Jugaad, an Indian Delivery Methodology | Hacker News Reader

Jugaad, an Indian Delivery Methodology

blog.georgovassilis.com

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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

Having audited over 200 suppliers in China, I feel like the Chinese have mastered the art of "Jugaad". Absolutely brilliant, wreckless and dangerous violations/innovations I've ever witnessed in my life.

Commonly known in the west as Redneck Engineering and Jerry-rigging. I think every culture has some sort of a "Jugaad", this isn't something specific to India besides the etymology.

This is exactly right! What the author has done is to distill some principles from practice so as to build a possible "methodology".

In France we call it a "temporary solution" to highlight the greatness of the permanent one.

My children go to the temporary school I attended 30 years ago.

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...

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/

That was also my first contact with the concept. That podcast episode is infuriating, shocking, outrageous, riveting, and in certain parts so funny I laughed out loud. Highly recommended.

By the way, near the end of the (long) episode, they discuss how a generic drug consumer might mitigate the worst effects of the Indian (and Chinese) drug companies. I thought that would be an interesting startup, to track the scandals and reputations of every drug company and map to each drug they manufacture. Apparently this is a DIY endeavor at the moment. This information has recently become even more useful as the worldwide pharma industry ramps up for COVID-19 drugs, vaccines, etc.

Wasn't it Boeing's jugaad that ultimately killed 600+ people? Wasn't it ultimately due to jugaad that security breaches occur because the company wasn't willing to pay extra for good quality software? Isn't my (non-Indian) manager doing jugaad when he asks me to do the bare minimum to get the work done, so that he can complete maximum number of features so that he can get his yearly bonus?

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.

yep. the whole "chalta hein" attitude needs to die.

चलता है? (Not a native speaker, learning, just curious) as in walk/do/operate something? The attitude being (having read जुगाड़ means lifehack/bodge) just do it quick and dirty, don't worry if it's 'right'/high-quality sort of thing?

(I don't mean any offence, please don't take it that way, just trying to understand the terms and attitude ypu refer to.)

चलता है literally means walks/moves/works. But in this context it means tolerating mediocrity and not complaining about it. GP is alluding to this widespread mindset.

Directly translated, it means "It walks", or "it'll walk" – a rough translation of the meaning into English would be "Eh, it'll work".

In fact, I could swear I've heard the phrase "I'm gonna let this walk for now" as in "I'm gonna let this infraction pass unpunished" in American English in a movie or something, but Google doesn't seem to be throwing up too many references for that. But you could imagine it in the same way too, as "let it walk".

"I'm going to let this slide" is the closest thing that springs to mind, but I wouldn't be surprised if some regional dialect somewhere uses "walk" like that.

Loosely: Literal translation (syntax): It walks, or, it moves. Meaning (semantics): It is acceptable, or, it is accepted (by people, so no need to do better).

A lot of the comments here are unnecessarily negative. The author has actually worked with Teams employing "Jugaad" strategy for a decade and knows what he is talking about. I will wager that most people commenting here do not have that experience.

"Jugaad" is a great concept and strategy to adopt in real-life scenarios where you have to make do with what you have got. In these scenarios almost everything is lacking; not enough money, resources (human and capital), education nor Time. "Quality" is always a function of "Cost" which is a function of the above mentioned variables and thus the outcomes will vary based on the project/customer etc. Looked at in this vein, "Jugaad" makes perfect sense. Your expectations have to match reality. The trouble only happens when this mindset is perverted and you start cutting corners everywhere to the detriment of the end result.

I have employed “Jugaad” for multiple decades. And the comments here are correctly negative. Jugaad is what good people have to do to work a shit system. It leads to utterly unprofessional environments and is a tremendous drag on the overall system.

In my opinion jugaad isn't always bad. See this for example (1), this is 100% jugaad IMO.

It's only bad when you have the resources to do something and yet you choose the shit way to do it.

(1) https://mothership.sg/2020/09/cd-zoom-hack-camera-teacher/

I disagree. That is a perversion of the principles and not true "Jugaad". As an example see the success of the "Generic Drug" pharmaceutical industry and how it came to be.

https://blogs.deloitte.co.uk/health/2020/03/the-indian-pharm...

Huh?? So government overreach and manipulation of free market and global trade is your example of “jugaad”?

I knew my example would be misunderstood. Please follow the plentiful links from the above article for a more informed view.

Jugaad is just hindi for hack.

I like Jugaad as the quick prototypical research tool. Cliché but it has its place as the pirates' way. It is a means (not an end) that needs to graduate to the ways of the Navy. I also love to leverage the straight-forwardness of the west, and the finesse, artistry, and craft of the Japanese culture.

Here is a book about the slow rise and success of Bigbasket[1] in India - Saying No to Jugaad: The Making of Bigbasket[2].

1. https://www.bigbasket.com

2. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52560378-saying-no-to-ju...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 जुगाड़ (IAST jugāṛ) meaning 'lifehack'.

जुगाड़ 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.

धन्यवाद, I'm learning Hindi and was just curious about what it actually meant. 'Makes it out to be some amazing cultural thing' is I suppose quite common (or substitute 'amazing' for anything broad) - 'curry' is an obvious example, it presumably comes from कढ़ी, in turn from the leaf/herb, which is one very specific (very delicious, IMO) dish, yet used over here like it just means (Indian) food.

I digress. I can see why it's useful to cling to a term to discuss a phenomenon or even a non-unique idea in the context of a particular place, but really, imagine (as a non-Indian) reading this with <country> in place for 'India', and Agile (or something) for 'jugaad'. Egh. I'm all for intercultural learning or whatever, but as part of that we surely have to look at what's 'a thing' to learn and what isn't.

Curry and कढ़ी are false cognates, AFAIK.

According to Wikipedia [1]: "Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil word kaṟi meaning 'sauce' or 'relish for rice' that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii). The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of "vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry". Kaṟi is described in a mid-17th century Portuguese cookbook by members of the British East India Company, who were trading with Tamil merchants along the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, becoming known as a "spice blend ... called kari podi or curry powder". The first known appearance in its anglicised form (spelled currey) appears in a 1747 book of recipes published by Hannah Glasse."

Another theory suggests the same root, but a longer journey via Portuguese settlers: Tamil 'kaṟi' -> Portuguese 'carel' -> English 'curry'

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry#Etymology

Yep. Kari in Tamil also means meat, I'm not sure if it is of a specific animal (maybe mutton - which is goat meat in India), or a generic term. But AFAIK when used in that sense, it does not include chicken, fish, etc.

Kari basically comes from Coal/wood ( which is also called kari), probably from wood stoves used for cooking.

Surely कढ़ी also comes from कढ़ी पत्ता (curry leaf) doesn't it?

Ah, no it doesn't. कढ़ी comes from the verb काढ़ना, whose past tense is कढ़ी (हुई) [1][2], which in this context means something which has been thickened/reduced over heat.

Curry leaves have nothing to do with the etymology of कढ़ी. They are not even used in North Indian variations of Kadhi, as e.g. in Punjab.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadhi [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A2%E...

Oh interesting, thanks, I just assumed! The version I make is totally inauthentic then, having both curry leaves and pakore..! Still, tastes good * shrugs*.

I actually never heard the word "curry" used to describe those dishes until I started living in foreign countries. In casual Hindi conversation they would just be called by the individual item's name; especially because most Indian dishes are named literally after their primary ingredients [1]. The closest generic word for them is probably sabzi (literally "vegetables"), but I'm not sure what you'd use for non-vegetarian curries and if there's a generic word that encompasses both veg and non-veg curries.

[1]: Palak paneer = palak (spinach) + paneer (cottage cheese); chana masala = chana (garbanzo beans) + masala (spice); matar paneer = matar (peas) + paneer; aloo gobi = aloo (potato) + gobi (cauliflower); and so on.

Thats because its a Tamil word.

Oh of course, I was more mocking my fellow (non-Indian) countrymen, not for a second imagining Indians also call all those things 'curry'.

We also have 'naan bread' and 'lentil dal'... I might sympathise with the former if we also said 'ciabatta bread' and 'brioche bread', etc. but we don't, for whatever reason it's unique to naan.

> I'm not sure what you'd use for non-vegetarian curries and if there's a generic word that encompasses both veg and non-veg curries

Khaana (food) I suppose! :)

>> I'm not sure what you'd use for non-vegetarian curries and if there's a generic word that encompasses both veg and non-veg curries

>Khaana (food) I suppose! :)

I meant the word you would put in this conversation:

    Customer at restaurant: I want four chapattis.

    Waiter: Okay, and what ____ would you like with that?

    Customer: One palak paneer and one chicken tikka masala.

Khaana won't work there. Sabzi, as I said, would work if it was a vegetarian restaurant so the only choices were vegetarian curries.

Playing the conversation in my head, I can only imagine the waiter saying "And what would you like with that?" It might be one of those words that's just straight-up missing and nobody notices, like how Hindi doesn't have a word for "You're welcome." (what you would say as a response to "Thank you.")

I can't think of an English word to use there either though? Like you say, they'd just say 'what would you like with that'.

> "You're welcome." (what you would say as a response to "Thank you.")

Heh, I'll try not to rant off-topic too much, but I wouldn't: I'm British, an American certainly would, and it's (or in particular its overuse and insincerity is) a pet hate of mine...

(I think kuch nahin / koi baat nahin are used with about the same frequency as 'no worries' / 'no problem' / 'it's nothing' in British English?)

... 'Thanks for your reply' -- 'You're so welcome!' -- shudders ...

In Tamil, non veg currys are also curries.

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.

Well look at the development outcomes for India and Germany and jugaad doesn’t seem so great.

Jugaad == patchwork?

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

Oh come on, half of the world (US included) was colonized and optimized for resource extraction, mostly because of how far ahead British manufacturing was at the time.

India as been independent for a while now, just own the half-bakedness already.

I would posit that the level of exploitation of the Indian population paled in comparison to the colonies. [citation needed] But, you are right in a sense.

Everything south of United States had the same or if not worse level of exploitation as a European colony.

I sort of agree with parent poster, specially because most of these countries are independent for a bit longer and maybe because of that they tend to blame less the colonization (but blame still), but also because keep blaming the past (even when it is true) holds you to look forward.

Interestingly, don't most poor parts of the world have some such stereotype? Like, if you Google any of the following you'll get exactly what you expect from any of these (they clearly espouse identical beliefs):

* https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&as_q=jugaad%20enginee...

* https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&as_q=hillbilly%20engi...

* https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&as_q=mexican%20engine...

Though I couldn't find an equivalent 'Brazilian' or 'Somali' so I wonder what the terms are in those places or if they have no such terms, what they do instead.

I think it's just what you get when you constrain resources but tooling gives you a great boost and safety is less costly.

There are kludges everywhere, but few companies make kludges part of their core values, except Jugaad apparently.

> Everything south of United States had the same or if not worse level of exploitation as a European colony.

Every large country south of the United States (certainly anything approaching the size of India) has been independent for at least 100 more years than India [1]. India gained independence in 1947. There are plenty of people alive in India today who were born as British subjects. You did refer to this in the sense of "...most of these countries are independent for a bit longer"; I happen to think the difference is significant.

That being said, I did say "we should let bygones be bygones" in my comment, and share your attitude about moving forward.

But part of moving forward is defining your own identity. The point I want to make is that jugaad has causes and not very pleasant ones; and that Indians should not embrace the stereotype thrust upon them by breathless news articles that just discovered a word for "hack" in a new language. This...should not be controversial.

-----------------

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization_of_the_Americas...

...and isn't jugaad more a reaction to Gandhi-era command economy/license Raj, when imports were heavily restricted, shoddy goods had no competition and getting anything done through official channels took forever?

Out of curiosity, what period of Indian history do you think Gandhi was alive in?

Surely he means Indira Ghandi?

Oh right - I think I was thrown by the "Gandhi era" (usually used in reference to the twenties/early thirties)

Gandhi, not "Ghandi" (I blame the early installments of the Civilization game series for this misconception).

India has only been independent since 1943.

Are you talking about Bose's government? Ceremionally and legally, it's 1947, surely.

Close, 1947. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(India)

Ah sorry, typo

Jugaad does not necessarily paint a shoddy or half-baked picture. May be look at it in terms of a solution to a problem in unique ways by using material and resources available at one's disposal intelligently and more environmentally friendly.

May be instead of Taj Mahal or Konark Temple (beautiful and aesthetic still vanity projects) look at living root bridge [1], a solution to a problem in environmentally friendly way. Some will call it Jugaad and some may call it innovation.

On exploitation it may sound harsh but the biggest exploiters of Indians are Indian. If you go by present circumstances situation is dire with no player left in telecom but one, no player left in banking but few, no player left in retail but one, soon no player will be left in energy with the sale of assets to specific private individuals and the list can go on. It will be nice to follow Kabir's "बुरा जो देखन में चला!" before blaming outsiders do introspection.

India's caste system and discriminatory practices are to blame for its exploitation by its own people and outsiders.

Look at India's financial reforms all back pedaled and thriving banking sector is now marred by non performing assets (NPA) and loans restructured out to make balance sheet look good. Strike of demonetization took away the oxygen out of everyone especially small to medium guys and pumped it into selected few large corporates. Draconian laws of FCRA, use of ED for personal vendetta, non thoughtful reforms and taxes on foreign investment sucked the remaining oxygen.

India's strength is it's unity in diversity and tolerance and whenever it's attacked like it is now by its own people it will suffer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_root_bridge

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