Software People Stories

In the first part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Mohan Ram, a senior professional in the IT industry who has played various roles related to networking software development to business line management and now a coach with PM Power Consulting.Mohan sharesHis growing years in a conservative family in Thanjavur district in Tamil NaduAbout how his life was comfortable, not luxurious and how those days and culture had a strong influence on his lifeGetting into IT. probably more by chance and then liking the opportunities to apply logical thinking and solving problems for others and the gratification of seeing users benefitting from the solutionsMoving to systems engineering and networks and looking at those technology areas and find applications in the commercial worldThe opportunity to be mentored and coached by good managersDiscovering his strength of going beyond just technology and connect with customers, into more techno commercial rolesHis feeling of being thankful for being at the right places at the right timesHis interest in ancient wisdom, yoga, vedanta, music etc - all towards finding and keeping a balance in lifeLooking forward to the next phase of his lifeThe support and concerns that he received from friends and familyThe opportunity to work with  geek, to contribute to create and refine a network operating system with one of the early startups in the networking space, that triggered his curiosity to get into softwareGetting into creating software products as well as services, particularly managed services Seizing an opportunity to address new and greater challenges nd moving from C-DAC to HPThe two important switches:Coming out of monotonySeeing a bigger opportunityAn important aspect of being a good mentor; and learning to look at the forest and not get lost among the trees - leveraging his strength of paying attention to detailSwitching to project and program management roles and stress the need to understand the nuances of project managementI asked him about how he was able to work in zones of abstraction or ambiguity, while interacting with customers - to understand requirements and come up with an approach or solution and create a project plan to execute, when his strength of attention  to detail.The answer to this question and a lot more in part 2 of the conversation.Mohan Ram is a Principal Consultant at PM Power Consulting, he works with Clients in their Agile Transformation initiatives, Digital Innovation and Transformation journey and helping build Individuals and Teams that are capable of effectively Delivering outcomes and Managing these Transformations in a Confident and Sustained manner. 

In the second part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Vadeesh Budramane,Founder and CEO of AlgoShack, shares his career journeyShares his thought processes on why a product company to be started He also shares the decision parameters that he considered and that’s common across entrepreneursJourney to be gratifying to the founders and early employeesCelebrating every small milestone from ID issuance, website, logo and creating a sense of moving in the right directionAbility to make an impact in the automation - Vadeesh talks about creating an inclusive environmentVadeesh shares the principles in which AlgoShack is created in terms of usage of tools and techniques and democratization of quality engineeringHe further shares how AI is embedded in the test processVadeesh talks about creating fit-for-purpose solutions that’s specific in the domainVadeesh talks about his advice to people joining the testing industryEnabling automation testers to modularise and optimise test cases constantly keeping users and non functional scenarios in mindVadeesh is currently CEO at AlgoShack and he has held several roles such as Senior Vice President at Sutherland Global Services,  Director & Head of Healthcare Vertical at Computer Sciences Corporation and Managing Director at FCG.Vadeesh has 32 years of experience focused on product engineering, innovation & IP creation. In his 15+ years of experience in senior leadership positions, Vadeesh has been responsible for strategic planning, end-to-end operations, and P&L. He has built globally competitive leadership teams, orchestrated strategic customer engagements, and created significant value for stakeholders.Vadeesh is a leader with experience in managing offshore delivery center and vertical delivery with a team size of 3000+ people & $250m P&L. He has experience across healthcare, ISVs, telecom, and real-time embedded systems industry verticals and North America, UK and Europe markets that include global delivery, customer engagement, business development and P&L responsibilities.A leader with hands-on experience in seeding and developing globally competitive leadership teams, developing competencies, transforming delivery organizations and driving business models for outcomes.Vadeesh can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadeeshbudramane/ 

In the first part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Vadeesh Budramane, Founder and CEO of AlgoShack, shares his career journeyVadeesh talks about starting in the embedded programming with Time Division Multiplexing and has built and learnt numerous protocols and standardsHe has also multiplexed his time across different domains such as Automotive, Medical instruments, Healthcare and Telecommunication Vadeesh shares his experience why he started the firm AlgoShack focused on the QE Combat the challenge of building quality software by automating automation testingHe shares his experiences on how critical devOps processes in the medical field and thinking about holistic environment He shares how he has built a keen sense of understanding the domain of telecom with different protocolsWhile he took up assignments in Healthcare, the type of stakeholders and touchpoints has moved him back to a learner of the domainVadeesh shares his passion of teaching and learning and thanks his Wipro days to inculcate that and further strengthened while working for HCGVadeesh decided to start a firm in test automation for embedded systems and we will hear more about the start up journey in the next episode. Vadeesh is currently CEO at AlgoShack and he has held several roles such as Senior Vice President at Sutherland Global Services,  Director & Head of Healthcare Vertical at Computer Sciences Corporation and Managing Director at FCG.Vadeesh has 32 years of experience focused on product engineering, innovation & IP creation. In his 15+ years of experience in senior leadership positions, Vadeesh has been responsible for strategic planning, end-to-end operations, and P&L. He has built globally competitive leadership teams, orchestrated strategic customer engagements, and created significant value for stakeholders.Vadeesh is a leader with experience in managing offshore delivery center and vertical delivery with a team size of 3000+ people & $250m P&L. He has experience across healthcare, ISVs, telecom, and real-time embedded systems industry verticals and North America, UK and Europe markets that include global delivery, customer engagement, business development and P&L responsibilities.A leader with hands-on experience in seeding and developing globally competitive leadership teams, developing competencies, transforming delivery organizations and driving business models for outcomes.Vadeesh can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadeeshbudramane/ 

In the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Fred George,Consulting Developer in Scienta AS and master change agent, shares his career journeyFred shares his experience in creating and nurturing thinking diversity in his London projectEnsuring that you create a blameless culture and a wonderful experimentation and that’s what enables innovation to flow and no permission culture He shares about creating change management in behaviors starting with extreme rigor in processes. Once the barriers are broken in, processes are completely taken out and that’s when you become truly agileUnderstanding the five key principles on agility  Fred shares about rewilding and increasing experimentation He shares his expertise on balancing his brand, building products and consultingFred shares about inculcating no-fear environment and ensuring that he picks the team around him Fred shares his thoughts around how AI needs to be looked at as a way to do your repeated steps - Understanding the essence of the workStay in the learning journey and that’s what enables you to be successful Fred can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-george/ Fred considers himself a hands-on software developer with executive responsibilities and experience. Early experimenter in micro-service architectures from 2005, and father of the post-Agile process termed Programmer Anarchy. Earlier implementer of new technology for his entire career, including computer networking in the 70's, LAN's and GUI in the 80's, and OO and Agile in the 90's. Very early adopter of Kanban processes. He has used over 70 programming languages in his career.

In the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Fred George, Consulting Developer in Scienta AS and master change agent, shares his career journeyFred is a career IBM developer and speaks about the skills he developedFred shares his experience in gaining an MBA degree and speaks about how IBM is great in building great people around yourTalks about how one needs to imbibe oneself in the talking to executives Shares some of the stories on ensuring that fears are quelled and anticipate the people who are fearing Talks about hard and complex problems that he welcomes to solveFred’s mantra is “I can't do everything well, but Most things can do as well as anyone else”Fred shares how he ensures that he gets the right set of team members and mentor them around you. Ensuring that management are taken into confidence in the journey using transparency and metricsFred shares his movement from being in the management cadre in IBM to a consultant and ensuring that he taught himself new language skills. Fred knows about 75 languages over the period of timeFred shares his experience on how job descriptions have become very convoluted and complex and that’s leading to dysfunctionsFred shares about the new concept of thinking Diversity and what type of innovations that are coming inFred can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-george/ Fred considers himself a hands-on software developer with executive responsibilities and experience. Early experimenter in micro-service architectures from 2005, and father of the post-Agile process termed Programmer Anarchy. Earlier implementer of new technology for his entire career, including computer networking in the 70's, LAN's and GUI in the 80's, and OO and Agile in the 90's. Very early adopter of Kanban processes. He has used over 70 programming languages in his career.

In the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Karl Scotland, Agile Transformation Services Practice Manager at TEKsystems Global Services and a master facilitator, shares his career journeyKarl shares his journey of how he became a master facilitator and that started when  he was experiencing tremendous resistance with Scrum. (Karl moved to using Kanban and lean concepts :) )Later when he was designing for larger change, Karl came across using  X-matrix - with an agile transformation flavor embeddedKarl talks about his realisation that one should not think about just to implement scrum/kanban Agility needs to be baked is created my own sense of self discovery - Achieving flow And the next step was to start looking for evidence to look for and think about strategy as always about tough choicesSomething similar to Agile manifesto - A even over BKarl shares his views on Tool selection and it should not define process. Usage of tool should stay at the tactical side Choice of tool should always be to help us capture flow data and understand blockers on Interesting story on the balancing the speaking and consulting engagement Shares the passion on building community events Karl can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kjscotland/ Karl helps businesses become Learning Organisations. Karl has held several engineering and management positions in Neural technologies, BBC, Cisco, Yahoo and Rally software. Over the last 20 years Karl has been an advocate of Lean and Agile approaches to achieve this, working with companies including the BBC, Yahoo!, EMC Consulting, Rally Software, Cisco, SDL, Legal & General and Alegis. During this time, he has been a pioneer of using Kanban Systems and Strategy Deployment for product development, a founding member of both the Lean Systems Society and Limited WIP Society, as well as being active in the community and a regular conference speaker. Karl is a co-founder of the Lean Agile in Brighton.

In the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Karl Scotland, Agile Transformation Services Practice Manager at TEKsystems Global Services and a master facilitator, shares his career journeyStarted his education with a passion with music and quickly found that he was enjoying the software part of the music over creative musicKarl has held several engineering and management positions in Neural technologies, BBC, Cisco, Yahoo and Rally softwareLater on he moved to become a consultant in helping organizations transform themselves to writing clean code, good practices and happier peopleKarl shares his thesis on why technology roles have become extremely complex - while we started writing C++ code, there were relatively less requirements and hence the need to change became less relevant. But as software and technology become ubiquitous, the roles also needed to be wider and deeperKarl talks about curiosity and learning and how he has built it within himself. He talks about the story where the subject matter experts  Approach from the perspective of what does organizations need to do to become change initiators themselvesKarl shares his model of Agenda Shift hypothesisKarl loves the perspective of ‘Cynics will become your biggest supporters’ - as they want to share the obstacles that’s preventing them from making it happenHypothesis driven change creates a sense of ownership on their obstacleKarl can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kjscotland/ Karl helps businesses become Learning Organisations. Karl has held several engineering and management positions in Neural technologies, BBC, Cisco, Yahoo and Rally software. Over the last 20 years Karl has been an advocate of Lean and Agile approaches to achieve this, working with companies including the BBC, Yahoo!, EMC Consulting, Rally Software, Cisco, SDL, Legal & General and Alegis. During this time, he has been a pioneer of using Kanban Systems and Strategy Deployment for product development, a founding member of both the Lean Systems Society and Limited WIP Society, as well as being active in the community and a regular conference speaker. Karl is a co-founder of the Lean Agile in Brighton. 

In this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Vikrant Viniak, Senior Managing Director of Accenture and a prolific speaker on Technology at the frontier, shares his career journeyStarted as a mechanical engineer in the areas of supply chain. After taking his management degree in Chicago he chose to become a consultantShares his reasons for reinventing himself every 3-5 years and starts the root cause for itTalks about personal board of directors creating mentors around and why one need to reach their own potentialTalks about pushing himself physically, mentally and professionally by continuous improvement on oneselfVikrant shares the art of building Reseliance by creating a beautiful 15 min ‘me’ time over a period of timeVikant shares his belief that he likes to listen from each and every person he comes in contact with. This helps in learning and unlearning in a more seamless wayAlso he’s found his passion in physical fitness His Ethos, As written by Robert Frost - The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Vikrant shares his stories in taking and receiving feedback and it has also helped to become more genuine Vikrant shares how he has applied rapid changes that are happening and expectation of business leaders on where technology is heading. He shares how he keeps up with the rapid pace of learningVikrant shares his key wisdom around being kind to yourself, learning and constantly learn to unlearnVikrant V is a Senior Managing Director in Accenture for the last 16+ years. In his current role as Senior Managing Director at Accenture Strategy, he has worked in Telecom, Media and Technology Industry. He’s a dynamic business leader who is passionate about challenging myself to solve complex problems using creative thinking; bold and iconoclastic action; and data-driven analysis and decision making. He enables his clients with their most strategic imperatives including Digital Transformation, Driving Growth through Digital Operating Models, Everything As a Service (EaaS) transformations, ESG, and Strategic Partnerships.An avid runner and fitness enthusiast who loves people and technology. In his professional and personal life, he has committed to going the extra mile in supporting, mentoring and coaching people to achieve their goals. I like to push my physical and intellectual boundaries.Vikrant started his career as a software engineer in Wipro and moved to become a supply chain consultant. After completing his management graduation in Quinlan School of Business, Loyola university in Chicago, he became a consultant. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering in NIT Trichy, India.   Vikrant can be contacted here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikrantviniak/ or Follow in twitter - https://twitter.com/vviniak?lang=en 

In the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Dave Farley, Independent Software Developer and Consultant, Founder and Director of Continuous Delivery Ltd.Dave shares his perspective on the new fads that are constantly coming in and what he’s rooting himself into the basicsCritical to focus on Fundamentals - exercise on learning, ensure that you have modular and building blocks, get feedback constantly, separation of concernsHaving these basic models in place will be always durable  Dave shares secret in balancing the content creation and software consulting as well as community buildingHe also shares the reason why he started the conference speaking - recruit people! Dave believes in being generous in sharing ideas and creating collective and learning from colleaguesDave shares some of the key inflection points in his career from being consultant to LMAX product and starting his own consulting as well as his recent experience of building a YouTube channelDave shares identify areas that gives one joy and identify areas of influencing. Whats your professional duty and taking pride in what you doGuest IntroductionDave Farley is a pioneer of Continuous Delivery, thought-leader and expert practitioner in CD, Devops, TDD and software development in general.Dave has been a programmer, software engineer and systems architect for many years, from the early days of modern computing, taking those fundamental principles of how computers and software work, and shaping ground-breaking, innovative approaches that have changed how we approach modern software development. Dave has challenged conventional thinking and led teams to build world class software.Dave is co-author of the - Continuous Delivery, and a popular conference speaker on Software Engineering. He built one of the world’s fastest financial exchanges, is a pioneer of BDD, an author of the Reactive Manifesto, and a winner of the Duke award for open source software with the LMAX Disruptor.Dave is passionate about helping development teams around the world improve the design, quality and reliability of their software, by sharing his expertise through his consultancy, YouTube channel, and training courses.Dave can be contacted here -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-farley-a67927/ Published works - ​​ https://continuousdelivery.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/The-Deployment-Pipeline-by-Dave-Farley-2007.pdfhttps://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Delivery-Pipelines-Better-Software/dp/B096TTQHYM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCfqyGl3nq_V0bo64CjZh8g

In the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Dave Farley, Independent Software Developer and Consultant, Founder and Director of Continuous Delivery Ltd.Dave started his career as a visual designer even before user experience became center stage He later became a systems engineer in designing large complex softwareDave shares his experience in working with stalwarts in ThoughtWorks building software in an agile fashion and the kind of innovations that the team were doing in developing terms that have became common place nowDave shares his experience in architecting LMAX as the Financial exchange in a truly continuous deliveryHe says that it's impossible to break compliance in a continuous delivery environment and makes a clear business case for financial sector to rapidly adopt the modern software practicesStarted experimenting the idea of Extreme programming with colleague Jez with a single chapter and extended the notion of continuous deliveryHe’s inspired by Feymann’s theory that, If you can synthesize an idea in a way a child can understand, your solution is half doneDave shares his 10X teams and not necessarily 10X developersHe further shares the story of overlapping developing teams in lean manufacturing and how transformation of people in taking accountability Dave talks about software practices by decade and he’s enjoying being part of the journey.Dave Farley is a pioneer of Continuous Delivery, thought-leader and expert practitioner in CD, Devops, TDD and software development in general.Dave has been a programmer, software engineer and systems architect for many years, from the early days of modern computing, taking those fundamental principles of how computers and software work, and shaping ground-breaking, innovative approaches that have changed how we approach modern software development. Dave has challenged conventional thinking and led teams to build world class software.Dave is co-author of the - Continuous Delivery, and a popular conference speaker on Software Engineering. He built one of the world’s fastest financial exchanges, is a pioneer of BDD, an author of the Reactive Manifesto, and a winner of the Duke award for open source software with the LMAX Disruptor.Dave is passionate about helping development teams around the world improve the design, quality and reliability of their software, by sharing his expertise through his consultancy, YouTube channel, and training courses.Dave can be contacted here -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-farley-a67927/ Published works - ​​ https://continuousdelivery.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/The-Deployment-Pipeline-by-Dave-Farley-2007.pdfhttps://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Delivery-Pipelines-Better-Software/dp/B096TTQHYM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCfqyGl3nq_V0bo64CjZh8g