Software People Stories

In conversation with Tech Executive and Principal consultant from PM Power Consulting, Zafar Ahmed shares his experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey. Zafar draws out his 4 decades of experience as 4 phases in a cricket match with one exciting inning built over another. Started as a passionate programmer in Tata steel working in their transformation In the second innings, became part of IT services revolution shifting base to US and owning a start up He moved to India in early 2000s and headed technology in Hughes software where he learnt the ropes of management, leadership and went through a transformation within Zafar is currently in his 4th innings where he wants to share his rich learnings as a leadership coach and a consultant in PM Power Consulting Zafar shares his many defining moments in his career starting with his focus in becoming part of Tata steel and completely falling in love with software He shares a story on how he stumbled upon agile transformation and became a student and internalised the mindset over practices Next big defining moment is his understanding of leadership style and his transformation along with an agile way of working. He talks about being a taskmaster and how he transformed later as a people’s leader away from his task orientation He talks about setting long term goals in his career as one of his misgivings and not taking enough risks in his career Zafar signs off with a positive note on covid situation and how technology has changed each and every human being on earth. Zafar can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/zafar-ahmad-4704b76/ and https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/zafar-ahmed/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In this conversation, with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, Ramesh Emani shares Starting his career with Tata Burroughs and after 3 years moved to Wipro Infotech, at that time - and stayed on for 25 years Being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug when he was almost 50, with a desire to have a startup before he retired How he became a manager in his second project itself, with less than 2 years of experience and had to manage most team members who were senior to him His principle of spending only 50% of his time in ‘management’ work and take up some individual contribution goals as well His tips for sharing the workload with the team(s) How he chose areas where he can add greater value and started focusing on them The importance of getting an executive level understanding of technology That one should always be a student, in the tech business His experience of being a business leader - getting and servicing a large account and being the first sales person in the US for his company What he learnt and why he enjoys the role of a Business Unit head About being comfortable with ambiguity and making the ambitions, possible How and why failing is not failure and being ready to take calculated risks  About how he picked up healthcare as the domain for his startup Why you need more doers in a startup The role of meetings and how to carry the team with you in an organizational transition What retirement means to him and his hobbies His secret to avoid burnout Ramesh Emani can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramesh-emani-4053a4/

PM Power Consulting is launching its second book soon, 5 Tantras of Enterprise Agility. Tune into this conversation to listen to the how the book evolved through the story from the author Paramu Kurumathur, the product owner J Veeraraaghavan and Sivaguru.

Episode Sub-Title: Living the Product Leaders’  Dream In conversation with Product Management Leader, Krupa Natarajan where her software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on her journey Started technology journey with fervor to learn and curiosity about Technology Transformed her thinking during the dot com bust to understand value delivered by her and for the customer Established a career as a product leader after spending many years in the engineering side Engineering driven products have made our life smoother, as a product leader I see what else is possible? Product needs to fit in the users’ ecosystem and life completely.. Else the product wouldn’t stay in the market Understanding of 3 levels of users in the enterprise and creating a value prop early and continuously has been valuable In the consumption driven software economy, you will be outdated quickly if you don’t adapt Living the product manager’s dream as one doesn’t have to worry about maintaining number of versions or having a perfect feature set due to the shipping constraints.   Its liberating to know that one can make small changes and see how user reacts and hence take several small bets along the way and has become less risk averse Staying in the wave of technology enablers and providing the needed features for enterprise customers has been quite enriching Consumers have more gadgets today than a CEO of the organisation. Envisions that would change and AI will be given in everything that we do Always ensuring that you wow people’s expectations beyond their dreams and out of the box and not just meet or exceed them doesn’t cut work. This has been her guiding principle  Krupa can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/krupanatarajan/  Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with Coaching Guru, Sivakumar from PM Power Consulting , he shares experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Discovered passion in a cascading manner by way of experimenting Current full stack developers and enjoyed starting in software as a full stack engineer Software projects are social organizations that needs to be nurtured Understanding of fulcrum and levers that you have to balance people and capability development Stories of two contrasting software deliveries One with a large development project that started off with great fanfare ends up in legal tussle Second that starts with many SLAs ends up with customer accolades Bridge between the two lies alignment of vision, trust and teamwork Changes are evident now in business investing energy and effort in technology teams  Stakeholder and People management - two sides of the same coin to manage culture, communication Can you become a person of influence - providing support, person of values and continuous beacon to facilitate conversations Highly momentous time personally to let go of control and let the team do their work Being a coach, Shiv points out various dimensions he’s found to add value based on the situation - as a mentor, agile custodian  Imparting learning through story telling and case study nuggets Experiment early and understand your passions like Shiv has found passion for writing caselets/stories/monographs Find an unforgiving mentor to hold you to high standards or an uncomfortable mirror early in your career Shiv can be reached at https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/sivakumar/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/sivakumar-subramanyan-1a78101/  Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with Coach Extraordinaire and Technology Executive, Arun Swamy where his software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Multi touch point start in software - as a research assistant, contract job after doing MS and finally landing US Army related work Returned to India to seek stability and part of the growth wave of product companies HP taught the value of Org values and profit being a side effect Proud to be part of two generations of agile way of working - initially in 1990s for small project development and later as EVO in a more formal way HP also saw challenges in org upheavals and learnt to stay in the web portal specialization Proud of being part of a product sunset which was executed in a least risky way Moved to be a leadership coach based on his experience of being a coach  Coaching Stories based on his strengths on communication, empathy and staying impartial Understand what hat you are wearing a mentor, coach or a friend Fall in love with your work but do not romanticise it by staying realistic Staying truer to process and design and continue to adapt with technology Arun can be contacted at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/arun-swamy-843410/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with career Project Manager, Sankar V S, Regional Digital Services & Products leader in Arup he shares his journey starting from a part time trainer to IoT and analytics experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on His start of journey with software as a trainer in C++ Considers himself as a self starter and staying a continuous learner Difference in communication and unsaid patterns in HK China and that made him move to Project management/Business Analysis Fearless in taking high risk immigration project and learnt lawsuits, coding, quick thinking and sensors Leap towards IoT even before it got the name. Narrates a story of pattern recognition of cows vs human using lasers As a creative director in Arup, he’s enabling construction projects use data in the center exploiting IoT and analytics His view of technology has changed from using to increase commercial purposes (behavior analytics) to improve environment (plastics and landslide deduction) in the construction industry He shares his experience of being a fulcrum of IoT innovations across the globe by creating an alliance and connecting various players Collaboration is one skill he highly recommends to have as the team needs to sound like a symphony and not a single instrument solo  Sankar can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sankarvs/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with an Infrastructure Automation Expert, Ram Iyer, where he shares experiences with Chitra From PM Power Consulting on How he became an automation engineer Early career in Infrastructure guided, mentored and learned with the help of great managers and lead engineers What it takes to understand an enterprise solution, from building reports to writing automation code How the operations view is missing when applications and products are built. Thoughts on design for scale and scale-out v/s scale Infrastructure as code, collaboration and the philosophy of “no silos” A DayIntheLifeOf an infrastructure automation engineer Cross-Cultural learning Lessons learned as a service help desk engineer very early on in his career Why he believes in volunteering  A millennials’ message for building a career in tech and software Ram is an automation expert by profession who has spent about a decade in IT, an author of Powershell Core for Linux Administrators Cookbook (https://www.amazon.com/PowerShell-6-0-Linux-Administration-Cookbook/dp/1789137233#:~:text=Book%20Description&text=PowerShell%20Core%20enables%20automation%20on,to%20effectively%20administer%20your%20environment.) , a blogger, a typography enthusiast, a volunteer and an amateur podcaster. He likes to pick up issues that seem complex and break them down to digestible pieces—something he does at work, and tries to do on his blog. He can be reached via RamIyer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/theramiyer/)

In this conversation with Mritunjay Singh (Munjay), SVP, Infosys and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Munjay’s journey Started the journey with Tata Steel in their computing arena Moved to software looking at the uptake in technology growth Changed his perspective on scaling technology sourcing after a large deal Belief in people can walk on water and having a cross functional skills has been a constant endeavor  Speaking about modular sourcing, he shared how clients have contacted his team, as an advisory long after the ink had dried on the deal Scaling an organization (Pune DC for Infosys) came in the back of community building and creating infrastructure outside the campus to ensure that entire ecosystem thrives and doesn’t suffer. That experience taught me that purpose beyond daily work moves mountains  Creating a future knowledge org with physical location agnostic, self managed and gig economy based delivery Turning point came in my initial days when I delivered a payment software in 2 weeks what was expected in 3 months with last minute change in specs Created a safety net of mentors who can be consulted and used their learnings As a CEO of Axicades, Munjay speaks about creating a playbook for the company in the form of culture. What are the parameters for decision making, customer relationships and acceptable behaviors. Culture of the leader is like a large shadow and first being aware of oneself and making small changes to the thinking that aligns to the vision All decisions are contextual and needs to be taken in the microcosm of that point in time and learn from the outcomes using feedback loops  Munjay can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mritunjay-singh-68a7b23/

In this conversation with Rajaram Venkataraman, Convenor Technology panel FICCI and CEO of VelTech TBI, Founder of Navya Insights, President SPIN Chennai and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Rajaram’s journey Rajaram talks about his passion in computers started with his peers in the family He reminisces the Initial days of working in TCS with Lakshmi Narayanan(Vice Chairman of Cognizant) and Chandrashekar (Exec Director of TCS) in the same office in TCS Being a liaison between Government and industry bodies. Creating networking opportunities for thousands of people and hundreds of companies through FICCI Digital transformation has been accelerated during covid-19 with very specific examples and how technology has laid the foundation for working remotely Thriving start-up community with a number of grants from the large corporates innovative Innovation has spurred in different ways - an example with RoboChef firm providing delicious and safe food for corona warriors Witness to the transformation from order takers to agenda setters Potential to become Intellectual capital of the world with new services, ML, RPA Using COVID as an opportunity generator in different industries, Indian software gurus can make a shift Looking at possibilities in the changing world with a positive attitude and a learning mindset over doomsday attitude You may contact Rajaram Venkaraman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajaramv/