Software People Stories

We welcome back a fellow PM Powerian, Vishu Hegde in conversation with Chitra where Vishu shares a flow of thoughts on  Connecting with organization vision with 2-steps removed Building a temple and laying bricks Principles of flow and identifying bottlenecks using flow metrics Understanding flow of work by visualization, metrics, work-in-progress & throughput Starting with mindset and structure to enable organizations to see a "flow" How companies can move from IT agility to business agility Systems thinking paradigms and dys-functions Building a leadership canvas, Engaging leaders in a VUCA world Transitioning s-curves & examining points of discontunuity Navigating stuck points in life and work - the middle challenges 4 dimensions of S-Curves, a teaser. Making the leap with guidance and coaching

In this conversation, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talks to Sukumar, Co-Founder of Tiny Magiq, where Sukumar shares his stories about: His friend who inspired him to get into software How, on his first day at a client’s place, he did something totally unconnected - as he thought - to software His first lesson at work - attitude! What one can learn from working on a maintenance project How his first role with a sales responsibility was so stressful, tending to a breakdown Mustering the courage to seek guidance to change the vicious cycle to a virtuous cycle His personal transition to handle uncertainties in his CXO Roles What he learnt from a war veteran on doing pilot projects Taking an integrative approach to knowledge management and process to deliver knowledge just in time How the blogging experiment opened up cross Business Unit exchanges Some techniques he used to foster innovation across a large organization Inspirations from the paper ‘Ronald Coase Penguins’ by ‘Yochai Benkler’ on socio psychological rewards Why his company is called ‘tiny magiq’ Applying tiny changes in his own life - as in push ups His perspective on the future for a career in IT Sukumar has 31 years of experience in the IT services industry. He runs a Digital transformation & Behaviour transformation enabler startup called Tiny Magiq with 4 co-founders since Feb 2015. He left Cognizant in April 2014, after nearly 19 years, where he served as Senior Vice President, Global Chief Information Officer & Global Head of Innovation.  Sukumar in his 8 year stint as a CXO in Cognizant led award-winning transformation programs in IT, Innovation Culture and Delivery Management. Sukumar is an avid blogger/twitterer, a fitness enthusiast and a travel bug. He researches the Indus Valley Civilization in his spare time. Sukumar received lifetime recognition for his work in IT through the 2014 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders program. Sukumar is rated by Huffington Post as one of the Top 100 Social CIOs in 2014 & 2013. His social media handles: linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajagopalsukumar/ Twitter: @rsukumar Facebook: https://facebook.com/Sukumar Website:  https://tinymagiq.com

In this conversation, Paramu shares his experiences on writing books with Sivaguru. Listen to this chat between 2 colleagues at PM Power Consulting covering Paramu's views on : Where ideas come from, or where he gets his inspiration on topics to write about Specific triggers for this two published books so far [and the third - a technical book - he is working on now] On writing sequels and if they are expected by the readers as more of the same Book writing being a team sport The challenge of understanding reader expectations, for the first or even the second book About pivoting the idea or narration across evolving versions of the manuscript Inserting ‘hooks’ to keep the readers engaged The next 2 books he is working on, now On why he wants to continue writing technical books Are software development ‘methodologies’ myths? A sneak peek into the upcoming technical book, on Agile practices The five principles related to Agility in an organizational context A sampler fable of the hare and the rabbit race

Many stories play out in our lives. Listen to a lively chat between Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting and Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of Progress Software, talking about - How he got into IIT How a joystick that got him into programming His early interest in AI Embedded code to Enterprise code Building a distributed relational database Building on something that he already knew, to get into completely new areas, such as marketing His thoughts on ‘AI in everything’ How technology can be considered additive Integrating multiple products to create value for the users Looking at acquisitions also based on clear use cases Some of the cultural challenges in integrating different products [and teams] and mutual respect - for values, culture, background etc The importance of explaining the why to everyone, to get them on board His approach of teaming young professionals with much more seniors, soon after he took charge and the benefits His thoughts on the open source model and the nativescript project What he hears as one of the top expectations from his customers His advice to aspiring IT professionals, based on his own experience And finally, his experience in the transition from a techie to a leader A technologist at heart, Yogesh Gupta is passionate about how technology can make life simpler—both for businesses and individuals. Since joining Progress in October 2016 as its President and Chief Executive Officer, he has strengthened the company’s market position, improved customer relationships, launched new products, acquired three companies and significantly improved operating margins and cash flow. Progress has also refreshed its Board of Directors, increasing the diversity of the Board with four new independent members to build a strong new leadership team that can drive further success.   Prior to joining Progress, Yogesh was President and Chief Executive Officer at Kaseya, Inc., a private equity-backed software company providing IT management software solutions to managed service providers. Before Kaseya, he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of FatWire Software, a VC-backed marketing automation software company. He led FatWire through the great recession and doubled its revenue over four years, leading to a successful exit to Oracle. A 30-year software industry veteran, Yogesh held several corporate officer roles at CA Inc., including the role of Chief Technology Officer for five years and Chief Strategy Officer and head of M&A for two years.   A recognized expert in emerging technologies and industry trends as well as a published author, Yogesh holds a patent in the field of neural networks. He earned a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He also serves on the boards of Beth Israel Lahey Health System (BILHS) and Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC).

Episode: 4 decades in 2 phases Sub title: Consultant to Implementer In this conversation Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with his old friend Neelu (PK Neelakantan). Listen to their conversation as Neelu talks about: Two significant phases of his career Playing software development and business development roles A major personal decision to move base from India to the US An urge to do something on his own About losing the job at the time of the dot com bust About an environment where programmers were younger than the programs they were working on Some challenges in managing knowledge workers Literally jumping into a data lake! Assigning a monetary value for software, for a buyer Some challenges in concluding a sale of a platform product What you tell demanding users Resisting the urge to do it yourself and letting team members learn by doing Handling things beyond your control Managerial style of doing together and inspiring Earning the team’s trust by adding value in all interactions And not being able to please everyone all the time Neelu has about four decades of experience in software development having worked with organizations in India and the United States in different capacities. He lives in San Diego where he works at the San Diego Community College District as their Application Development Manager overseeing the student administration systems. We invite listeners of the Software People Stories podcast to join us and celebrate International Podcasting Day, on the 28th of September 2019, hosted by Hubhopper in Bangalore. We would love to meet you.  Please register yourselves here (https://podcasts.hubhopper.com/o2podcollective-international-podcast-day?fbclid=IwAR312Zbr8VdPHI0p4eJurzzkoROGiQMSpPk9tmpRV_3MMMDxf2CLRLVg_IA) quickly and block your dates. See you there!

In this episode Jayaprakash JP, coach and consultant talks to Chitra from PM Power consulting about  - Being an engineer at heart & how his career began in the software industry, working in product & services organizations - Continuous rediscovery, love for learning, and curiosity - Building enterprise health applications - Experiencing different work cultures between services & product organizations - Co-discovering & co-developing customer needs in a VUCA environment with inclusivity & collaboration - Being agile in daily life, experiments and learning - Becoming an entrepreneur  - Why leaders should have an entrepreneural spirit - A message for coaches, enablers and people enabling transformations in organizations - Enabling inspiration in children. Jayaprakash Puttaswamy (aka 'JP') is passionate about coaching people and enabling co-creation of game changing possibilities! What he loves most about coaching is the opportunity it provides, to do a deep inquiry about self and to impact other human beings' lives through co-creation and growing together. With a “Bachelor of Engineering” degree in Computer Science, JP has about 16+ years of overall experience in IT industry and is a Leader in modern Software Engineering. He is practicing agile since 2003 (with Scrum, XP & Kanban), JP has trained over 2000 people in 40+ organizations. In the last 8 years, JP has coached about 900 people in 7 large-scale transformation engagements. JP has worked with Pete Behrens, driving agile transformation and co-facilitating Leadership Agility workshops in GE HealthCare and McKinsey & Company. His recent coaching was to drive enterprise-level agile/lean & DevOps transformation at Target and and Siemens. He can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/jputtaswamy/  Here are some of his talks Continuous Product Discovery and Business Agility (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBH2KAYKtqM) Live Coaching Demo & Practice Workshop (https://youtu.be/L56fPhmNmJI) Dealing with, and coaching senior Management and Leadership (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gF-rjdfGq4) Product Discovery to Delivery – Connecting practices end-to-end (https://youtu.be/ql6NhlyKLz8)

This conversation between VK Kumar, a seasoned architect and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting brings to light Kumar's narratives on The solid grounding that formal and structured training can give His initial work on one of the first globally successful products from India What he learnt about practical use of technology from a consulting role Becoming an architect What cross-over cables taught him Challenges of working in a distributed team Making meetings effective through a practice of readouts A good practice related to architectural governance Some key aspects to be considered for resilient architectures The cyclical nature of architectural models Whether being an architect - as a role - is more stressful than other roles in software development Architecture and Agile What he finds as an effective tool for communication for architects Whether an architect is an individual contributor or a team player Kumar Venkataramiah, is a senior architect at a reputed financial telecommunications company. He specializes in application architecture, design, business continuity and performance. He has close to 40 years experience in the IT industry and has expertise in transaction processing, message switching, networking and databases. He has managed several IT delivery teams. He has no hobbies and enjoys his free time.

In this conversation, Veena Ramagoplan, Co-Founder and Director of Inroads Leadership Development and Chitra from PM Power talk about Veena’s variety of experiences such as  Overcoming careless whispers and successfully leading a team of 50 sailors on a 250km trek Facing cultural experiences while handling global transitions Being exposed to people management at a very young age, handling the media glare, and being in the Limca book of records The importance of self belief & responding with action to counter biases and how to gain respect through your actions Learning how to be assertive and respond when people remark derisively Balance with empathy in any environment What helped her transition to corporate life How to work beyond a job description Stakeholder engagement instead of stakeholder management when handling work transitions to India Why she chose to “give back” Her message for people on how to balance their lives Ms. Veena Ramagopalan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/veena-ramagopalan-75052b9/?originalSubdomain=in) has a versatile experience of over 25 years in the  corporate and defence. She is an ex-Naval officer from the first batch of women officers of the Indian Navy. Thereafter, she worked in various companies including Philips for over 13 years, holding senior Strategic & Leadership roles. Veena has enriching corporate career, her experience spans across Strategic & Process Consultancy, Business excellence, Quality Assurance & Quality Management, Delivery and Program Management. As part of her corporate career she has handled global and cross-cultural teams, led and been part of various transformation and change management journey in the organization. Veena is Co-founder, Director of Inroads Leadership Development .  She is passionate about coaching and mentoring leaders and professionals. She loves connecting with people to share her experiences and support them. She also enjoys engaging and inspiring women leaders and professionals, and to help them accelerate their leadership abilities and integrate in organizations.

Listen to another interesting conversation between colleagues J Veeraraaghavan and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, as JV's shares his experiences on  Various role transitions in JV’s career and how he handled them The motivation to excel in the responsibilities he took up How his core strengths of communication, interface with people, being able to talk the language of the customer, being a good listener helped in getting new responsibilities and challenges Learning on the job Realizing that an all round exposure was needed Product engineering, automation and tools Learnings from a transition from a services organization to a product organization Learning as a teacher Taking exploratory approaches as a coach The experience as a small fish in a big pond, from a big fish in a small pond The urge to give everything your best Going with an open mind and trusting your own skills

Here's a conversation between Sairam and Sivaguru of PM Power consulting as they uncover facets of Sairam's journey from when he began working in film technology and film manufacturing to his extensive experience in software design and development. Sairam has worked alongside industrial engineers which helped him to learn, understand and associate his thinking with JIT, Lean, Kanban, BPR etc.  He has adopted IID [Incremental and Iterative Development] – (unknowingly) as early as 1994, to turn around a thrice failed software project, which further helped him later to establish contacts with some of the thought leaders in UML, IID, Scrum and XP.  For the last over 15-years, his focus was on applying these alternate software development models to data intense projects like Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Big Data & Analytics. Listen on as he shares stories around - How unit card readers helped him pivot to software from being a chemistry professional Scientific programming to MRP 2 Having the advantage of being close to his customers Taking up a project that nobody wanted to be part of, as a one-man army Learning from the success of the project: secret - keeping extensive notes How that helped in the conversations with Craig Larman to decode the success formula Characteristics of industries where repetitive processes are most suited Applying concepts of incremental work in exploratory [R&D] situations How even a simple program development may be incremental and an analogy of [old style] film processing The anti-pattern of measuring team velocity The concept  of shared understanding Advice for aspirants to the industry, particularly students