Product Market – A Model for Large Organizations

The other day, along with a colleague from operations, I was reviewing the requirements related to a module in the Flight Information product I manage. My colleague raised a question about enhancing a feature which could benefit another product used in operations to manage allocation of tasks for ground handling agents thereby optimizing the utilization of staff and an expensive set of equipment used in the airport.

Since both of us were familiar with both the products, we could discuss and debate on the pros and cons about the enhancement and eventually came up with a potentially feasible solution. We highlighted this to the respective operations heads and now the change is being pursued for viability and if approved will head towards implementation.

This simple incident reminded me of the power of product knowledge, especially across multiple products. This is important in large organizations where product managers tend to focus merely on their products and their roadmaps rather than having effective conversations with their colleagues to figure out the possibilities of making various products talk to each other and realize mutual benefits.

We live in a world where most product managers await the steer from business owners to state their need, get them documented as a new feature and get going with implementation. If integration with another system is identified as part of the change, converations start flowing in that direction. Rarely do we drive conversations the other way round.

Large organizations typically have hundreds or thousands of products across various operational areas. Each of these products boast of their own features and capabilities that support respective businesses. While it is impossible for a product manager to know every feature and data element available in all systems in the company, just imagine the possibilities if you have a clear visibility of the information set offered by all other products in your organisation.

The idea does not have to stop there. To support your thought process, visualize your fellow product managers sharing with you the features and data elements of their products and give you scenarios of how those data can be used in your product. These could potentially open endless doors of ideas for you leading to ways by which these products could talk to each other thereby adding tremendous value to the respective business teams.

I would love to think about this concept coming to fruition as a ‘Product Market’ in an organization. Product managers can ‘set up shop’ showcasing the features and data elements available from their products. They can also advise how the ‘potential customers’ who are fellow product managers, can use the data for their products. Use cases which were not identified earlier, could be the outcome of this Product Market directly leading to a ready list of ideas enriching the backlogs.

One bonus value a Product Market could bring in, is to identify products which have overlapping features and thereby plan for better optimization by eliminating duplicates. The cost savings for the organization could be quite high if we could remove such redundancies.

Here is a toast to the awesome product folks out there who could think beyond their products and add significant value to their users!

15 years and counting…

The first ever memory I could recall of planes, is of a young boy who rushed out of his home following the buzzing sound of an aircraft flying way above our tiny town called Changanacherry in Kerala. Since that day, to being associated with the wonderful world of aircrafts now close to two decades, if there is one thing that still drives me crazy is the love for aviation!

Among the countless moments of living in this passionate world of airports, airlines, and ground handlers, I still remember the excitement with which landed in this wonderful city of Dubai and walked through the doors of The Emirates Group, 15 years ago, this very same day!

It had been nothing short of a blessing to be associated with two of the greatest known brands in the world of aviation, Emirates and dnata along with being pampered by one of the youngest and most dynamic cities in the world, Dubai!

Thank God for everything till date. Looking forward to remaining committed to the city that added countless meaningful moments to our lives and adding even more value to the industry till the time I breathe the air filled with molecules on which it is written in big bold letters – AVIATION!

Tale of a Bridge

Once upon a time two large cities flourished on the valleys of two mountains. There was a vast lake that separated these mountains. The administration of these two cities decided to build a ten kilometres long bridge that was to connect these two cities. It was a mega project predicted to catapult both the cities to exceptional levels of progress.

Plans were drawn, preliminary work started and the dreams for two cities getting merged into one big city started taking shape. Esteemed members of city councils visited the location regularly. The top brass from the government bragged about their vision and the benefits, the bridge project was going to bring to the region.

As the calendar progressed, one day a junior-most engineer while going through the plans, noticed a significant anomaly. One of the many pillars of the proposed bridge was short by a few inches in height. That was at a critical point in the design of the bridge which could pose a grave threat to the very existence of the structure once built.

Now, the junior engineer was a simple and straightforward girl who promptly presented her finding to the top executives and even proposed an alternate course of action to correct such mistakes in future. 

As soon as the authorities, heard her out, all hell broke loose! The young girl was severely reprimanded for highlighting such a major mistake which put the whole project team in a bad light. She was even given an ultimatum to do only what was asked to do and nothing more. The backlash was so harsh that she even wondered why she even bothered to highlight the anomaly! 

Another sincere employee died a painful death that day.

The above story is a pure work of fiction. But if it did remind you of any experience, you had or heard in the corporate world, do not be alarmed. There will always be bridges that are built with design flaws. There will always be sincere junior engineers who highlight the anomalies. And there will always be corporate martyrs.

Learn from the mistakes of either yours or others. Diplomacy is an underrated skill, especially if you are unaware of the power of it.

Life goes on. So does the corporate world.

Water water everywhere…

As I mentioned in one of the older articles, the first international trip we did together as a family was to Mauritius. We checked in to the resort we had booked and obviously being a beach destination, we headed to the beach which was right across the resort.

After having a good time in the pristine waters of the island nation, we returned to our room extremely tired with thirst. We reached the resort counter where they sold water bottle and asked for a couple of bottles. It was a moment of truth for me! All what I learned about pricing based on demand and supply in my Economics class came full steam. The price of a bottle of a 500ml water was an exorbitant one, since we were in a resort environment, in the middle of nowhere in Indian Ocean where literally everything consumed was imported from elsewhere in the world.

We were to spend the next one week in that place and the sheer math of water prices threatened to put a large hole in our budget planned for the trip which we did not anticipate. The next day, while we were out, an idea occurred to us. We had visited a shopping mall from where we picked up water in bulk which obviously did not cost as much as the resort. While in the resort, we still had to buy water from there, we could manage our budget quite well while we went out supported by the water bottles purchased from outside.

Life teaches us many things, especially when we travel. One among them is, there will always be complex problems with simple solutions.

Happy vacation! 

Passion Vs Compulsion

I was getting a tea at the local tea shop near my office the other day. A colleague came over and told me that he was not seeing new articles from me these days and asked if my frequency of writing had come down. Since I was a bit caught up with the Quarterly Planning that time, I attributed the lack of action to my busy schedule.

Sometime later I was brooding over the same question from my colleague and started wondering if it was really the Quarterly Planning that slowed down my frequency of writing. The fact was that I just did not feel like writing. Now the reasons could be plenty. It could be attributed to the busy schedule or the ongoing incidents in Middle East or an increased focus on reading and what not. In any case, I knew that I did not feel the urge to write and hence I did not.

Days went by, but somehow the question from my colleague kept haunting me. It was never a case where I had a dearth of topics about which I wanted to write. As the pressure of inaction built up, I did sit with my laptop open the other day to write about a topic which was a part of a series I was writing. It was not an impromptu topic and hence I had done certain amount of research to come up with the content. I completed my research and started putting the words together and eventually the article took shape. As always, I did the proof reading and finally published the article.

While the mission was accomplished, I knew something was missing. At the end of every article I wrote, I felt a pure sense of bliss which motivated me to write more. That element seemed to be missing this time! To make sure, I asked one of the best reviewers of my writings, I have right at home, my son. He read the article. Though a young man of few words, every time after reading one of my writings, he had a smile on his face, which proved that he loved the article. To my utter dismay, the smile was missing this time.

I asked him, what was wrong. His response was quite candid. He said, unlike my usual presentation of a topic, this one was quite dry and could only be appreciated by people who were genuinely interested in the topic I wrote. I understood. It very well explained the lack of happiness I experienced myself, at the end of writing that last piece.

I realized that I wrote the last article, not because my passion made me write, instead was the result of a compulsion I felt due to which I let my brain and hand co-ordinate the activity all the while my heart stayed away from the party. Simply put, it was a heartless piece of work!

The story is not just about an article I wrote. Every time we set forth to do something, whether it is a hobby or something at work, if it is not driven by passion, it will end up as a monotonous activity. We may end up meeting the objective. But the bigger question we need to ask ourselves is, did the work give the same amount of happiness to us as well as the intended consumers? If not, was the effort truly worth it?

Be driven by passion and not compulsion!

അഴീക്കോടിന്റെ ആത്മകഥ

സുകുമാര്‍ അഴീക്കോട് - ഓര്‍മ്മ വച്ച കാലം മുതൽ മലയാള സാഹിത്യ സമൂഹിക ലോകത്ത് കേള്‍ക്കുന്ന ഒരു നാമധേയം. അസാമാന്യ പ്രാസംഗികന്‍, വാഗ് ദേവതയാൽ അനുഗ്രഹീതൻ, തുടങ്ങി നിരവധി വിശേഷണങ്ങള്‍ ചാര്‍ത്തിയിരുന്ന അപൂര്‍വ്വ പ്രതിഭ. എന്നാല്‍ നാളിതുവരെ അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ഒരു പ്രസംഗം കേള്‍ക്കുവാനോ, എഴുത്ത് ആസ്വദിക്കുവാനോ സാധിച്ചിരുന്നില്ല. അങ്ങനെ ഉള്ള ഒരു വ്യക്തിയെ മറ്റേതെങ്കിലും രീതിയിൽ അറിയുന്നതിന് മുമ്പ് അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ തന്നെ വാക്കുകളില്‍ അറിയാനുള്ള ഒരു ആഗ്രഹം ആവും ഈ ആത്മകഥ വാങ്ങിക്കുവാൻ എന്നെ പ്രേരിപ്പിച്ചത്.

ഞാന്‍ വായിച്ചിട്ടുള്ള ആത്മകഥകളില്‍ വച്ച് ഒരേ സമയം അതിശയിപ്പിക്കുകയും അരിശപ്പെടുത്തുകയും ചെയ്ത മറ്റൊരു പുസ്തകം ഉണ്ടോ എന്ന് സംശയമാണ്. അതിശയപ്പെടാൻ ഉള്ള കാരണം മറ്റൊന്നുമല്ല. സ്കൂള്‍ പഠന കാലത്ത് നാമൊക്കെ കേള്‍ക്കുകയും പഠിക്കുകയും ചെയ്തിട്ടുള്ള മഹാരഥികൾ ആയിട്ടുള്ള പലരുടെയും സ്നേഹിതന്‍, ശിഷ്യന്‍ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ സതീർത്ഥ്യൻ ആയിരുന്നു സുകുമാര്‍ അഴീക്കോട്, എന്ന യാഥാര്‍ത്ഥ്യം ആശ്ചര്യം ജനിപ്പിക്കുകയുണ്ടായി. മഹാകവി ഉള്ളൂര്‍, വള്ളത്തോള്‍ തുടങ്ങി, ഗാന്ധിജിയെ വരെ നേരിട്ടു കാണുവാന്‍ ഭാഗ്യം സിദ്ധിച്ച ഒരു അപൂര്‍വ്വ വ്യക്തി!

അരിശപ്പെടുത്തിയ വസ്തുതകൾ രണ്ടാണ്. ഒന്നിന്റെ ഉത്തരവാദിത്തം ഞാനും കാലവും ഒരുമിച്ച് ഏറ്റെടുക്കുന്നു. അത് മറ്റൊന്നുമല്ല, അഴീക്കോടിന്റെ പദസമ്പത്തിന്റെ ഇടവഴികളിലൂടെ നടന്നു പോകുമ്പോള്‍ പലപ്പോഴും ഞാന്‍ കാലിടറി വീണു പോയി. ചില വേളകളിൽ മുട്ട് പൊട്ടി ചോര ചിന്തുക വരെ ചെയ്തു എന്ന് പറഞ്ഞാല്‍ അതിശയോക്തി ആവില്ല. എന്റെ അറിവില്ലായ്മയുടെയും, ജീവിച്ചിരുന്നെങ്കിൽ ഈ വര്‍ഷം നൂറിന്റെ നിറവില്‍ വിരാജിക്കുമായിരുന്ന ഒരു മഹാനുഭാവനും ഞാനും തമ്മില്‍ അര നൂറ്റാണ്ടിന്റെ മേല്‍ ഉള്ള പ്രായഭേദത്തിന്റെ അവസ്ഥയുടെയും പേരില്‍ ഒന്നാമത്തെ അരിശപ്പെടൽ ഞാന്‍ സാദരം സംസ്കരിക്കുന്നു.

രണ്ടാമത്തെ വസ്തുത, അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെയും എന്റെയും വ്യക്തിത്വങ്ങളുടെ വ്യത്യാസം ആണെന്നു കരുതാനാണ് എനിക്ക് ഇഷ്ടം. അഴീക്കോട് തന്നെ പറ്റിയും തന്റെ എഴുത്തിനെ പറ്റിയും അനുഭവിക്കുന്ന ആത്മരതി എനിക്ക് എന്നെങ്കിലും സാധിക്കുമോ എന്ന് ഞാന്‍ സംശയിക്കുന്നു.

എന്തൊക്കെ ആയിരുന്നാലും നാം ജീവിച്ചിരിക്കുന്ന ഈ കാലഘട്ടത്തിൽ, അഴീക്കോടിന്റെ തന്നെ ഭാഷയില്‍ പറഞ്ഞാല്‍, നാം ശ്വസിക്കുന്ന ഈ വായു പങ്കു വയ്ക്കാന്‍ ലഭിച്ചത് ഒരു ഭാഗ്യമായി കരുതുന്നു. ആത്മകഥാ വായനയുടെ അന്ത്യത്തില്‍ ഇനിയും കൂടുതൽ പലതും അറിയേണ്ട ഒരു മനുഷ്യന്‍ ആണെന്ന് തന്നെയാണ് അവസാന ചിന്തയായി മനസില്‍ വന്നത് എന്നും പറഞ്ഞു കൊള്ളട്ടെ.

ഞാന്‍ ഇനിയും അറിഞ്ഞിട്ടില്ലാത്ത ഒരു മഹാ മനസ്സിന്റെ ചിന്താപഥങ്ങൾക്ക് സാദരം എന്റെ വന്ദനം.

The Cardboard Family

And just like that, yesterday I completed forty-five times of going around the sun. While I was counting the numerous blessings received through the years, a barrage of memories came back. There were hundreds of them that I have not spoken or written about. Then again, you cannot be greedy and enjoy the pleasure of sharing all at once. Allow me to focus on one memory that stood out, the one where I had a wonderful time ‘playing family’ along with my awesome cousins during a summer break of late 80s.

From the time I could recollect the memories of our home, I distinctly remember a big white Kelvinator fridge sitting at one corner of the kitchen. Every time I opened the door of the fridge, I could not help but wonder how mom managed to store all the items I saw on the shelves. I was quite certain that if we dug into the fridge, it would reveal interesting aspects of the consumption pattern of the family in the last few weeks!

After what seemed to be an eternity of service, one day the Kelvinator died on us. It was something short of a historical event in the family, when dad got a new Godrej fridge to replace the older one. As it happened to be the summer break time, a couple of my cousins were at home. We were of the age and time when anything could become props for the games we played. The game we decided that day when the new fridge arrived was 'The Family' when one became dad, another mom and there were kids as well. There will be cooking, cleaning and even helping the kids with homework.

We had enough count for the players, but the biggest question was, what could be our house? A brilliant idea occurred to us as dad kept aside the empty cardboard in which the new fridge arrived. It was big enough for us to crawl inside. We immediately got into the work of setting up the home. 

We placed the 'house' right next to the old barn we had in the backyard. One end of the cardboard box was sealed and that became the backside wall of our home. The flaps of the box at the other end were re-purposed to become the entrance of the home. We even found an old piece of cloth and gave it a new life as the curtain of the main door. A part of the box was used to create a partition inside our home, thereby making it a one bedroom house! The civil engineers of future were seriously at work, way before anyone of us had even heard of the term Engineering! 

Our home was shortly ready to welcome the guests, which were to be our parents. There was one problem though. What would we serve the guests when they arrived? Ideas started flowing in and finally we all agreed on the best course of action. It was that time of the year when mango trees in our backyard yielded bunches of green mangoes that beckoned us to make a sumptuous treat of them. We dashed to the trees and soon the stones on the floor found themselves heading to the hanging bunches of mangoes. It was soon showering mangoes, and we stopped when we felt we had enough.

Next came the question of 'cooking and serving' the dishes. Out came the tiny earthen pots, cups, and saucers which dad had bought for us to play, from local market. One of us sneaked into mom's kitchen and got a knife, a small cup of coconut oil, a handful of salt and chili powder. Soon tiny plates were ready, filled with a mouthwatering dish of cut mango pieces marinated in coconut oil, chili powder, and salt.

We proudly invited our 'guests' to our new 'home'. Obviously, they could not enter the house since it was too small for adults. Nevertheless, they all enjoyed the feast we prepared. The family game was a huge hit! 

The memory not only remains as a beautiful experience but also serves as a good reminder of the simple joys of the past and a wakeup call for the parents of the new generation of kids to help them create incredible memories for future!