Project Management Conclave - 2012

It was a lovely Saturday Morning and I was very much excited to attend this conclave organized my PMI Mumbai for the practicing and aspiring Project Managers. TCS sponsored couple of its project managers for this event.

PM Conclave 2012, in Hyatt Regency, started with a bang when one of the most admired industry leaders and father of software industry in India, Mr. F. C. Kohli delivered his Key Note Speech. One would never imagine how a short-heighted, ordinary looking man pioneered the Indian IT when he took the helm of TCE (Tata Consulting Engineers; now known as TCS). He spoke about how he brought Burrough Computers in India and his team did the reverse engineering to make first indigenous computer in India. I got the chance to ask him first audience question about how he switched his career from a well-settled TISCO job to a new venture of computing.

Later, in the day, case studies from Aeronautics, Solar Power and other fields highlighted the importance of Project Management at micro level while keeping macro picture alive.

The focus of the conference was Agile Methodologies in and beyond IT Project Management. There were few very good speakers who spoke about how their own industries are trying to use Agile for business sustainability and how Agile is not only about Scrum but a mind-set. One may or may not know about specific methodologies of Agile Project Management but one would always be able to appreciate its core values of delivering to the business in most effective and efficient manner.

Second day ended with a panel discussion when I found myself little misplaced I could not agree with opinion of few of the panelist on importance of ethics in business. I couldn't resist myself from catching a point of a panelist, and asking him question on that. Later, in a private conversation, I found it very ironical (as he was a professor of ethics in a elite business school in Mumbai) when he tried to portray ethical misdoings of a well-known Indian company as valid practices for market survival.

Nevertheless, it was a good experience to be a part of Project Management Conclave and anyway you don't get chance to feast in a five star hotel everyday :-)

Another failure .. It seems is raat kee subeh nahin...

In last two years I had many accomplishments but things that I wanted most could not be fructified.

Once again today, I feel like I have let all those people down who wished me for my success in my endeavours.

The failure I had today hurt even more because this was one of those efforts where I had put my life and everything I could have. I had not felt so confident of my efforts as much I felt on Nov 3rd after getting my interview with ISB was over, I had done my best and it was rarest of the occasions when I was so satisfied with my performance.

Last 3 months, there was hardly an hour when I was not thinking about the outcome of those efforts. I was debating with myself all the way putting points what could cause me not getting success vis-a-vis why I should get an affirmative answer from the school. However, every time I end up convincing myself towards latter because I had given my best.

Nonetheless, there was another aspect which was other side of the debate that I also had competition with others and today seeing myself in the wait-list make me think  that I lost to others. In the end, I could not overpower others. 

Now what, I do not have any move left against so many unknown fighters who are preparing to fight against me with all of their arms.

So now it's not only about the outcome but also how soon that comes.

Americans choose the world leader....

So finally BO won the votes of Americans. Last election was the first time when Indians (atleast I) took keen interest in American election. Before then this, we just used to hear news about the event. But this time, the media coverage given to the event was much more than ever before.

If we try to put our views on few of the things that were discussed in last few days and how this election could have made significant impact on them, than following come as front runners:

Economy: There is no doubt that Mr. Obama got a tragic financial legacy from his much beloved predecessor. When Mr. Obama took office, USA had $10 Trillion of debt, on which he added $6 Trillion more. Now the argument could have been made from other side that Obama made the economy worse by adding as much debt in just 4 years as no other president, except Mr. Bush Jr., could do in total. But in my opinion, Mr. Obama should get the credit for this that he got the situation in control. Although $6 Trillion are not less, it could have been more.

Foreign policy: This was a subject of interest for whole world. And If I see differently than China is the only entity that came as front runner. A dedicated debate on foreign policies got marginalized to a discussion on China and its economic policies. Now it is very clear to the whole world that China is not emerging super power, but it has already become one. Few more years of political diplomacy and it will be The Super power, surpassing the USA. Mitt Romney’s stand was very clear on this issue and he showed clear solidarity with Israel while making it clear what he would do with China. At the same time, Mr. Obama still found to be ambivalent on most of the related issues.

World peace: This is one place where our Nobel Laureate (in peace) had an upper hand. Mitt Romney’s stand that he would increase the military budget by $2 Trillion did not go very well with the people who wanted to spend that money on their on welfare rather on fighting war against other countries.

Inspirational leadership: This is a softer aspect but most dear to my heart. In my personal opinion, Mr. Obama is the best orator among world leaders in today’s time. Except in first debate, he has always come well prepared and been very assertive in putting his points across the tables. He showed himself engaged with the people but at the same time not emotional. He demonstrated that leaders have to empathetic but still they have to control their emotions.

Even though I have many challenges at my work (high rate of Visa rejection made IT manager’s job even tougher) after Mr. Obama sworn in 2009, I personally admire his oratorical skills a lot.

And the Champions Trophy goes to ….....

VMS (Victoria Memorial School for Blind)

It was a great show by all the schools but our kids left everybody behind.

Participating first time in TCS Maitree Inter-school-meet of 8 schools, our students from VMS emerged as the champions. Event started from General Quiz (for which I & Riddhi had mentored the students). We got the initial setback when we’re told that, because of some confusion, organizers had put a Visual round in the quiz. We had no option but to live with that. Despite of this, VMS whiz-kids (Rahul, Hemant, Vishal, Shamsher, Chandrakant) led the way till the Visual round, which was obviously not that scoring for them as the earlier rounds.  But after that they again got into flow and all, especially Hemant, were outstanding. Hemant even surprisingly gave the answer to a question related to 'Refractive Index' which I had explained to him one week ago.

It was followed by several other events such as skit (we were third), Ad-mad show (we got second), ‘Best out of waste’, Elocution (we got first in junior category) and many more. But the real show was ‘Solo Singing’. We were confident of putting a great show. And boys exceeded all the expectations. With the help of kids on the instruments (Ratan, Pawan and others), ‘Ashish’, ‘Amit’, ‘Akash’ and ‘Sumit’ put audience on the roll dancing across the auditorium. And no doubt we finished at the top of the podium. Following this, ‘Group Singing’ was no less great and students repeated the performance.

We were confident that our kids will perform great but finishing at the top was not expected. Our Visually disabled Kids proved that when god makes a mistake and doesn’t give you what you need most, it compensates by giving you those abilities which makes you special in all other aspects. 

Although, I had to leave the venue before the closing ceremony, but getting SMS from Priyanka and Sreenish (fellow volunteers) and than a call from Vishal (VMS kid) made me visualize this : 
"At the end of the event, all of us (Team VMS) had tears in our eyes; we were overwhelmed by the joy and happiness given to us by those kids.  Once again, we are proud of being part of this great initiative."

Are our premier institutes producing good citizens?

Recently I was having a casual discussion with one of my close friends. During the discussion she mentioned a story of one of her female colleagues who had just got married. Generally, I don’t show much interest in family gossips but this was much more than a simple story of a husband and wife. It was an example of the irony this modern India has and that is education from premier institutes doesn’t ensure that the person would have good values and courage to stand against wrong things in our society.

This lady, let’s call her Radhika, has been very fun loving, happy go-lucky lady through-out her life and always believed to live her up to the fullest, currently working with the largest IT Company of Asia.

Like most of the parents in India, parents of Radhika, from a middle class family in a backward state of the India, had dreamt of marrying their daughter to an IIT+IIM (Indian Institute of Technology + Indian Institute of Management) graduate. They left no stone unturned and ultimately found the right family; at least they thought so, for their daughter. Like any other obedient girl, Radhika also agrees to parents wish and soon gets married to the chosen IIT+IIM grad.

Like any other bride, Radhika also had few dreams after marriage. She might have also wished for a loving husband, who would respect her, her feelings and her work. As in India, marriages don’t happen between a groom and a bride but happens between their families, she might have also expected that her new family would accept her with open arms and give her the respect that she deserves.

But here, expectations don’t meet the reality. Today, her husband, lost in his arrogance of being from IIT+IIM, doesn’t even respect that his wife has an individual identity, that she works, and that she might also have some aspirations. No doubt that she earns much lesser than what her husband earns, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t deserve the appropriate respect. Her husband and in-laws, who earlier wanted a well-educated and working girl, don’t want her to work anymore. In fact, they make fun of her work and salary.

As much I could visualize, Radhika has been trying a lot to keep herself happy and get adapted to this new culture but all has been in vain till now. Despite being a well educated, working girl, she hears taunts and what not from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law (an IIM grad herself).

Hearing this story, when I start feeling suffocated, I can’t even imagine how this lady is handling the situation. Indians have been very proud of our premier institutions but are we doing anything to impart right values in the kids that graduate from those schools. At least this story doesn’t talk positive about that. We need to think what kind of education we are providing to next generations not only in IIT, IIM or other schools but also in our families.

Are we producing future leaders, risk takers and people who respect each and every individual regardless of their social status?

Life for me is.......

You don't need to see to sing.......

This guy (Amit Jadhav, Victoria Memorial School for Blinds) is so passionate about singing. I love his voice and pitch modulation. Even other one (Akash) is equally good singer.

How to build a competent offshore team?

A typical project life cycle:

Inception   ->   Team Building   ->   Manpower Deployment   ->   Execution   ->   Deliveries of Products / Features

So we start a project, select few candidates who could build a team and competencies and then come to location distribution. My focus of this blog post is this third part and how this should be handled to continuous team building and smooth deliveries.

At the inception of the project, we get people who soon become the back-bone of the team and who ensure the critical deliveries of products and features happen on time. Soon as business demands, few people are dispatched to client locations (in IT we call it Onsite). This is the first step of “Manpower Deployment”. Over the time, people at client location get more exposure to real world business and become SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) and also those whom client trusts most. So far so good.

Now the real problem starts. As the project grows, team grows; new people join at remote delivery centers (we call it Offshore). Now these people are new, neither they have ever interacted with this client nor they have got actual exposure to the client systems. Dependency on On-site team increases and soon offshore team becomes a step child of project management team. Management wants to make offshore team equally capable of producing results as the onsite team is but they forget one critical aspect of human behavior. They forget that offshore team has never got the feeling of actual business and they couldn’t care less about that.

In this situation what should be the first step of Management. I strongly opine that it should be the knowledge transfer. They should ensure free flow of knowledge across the shores. Please note, this should not only be limited to phone calls but it should also include in-person visits.

The best way of this is the temporary rotation of people who work at client site and asking them to work at offshore for 3-6 months before they could go back. This is very important to ensure that the culture and sincerity of client location comes to offshore and shared with the team. This also ensures that teams across the shores understand the problem (technical, operational, managerial or personal) faced at these locations and bridge the trust deficit.

So if you are also struggling to build a multi-location team, you need to ensure two-way flow of people and knowledge. Failing to do so, you are only ensuring failure of the project in near to long term.

Ran.... and still runnning....

So finally the day has arrived... practice has concluded and I am going to run my first half-marathon. Mumbai Marathon 2012 came with a big challenge and I took it by enrolling myself in the 21K version. I have been practicing twice in a week for last couple of months and ran 10K in any single session. As much I was targeting to finish the race, I wanted to finish withing 2 hrs 30 minutes. In the practice session I have been taking 70-80 minutes for 10K. So I wanted to give my best and much better than I had been giving in the practice session.

At the same time so many things are going in personal life that have also aggravated my breathing problem. For last one month, every day I have been feel so vulnerable personally that its only Mumbai Marathon that is the passion nowadays. There has been an emotional roller-coster ride in last one month and every morning I wake up, it has been only the time I am running and working out could make me feel little strong.

On the D-day, I wake up at 4 AM, get ready, pick up my running gear, Redcross Cap and TCS T-shirt with SRCC logo, and go to Railway station to board a train to the Marathon Holding Area. As I reach at Ticket Counter, I feel overwhelmed when Ticket Issuer doesn't take money and wishes me best for my run. It was a lovely feeling. As I get down train and moving towards the Holding area, I see few of the TV Actors (Raghu &; Rajiv from MTV Roadies) taking tea-sips. I walk and see the spirit of runners everywhere. Everybody seems to be so excited as I am and doing the stretching.

At 5:40, run starts and I start the journey of my life. Today I want to achieve something I have never done and I want to complete the race respectfully. Cold breezes from the sea start touching our body as we reach the 'Bandra-Worli Sea Link', such a lovely experience. When does anybody get opportunity to run here on this link? I have completed 10 K now, feet are tired, but brains are excited. As I reach 15 K, an uphill comes, I want to have a sip of water but I don't want to break the momentum as long as possible. Somehow uphill passes and I am on flat road. Now, feet are about to give up, brains are still excited, eyes are burning, body is sweating and I am at 19K. Now I have utmost need of rejuvenating myself, so instead of water, I pick up a 'Red bull' drink on the way. A refreshing area with cold moist breezes comes on the way and passing through it is so rejuvenating.

Till this time, I have no energy left; I might fall anytime if I lose control on my brains even for a minute. I set a target that I would continue till 20K mark and probably will walk for few seconds before finish line. As, now I reach there, I don't want to stop I want to finish without even stopping anywhere in complete run. But this doesn't work, my show-laces have loosened up and I have to stop to tie them at least. Ultimately I stop at 21K Mark, ties the laces, walks for a minute, before my desire to touch the finish line at the earliest makes me running. I sprint now. Applauds at the side-ways are over-whelming and wonderful. I am not able to breath, but I feel like a start as I reach the finish line.

Now when I am at home, my body is crying out loud for sleep, but I can't. My caves are swollen, my things are paining, my fingers and toes are burnt, but a feeling of accomplishing this has been able to overpower everything.