My First Corporate Lesson

Two days ago, LinkedIn woke up along with me announcing a dear friend celebrating 16 years with Mindtree, my previous organization. It was quite a moment and obviously I sent him a congratulations note. A few minutes later it dawned on me that it was the same guy with whom I joined Mindtree 16 years back!

Fresh out of college, I had stepped into the lovely Global Village campus of Mindtree in the then Bangalore, with dreams as high as Everest and a resolve as deep rooted as the Pacific. Equipped with a Masters in Management, I couldn’t have asked for a better start than to analyse the Staff Operations of a budding company. Mindtree had spread its wings globally and was getting ready for an even major expansion.

Soon enough I learned that Staff Operations in Mindtree was working in a manner where you had multiple teams managing various geographies. All these teams where co-ordinated by a Central Operations team which at that time was a team of two, my boss and me. Among the plethora of activities, a major task was to get an update on staff engagement from each of the geographies every Monday and consolidate them to present a utilization report on Tuesdays.

This was a time when automation of operations was still on the cards and hence this consolidation was quite a time consuming process. I was tasked to follow-up with all the geography heads and ensure that all the required inputs were available by end of day Monday. By noon Tuesday all the analysis were to be completed and report was to be released.

It was a heavy number crunching exercise on an extremely complex Excel worksheet laden with macros and formulas. Having said that, the direction from my boss was quite clear. Rain or shine, the report must hit the mailbox of all recipients by Tuesday twelve o’ clock. Late by a minute, I’ll be dead!

It wasn’t an exaggeration, as I realized with horror on the first week itself that the mail was addressed to the Chairman of the company himself and copied to all senior managers. As soon as I figured this out, I had a weird sensation of equally feeling elevated in my stature while at the same time being pulled down with fear. What if something goes wrong? I didn’t even want to think of a day when the mail was received late by the leaders of the organization due to a delay from my end directly affecting critical decisions taken in the company.

Initially though the mail was sent by my boss, as days passed, he let me sent it from my mailbox itself. It further brought a huge load of confidence in me. I remember having a glow on face especially on Tuesdays with the sheer thought that the Chairman of the company along with the who’s who of the organization were awaiting the most important mail of the week from me!

The feeling of empowerment was reaching its pinnacle when one day it happened. One of the geo heads, who was a recipient of these mails came over to meet my boss on a Tuesday afternoon soon after the report was released. I was sitting next to him and heard them talk about Utilization Report. I was beaming with pride and was expecting him to praise our small team on how much value do we bring to the organization. Instead he said, ‘It is absolutely rubbish a report and it directly goes into my trash!’

Speechless would be an understatement and what made it worse was when I got to know that his view was subscribed by a few other managers as well. My motivation levels took a major hit. My boss noticed the change, but said nothing. The week went by without any other incident. Next Tuesday came and the Utilization Report went out as usual. A couple of hours later my boss showed me a mail. It was a mail asking for a few additional information on what was reported and the response went back promptly. It was from none other than the Chairman himself!

That’s when my boss spoke for the first time about the incident the other day. He said, ‘Quality, not quantity matters’.

Business Case - The Weakest Link

Alex had a pretty long day and by the time he left office it was close to dinner time. He was quite famished, obviously. He headed to the nearest restaurant where he was absolutely certain of being served with best of the cuisines. He made himself comfortable at a table and took a good look at the menu. Since he had been there earlier it didn’t take much time for Alex to place the order.

The restaurant was quite well known for its chef who was famous for his world class dishes. He was fully supported with an excellent team who were capable of satisfying palates across the world.

While Alex waited patiently, the chef got down to create his magic. Needless to say he did an excellent job in coming up with a masterpiece! The dish was ready to be served.

As Alex almost reached the threshold of his patience, the kitchen doors opened. Through them came out a man in rags, holding a worn out platter on his left hand on which the signature dish was placed. He carried a soiled piece of cloth on his right hand and headed directly to Alex in the most untidy manner. He then placed the dish right in front of Alex along with a set of cutlery that someone used before!

I believe it is pointless to say what happened to Alex’s hunger!

While the above snippet is a work of fiction, this is absolutely true when it comes to Business Cases to plan the right technology solutions.

An operational business unit would have come up with a fantastic proposal for a new change. They might have all valid reasons for coming up with the change and how it was going to help them run their business better. Their hunger for this change was akin to Alex. They placed this need promptly in front of a project team who reaches out to their IT counterpart for a solution.

It is the turn of the ‘chefs’ at IT do their bit of magic. Whether it is an in-house application or a vendor product, together, the team comes up with a fantastic solution for the business problem. Quite a few rounds of discussions result in a presentable estimate.

The ‘dish’ aka solution is ready to be served.

Enter the team of people who consider themselves to be the specialists in Business Case. Their sole purpose of existence is to get the end users come up with a justification of why the change is required. Subsequently present this with all facts and figures so that approvals can be secured for timely implementation.

This is when the ‘man in rags’ comes to light. If the Business Case is not backed up with sufficient facts and numbers, then it’ll never stack up. An absolutely important business change backed with a state-of-the-art solution will all go down the drains if a meticulously drafted Business Case is not placed on the table of decision makers.

This weakest link many a times is a life changer for many. Initiatives could get approved or rejected based on the strength of Business Case. Careers could get redesigned. Professional paths could get forced to take a diversion.

It all boils down to how much someone is willing to put their heart and soul into the act of getting a Business Case which is a sales pitch converted into a confirmed order. Till the time teams do not realize this, we’ll continue to have Business Cases that are akin to still born babies!

Seeing the beyond!

We were in Bangalore at the beginning of second decade of the millennium. The city was probably breathing its last few days as one of the coolest and greenest cities in India enjoying the title of IT capital of the country. Those were the days before the length and breadth of Bangalore underwent multiple surgeries to accommodate metro transport service. It was when staying and commuting in Bangalore was not as horrendous as what is experienced today. A haven indeed it was and working there felt like you were on a year-long vacation with an envious weather a few other cities in India could boast of.  

It was around that time, Ruby and I decided to buy our first car. Since we were a single income household with minimal savings, we decided to go for one of the best small cars then, a Hyundai i10, a hatchback. Those were the times when the CEO of my company, was commuting in a Toyota Corolla which was considered a premium segment car. 

As destiny would have its way, even before we could proceed with booking of the car, life took a different turn. After a few rounds of gruelling interviews, I landed in Dubai as a consultant for Emirates, one of the best-known brands in aviation. Shortly we also got the good news that we were to enjoy parenthood. This and many other factors required us to buy a car in Dubai.

I must say we were quite blessed to have a few friends in Dubai who took the pain to show us around some of the car showrooms so that we could take a decision. Dubai as you may know is a paradise for automobiles. Every possible brand ever made in this world finds itself a home in various showrooms in Dubai. We also observed that options for small cars like the one we were thinking in India were quite limited. Instead, sedans and SUVs were having a competition on Dubai roads about who is predominant. It is not an exaggeration if I said SUVs do have an upper hand in this city.

We weighed all our options. The distance between a Hyundai i10 and an SUV was alarming, both financially and emotionally. Truly speaking, we were not mentally ready for a shift from a hatchback to even a sedan, forget about the SUVs, which was a league altogether different. At least this is what we thought then. 

Since the options for hatchback were quite limited and considering the safety implications we finally zeroed in on a sedan, the one that made us equivalent to the CEO of my previous organization, at least in terms of transportation. Yes, we did buy a Toyota Corolla finally!

If you happen to visit Dubai, one of the first things, you will realize is, sedans like Corolla are nowhere near the boundaries of luxury in this city. This is a place where luxury gets redefined almost every day. A Corolla will probably make its cut as a mid-segment car among the sedans. Though this is the fact related to the status of the car we bought in Dubai, the news was probably not how it was perceived by a few folks. For them we made a jump from not having a car in Bangalore to driving a car that is driven by some CEOs of companies in India. A life of luxury indeed!

This story is not really an exception to the norm. In fact, each one of us need to ask the question, are we really the proverbial frog in the well when it comes to perceptions? Can we see the beyond by expanding our understanding of this world? We all tend to compare ourselves to those who seem to be living in perceived luxury. While this indeed is a human nature, we need to remind ourselves that a constant approach such as this will only ignite the inferior personality among us. We’ll end up feeling depressed and worst case is even becoming hostile in our attitude to others.

On the contrary, learn to appreciate the goodness in our life. Live in the present and appreciate what you have been blessed with than looking up to your never ending wants and feel sad about it.

Keep repeating yourself this mantra: Life is finite, enjoy every beautiful moment you have now!

Tunnel Riders

Alex and Nisha were at their parents’ place after a long gap of two years since Covid-19 pandemic ripped the world apart. There were many relatives they had to visit and decided to call on one of their uncles. It was a good feeling to catch up after a long time and all of them were quite happy to see each other after what was probably the worst two years in their entire life till date.

Among the conversation, a topic came up about a friend of Alex who works in Shimla, one of the most beautiful mountain regions towards North East of India. He had invited Alex many times to come over to Shimla and appreciate the magnificent mountains. Alex and Nisha discussed the plans with uncle and aunt to take a flight to Delhi and later a short flight to Shimla from there. That’s when uncle intervened and suggested a better option.

Alex’s uncle had done extensive trips pan India and was quite familiar with the geography across this gorgeous nation. He suggested taking a train from Delhi to Shimla as there were more than a hundred tunnels across the picturesque Himalayas. As soon as they heard this, both Alex and Nisha got quite excited and almost immediately started picturing the awesome trip through the mountains and valleys on a meter gauge train.

While Alex, Nisha and their uncle were soaking themselves in the lovely landscapes in their minds, their aunt who was listening to all the conversation spoke for the first time. She said, ‘What is the big deal in going through so many tunnels. It will be all dark and gloomy’.

The expression on the faces of other three souls present in the room could only be described with one word, ‘priceless’!

The above story is only a cross section of what we see in our daily lives. There are numerous such ‘aunts’ among us, be it in our family or among friends. These poor souls can almost never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Their minds are perennially stuck in the pitch darkness of the tunnels they cross during their lives.

People like these are always lost in the gloominess and in fact miss to appreciate the beauty as the train of life exits the tunnel into the wilderness and the heavenly panorama of lush green mountains and valleys. Instead they only see the train moving from one tunnel to the next and around them they will befriend only darkness and despair.

It indeed is a mindset. We may think that the worst pandemic in the recent history of mankind might have changed people. Even the most negative of people around us who survived the pandemic might have developed an appreciation towards life. Then again, experiences like this promptly corrects us by citing fantastic examples of perpetually negative human beings. These are personalities who could never think of anything positive in life.

Rain or shine, these people live and breathe negative. Imagine you successfully wrap up an extremely strenuous event for which you prepared relentlessly for a month. Everything went well and while you are beaming with joy, one of the above kind will come to you and cite the least of the imperfection and highlight it as the worst thing to have happened in the whole world. They will religiously fail to appreciate you or your efforts. This is a mental makeup in its deepest and darkest of shades.

So what do we do about this? Where possible help these individuals realize that they are treading the valleys of misery and in fact there is a highland of happiness that awaits them if they are ready to change a bit. More importantly when it comes to us, we need to be aware of the fact that human mind could be like a sponge where it could absorb all these negativity. Do not let it happen. But in the likelihood of that happening, ensure that you squeeze them out with an overdose of friendly positivity.

I am quite sure we can work together to bring in the much needed positive vibes and make the world a better place to live!

Economics of Options

It was mid-2009, after living in India for almost three decades, I got my maiden opportunity to travel abroad. As providence decided, my first international exposure was destined to be United States, the land of options! We were a team of six from my company for a project and the trip was to last three months.

A few days after we arrived in Atlanta, a friend took me to an Indian store which was the best option available to buy Indian stuff. I stepped into the store keeping in mind the super market visits I had till date back home. It’ll be an understatement if I say, I was overwhelmed with a brand new shopping experience altogether!

Every aisle had neatly arranged and labelled items which clearly told you what the product and the price was. But what really struck me was when I reached the aisle for coffee. I was an ocean of coffee boxes. Brands and types of coffee were aplenty! What seemed to be a never ending row of options presented itself to me.

I was obviously taken back to the super market shelf in India where I picked up coffee. Those days, packaged coffee for a middle class family meant only one brand, Bru. Though Nescafe was around, it was quite an expensive affair. The next best option was to get locally grounded coffee from Indian Coffee House, but somehow we never opted for it.

With so many options presented to me out-of-the-blue I was obviously confused. Nevertheless I did some comparison with respect to the factors that I was capable of understanding which were just two, price and weight. The beans coming from Brazil or Beijing didn’t matter! Neither did the percentage of decaf mentioned on the label. These absolutely didn’t make any difference to me then! Finally I picked up a bottle that I was convinced was good for me and returned home. Coffee was good.

The whole episode taught me one of fundamentals of Economics. The value of options! When you are in a market where a product enjoys monopoly, you obviously have no choice but to buy that. On the other hand when you are presented with more than one option to choose from, you definitely need to apply certain criteria before choosing the best for you.

I’ve met a few people who totally believe in impulse buying. These folks take quick decisions without weighing the pros and cons. Then there are others who love to evaluate in depth, all possible options presented and then take a decision.

We now live in a world where a lot of markets, both local and international, are open for us to explore. I may be making a bold statement when I say majority of the consumer goods off late do present us with choices in all the developed countries and most of the developing economies. The story may not be the same in the not so fortunate economies.

Nevertheless the question is when you are planning to buy something and if you have more than one choice, do you spend time enough to explore the options and make an informed decision? If your answer is yes, then you love your wallet. Else you either don’t care for your money or you are not prudent enough to realize the mistake you commit.

Hence next time you decide to buy something, ask if you have explored all possible options before zeroing in on the item. The only caution that we need to keep in mind with options is the fact that, not to get drowned in the sea of options. Else your decision may never be made!

Al the best to make an informed and timely decision next time!

How Agile is your Transformation?

 If you are a technology driven organization in existence for a decade or more, it is quite natural that you may have a mix of old and new IT applications. It becomes even more interesting when you have a bunch of in-house developed and vendor applications.

The third dimension to this blend, given the nature of operations is the fact that you have a combination of legacy applications that are running with minimum required support and new ones that are part delivered or the stars in the horizon for which development is in progress.

Frame the above picture in your mind and now think what will be your consideration when you are moving from the Waterfall way of delivery to Agile delivery. Before heading to the answer, we first need to look at some of the Agile considerations assuming we all are familiar with Waterfall.

With the risk of sounding like an Agile Coach, here are a few quick thoughts that come to my mind the moment we speak Agile. Sizeable chunks of work, Fail fast and Iterative development.

Sizeable chunks of work

This is probably one of the first questions that we need to ask the teams. Does the current status of a product allow us to break it down into sizeable chunks so that Agile development can logically apply? This could be possible for products that are already in production and for which a healthy enhancement pipeline exists. On the other hand you could face challenges with those products for which development is half way through with a pre-agreed delivery methodology. The scenario gets complex if we have a vendor in the mix.

Fail Fast

It is true that you could apply this fantastic concept for your products. This equally must apply for your transformation saga as well. You may try to pull off an Agile transformation for your identified products, but if any of them does not meet a criteria, it’ll be better to rethink the strategy. Probably having an Agile KPI is a good idea so that you have a measurable action based on which informed decisions can be made.

Iterative Development

This is a fundamental building block of Agile. Can you create your product in iterations? Can the releases be planned to add value to business incrementally? Can the product be pieced together to finally form a jigsaw? Are the stakeholders all aligned to meet this criteria? If the answer to any of these is ‘No’ you’ll need to revisit your transformation path for that product.

There are definitely many more factors that drive Agile transformation. The above three are probably some of the key ones. What is important is to remember the fact that while transformation could be essential for progress, it isn’t the panacea for an organization where a plethora of technology flavours co-exist.

You need to choose and choose wisely. Else your Agile transformation will end up being nothing but fragile!

Being Positive

 Flying around like a beautiful butterfly

With a riot of colours and happiness galore.

The world was on my fingertips

And dreams were all that I adore.

Sky is the limit, was the mantra

Chanting I did, lying on my dewan.

Out from the blue came a bolt of shock

On it was written, Made in Wuhan!

Holed up in the house, feeling arrested

Fun, outing and everything else busted

Even a rare chance of getting out

Was a lost cause with cops all out!

When all hopes seem to be lost

A ray of light shined like a ghost.

All what my heart did was yearning

And the answer to that was E-learning!

Life bounced back with verve

Colours of hope was shining again.

Yes we still felt arrested, but

Happiness was what we did regain.

Lucky indeed am I, to be alive

Luckier in fact is my guessing

A thing my books could never teach

That survival is nothing but a blessing!