[HN Gopher] Jugaad, an Indian Delivery Methodology
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Jugaad, an Indian Delivery Methodology
Author : ggeorgovassilis
Score : 26 points
Date : 2020-09-13 10:31 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.georgovassilis.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.georgovassilis.com)
| Ballu wrote:
| I used to be a fan of Jugaad concepts, but ended up (opposite end
| of spectrum) critique. The reason was, the concept was used by
| corporations as well as SME domain for cost cutting and
| throttling the innovation. The reason they become successful in
| doing this, too much focus on cheap labor. Hopefully, the concept
| of using the technology what we have (basic foundation of ITIL
| v4) to start the project, work iteratively with improvement in
| cycle with core focus on achieving the targets (again, core
| philosophy of ITIL v4) and get the product whats the need of
| hour. There is core similarity of JUGAAD mind set and Agile as
| well as modern dev-ops. Hopefully, world will take Jugaad what it
| was.
|
| Brief history of Jugaad (as one mentioned, means life hack): With
| explosive growth in '90s (and before that, controlled production
| of commercial vehicles in India), local mechanics started using
| small diesel engines or totalled vehicles engines/front body and
| attaching that with locally available carts. Haryana roads were
| full of these vehicles (before that there used to be 3 wheel
| tempo, which was called Jugaad as people were using that for
| people movement instead of freight), This thread has some good
| examples of Jugaads :)
|
| https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/commercial-vehicles/117066-ju...
| kang wrote:
| Jugaad is just hindi for hack.
| ggeorgovassilis wrote:
| Jugaad is an attitude towards delivery which originated in India
| and consists of three simple tenets: Humility:
| use whatever works without prejudice Openness: keep your
| options open Frugality: small expenses keep regrets small
| Scapeghost wrote:
| I'm from a country where "jugaad" is the dominant mentality and
| frankly, it results in a hell for anyone who wants shit to be
| done right or things to work long term.
|
| In practice, it actually becomes: Impatience:
| Don't waste time trying to follow best practices
| Dishonesty: Milk the customer for as much as you can
| Cutting Corners: Small expenses result in bigger ones down the
| road
|
| Which ends up with everything from light bubls to street
| transformers and vehicles and even medical implants blowing up,
| breaking down or falling apart at least a few times every year.
|
| Diluting milk with water is a common idiom for dishonesty here
| and such minor instances of corruption are rife at the
| grassroots level.
| karmakaze wrote:
| That's interesting as I was reading the "system that
| generates, stores and sends receipts via email to customers"
| example, the jugaad solution looked like tech debt from day
| 1. It doesn't 'store' the receipts anything lost in email is
| simply lost.
| p1necone wrote:
| That depends on the email system you use doesn't it? Sure
| if you're just using a gmail account you're playing with
| fire. But if you back up the inbox then it's no more likely
| to get "lost" than a database.
| flarg wrote:
| I work with Indian delivery teams on a regular basis and I
| think focus on things like frugality, which certainly exists,
| comes at a terrifying price on terms of lack of long term
| quality and security issues. I've seen the same approach in
| Polish and Spanish teams. Spend less now so we can spend more
| forever.
| OJFord wrote:
| Not helped by the vehicle analogy in the opening paragraphs, I at
| first thought we were talking about physical goods delivery!
|
| It seems it's jugaadd' (IAST jugar) meaning 'lifehack'.
| Arnavion wrote:
| jugaadd' is just "kludge" / "hack" / "cobbled-together
| solution" / "half-baked method" in general, not "lifehack"
| specifically.
|
| The submission makes it out to be some amazing cultural thing,
| but I've more commonly heard it used with a negative
| connotation.
| [deleted]
| Karupan wrote:
| The jugaad mentality may help coming up with innovative, low cost
| solutions to problems, but isn't the best way to actually deliver
| it to a mass market.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| The less widely known and palatable truth is that jugaad is
| simply a way of adapting to a few hundred years of colonial
| exploitation [1]. Indians have built precisely engineered
| monuments like the Taj Mahal [2] and the Konark Sun Temple [3] in
| eras before India was engineered to be a vast source of raw
| material for the British Empire, designed for optimum extraction.
|
| Bygones are bygones, and we need to move on. However, I would
| urge all people who identify as Indian to reject this sense of
| "jugaad" as a uniquely Indian thing - it unnecessarily paints a
| picture of us as consistently turning out shoddy and half-baked
| work that will fall apart eventually.
|
| --------------
|
| [1] http://www.nilejournal.net/politics/britain-exploited-india
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konark_Sun_Temple
| DanBC wrote:
| This is a good article that talks about the reality of jugaad.
|
| Here are some radio programmes about Jugaad from a while ago:
|
| India's quick fix solutions:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ng09d
|
| Innovators - the secret of jugaad:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cstydc
|
| There's been a bit of discussion on HN about jugaad before.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1597509
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| The first time I heard of Jugaad was in Katherine Eban's "Bottle
| of Lies". The book goes into the ethically dubious shortcuts
| taken by companies like Rambaxy to make profits, in the name of
| Jugaad. The broader question was whether it was just one company,
| or this was a cultural thing involving multiple companies.
|
| Podcast if you would like to learn more
| https://peterattiamd.com/katherineeban/
| ponker wrote:
| Well look at the development outcomes for India and Germany and
| jugaad doesn't seem so great.
| jagannathtech wrote:
| Realistically, most of the time everything ends up in frustration
| and sub-standard
|
| I really wish we Indians embrace professionalism esp. in services
| as we are not very resource constrained as before.
| nirav72 wrote:
| yep. the whole "chalta hein" attitude needs to die.
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