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Every organization wants to innovate. Not everyone succeeds. .. < Back Innovate to impact framework Every organization wants to innovate. Not everyone succeeds. .. [ This article was originally published on Thoughtworks's Insights. You can see the original articles here . ] Every organization wants to innovate. Not everyone succeeds. And often, the reason for failure is that organizations are trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Good luck with that. Instead, we prefer to plan for success. In this article, we’re going to dive into the practical details of our fluency model — the Innovate to Impact framework — looking at each stage of the journey and outlining the steps you need to take to proceed to the next level. The framework relies on a collaborative approach to innovation — avoiding the pitfalls of both the top-down and bottom-up approaches that so often end in frustration (see article one for a fuller description of the collaborative approach). But success demands more than just setting up a team and hoping for the best. Let’s look a little closer at how your journey towards sustainable innovation can map out. It starts with a vision: how you see ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. Stage 1: Experimenter (Build the capability & innovation engine) The first stage of your journey is all about building capability and the innovation engine that will help you with experimentation. Your innovation team needs to understand all key stakeholders; the roles team members will play; how to source ideas from people across the enterprise; and how to establish communication channels and build a process that will allow efficient execution of the experiments that you’re going to conduct. Experimentation, however, needs to be aligned to a purpose: that of getting you closer to your vision for strategic customer differentiation objective. Successful experimentation will help you scale through the steps of this framework, and smooth the path towards sustainable innovation. As part of the innovation engine, your team needs to get accustomed to the discipline of sourcing ideas; validating them; ensure the focus is aligned to business priorities; and evaluate experiments’ success in ways that are tangible to the business. This helps the team to be lean in their approach of building an innovation engine for experimentation. As part of this stage, the following are the aspects you need to consider: Purpose To build the capability and set foundations to carry out experiments in the most efficient manner. What you need to do? At this stage, you will need to: Identify the purpose of your innovation programme and set a long term charter for the programme Identify the key stakeholders and team members Build relations and alignment with leadership and understand strategic objectives of the organization Generate, validate and select a set of ideas and experiments in collaboration with people across organization Prioritize a set of ideas and run experiments using the rapid innovation framework Review your process to identify the most efficient and impactful way to build experiments Repeat the process for different types of experiments to fine-tune your innovation engine Expected outcome This phase is all about building an innovation capability that turn your ideas into products, prototypes or some tangible results (success or failure) in the most efficient manner. Once you’ve taken the above steps, its expected that you would have: Built the team that’s capable of running experiments in the most efficient manner Understood the communication pathways and decision points within your organization Proven your capability that you can turn ideas into products, prototypes or some tangible results (success or failures) within a definite period of time This should invite more attention for you innovation programme and possibly enable you to secure additional funding. Possible risks One of the biggest challenges for this early-stage Experimenter team is that the projects may fail, or at least not produce the anticipated results. Maybe more experiments fail than succeed. This can undoubtedly impact morale. So you should raise this possibility with the team at the outset. Because at this formative stage, successful projects aren’t the only goal: it’s essential that your team learns to adapt and quickly identify when projects aren’t delivering. They’ll learn far more from projects that go awry than those that are plain sailing. Innovation in practice Google X is a great example of how experimentation-oriented innovation labs can be set up. X is a diverse group of inventors and entrepreneurs who build and launch technologies that aim to improve the lives of millions, even billions, of people. Its goal? 10x impact on the world’s most intractable problems, not just 10% improvement. It approaches projects that have the aspiration and riskiness of research, and tries to tackle them with the speed and ambition of a startup. Some of its best known ideas include Project Loon (balloons to deliver internet in rural areas) and Project Wing (Drones for good deliveries). Stage 2: Value creator (Build enhanced credibility and strengthen leadership support by targeting internal value creation) Once you have a solid engine that enables you to turn your ideas into tangible results and has proven its worth through a series of experimentation, you should then turn your focus onto building impact within the organization. This can be done through targeted value generation using your engine. As a part of value creator, your focus should now be to partner with important business functions within the organization, identifying opportunities where impact of innovation can be highest and partner with the users or functions to deliver those innovations to them. The important difference between the experimenter phase and value creator phase is that in the latter, you identify specific areas (such as recruitment, staffing or operations) and work with the end users to establish a hypothesis of value and agree on it before starting to work on solving the problem and delivering an innovation. In this phase, your working team becomes bigger as you welcome the potential users and functional people into your team and focus on co-creation to deliver impactful innovation through your engine. Purpose The purpose of this phase is to strengthen the partnership with the organizational leadership by providing direct and tangible benefits to the important business functions through your innovation engine. What you need to do? To prepare successfully for this stage, you should: Identify and partner with an internal business function, which is strategically important for the organization (say staffing, recruiting, sales) Talk to the users and understand their problems, as well as opportunities in the area Ideate within the context to understand the possibilities for innovation Map idea to potential value /outcome and target specific idea for experimentation Create a working group with users and functional people that would work with your team to co-create the solution Use your experimentation engine to build the solution/product/prototype and targetedly deliver the value Measure the value delivered Expected outcome Because your innovation team is now working with a target group within the enterprise, you can expect the team to hone their ability to generate ideas that solve specific problems for that team. This can help build the culture of purpose-led innovation. Innovation is driven by customer value and market differentiation. It's sustained with strategic alignment and people participation. The innovation efforts through this phase should directly help your organization achieve part of its strategic goals or push your functions closer to achieving their strategic goals. In a nutshell, deliver impact for an important business function within your organization. Possible risks The choice of targeted teams within your organization will determine your success. That’s because this needs to be a close working relationship. If your stakeholders can’t make time for, you can’t deliver. This can be a challenge. As we saw in the first article, when business-as-usual is the priority, innovation suffers. You can’t afford to be seen as a distraction, rather than a strategic enabler. Innovation in practice In a commercial aircraft’s galley, space is at a premium. And with hundreds of passengers to please, every square centimeter is precious. So when looking at how to maximize use of this space, Delta Airlines’ innovation team, The Hanger, came up with an neat idea to reclaim nearly two carts’ worth of space: turning the coffee mug handles to face each other . Sometimes, valuable ideas don’t need to cost the earth. Stage 3: Business enabler (Build customer-focused innovation engine to support sales and new client solutions) Once you’ve proven yourself to be a value creator for the business, it’s time to take the next step and start thinking of directly contributing to the business growth. As you start thinking of growing the impact of your innovation program, it’s important that you start thinking of impacting the sales and demand efforts of your organization and to an extent, your organization’s clients. This phase, the Business enabler, specifically targets value creation for the revenue-earning departments or in some cases, directly for the clients. Using the work done for building the delivery engine and value creation for internal functions, you’d have built a repository of innovations that could possibly be ready to be showcased to your clients as a part of your proposal, or a sales pitch. In some cases, there may be a need to do a targeted prototyping or concept designing for clients based on certain pre-sales activities. Your innovation team can partner with the client account teams or sales and demand teams to proactively identify opportunities to showcase your innovations to clients or create new innovations that will assist sales efforts with existing and new clients. This is where the focus of the innovation shifts from delivering targeted value to an internal function to target supporting business development efforts of the organization through innovation. Purpose The purpose of this phase is to directly support the pre-sales, client account teams and business development efforts by targeting specific client or market opportunities to help win more business. What you need to do? To prepare successfully for this stage, you should: Partner with the market-facing or revenue-generating departments within your organization to understand the opportunities Understand about the existing clients and potential clients that your organization wants to target Collaborate with client account teams and sales teams to identify opportunities where innovation bring an impact on business development Identify opportunities to showcase your innovations to relevant clients (existing / potential) as a part of sales efforts Deliver new innovations that would be relevant / showcaseable to clients (existing / potential) that would open up new business opportunities Continue aligning with the business functions within the organization to deliver concepts / prototypes / innovations relevant to the market Expected outcome As part of this phase, your team is now working with the direct revenue-earning (or maybe winning) departments of the organization, you can expect the team to contribute to winning more business for the organization. This is especially true when it comes to existing revenue-generating streams. You can do this by supporting the sales efforts by delivering innovative example PoCs, concepts, prototypes aligned with the clients or market you are targeting. The innovations that you deliver should be targeted to help open up new conversations with existing clients for more work, innovative work and help convince new clients about your capability of delivering work. By running experiments that are targeted towards customers, clients and the business, you should get quicker way at market and opportunity assessment. It should become second nature for your teams to know about market conditions and identify where opportunities lie. Possible risks The stakes are rising. You may need larger investments for the experiments you’re running — and that’s often a business challenge. Especially because you are doing a pre-investment into delivering potential revenue earning innovations that may or may not necessarily guarantee new business. There’s a danger that customers may still be thinking about yesteryear’s ideas and may not be really prepared for your innovation to drive their growth. So in many cases there is a likelihood that you may present a shiny new innovation to them and they may think: “This looks great, but probably we need time to be ready for this kind of work.” Innovation in practice At US insurance group USSA, business enhancements are achieved by going to its customers directly. It runs new ideas past its customers via USAA Labs, where members are invited to evaluate and test new ideas and concepts. For instance, members might be asked to evaluate the firm’s process for handling natural disasters or maybe a guide for managing debt. Through its innovation process, it can run experiments that target specific value and get to production through a targeted innovation process, where it has proven customer needs. Stage 4: Strategic differentiator (Define your own blue ocean and find your sweet spot, led by innovation) Now that you have mastered building your innovation engine, understood how to create significant value for internal stakeholders and the organization, and also mastered the art of building innovations for clients and help strengthening existing revenue streams, it’s time to take a jump and take the next step. To grow significantly faster, you need to create your own blue oceans and deliver differentiated value to clients through your innovation engine. You need to create a value proposition such that it differentiates you positively against your competition and potentially, makes the competition irrelevant. This is the whole point of innovation and through this phase, you should aim to create a strategic differentiation for yourself against your competition. Purpose The purpose of this phase is to use innovation to build a strategic differentiator for yourself against your competition and position yourself positively in the market you operate. What you need to do? To prepare successfully for this stage, you should: Invest in R&D to understand and spot potential new market opportunities that would provide significant new value to your customers Use your market research skills to come up with new offerings, services or products for your existing customers, or to spot an entirely new customer segment Understand how this could differentiate yourself against your competition and provide you an advantage in the market Invest in building a strategic capability to support the delivery of the new offering, services or a product for your customer segment Successfully delivery value to customers and run a full cycle of acquisition, retention and growth with your customer (i.e., acquiring, retaining and growing the customer) Think about building a strategic partnership with your customers and help them to graduate through their own innovation journey You can think of being successful if you are able to help customers draw significant value in the markets they operate through your new innovative offering Expected outcome As a part of your strategic investment in innovation efforts, you need to create a new product, service offering or a value proposition for customers that’s innovative and positively differentiates you against your competition. This can be done by establishing a strategic innovation partnering with your customers and help them shape up their own innovation journey and help them deliver significant value to their customers. Possible risks The biggest risk in this is the lack of belief of leadership in investing into R&D to create true differentiation through innovation. It’s often seen that the leadership prefers to take low-risk approach to exploring new opportunities and it may mean that they’d miss out on creating a significant differentiator for organizations through this approach. This phase requires organizations to take a radical new approach and may impact culture, people and the way the business is done etc. and it needs strong and visionary leadership to take this step. Innovation in practice Airbnb is a great example of how innovation has enabled an entire new business to be set up; one that’s disrupted the hospitality industry globally. Its unique rental platform lets people list, find, and rent short-term lodging in 65,000 cities and more than 191 countries across the globe. Innovation has proven to be a big strategic differentiator for Airbnb and allows itself to create a blue ocean for itself against the competition within the hospitality industry. In n ext part of this series, we'll explore how this fluency model has been implemented in practice. Previous Next

One of the core principles of our Innovate to Impact framework ... < Back Innovation in practice One of the core principles of our Innovate to Impact framework ... [ This article was originally published on Thoughtworks's Insights. You can see the original articles here . ] Making good on ideas Four phases of innovation One of the core principles of our Innovate to Impact framework is the notion that we’re creating something that adds new value to the business. And as we’ve seen, that value might be realized in new revenue streams, new customer services or internal efficiencies. As you move through the four-stage maturity model, the goal is to build out more impactful innovations. But as discussed, there’s little point in expecting the business to appreciate and support your efforts unless you can articulate the value derived. Validation and measurement are key. So the four stages of innovation throughout the Innovate to Impact framework can be summarized as: Ideate. Generate a backlog of ideas through voice of customers, crowdsourcing, hackathons, workshops. Your initial focus should be on quantity. Validate. Test your initial set of ideas against a defined set of parameters to understand the likely impact. Prioritize those with the biggest potential returns. Incubate. Build rapid prototypes, regularly showcase your work, co-create the product with your stakeholders to target value delivery Measure. How have you performed against expected targets? Measuring your impact. Let’s take a look at these phases in detail. Ideate The purpose here is to generate ideas. Every idea is welcome as long as it’s in keeping with the theme of the task. Whether something strikes you as a flash of genius or total clanger: park your judgement for now. You want to encourage your innovation team to become an ideation powerhouse. So gather up every idea coming your way. Some form of ideation workshop can be a great way to kickstart the process. Of course, not every idea has to be new. Your stakeholders are likely to already have their own ideas in mind, so you’ll want to ensure you involve them in the ideation process too. IT might also be necessary to do some for of discovery to identify what ideas are already out there. Another mechanism for encouraging the flow of ideas is by using the lens of the customers’ voice. What are their pain points or their needs? What are they telling you about potential opportunities to improve your offerings? Validate Here, your focus is validating your pool of ideas against predefined criteria to score ideas’ potential value. This helps us prioritize and identify which ideas bring the biggest impact. The validation process forms part of what I’ve dubbed the ‘ideas funnel’. Taking a set of ideas and narrowing it down through understanding which ones will offer you the most bang for your buck. When scoring, you may want to consider some of the following criteria: Commercial viability . Is the idea commercially marketable? Can it be showcased to, or used by, potential clients? Would this influence our clients or staff? Usability (Proof of value) . Is the idea usable in the current condition and within the existing context of your organization? Is it simple and intuitive to use by people? Is it easier to deploy and maintain? User adaptation . How easy would it be to get first 100/1000 etc. users to adopt this? Would they find it easy to get on board? How likely are they going to be repeat users? Strategy alignment . Is it aligned with the organizational strategy, vision and objectives? Does it help your organization achieve its goals? Feasibility . How feasible the idea is to qualify as incubator idea? Is it likely to result in a large programme of work? Can it be implemented in a definite period of time? What are the considerations for costs, efforts, team etc. needed to build this? Incubate Once you have validated your ideas, you’ll need to move fast to deliver a product or prototype. The incubate phase is based on high-touch engagement, high-speed decisions, intrapreneurship thinking and bringing a sense of urgency into the process so that we can meet the desired outcome with speed. To succeed here, your working team needs to be rapidly established. It should comprise of decision makers and people with domain expertise, so that they can collaborate with your incubator team. Their first task is to dive deeper into the problem at hand while developing a shared context within the working team so that they all coalesce around desired outcomes and possible measures of success. We advocate daily showcases to ensure everyone is aware of what’s coming up, how the solution is shaping up and what the early indicators suggest about chances of success. Changes is an integral part of incubation — you shouldn’t expect that you have the perfect solution from the get-go; but this iterative process should help you stay on track to meet your goals. Measure In some ways, measurements should take place at every stage of this incubation process. It’s essential to ensure you’re on the right track. But if you’re looking to create sustainable innovation within your enterprise, measurement comes into its own once you’re first solution is finished and you’re building a pipeline of ideas. You might start by measuring what I’d describe as targeted innovation. Make qualitative assessments on your impact on the business — as well as their perception of the incubator team. This enables you to track your overall success as an innovation engine. But you’ll also want to keep tabs on things at the initiative level. Can you show that your initiatives have saved money, time or effort? Have new market opportunities opened up? Has your organizational decision making improved? Can you demonstrate a return on investment? Ultimately, your success as an innovation team will depend on the number of ideas that you’ve turned into long-term products. So you should plan to track this from the outset.  Always learn, always The path towards sustainable innovation isn’t about producing the perfect solution. What matters is continuously measuring the impact of your actions and learning from that. As the diagram above shows, what this means in practice continually revisiting your backlog of ideas. Things that may once have seemed impractical might now look urgent. Likewise, if some ideas haven’t produced the anticipated results, can you identify why not and plot a course to success? By constantly challenging yourself and your incubator team you won’t just come up with one quick win, but a sustainable program of improvements over the long term. In Part Four of this series, we’ll take a look at how all these ideas have played out in practice. Previous Next

The LEAN framework originates from the manufacturing system developed by Toyota called Toyota Production System ... < Back Be LEAN .. this year! The LEAN framework originates from the manufacturing system developed by Toyota called Toyota Production System ... The LEAN framework originates from the manufacturing system developed by Toyota called Toyota Production System [TPS] that pursues the principle of optimum streamlining throughout the entire system through the thorough elimination of waste and aims to build quality in at the manufacturing process while recognizing the principle of [ongoing] cost reduction. It also includes all the accompanying technology & tools necessary to accomplish those aims. [Reference .. here ] The process that Toyota developed for Just-in-time production was called TPS until 1990. MIT researchers tossed the term LEAN in their 1990 book called “The Machine that Changed the World” to describe the principles of Toyota Production System. Thereafter, of course, the process was known to the world as LEAN Service Framework . In a nutshell, LEAN is an integrated system of principles, work practices & processes that empowers the operational users to drive the relentless pursuit of perfect customer value creation. Although LEAN was innovated and started in the manufacturing industry and especially at Toyota, it, over the years grown out of the manufacturing industry and into other verticals, not to mention the IT/BPO industry. LEAN underpins 5 principles in the framework as follows, Eliminate Waste – As per the LEAN principles, the waste could be due to the idle time spent by the employees waiting for work, or spending extra hours to exceed customer expectations (without customer asking for it), excessive testing etc., activities and all such activities that do not add add direct value to the customers. Eliminate Variability – This talks more about complexity of the work within the team. LEAN suggests eliminating the variability of work done by the employees so that activities & individual performances are streamlined to carry out typical activities. This also talks about the external work that comes within such as ticket trend, business requirements etc., and suggests to streamline. Eliminate Inflexibility – This suggest more about the resources capacity and the work segmentation and align the efforts and create skill pools so as to better utilize the knowledge, performance & work practices against repetitive / common tasks. Performance Management – LEAN suggests to compute the performance of the individuals as well as the team and making the results publish to the individuals / teams and discuss with them on a regular basis. LEAN recommends that regular performance discussions enhances the team morale, gives them goal to enhance performances etc., Involvement of workers – LEAN, more than a process is more of a philosophy and change in the thinking of the workforce and suggest to have the workforce participate and understand these principles so they themselves are aware of the waste being created around they can eliminate themselves. Many IT companies have implemented LEAN successfully. IBM has been doing the LEAN implementation for the customers since last 3+ years. Over the years, being LEAN organization has been a selling point for the IT vendors and equally the customers have been demanding. The benefits of LEAN include reduce waste, reduction of inventory costs, cross trained employees, reduced cycle time & obsolescence, high quality & reliability and may more. This, of course was a drop in the ocean of the knowledge of the LEAN framework, even for me. If you are interested in knowing more and reading more, suggesting the following reading Principles of LEAN Thinking Lean Manufacturing & Lean Software Development What is LEAN? Benefits of LEAN LEAN – The Machine that changed the world ! Previous Next

Sudeepa is an amazing photographer, likes to travel, has a great attention to detail and is an extremely hardworking individual. She works as the Techops Head of Finance with Thoughtworks. Women leadership series - In conversation with Sudeepa Ghosh Majumdar 7 Mar 2022 Sudeepa is an amazing photographer, likes to travel, has a great attention to detail and is an extremely hardworking individual. She works as the Techops Head of Finance with Thoughtworks. How would you introduce yourself? I am a Finance Professional with diverse experience in Controllership, Business Finance, Procurement, Revenue Compliance, Financial Planning Analysis and Asset Management software delivery over a period of 16 years. I feel I am in pursuit of challenges to keep learning. Can you tell me a bit about your career journey? When did you first get into a leadership role? I started my career with IBM and then worked with ITC before moving with HP for a period of 7 years across various roles in country and region which help me understand the dynamics of a well oiled organization with process and policies. Joined TW back in 2014 as I wanted to apply my learnings to a growing organization. My leadership journey started in Thoughtworks as I navigated my own through limited processes and policies to a Public Company. What were the top challenges you faced during your journey and how did you overcome them? One of my learnings has been that as Finance professionals we struggle to tell the story behind the numbers and make it presentable in a way that helps drive decision making by business leaders. How to present the technical information to business teams has been challenging and it’s a constant learning process. Over the period I have realized that understanding the Business basics is very critical for Financial story telling, If you don’t understand the business- the numbers themselves will not make any sense. Playing the role of a Product Owner to understand software delivery has played a crucial role in understanding the intricacies of the business and eventually helped me model financials in a way to invoke discussion and thoughts among the business leaders and also play the role of trusted advisor to business leaders. What motivates you? New challenges and learnings always motivates me. I am not afraid of going into a situation where I have no clue as that is the biggest opportunity to maximize learnings. Do you have a role model in your life? Can you name a few people who you look up to? My mother is one of my biggest role model. I saw her studying along with working and managing kids and family. It showed me at early age that if you are determined , disciplined ,have a passion and with planning and support- one can achieve anything in life. In my professional work I have come across some amazing leaders and peers – from whom I am always learning. What does leadership mean to you? How would you describe your leadership style? Leadership to me means the ability to lead, influence and guide the business leaders with help of financial insights for decision making . For me leadership is also the way of building a strong autonomous team who are on a learning journey and able to grow. What would be your advice to young leaders? Embrace the unknown and always challenge yourself to learn new things. Build a strong diverse team which works on each other strengths and complement each other . A leader is indeed as good as his/her/their team. And lastly in all the crazy madness – always breathe – find something outside work which you are passionate about – which helps you to unwind .

Ganesh is a product manager of NEO with @thoughtworks. He considers his 14 yrs daughter as his role model and he proudly acknowledges she inspires him with her dedication, determination, firm decision making, and clarity of thoughts. Emerging leadership series - In conversation with Ganesh Kumar Balusamy 28 Jan 2023 Ganesh is a product manager of NEO with @thoughtworks. He considers his 14 yrs daughter as his role model and he proudly acknowledges she inspires him with her dedication, determination, firm decision making, and clarity of thoughts. How would you introduce yourself? My name is Ganesh Kumar (GK), and I work for the TechOps Digital Platforms team at /thoughtworks as a product manager. Having 16 years of professional background with a focus on analysis, product and delivery. Setting the right product strategy, leading the team with the right intent and goal, discovering the right problem by consulting with users and stakeholders, facilitating and identifying the right solution, testing and validating the identified solution, and delivering it as committed along with the team are all part of my day to day activities. Can you tell me a bit about your career journey? What inspired you to take on the leadership role? I started my career with PTG (@Ebix) as a sales executive to sell CRM softwares to financial analysts all over India. Fortunately, I got a chance to transition into the role of Business Analyst for the same cloud product. With the foundation of four years in my first job, I moved to BNY Mellon to automate the Anti Money Laundering manual processes. After working for BNY Mellon for one and half year, I moved to Exterro, a leading e-discovery software product company, where I worked to define, re-define, enhance digital workflows. Additionally, it provided an opportunity to lead and learn the qualities that make an effective leader. I joined Harman as a programme manager after gaining significant expertise as a business analyst in product companies. This was my first exposure to the service company and I worked with numerous clients across different domains. This gave me the confidence to be agile by nature, deliver as a team, and be domain agnostic. Joined /thoughtworks back in mid 2018 to learn and grow in product and digital platforms. The journey of learning is still continuing (my first company where I stayed for more than 4 years). People around me and my leaders motivated me to take initiative, trusted in my approach and inspired with their actions which takes me to the leadership role. What were the top challenges you faced during your journey and how did you overcome them? When I was put in an ambiguous scenario, I became nervous, but the revelation that it was OK not to know everything and the desire to quickly learn in those areas transformed my perspective on unknown areas. Even if I had solid conviction on certain topics, it was difficult for me to explain and persuade others. A detailed research, sufficient data points to support the issue, and assistance from the available support system enabled me to handle the criticism and communicate confidently. What motivates you everyday? An appreciation, a sense of accomplishment, when I make a positive change in the lives of others (however tiny), or a heartfelt greeting motivates me to run for the day. And, the little things I do for myself, and having my own ME time. Do you have a role model in your life? Can you name a few people who you look up to? Positive people around me always inspire me, and I admire them in various aspects. In my first job as a sales executive, I was good at prospecting, contacting, and offering, but I was not able to close the sales calls. Mr.Elango was my senior, and he went out of his way to help and protect me until I could close the calls on my own. Still, I remember his virtues in the manner he motivated and guided me in the beginning of my profession. When I first started working as a Business Analyst, Karina Shimomaebara was my first product manager. She taught me to be patient with my teammates and coworkers. She took an extra step to understand my personal side, hardships I was facing, and extended her help even beyond her limit. Many more people along with my professional life, now my 14 year daughter has recently been a role model for me. Her dedication, determination, firm decision making, and clarity of thought taught me what I had been missing out on all these days, and what I needed to focus on in my life. What does leadership mean to you? How would you describe your leadership style? In my school days, I was the least favorite student to most of my teachers, until I met my physics teacher in my 12th grade. For him, all students are equal irrespective of how attentive in his class, or how much you score in his subject, but he does his duty every day day in day out. When I scored 17% on his subject on the first exam, he extended his help to guide me along with some of my classmates who scored less. He identified where I am lagging behind and taught me every chapter in detail in the extra classes. With his guidance and extra care I scored 94% in my final exam. That made Physics my favorite subject. I see my Physics teacher as a great leader. I see good leaders around who are “good mentors” and “Impartial” and I am striving to emulate them. After a small setback in my communication with my clients, my leader in Thoughtworks said “Ganesh, I trust you.”. This was when I joined his team, and that was the first time a leader said he trusts me. I respect his confidence and the way he still stands by his words to this day. My fear of failure might have stuck with me, if I didn’t hear this from him. That tells me “Trust” and “Trustworthy” are needed to be a good leader. I believe that I am following it too. What would be your advice to other leaders? Don't wait for others to name you as a leader; believe that you are already a leader of someone or something. Humility may always help you develop as a leader. Be patient, actively listen to others, set a good example by doing the same, and be open to feedback. Furthermore, continue your passion, and do what interests you.

Do you know the effective way of moving forward in your career? If no, read more .. < Back Guide for career progression - 3Ps process Do you know the effective way of moving forward in your career? If no, read more .. While the trajectory of your career is influenced by both hard work and luck, it's equally shaped by your ability to recognize the right opportunities and make strategic moves at the right moments. As you ascend into more impactful roles, the competition intensifies, making advancement more challenging. Drawing from my own experience and observations, I've distilled the journey from one career level to the next into a three-step approach. Following these steps, in conjunction with seizing opportunities and timing your actions effectively, can greatly enhance your career progression. Before delving into the steps and unveiling the secret, it's important to note that this approach may not universally apply to all scenarios and job types. It's tailored to the context of the IT sector, where hierarchical structures prevail, and individuals are driven to climb the corporate ladder. Now, let's explore the three-step process I mentioned earlier. This process typically spans 2-3 years (given the current IT landscape), demanding patience, adaptability, a willingness to invest effort, a knack for acquiring new skills, and the occasional stroke of luck. The three stages of this process are Prepare , Practice , and Progress . Henceforth, I'll refer to it as the 3Ps approach. 1. Prepare yourself well In any job role, setting your own goals is crucial. Without a clear direction for your career and objectives, you could easily end up adrift, like a piece of wood in a river's current. So, establish your goals. Make sure they're realistic, achievable, and, importantly, measurable. Your goals should be tangible enough that you can showcase your accomplishments to your managers and colleagues. It's wise to set goals that can be realized in both the short term (3-6 months) and the long term (2+ years). When setting goals, remember they should meet two essential criteria: Benefit Your Project/Organization: Your goals should contribute positively to your project or organization's success. Add Value to Your Performance Report: Your goals should reflect achievements that hold weight and contribute to your performance assessment. Once your goals are defined, the initial and most crucial step is to hit the ground running by dedicating yourself to your project with diligence and intelligence. Key actions to consider: Rapidly grasp the project's intricacies. Demonstrate teamwork and active listening skills. Assist your teammates. Deliver strong results in your project, establishing your dependability. Showcase your capability to handle the project with confidence. Typically, within 6-8 months, you should be ready to transition into the next phase of your progression. Once you've fulfilled the aforementioned criteria, you're poised to step forward and embrace even more challenges. 2. Practice Diligently – Become a Vital Player The next phase revolves around immersing yourself in project work and evolving into a pivotal contributor. To comprehend the term 'key player' is fundamental to mastering this stage. When I refer to a key player, I mean someone who is: Self-sufficient in project-related tasks Exceptionally proficient and reliable in their role Capable of delivering solutions to challenges Possesses a deep understanding of the project and its environment Achieving self-reliance requires dedicated efforts to understand the project's nuances, internalize its objectives, and align your short-term goals accordingly. As the saying goes: Working hard is crucial, but working smart is even more so! Evolving into a key player not only elevates your significance within the project but also strengthens your trustworthiness, contributing to favorable impressions from your superiors. Rather than merely clocking in hours, it's pivotal to focus on demonstrating outcomes. Although sometimes long hours are needed, tangible accomplishments carry more weight. A span of approximately 6-8 months is a reasonable timeframe to attain key player status. Yet, let me emphasize that this isn't an easy feat. You must constantly exhibit a willingness to learn, adapt to changes, and exhibit your competencies on the journey. This becomes a critical aspect during this phase and serves as a significant exit criterion. Demonstrating your project's value is crucial for your management to acknowledge and appreciate your contributions. (Apologies for unveiling this crucial tip!) Key tips to bear in mind while striving for key player status include: Showcase your value by yielding results. Take the initiative to implement technical solutions for common challenges. Boost efficiency by automating routine tasks. Remember, outcomes matter more than the time spent. Attain process efficiency and highlight gains for both management and customers. Strive to be consistently visible. If you succeed in this pursuit and evolve into a key player within the team/organization, you're better positioned for the next phase in your career journey. However, keep in mind that this isn't a straightforward path and might necessitate regular discussions and aligning short-term goals with your manager. It's imperative to keep your manager informed about your progress, your immediate objectives, and how your contributions benefit the project! 3. Progress forward Assuming you've effectively become a key player within the team and have been performing at your peak for a substantial period, it's time to prepare for the next step by 'unlearning' some of your current project knowledge and cultivating successors. When I mention 'unlearn,' consider these key steps: Identify someone who can step into your role within the project. Personally train this individual on the project's intricacies. Ensure the knowledge you've amassed is transferred, understood, and practiced by your chosen successor. Remain accessible to your manager for tasks that need completion (since, ultimately, you're aspiring for their role, right?). Initiate the process of making your own role in the project redundant. You might wonder about the last point – after all, if the second phase urged you to be a key player, why suggest making yourself redundant now? It's a valid question and a tremendously crucial one. The answer is simple: unless you pave the way for your project to function independently of you, how can you ascend to the next level? The significance lies in building a proficient team and robust resources for the project's continuity. It demonstrates your legacy as a professional, manager, and effective leader. During this phase, connect more frequently with your manager than you did in the earlier stage. Seek to comprehend their responsibilities, methodologies, and performance expectations. Secret tip: Your manager is also striving for advancement. By aiding their progress, you pave the way for your own ascent. Grant them space to rise, and you'll find yourself rising too! If luck shines your way, you might observe favorable outcomes in your subsequent performance reviews. Then, you can loop back to applying the principles of phase 1 to your new role! As I mentioned in my initial post, this cycle generally spans about 2-3 years. Patience and a strong work ethic are vital attributes during this journey. ---- Photo in the image by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash Previous Next

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The pandemic has changed the dynamics of almost every kind of business. . < Back Digital transformation – 8 inside characteristics of the modern & digital organizations The pandemic has changed the dynamics of almost every kind of business. . The pandemic has changed the dynamics of almost every kind of business. And today, most businesses have no choice but to transform themselves through technology to reach their customers and continue their existence. Digital transformation is not a new concept. Probably, it's one of the most overused terms in recent times, especially during the last couple of years. Every other company is either getting digitally transformed, or helping others get transformed, or both. However, have you ever thought about what a ‘transformed’ organization looks like? What are the characteristics of a modern and a digitally transformed organization? How does a ‘Digitally transformed’ organization function and work, to continue the agility that they have gained through the transformation? Here are 8 characteristics or principles of the ‘Modern and Digitally transformed’ organization. These principles define how these companies operate internally, how their employees and teams see the organization from inside. Simple For digitally transformed organizations, the size of the company does not matter for their IT operations. Whether the company size is 500 people, or 50,000 people, these companies do not find it hard to scale their internal operations and business processes. The internal organization complexities are hidden behind simpler interfaces and intuitive business processes. They provide great working experiences to the employees, customers, and guests alike. The access to their core systems and services are easily available to build better interfaces and experiences for their internal business operations and customer facing processes. Flexible & personalized Employees will work from anywhere, any time and business processes are tuned and built to support flexible, time zone aligned, remote first & hybrid working culture. Cross country markets will emerge and people across the regions will collaborate better on delivering success to their customers. The services that are offered to employees and customers will be hyper personalized and they will be able to take their experience anywhere they go and access services with any device. Social & collaborative Diversity and inclusiveness will continue to be the key elements of the culture, and everyone’s opinions stay important to take the organization forward. Employees will engage in natural and non-hierarchical communications across the organization, and they will have necessary tools and technology at the disposal that allows them to communicate the way they want and improve social collaboration. They will continue to strengthen their ‘networked’ organization through new tools and technologies to make communications and collaboration easier. Open & compliant Information will remain a key enabler, however access to information will change per their compliance policies. Security, privacy and compliance will become even more important in future. The core IT systems will be easily interoperable, and the IT assets will be easily discoverable and accessible through internal developer platform / API / core asset marketplaces. There will be a strong access management & control mechanism in place at various levels that will guard ourselves and their key information from misuse. Smart Companies will integrate the physical workspaces with digital technologies to build smarter and more personalized experiences for their employees, customers, and guests and will continue to improve the experience using the big data. Our technology will enable employees to use different devices and help experience a truly connected workspace. They will use AI for enhancing their human effectiveness at work and provide full or assisted decision support for key organizational decisions. Sustainable Companies will care even more about sustainability and environment and ensure that they run on sustainable energy and prioritize being carbon neutral (if not negative). they would have committed to and demonstrated actions on supporting the SBTi goals towards climate action. For the assets and devices owned by them, they will follow the eco-friendly recycling and promote reusability. Their cloud infrastructure will run on green cloud computing. Fast, yet accurate Digitally transformed organizations are highly data driven. They have trustworthy data, made available to employees and leaders through established data platforms and relevant tools. The data that people are entitled to access is available at fingertips, in the format the employees want. All operational, business, and organizational decisions are driven by intelligent & actionable data insights. Innovative, learnable The digitally transformed organizations make innovation easy and take efforts to democratize innovation within the organization. Their next phase of growth is driven by innovation. They have lower barriers for innovation and experimentation and set clear paths for idea->impactful outcomes. These organizations retain a high focus on research and continuous learning and people capability development. Employee growth & development is a core part of the organizational strategy & culture. Final thoughts Markets and customer needs are evolving fast, and technology is evolving even faster. In the new age of business, there is an inherent need for companies to stay ahead of others. Being a modern & digital organization gives companies an advantage in the competitive market to respond faster to changing customer needs. While above 8 principles define the characteristics of the modern & digital organizations from inside (for employees & its leaders), it’s very important to know that being digital and modern is no end state, but it’s a continuous evolution. The companies who would wait and stay reactive, will be in a true danger of irrelevance, unless they act now, and act fast. Being a modern & digital organization gives companies an advantage in the race, the relentless focus on customer success, being flexible and adaptable to customer needs and being continuously innovative towards building better / newer products and services for customers is what will define the success of these organizations. Previous Next

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