Software People Stories

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creating a value prop early and continuously has been valuable In the consumption driven software economy, you will be outdated quickly if you don’t adapt Living the product manager’s dream as one doesn’t have to worry about maintaining number of versions or having a perfect feature set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/

In this conversation, Nimisha Mukherjee, Engineering Manager at RedHat, shares her stories and experiences with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting about - How she fell in love with computers in class 3 First lessons in user interaction design  Tips on how to get users to change a habit or become familiar with a new design Supporting the new age developer & development environments The evolving role of a developer and developers as first customers Blue sky opportunities for designing experiences  Lessons for aspiring techies and designers Nimisha Mukherjee is an Engineering Manager with Red Hat. Her team works on delivering a simplified developer experience for building cloud native application on Red Hat OpenShift. She has 18+ years of experience in delivering cutting edge web applications. She always enjoyed building user interfaces that provides a differential user experience. She was one of the design track chairs for GHCI (https://ghcindia.anitab.org/), 2016-2018. She was curated the Devtools track for DevConf.IN 2019. She loves to explore new places and new cuisines.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimishamukherjee/

In this conversation, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talks to Smita BS, Delivery Head at Torry Harris Integration Solutions. Smita shares her perspectives on: The various roles she has played over the 17 years of her career across multiple industry verticals Starting as a developer and creating frameworks for testing How her mentors trusted her to take on new responsibilities and provided guidance The advice she got from one of her mentors about not drawing self imposed boundaries How getting a broader view would be very useful in future career roles How she got an opportunity to experience a production issue related to code developed by her team earlier How she consciously pays it forward to mentor her team members Her transition to a leadership role, when, possibly overnight, some peers became members in her team How she learnt the importance and art of delegation when one takes up increasing responsibilities How she was able to not be stressed when taking on more responsibility and delegating How she enabled learning from each other in her team Finding the personal balance with work and two kids About her spouse also being an IT professional in terms of conversations at home Her advice for new entrants to the IT profession Smita has been in the IT Industry for close to 17 years now with experience in various domains like telecom, healthcare, energy management, retail, banking. She started her journey as a developer and has had a fair share of varied roles throughout her career, as she moved onto testing, operational support, configuration management then onto technical team leadership and management roles as release management, migration projects and project & program management. Currently she is a delivery head in Torry Harris Integration Solutions for Integration and Digital projects for certain customer accounts. On the personal front, she is an alumni of BMS College of Engineering, the batch of 2003. She is passionate about art, and a doting mother of two boys and loves baking. https://www.linkedin.com/in/smita-bs-70a79717