What can we learn from the Euro 2008? Certainly a quote which has become a trademark of Addidas comes to my mind: Impossible is Nothing! This has proved to be true especially by teams like Russia and Turkey who have earned a place in the semi-finals of the Euro 2008. It is especially commendable in the case of the Russian team because they were struggling to qualify for the tournament and now they are in the semi-finals.

So, I thought there is definitely something to be learned from these two teams which were considered as “under dogs” before the start of the tournament. Hence, I saw Russia’s yesterdays match against the Nederlands very closely and drew the following conclusions which i feel are the reasons for their success.

1.Strategy: The Russians had a very good strategy from the onset. They perfectly knew how they should react for each and every move of the Netherlands. Moreover, they had a strategy for every player and a predefined role set for each and every player of the team. I can easily co-relate this with the process of software development. For developing any software or a project a clear and lucid strategy and the concept of the software and the approach to go about it should be clear in the mind of the programmer or developer. If the project contains more than a single developer (most projects do unless it is a small scale freelance project) then this point is even more important. Each and every person involved in the project must know his roles and duties.

2.Consistency: Another thing that caught my attention in yesterdays match is the consistency with which the Russians played their game. They had a strategy and they stuck to it and the strategy in itself was good and hence they got the rewards for it. So, consistency is the key. I did realize the importance of consistency at several points of time in my life: While trying to reduce my obesity ( I lost 22 KGs in 4 months), while studying or while programming. So as far as I am concerned consistency is important. You need to follow a strategy or a process that you have defined for a project consistently over and over again.

3.Conviction: Conviction is another important thing along with consistency and strategy. Many times while studying, i had a proper strategy to study, had all the plans charted out and all the timetables made but i lacked conviction which eventually led to the failure of the study plan. Hence, making a strategy which is good is important but i think more important is the conviction and the dedication with which you follow the strategy.

These are the points that I think are responsible for the success of these under dog teams like Turkey and Russia. I think that these three points can be used anywhere we work, whatever we do and most times than not we WILL find success. Of course, these things cant be understood unless you experience it themselves like I did; it is not that I am hearing these things for the first time in my life but then it is always better when you experience it yourself!

I am a freelance programmer with experience in vb,vb.net,asp,asp.net and php with mysql and ms-sql as the backend. Please contact me if you need any programming job to be done or if you need to outsource any programming projects.