income, and rising level of consumer debt. All these lead to high and volatile delinquency rates worldwide. The World Bank’s report of ‘Bank nonperforming loans to total gross loans’ was at 4.288 percent in 2009. While there was volatility, dropping to 3.738 percent in 2012 only to rise to 4.162 percent in 2014, we are currently seeing a downward trend, at 3.448 percent as of 2017. Malaysia is doing particularly well in this case; we had a rate of 9.39 percent back in 2005 but it has been on a downward trend since, at 1.545 percent as of 2017. But globally as an aggregate, things could still improve.

Customer indebtedness and subsequent arrears have significant impact on financial institutions’ (FI) profitability. Rising NPL causes an increase in collection costs, bad debt write-offs, and provisions against loan losses – making the management of credit loss an utmost priority.

Cutting of costs

The spike in NPLs increases collection costs as FIs and agencies have to mobilise more personnel to deal with a higher number of delinquents. At the same time, this is tugging with the fact that the increase in bad debt loss and reduction in profit, reduces credit availability of FIs causing them to reduce operating costs as well.

Companies may now be limiting their hiring of field agents, or worse, initiating layoffs. Cost-cutting also tempts them to adopt a broad, blanket approach to arrears management. This is problematic as one size does not fit all. Should the blanket collection approach be too aggressive, it may risk estranging potentially profitable debtors who may just be going through a temporary period of financial troubles.

Old technology

Perhaps the most lasting impact of cost-cutting is on the technology, solution, and software used for collection. It creates dependency on outdated technology, not to mention the increased sluggishness in capitalising on significant jumps in new technologies.

A lot of collection companies are still sticking to legacy systems; most of them developed internally many years ago for specific credit or loan products. Because they’re highly customised, they have a limited feature set and lack the flexibility to extend beyond their original purposes for which they were designed. New features cannot be easily added by business users without the intervention of developers. Legacy infrastructure may also lack the scalability to handle spikes in network traffic, due to growing customers. Not to mention that there had to be different applications custom-built for different products, resulted in a bunch of different software to maintain. To top it all off, legacy solutions are probably still being maintained by the same software engineers who may not be able to fully hand over everything to the next generation of developers due to the incomprehensibility of legacy code for new coders.

Inefficient and ineffective processes

Highly manual processes in legacy code may also cause bottlenecks. These days, debtors have multiple debts with various creditors, and the earlier a creditor reaches a promise-to-pay (PTP) deal, the more likely said creditor will get paid before the rest. The further back a creditor is in the queue, the more likely their loan will end up as a default. Therefore, speed in processing customer debt information is imperative.

As FIs tend to delegate late-stage collections to third-party agencies, it was difficult for different organisations to coordinate their collection efforts due to their using of different systems. Coordination is important for various reasons including compliance with ever-changing government, law, policies, and industry guidelines.

The system has to be able to handle and process competing priorities. This is not just limited to prioritising the methods of contacting customers in a multichannel environment to maintain or improve customer experience during collection efforts. (Is it still effective to send letters to customers instead of the more immediate nature of SMS and phone calls?) It is also about prioritising the type of customers to contact first, in order to maximise collection profits or to reduce losses. All these while keeping in mind the reduced resources and increased debt climate we’re experiencing today, where new, efficient, and more effective strategies to collect debt is a must.

Inflexible collection strategies

If there is one thing that makes or breaks a debt collection software, it is in its collection strategies. Priorities can be thought through but as mentioned earlier, the cutting of costs may incentivise creditors to adopt a single collection approach and that is bound to be ineffective and inefficient. This is because no two debts are alike, and due to time and cost constraints, a lot of strategy ideas may go untested. The existing collection software may also not have the flexibility to easily integrate several strategies for testing purposes.

There are a number of perspectives on which the strategies could operate. While it is logical to first approach the collection strategy by the size of debt, it is instead better to use predictive models to estimate the potential collectable amount. Increasingly linear automation could also affect accurate assessment of the debt pool value – if the current strategy focuses on contacting debtors with low contactability and low willingness to pay, the many attempts to reach said debtors will be wasted, and that energy is better spent on contacting those with higher propensity to pay, for example.

Trends and what’s important

Before we dive into the features of Juris Collect and how it could address the aforementioned challenges, it pays to first identify what are the trends and what’s important to FIs too. According to The Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB) 2015 Technology Adoption & Investment Survey, the key value drivers for collections technology are:

• Reduce risks: 50%.
• Improve processes: 46%.
• Improve service and experience drivers: 23%.
• Comply with regulations: 23%.
• Keep up with competitors: 8%.

While all of the value drivers above are important, two of the most high-impact ones are to reduce risks and to improve processes. These two requirements should be kept top-of-mind when in the market to adopt a new collections solution or to upgrade an existing one.

Enter, Juris Collect

Juris Collect was one of the founding solutions of JurisTech when the company was formed in 1997, at the beginning of the Asian financial crisis. Our chief executive officer, See Wai Hun said in an earlier interview that we ‘started at the tail end of the debt value chain’ by way of offering software and services to help banks and lawyers manage litigation cases and take defaulters to court. The debt collection and legal recovery solutions proved to be ‘recession-proof’, as The Malaysian Reserve article noted. Our venture into debt collection and legal recovery with the creation of Juris Collect and Juris Legal became a huge success, the former of which turned into one of our tent-pole solutions.

Right from the start, we made Juris Collect with the goal to be an easily-but-fully configurable platform. Through this, various collection and recovery strategies can be implemented and tested for different segments of the customer base, to address the challenges detailed earlier. The system isn’t just designed for financial institutions; it is capable of handling collection operations from other industries such as utilities and telecommunications, both in public and commercial sectors. Juris Collect also comes complete with legal features such as civil, foreclosure, repossession, and write-off handling.

Stages in collection

Over here in JurisTech, we break down the debt collection process into seven chunks, here with their corresponding actions:

• First-time defaulter: special calling campaign.
• Habitual late payer: SMS reminders.
• Early delinquent: early-delinquent calling campaign.
• Late delinquent: calling campaign, rescheduling, restructuring, NPL managing, external agency.
• Write-off: write-off and write-back.
• Asset disposal: asset repossession and auction.
• Legal action: track letter of demand to execution.

Juris Collect modules

Juris Collect comes with modules for managing each stage of delinquency:

• Collection: strategise contact channels using predictive behavioural scoring.
• Recovery: manage late-stage accounts using proactive recovery strategies.
• Agency management: place hard-to-collect accounts in a fully collaborative framework.
• Legal recovery: recover debt by pursuing legal action including bankruptcy, writ of seizure and sale (WSS), judgment debtor summons (JDS), and winding up.
• Write-off: write-off accounts that have exhausted all avenues through interface-to-host and general ledger.

Artificial intelligence

Early on, we found that artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics are going to be the biggest differentiator in the debt management space. The longer an account goes delinquent, the less likely it will be repaid, therefore it is imperative to identify potential defaulters as early as possible.

Juris Collect is powered by an AI-based, self-learning technology that also incorporates behavioural scoring. It helps you implement and test various collection strategies for different types of customers to achieve the most efficient use of resources. The incorporated behavioural scoring tracks customers’ payment and contact patterns to maximise collection efforts by recommending the right pre-emptive measures for different delinquency tracks.

With the AI-based algorithm embedded, Juris Collect makes better predictions over time as it absorbs more data, and overall helps you identify potential NPLs with up to 90% accuracy, and up to six months ahead.

Dashboard with analytics

The comprehensive customer data captured in Juris Collect with the help of AI are then populated on a powerful dashboard with customer analytics. Said analytics can be based on collection and contact activities, account movement and flow-through for the various delinquency buckets, plus agency and legal productivity analysis.

This graphical dashboard reporting ensures that data are presented effectively to maximise comprehension.

Web-based user interface

Part of the ease of development and deployment is due to Juris Collect’s web-based nature. In fact, most of JurisTech’s solutions are web-based. The web-based software allows multiple developers to work on it at the same time while having testers examine the software without disrupting development. Compare that with an install-based software, where an updated code has to be uploaded back to the repositories before others can work on it. This significantly lowers not just development costs but operating and maintenance costs as well.

Being on the web, Juris Collect gives FIs the ability to automate, handle, and streamline the collection process in a single system, with information synced and accessible by anyone with a web browser and a connection.

Enhancing usability for collector effectiveness is also not overlooked here, because collection agents need to act fast according to the information they receive. The intuitive user interface with minimal learning curve allows anyone to quickly grasp it. The positioning of information in a single screen that makes sense, improves the user experience by maximising screen real estate and minimising clicks. All this is useful while gathering information, making decisions, and managing cases.

Customer-driven software

Unlike other collection solutions that are campaign-driven, Juris Collect is and will always be, customer-driven. It allows a 360-degree view of delinquent accounts, including information about whether or not an account treatment is effective after contacting the delinquent customer. Besides facilitating and tracking PTP installments, the system also manages both calls and collections. Putting it all together, the system remembers customers’ behaviours for the purposes of improving calling strategies.

When a customer information file (CIF) is pulled up, all key information is immediately displayed on the top row, like the overdue amount itself, months in arrears, last payment date, etc. The middle sections are for call history as well as for customer behaviour (aging buckets, payment behaviour, and activities since due). Actionable items are available on the same screen, like the contact status of the customer (promise to pay, uncontactable, etc), and the status of the case (rescheduling, repossession, etc).

Juris Workflow Engine

Juris Collect and almost every solution of ours come with the Juris Workflow Engine which is a key element of our systems. This core engine has a graphical user interface (GUI) with drag-and-drop features, built to be fast and scalable using PHP. This advanced workflow engine automates the collection process and the treatment of accounts receivable, in various stages. A typical workflow would look something like this:

Call customer > update outcome > decide on next action > skip tracing / PTP / refer to legal > monitor payment > repeat if necessary

Specifically for Juris Collect, Juris Workflow Engine allows for the creation and deployment of collection strategies. For each customer segment, strategies created consist of treatment steps and activities. These activities can be performed as an immediate step (run once immediately) or as a batch workflow (run daily, weekly, or monthly). Steps include contacting customers via phone calls, WhatsApp, SMS, email, and even the printing of reminder letters from PDF or Word. Of course, the frequency of these notices is fully configurable.

Self-cure prediction

Self-cure is a very important part of Juris Collect as it is the single, most-effective way to save on collection costs to avoid making less-than-optimal contact with customers. Usually in a pool of delinquents, there will be a significant portion of self-curing cases. Because FIs tend to not have enough personnel to contact all accounts, calling cases that are self-curing are considered unnecessary. Earlier, we mentioned that debtors have multiple debts with various creditors, and the earlier a creditor reaches a promise-to-pay (PTP) deal, the more likely said creditor will get paid before the rest. Therefore, it is imperative for FIs to quickly identify non-self-curing cases that are most likely to promise to pay, and contact them the soonest. Juris Collect could help with that, with its AI and predictive analytics.

Filtering delinquent accounts

Another important aspect of Juris Collect is its ability to filter delinquent accounts from core banking. Accounts from the core banking are loaded and inspected. Out of those accounts, those that have not exceeded one day past due (DPD) are given the all-clear. But for accounts that have exceeded one DPD, they will be sifted into the collection and recovery stages.

Segmentation and aging

Once an account is in the collection system, it undergoes segmentation based on criteria such as the type of loan product, previous records, tagging, geographical location, etc. These segments are then given different methods of treatment, based on a given customer’s DPD. For instance, the customer gets an email and SMS on one DPD, and a phone call on three DPD. Juris Collect supports automated generation, assistance for human agents, and mediation for outsourcing, on various channels for treatment:

• Automates in generation of: email, snail mail, WhatsApp, SMS, phone call.
• Assists in reaching via: SMS, phone call.
• Outsources to: debt collection agencies, lawyers.

Strategies

Juris Collect’s framework allows for a user-configurable profile, strategy, and treatment, to adapt to constant-changing needs. A strategy is a particular configuration of treatments (phone calls, emails), set to be deployed each in predetermined times, and applied to a specific segment of the customer base. A debt collection software usually houses multiple strategies, to cater to different customer segments. Strategies applied through the use of Juris Collect allow for an automated and streamlined collection and recovery processes.

The most fundamental version of the approach to design strategies is using the value vs collectability matrix:

• High value, low collectability: more aggressive strategy.
• High value, high collectability: field visits.
• Low value, low collectability: send reminders.
• Low value, high collectability: call campaigns.

Customer categorisation can be done through two methods, either with scorecards using the rule builder, or with predictive analytics using AI.

Each strategy can be broken down into several stages along the aging timeline. This allows the construction of different campaigns within a strategy, reflecting on real-world methods such as the automated reminder channels, assistance in facilitating the contact of customers, and outsourcing to agencies and lawyers.

There are typically two resolutions a customer could use to settle their arrears:

• Promise to pay (PTP): the customer receives a reminder and initiates an arrangement to pay (ATP) with the FI. After ATP, auto-reminders from Juris Collect will be turned off until repayment, or until the PTP date has passed.
• Rescheduling and restructuring (R&R): the customer submits a request to alter the terms of the loan before the rescheduling calculation happens. A credit report and debt ratio calculation are later made, before the approval and acceptance phase; all of which can be facilitated by Juris Collect as well.

Whiz and champion challenger

The strategy manager in Juris Collect, named Whiz, is a visual setup assistant that lets you make and maintain treatment strategies without requiring programming or configuration expertise. The campaign can be divided into stages by first defining the number of ‘buckets’ and the number of days in arrears in each bucket. Method of communication (call, SMS, WhatsApp, letter, email, etc) can be easily dragged-and-dropped into a bucket to create a treatment plan. The parameters of the communication method can be further adjusted, by adding/modifying the content, assigning it to someone, etc. On the same screen, the aging timeline can be viewed graphically in tabular format, complete with all the communication methods and corresponding DPD numbers. Once everything is configured and the ‘Start Strategy’ button is clicked, Juris Collect’s Whiz will do the rest. Of course, multiple profiles can be create including treatment for self-curing customers, bad paymasters, high-risk customers, etc.

Whiz is coupled with the champion/challenger module which allows for the creation of a champion strategy, which serves as a benchmark. You can then spawn a challenger strategy by tweaking some of the treatment settings, deploy both strategies, and compare their effectiveness. Based on the comparison, you can decide to either retain the existing champion strategy or promote the challenger strategy to be the new champion. This is an extremely effective tool to experiment with different strategies to maximise effectiveness.

Cases assignment and distribution

Whenever cases are distributed automatically, specific rules can be put in place to govern the assignment process so that it can be optimised. Here are some of the methods of assignment which can be implemented:

• Pool-based: customers’ cases are distributed to a pool of personnel who would be taking turns in performing their duties.
• Sticky collection: once a customer’s case is assigned to a member of staff, the staff will remain in charge should a future case of the same customer enters the collection system again.
• Worklist method: certain staff can view everything within the worklist and cherry-pick which case to work on, which also means that the staff could override the system distribution.
• Weighted: the number of cases received by a staff compared to others is adjusted according to certain considerations, like experience and seniority.
• Location-based: the distribution of cases takes into consideration the physical proximity between customers and staff members. Agents nearby are prioritised, while agents too distant can be prevented from being assigned faraway cases.
• Product-based: this method governs the relationship between the staff and loan product categories (eg: credit cards, mortgages, etc). Agents can be either be prioritised or prevented from being assigned to cases of particular products.
• Capping limit: sets an upper limit of the number of active cases which can be handled by a staff at any given time. Besides basing it on number of cases, you can also base it on the monetary value of cases.

Juris Collect’s distribution engine also allows you to collect by CIF or account, and perform centralised or decentralised collection by branch.

Collaboration, coordination, and gamification

Because FIs, lawyers, and collection agencies connect to the same system, Juris Collect facilitates collaboration among all parties that are involved. The collaboration and coordination are well-handled by the system all the way through to the late-stage collection phase, by capitalising on its multichannel contact capabilities via predictive dialler, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and physical letter.

Naturally, the ease of collaboration and coordination will improve the collections performance of agents, but we didn’t just stop there. Juris Collect also gamifies agency performance by measuring the value collected and number of days spent, as metrics. The leaderboard displayed is visible to all parties involved.

Localisation

The collection endeavour, at times, must be subject to multiple local procedures and policies. Juris Collect allows for these variations through localisation features, where activities and rules are aligned in accordance to appropriate, local regulations. Some countries exhibit standards and familiar regulations, while others – though still familiar – have the stages ordered differently. Some are very lax and have straightforward policies, while others have their procedures way more complex than usual.

A real-world example would be the differences between Malaysia and Vietnam. After judgment:

• In Malaysia, it will either proceed to: bankruptcy petition, prohibitory order, writ of seizure and sale, or garnishee order.
• In Vietnam, it will either proceed to: orders for specific performance, award for liquidated damages, or injunctive relief.

Integration with other JurisTech solutions

Juris Collect is an integrated solution that covers the whole collection life cycle end-to-end, from early-stage delinquency, to the final approval of write-off. This closed-loop collection ecosystem also ensures that contactability of a customer will be followed by an action with monitoring and tracking.

At every phase of the debt collection life cycle, we have other solutions to complement the workflow and its processes:

• Juris Mindcraft (early detection): predicting self-curing customers and behavioural scoring.
• Juris Astra (early-stage and late-stage collections): provides a complete outbound call-centre telephony solution.
• Juris Agency (collection agencies): connects debt collectors and FIs.
• Juris Legal (litigation): connects lawyers and FIs.

Another big differentiator is its ability to integrate with third-party services as well, such as CCRIS and CTOS.

Other features

Juris Collect packs a whole lot more we couldn’t cover here, but here are some of the notable ones:

• Scheduler: a built-in scheduler allows for the scheduling of data extraction and data processing jobs. They can be run on specific days of the week or month. This is useful for managing imports of multiple files which are then used for integration with other systems. The scheduler supports both text file transfers and imports.
• Customer repository: once data has been fed into Juris Collect, the customer repository engine will begin calculating DPD and month in arrears (MIA) from day one the delinquency occurs. Data includes information on the customer, contact, facility, security, billing and payment, number of occasions classified/declassified as non-performing, plus instances of invoices defaulted and their corresponding dates.
• Document template generator: users of Juris Collect can define standard credit proposal templates which can then be generated at any point during the collection life cycle. These documents support variables we called unified field objects (UFO) such as the account holder name, IC/ID number, address, etc. Management of these documents is easy as it allows storage for later retrieval, tracking of document status, and logging of document transaction.
• Remarks: you can find sections throughout Juris Collect for the purposes of inputting additional remarks. Remarks entered will appear in the customer case history, but the main remark will be displayed prominently at the top of the screen, each time a case is accessed. An example remark could be something like, ‘Don’t call the customer at this number.’
• Reports: Juris Collect contains a rich set of reporting functions that can be used to produce reports upon request, through menus or scheduled batch jobs. Of course, these generated reports can either be viewed on the screen, exported as Excel or PDF files, or printed. Reports include but not limited to: MIA movement report, team performance report, PTP report, aging report, skip tracing report, etc.

The JurisTech advantage

Juris Collect’s powerful features is but a reflection of JurisTech’s unique values and this is apparent in all our solutions as well. We have been incorporating AI in our software where applicable and the resulting predictive analytics is especially valuable in detecting self-curing customers, to be able to focus contact efforts efficiently. This efficiency in collection lends a positive impact on business financials. The single, web portal connects FIs, collection agencies, and solicitors together for a close collaboration. The collaboration is further enhanced through gamification to incentivise collection efforts. And by using the strategy manager, Whiz, it enables them to easily plan collection strategies and test them in the real world to see which one works best. The flexibility in configuring and using the system is also reflected in the same flexibility possible in capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX) of organisations that use Juris Collect.

Juris Collect was presented with MSC Malaysia APICTA 2012 Best of Financial Applications Award. In the same year, it also took on the Asia-Pacific stage to compete with other solutions from 13 member countries, and won the Merit Award in the prestigious ‘Best in Financial Applications’ category.

The post Addressing Debt Collection Challenges with Juris Collect appeared first on JurisTech.

The post GECOnites Episode 6: Posh Poche appeared first on JurisTech.

What is Agile?

Agile is a software development approach to making applications for all platforms including desktop, mobile, and the web. It has been gaining more traction these days over the waterfall model, especially in the information technology (IT) industry, and for good reason. Agile’s goal focuses on iteratively delivering high-quality, working software, which means that a working product can be shipped consistently, frequently, and on time. All these contribute to the lowering of project cost, while increasing the value that the project brings to the business.

The Agile methodology is an answer to some of the problems with traditional software development which may include:

• User requirements finalised too early, discouraging continuous improvements.
• Customers are unable to visualise the final product based on requirements.
• Disconnect between customer’s needs and project team’s development efforts.
• Lack of collaboration between customer and project team.
• Long development time before a finished product can be seen.
• Unforeseen changes may contribute to unforeseen costs and delays.

Agile aims to not only address all these challenges, but to also to improve on areas previously not optimal with traditional methodologies, like better collaboration with customers, plus better understanding of all aspects including customers’ industry, pain points, mission, vision, needs, and expectations.

Many organisations that went all-in with Agile have seen significant growth in all metrics mentioned earlier. However, challenges with Agile may arise too, if not implemented correctly, which we will be discussing later as well. But first, let’s go through a bit of Agile’s history.

Agile Manifesto and principles

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development (Agile Manifesto) was originally put together in 2001 by 17 signatories, declaring the values they believe in for developing software, based on their collective experiences in the field. In its entirety:

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

● Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
● Working software over comprehensive documentation
● Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
● Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.

© 2001, the above authors.
This declaration may be freely copied in any form,
but only in its entirety through this notice.

The four core values seen above are further expanded into the Twelve Principles of Agile Software:

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity – the art of maximising the amount of work not done – is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organising teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

Workflow of Agile

Equipped with the values and principles, there are a myriad of ways to implement Agile, with frameworks you may have heard of including Kanban, Scrum, or a hybrid of the two called Scrumban. Specifically, for Scrum, there are generally five steps to the workflow.

Discovery and product backlog creation

Early on in the project, research and discovery sessions must be conducted, with the client present, to fully understand the client’s background, their customers, and industry. We then move on to find out the client’s mission and vision, and figure out their pain points to be solved, their needs for the product, and their expectations. Basically, all relevant aspects of their business. These understandings are crucial to create a wishlist or a product backlog of components and features to be incorporated into the product. The items within a product backlog are called User Stories. A User Story typically contains the ‘as a – I want’ structure, for example:

‘As a small business owner, I want to be able to key in my loan requirements and company details, and be presented with all eligible loan products from different banks.’

Sprint planning and Sprint backlog creation

Before development begins, a Sprint planning meeting is conducted where all members of the team assemble to discuss the parts of the upcoming round of Sprint. The Sprint planning need not be short; in fact, the recommended duration of a meeting is four hours.

In the first half, User Stories in the product backlog are prioritised and ranked to determine which features go out, first. The usual length of a Sprint is two weeks, but there are cases it can be as short as a week, or as long as a month. Based on the agreed Sprint length, the team picks the prioritised User Stories to see if it can be done in one Sprint. If so, during the second half of the Sprint planning, the team now elaborates and details all the work that is required to complete the product backlog. All newly determined tasks are called the Sprint backlog.

During the elaboration, if it is determined that a product backlog item cannot be completed in a single Sprint, it should either be split into smaller parts, or dropped back into the product backlog for future Sprint planning.

Sprint and Scrum meetings

As a basic unit of the development in Scrum and other Agile methodologies, Sprint is a time-boxed effort where development and iteration of features are done. As mentioned earlier, they are fixed durations of one to four weeks, depending on the duration and size of a project, but the usual length is two weeks. The focus is always to end a Sprint with a usable product/feature that is ready for deployment.

A task board is commonly used to track the progress of each individual task. There are many ways to approach this, but generally, there are four columns and they are self-explanatory: Backlog/To-do, In Progress, Testing, and Done. Scrum has an additional leftmost column for User Stories (product backlog) while the Kanban framework doesn’t. However, they share the same principles. Each Sprint backlog task is written on a card or sticky label and pinned/stuck to the ‘Backlog’ column. During development, it is moved to ‘In Progress,’ and to ‘Testing’ during product testing and demonstration to stakeholders. A card is only moved to ‘Done’ once the particular feature is ‘shipped’ or rolled out to production.

Daily Scrum meetings are an essential part of Scrum as its main goal is to keep up-to-date about the progress of the project. It should be held at the same time every day and start regardless of whether all members are present or not. During each Scrum meeting, all present members should talk about the tasks that are done (what’s done), their next tasks (what’s up), and their challenges and problems faced (what’s stuck).

Test and deliver

A full testing of the feature is a must in each cycle, since we want a working product at the end of each Sprint. Being agile and all, testing can be done by a partner developer, but dedicated test engineers can be included to the team too. After testing and bug fixes, a product demonstration is conducted for stakeholders and clients, after which they can collaborate with the project team on further project developments.

Retrospective and next Sprint planning

Unlike the testing phase earlier, Sprint retrospective is mainly conducted to discuss the past Sprint – what was working during the development and what can be improved in the next Sprint. Such feedback must be solicited from clients as well as from project team members. Information gathered can then be used to identify areas for continuous process improvements for the next Sprint. Keep in mind that each successive Sprint is both iterative and incremental. Iterative as in providing improvements to completed work from previous Sprints. Incremental as in adding new features to the product.

Perks of Agile

While there can be advantages to traditional software development methodologies such as the Waterfall model, the perks of Agile are aplenty. Here are just a few of them.

Focus on customers. Agile bases developments on User Stories established during the discovery sessions. Because these Stories are focused on how the customer can perform a particular action or reach a goal, it doesn’t matter what the specifics of the features are, as long as the Stories are fulfilled and don’t contradict one another. The acceptance criteria for features are met when the User Story is possible, which means for every incremental feature release, the software increases its value.

Focus on business value. Just because the Stories are customer-centric, doesn’t mean they aren’t business-focused as well. The close collaboration nature of Agile ensures that the client know what features matter most, and the development team understands the client’s business well enough to be able to prioritise which features to develop first.

Better engagement. Right from the very beginning, the client is already heavily involved in the project, collaborating closely with the product owner to prioritise the product backlog’s User Stories. As a result of seamless communication, the client ends up having a stronger sense of ownership for the product, while the development members are more user-focused, now that they understand the client’s vision better than before. This virtuous cycle will carry on throughout the project’s lifecycle.

More transparency. Similar to engagement, when a client is involved closely with the development process, it makes sense for them to share their pain points and vision for the product throughout the whole process, from backlog prioritising, to Sprint planning, to review sessions. In return for this transparency, the development team also needs to disclose any challenges and snags along the way, and keep the client up-to-date with the latest work-in-progress product.

Predictable cost and time. The lean and effective model Agile adopts helps the project team avoid the many pitfalls commonly faced during a project, thanks to its fixed, two-week Sprints. The pitfalls mentioned include feature creep, which will extend the scheduled deadline, which in turn, will increase cost. In Agile, the client can help estimate the extent to which they want the feature to be developed, and to get a better idea on the cost of developing a feature.

Faster time-to-market. Speaking of estimation, the time-boxed Sprints and a fixed period for each Sprint, ensure that goals can be achieved on time. Not only that, the fact that Agile requires a working product at the end of each Sprint, by the end of the two-week period, there will already be a fully functioning product, albeit a basic one in the early phases. The frequent releases and interim usefulness also provide the opportunity to offer many beta testing sessions for end users to identify bugs and other user experience issues.

Allows for change. While Agile’s structure is made for focusing the efforts, frequent beta tests are instrumental in determining how to continuously improve the software. The frequent feedback from the client, and the relatively short Sprints, allow for an early course-correction should there be any small issues, before they become bigger ones. Said client could also see a working software early and have the chance to reprioritise the product backlog and make change decisions throughout, for the next cycle.

Improves quality. Finally, when you put all of the above together, what you’ll end up with is a product that is likely to be more effective in solving the problem it was designed to address than a product that has been developed using conventional methodologies. This is possible due to the many testings, reviews, and expectation-mismatch identifications that happen during the frequent Sprints.

Challenges of Agile

Agile may come with its own set of challenges, especially if not implemented correctly.

For starters, Agile requires a frequent amount of customer involvement, which is great for the quality of the project, however the client may not have the time nor the interest to be heavily involved, and that may create miscommunications in Story prioritisation down the line.

On the project team’s side of things, Agile works best if all members are completely dedicated and not involved in other projects, given the short Sprint time, and this could be a problem for those who might be involved in multiple projects at once. The close working relationships that are heavily prized in Agile requires all members to work in the same location. This hampers mobility for a multinational organisation and a team that has members working remotely.

The frequent reprioritisation nature of Agile may add additional development time and cost. This is because some features are dependent on the other. Developing Feature B first may not give you a working product at the end of the Sprint as it requires Feature A to be working first. So, the only way to reprioritise Feature B above Feature A, is to merge the two into one Sprint backlog task. This translates to potentially overshooting the allotted time as Sprints are time-boxed.

Not to mention when features are implemented iteratively, it often leads to frequent refactoring of the code. Code refactoring is a process of restructuring the existing software code, without changing the external look and behaviour. Unless if a full scope is considered and predetermined early in the initial architecture and design, frequent refactoring will lead to additional development time and costs. This is especially true in large-scale developments, implementations, and projects with deep integration.

Another criticism against Agile is that the manifesto is now outdated and may not be keeping up with the times, though the reason why the core values are brief is because they were designed to be able to withstand the test of time and emerging technologies. Plus, modern Agile frameworks can be kept up-to-date without changing the manifesto’s core values.

Making Agile work

No two organisations are alike, and what works for one may not necessarily work for another. Agile, as a core methodology, has to be paired with a framework that fits a particular organisation.

Scrum, the de facto standard framework for Agile, is best used for software development. One of the contributing factors towards its popularity lies in the fact that it’s so bareboned. The simple framework can be easily expanded and adapted to suit various types of developmental projects. However, Scrum’s time-boxed Sprints aren’t suitable for unforeseen issues arising, such as outages and product maintenance that are not part of the Sprint.

This is where Kanban comes in. Originated in lean manufacturing, which in turn was inspired by the Toyota Production System, Kanban is Japanese for ‘signboard,’ where it is a lean method to manage work primarily by balancing between available resources with work demands. Instead of pushing, it uses a pull method; meaning work is pulled into progress only when the capacity permits, rather than pre-assigning work to everyone who may already be swamped, and this will prevent bottlenecks. Kanban doesn’t require the Kanban board, but said board can be the perfect way to visualise the workflow, and it has a similar layout to Scrum’s task board.

JurisTech uses a hybrid of the two Agile frameworks, which some might call, ‘Scrumban.’ During the discovery sessions, we will incorporate User Stories into the product backlog, but since we work a lot with traditional financial institutions, we will still produce a user requirements specification (URS) document, following the conventional waterfall model. Now, being agile, we still do accept changes during Sprints, but these will be documented in the URS Addendums.

Our Kanban board can be used for both product development as well as enhancements and maintenance that may not have a fixed time box and are unpredictable. During development, we follow the two-week Sprints and the daily Scrum meetings (we call them stand-ups). Post development, we still perform the traditional user acceptance testing (UAT) before deploying to the production environment. Depending on our clients, some may even allow deployment or shipping of features at the end of every Sprint. But the more traditional clients may prefer only one long UAT session at the end of the project lifecycle, and that’s OK too, for Agile’s flexibility allows for that. Ultimately, there are no hard and fast rules, as the most important thing with Agile is that the goals are clear, the tasks are all accounted for, and work is being done in an effective and efficient manner.

The post A holistic view of Agile methodology in software development appeared first on JurisTech.

The post GECOnites Episode 4: Overachieving Manager appeared first on JurisTech.