Software People Stories

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

Episode: Banana Peels and Monocultures Stories from an Agility Coach Listen to Viktor Cessan, agile coach, share his stories, in a conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power consulting, as Viktor talks about - How he got into software His first startup, even while he was in school Starting as a content handler Understanding the challenges of working with remote teams Using feedback to improve one’s style of working How learning from others fueled the desire to share Connecting with the organization or teams when you start engaging His approach of using a discovery stage to get a first hand feel as a coach His experiment at Spotify of removing all managers The importance of empathy for a coach in a multi cultural team and being sensitive to diversity in the team. His impressions and experience of working in Bangalore and being adventurous with food in Mumbai The back story behind his podcast His thoughts on where Agile in the enterprise is headed, and the role of coaches Viktor Cessan has 13 years of experience from the software industry and has for the past 8 years coached agile, organizations, and teams. Viktor spends his time helping companies design systems where organizations, teams, and individuals become healthy are able to make an impact and achieve business goals and he recently published a free case study on when he coached agile transformation at Avanza Bank in Sweden. Since being introduced to agile methodologies in 2007, Viktor has been a Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach at companies such as Spotify, Avanza Bank, King, and Nordic Entertainment Group. Viktor runs trainings and workshops on a wide variety of topics such as agile team dynamics, both introduction to and advanced product ownership, self-management, leadership, and management. Feel free to connect with Viktor on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/viktorcessan/) , Twitter (https://twitter.com/viktorcessan) , or have a look at Viktor's esteemed Website (http://www.viktorcessan.com/) .

In this episode, Gopal & Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting are in conversation as Gopal shares his rich experiences through several anecdotes based on - The first transition from an individual contributor to a ‘leader’ Understanding the style of letting others do work Managing peers and allowing your natural instincts to play a role How one can manage divergent priorities between individuals and team aspirations Significance of opening up and talking Managing customer expectations Managing one’s bosses… and their bosses Being empathetic to understand the other person’s compulsions Nurturing a positive, trusting relationship The importance of feeling secure and confident.. And liking people for what they are Handling escalations A simple formula to be at peace with one’s environment and enjoy life

In this episode, Chitra from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Padmaja Narsipur, Founder and CEO of Clearly Blue Digital where she shares her journey and experiences on - - Starting a career in Software and how she became a tech writer. - Moving to being a solopreneur - The Clearly Blue Story - Having to bring her career to a halt *& discover new things to do; - Free lancing and the hamster wheel - Self management & time management - Discipline of free lancing to enjoy flexibility - What it takes to be a good tech writer - Creating a workplace that she wants to come to & for anyone who wants to work there - Capitalizing on information assets through a digital & social presence online; beyond likes & shares; building brands, - Defining user experience and managing media channels - Harmonizing with AI, balancing information, tech and nurturing one's imagination - How businesses need to navigate the digital world to build better products - Message for aspiring entrepreneurs - On being a mother Padmaja Narsipur heads Clearly Blue Digital, a Bengaluru-based content design firm with practices in content marketing and e-learning. Her background is in Computer Science and Physics. She has previously worked with Intel Corp at Santa Clara, CA, after which she enjoyed a solopreneur career as a Consultant Writer and Manager in technical and business-centred projects for some of the world's biggest firms before launching Clearly Blue. Padmaja is a passionate student of human interactions with technology; and about the ways we learn and grow. She lives in Jigani (rural Bengaluru), with a supportive husband, three teenagers, one unruly puppy and a riot of serene guppies.

In this episode of the Software People Stories, Visweswaran SK (also known as Viswes) and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting uncover fascinating software experiences from Viswes around - How he started software development using punch cards Writing utilities for spooling printouts Exposure to database systems while working on a commercial application Developing a database system on SN computers Hackathon like approach for the dev team Learning to work within 256 kB! DECUS-C compiler: a community contribution : Knowing that the code one wrote was being used after 10 years! His personal style of programming: from working within limited computing resources Testing when you have control over all pieces of code environment and when you do not Of chief programmer teams versus Agile ways of working Implications of Big Data on database thinking Is there a need for some standards for data interchange Technology that needs to adapt to senior citizens Here's also an introduction from our guest, in his own words - My name is Visweswaran S.K . I am a graduate of IISc Bangalore and a post graduate from IIT Madras, I have been in the software industry since mid 70’s. During my active life in software industry, my key interest was in DBMS related technologies. I had the opportunity to actively work in not one but two full fledged Data Base Management systems. I was also primary architect for the designing and implementing the Data Base and Reporting System for a very large web based application. Experience in those projects were both challenging and rewarding !! Having worked in various software projects big and small, recently decided to retire from active software development and spend more more time enjoying small things in life like listening to music, reading books, travelling and tending to terrace garden . I also spend some time putting some of the things I have learnt in software by managing a small website for a temple, creating a spreadsheet to manage my investments and by helping neighbourhood elders with their day to day digital challenges!! I am also trying to arrange and cleanup my large collection of old photographs !!

Listen to Hima Patel from IBM Research and Chitra from PM Power Consulting as Hima shares stories from her passion around artificial intelligence and machine learning through some fascinating experiences. She talks about - Building intelligence, beginning with a book Image processing experiments and fun with friends Research and Software, partners in crime Invention & Innovation Data lakes, silos, federations and marts - making sense for business Languages of business and analytics, working hand-in-hand Managing people in research Explanability of machine learning models Experiences as a research manager The power of believing in yourself and not giving up. Hima Patel is a research manager at IBM Research Lab and leads a team of researchers that work in problems at the intersection of machine learning and NLP. Her passion is to work on research areas that help solve real business problems. Prior to IBM, she has spent time in research groups at Shell, GE and brief stint at Visa where she has worked on varied research problems spanning from object detection in medical images to anomaly detection from multivariate sensor data collected from machines. She is also actively involved with the organization of Grace Hopper India conference for last four years and is also an executive committee member for IEEE Computer Society, Bangalore Section. She holds a B.E. in Computer Science from GCET and M Tech in Information and Communication Technology from DA-IICT.

Listen to this conversation between Sridevi Devathi from HCL and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting as they talk about Sridevi's career and journey around - How she started as a developer and then moved to quality Moving into estimation and setting up the estimation CoE Different generations of software architectures / models and various models for software development Some challenges that have continued to bother teams over the last couple of decades related to estimation Relevance of historical data based on standard estimation models, in the new and emerging approaches to develop software Her thoughts on using AI/ML for estimation Use of Function Points in the Financial Services industry Relevance and utility of structured methods for estimation for startups Effectiveness of Agile approaches including having the right coaches even in uncertain problem domains How art [or a hobby] can be a stress buster as well as provide motivation Sridevi comes with 24 years of IT/Software industry experience, of which she has spent 21 years with HCL. She has worked across Quality, Delivery Excellence, Process/Estimation Consulting, Presales, Project Delivery/Management and Software Development areas. She has been a trainer and consultant in Quality, Project Management and Estimation areas; and is managing HCL Estimation COE for past 10 years. She has participated in few industry forums, and was a panel member in two recent ISMA conferences. You can reach her via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridevi-devathi-b4638018/

Joins us in listening to Paul Arieckal from Global Automation and Sivaguru from PM Power consulting as they have conversations around Paul's experiences in - Learning the rigour of software development as computing resources were scarce Considering constraints at the time of design Making assumptions while designing applications: timetracker story Relevance of top down design in the age of cloud and microservices Trimming the footprint of an application from 2 GB to less than 200 MB Drawing inspiration for software from gardening What learning to play the violin taught him about writing software The importance of a test-first approach, in gardening or coding What is easier to debug? A crash or a functional bug? If you want to know what Paul compares debugging to - to get a high, listen carefully! Importance of not getting lost on the frills and focus on the core How can one avoid a burnout in the supposedly stressful field of software Paul is the Director, Engineering at Global Automation India Pvt. Ltd. He has been with Global Automation for over 24 years and in the current role for 4 years. He is responsible for leading the software product development efforts starting with product conceptualization to delivering to market, through the phases of prototyping, requirements and specifications, test-marketing, software coding, testing, build and release. He is also responsible for managing the computing and networking infrastructure through deployment of state-of-the-art tools and technologies, providing a scalable and secured development environment for Global’s team. Prior to the current role, he was managing the development of a diverse set of software products, a hardware/software appliance implementing ndmp protocol for deployment in data centers for improved backup efficiency, an enterprise JAVA based private equity portfolio management application. His other interests include integrating iOT devices for affordable domestic home automation systems, and irrigation systems that utilize minimal water for water starved urban homes. Paul can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-arieckal-085b6620/

Vasu and Chitra, colleagues at PM Power Consulting are in a free wheeling conversation as Vasu shares myriad nuggets on - - Starting his career in Tata Steel - Generating PLOP reports for management review (its in the podcast!) - Developing products at Wipro; from idea to product; building a cost effective project management product. - Secrets of MS Project & software development - Experiences from product development & finding ways to gain customer insights - How he stayed at companies for long tenures - How he got into coaching & what it means to be a good observer - Making coaching successful - Being genuine when helping and communicating with people

In this episode, Mosesraj R, CIO & Head of Delivery Excellence at Brillio and Chitra from PM Power are in conversation as Moses shares stories on - Where his career began - Fundamental principles working across manufacturing and IT - Understanding the meaning of value to deliver the right solutions & build successful products - Managing customer expectations - Balancing the roles of CIO & delivery excellence head - Some tips to enable digital transformation - A back to the future retrospective Moses is the CIO and head of excellence at Brillio. He led the cloud transformation of the enterprise. Over his 20 years of career, he has led multiple change management initiatives to drive better delivery to customers. His interests are storytelling, imagining products that break barriers and motivating people by helping them see life as a whole. Moses won India Top 25 CIO awards in 2016 in ICMG Architecture event and has been invited to many organizations / events to share his views. Moses has 20+ years of Work Experience and is a B.E (Mechanical) from Government College of Engineering, Salem and M.S (Software Systems) from BITS, Pilani Moses has given a some interesting talks at various forums: Questions that make you a better manager (@PMI - PM Footprints) – Introduces three questions as challenges to managers, when answered will help in becoming a better manager Lessons from Modern Coaches for Project Managers (@PM+ conference) – A study of modern sports coaches as to what managers can learn from them Customer Centric engineering team (@Harman) – Introduces the Need & Value paradigm, on how engineering teams can build value consistently Story Telling for Agile Coaches (@Prowareness) – Introduced coaches to the art of story telling with examples. Demystifies story telling that anyone can become a story teller Bridging Eagles Eye and Worm’s View (@HMBP Conference) – A talk delivered in HMBP (High Maturity Best Practices) conference about roll down to goals to team level measurements

In this candid conversation Neeraja Ganesh, Head for JobsForHer foundation and Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting, talk about Neeraja's experiences through her journey. She shares - Learning from whatever came her way as a means of growing and sustaining herself Discovering the power of asking Personal transformation from an introvert to being a confident communicator Process implementation to suit different functions Being uncomfortable with comfort in a role & using her strengths to play different roles Passion about growing people in their career, specially women Stepping out of a work & home only life to network & gain new perspectives after a long corporate career Lessons for women wanting to get back to work after a break Neeraja Ganesh is the Head of the JobsForHer Foundation which has been setup to bridge gender gaps in India.Neeraja has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry having worked for a variety of companies like Cap Gemini, ANZ and others.She is a designated career mentor on many mentorship portals. She was awarded at a TEDx Women event organised by the Dayananda Sagar Institutions for her 25 years of achievements in the corporate world. In her pursuit to share her experiences and learnings with the ecosystem around her, she delivers talks on a variety of topics which serve as inspiration and learning for others. She has also recently been bitten by the writer’s bug and has written a few articles, again with the intention of helping everyone learn from her experiences. She actively engages with industry bodies and other organisations who work on Women Empowerment initiatives. She is an active member of the Women Empowerment Committee of BCIC(Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce).One of her favourite topics which has had rave reviews everytime she has delivered talks on it has been on “Networking”. She brings in her professional experiences to every aspect of the topic which makes the audience relate, understand and immediately learn and start implementing the tips given by her. She can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/neeraja-ganesh/ https://www.facebook.com/neeraja.ganesh.1 https://twitter.com/neeraja_ganesh

Anecdotes from heterogenous experiences. In this conversation Milind and Chitra, colleagues at PM Power Consulting are in a conversation as Milind shares his experiences on - - Curiosity and liking for computers, with an aptitude for software & a natural ability to write code. - A love for deep learning. - Writing a pascal compiler, assemblers & deep insights into systems software - Interoperability between proprietorial systems & other heterogeneous environment challenges. - Customer management by knowing people as they are, being transparent, being together as a team & doing a release at scale - Sensing signals while working with different cultures - Transitioning through roles in sales & mkt, business development &product engineering. - The journey into coaching and helping people understand the values and principles of agile. - A deep passion for Sanskrit.

In this episode Veena Samartha, CEO of VeCrear Technologies is in a free flowing conversation with Chitra from PM Power consulting. She shares her experiences with - Developing technology from india with convergence of wireless tech & IoT - Having an inquisitive nature & experimenting v/s aquiring knowledge - Experiences building fault tolerant systems - Journey to entrepreneurship - Developing other capabilities to run a company - Facing dilemmas of market forces v/s delivery capabilities and the importance of having a clear vision - Tips on motivating employees in a small company - Willing one's self into a natural flow - Ad-hoc learning & power of networking to keeping abreast with current trends - Some future thoughts on staying positive with joy & serenity amidst change Veena Samartha the Executive Director and CEO of the Bangalore based IoT venture, VeCrear Technologies. Harnessing her technology experience in the areas of mission critical software, embedded systems , servers and file system domains through decades of work experience in companies like Wipro & HP, Veena endeavors to create a niche for innovative technologies from India in the global landscape. LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/veenasamartha/)

The Software Lifecycle Stories, brought to you by PM Power Consulting, has come quite some way since the first episode was published. This is a special episode dedicated for our listeners from us saying, "Thank you for tuning into our show!" To help us continue to bring engaging episodes, we would like to hear from you. Please spare about 5 minutes to respond to our [survey](https://forms.gle/gS4t9p9gvH5kySyAA) OR If you wish to record your feedback, please attach your recorded message and email us at [email protected] with the subject title “podcast”. Please also leave your rating and review on https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/software-lifecycle-stories-754600/reviews

In this episode of the Software Lifecycle Stories, PM Power colleagues, Sivaguru and A Narasimhan, also known as AN, explore several facets of AN's experiences that include - * How he launched a startup with some friends * Innovative features by trapping OS interrupts * Importance of process orientation, even for small teams * Getting into techno marketing * Instilling or having a sense of ownership intrinsically * The need to adapt one’s coaching style or delivery based on the geography or culture of the participants * Can anyone become a coach ? * How to connect with individuals, when you are a coach * Helping individuals to open up, to improve teaming effectiveness * Some of AN's favourite games & activities * His interest in philosophy * How pairing in a team can significantly improve quality and productivity

Designing for the future, fulfilling today’s needs Welcome to this episode of the Software Lifecycle Stories. Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Vandana Abraham, Head of Design at Atlassian, India. In this conversation she shares her perspectives on * The difference between design and art * Aptitudes to be a designer * Bridging engineers and designers with empathy * Building experiences for a global audience * Some ideas that were far ahead of their time * Designing for the future * Career breaks and flexibility for women Note:This episode was recorded prior to Women's day (8th March 2019). It is covered through a dialogue in the episode. Vandana Abraham has over 20 years’ providing leadership in product strategy development, and experience design for mobile consumer applications & business platforms. She has set up and led design studios for product and service design and studied Textile Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India. She currently heads design at Atlassian India.

Welcome to another episode of the Software Lifecycle Stories. In this episode, Sivaguru and Anantha Natarajan (who prefers to be called Anand), colleagues from PM Power Consulting, speak about several topics including: * Is software development ‘engineering’? * Trusting one’s feelings * Treating IT as an enabler for business * Creating functionally satisfying solutions to make a difference for the users * Lessons from building something ahead of time * Becoming and Being a coach - when better comes before good! * Detaching oneself in delicate coaching situations * Designing mistake-proof solutions * One tip for developing empathy * Benefits of mindfulness * Playing Bridge and developing software

In this conversation, Annie Abraham - head of Financing IT and Group Wide Process for Danske IT and Support services in Bangalore - shares her thoughts and experiences with Sivaguru from PM Power on - * Transformation & Modernization projects * Applying Agile approaches in a large program * Women and agile / if agile ways of working is women friendly * Finding one’s own rhythm to balance responsibilities at work and home * Tips for those starting out on their careers Annie Abraham has over 22 years’ experience in IT industry leading high value and complex projects and is a sought after leader to drive critical delivery assignments to success. She brings expertise in Legacy modernization and transformation with the ability to coach and set up successful scrums teams and deliver to true outcomes. Annie has successfully seeded and executed several strategic organization wide programs to achieve process optimization, cost and effort savings by setting up competency groups like Agile, estimation, Account governance and application enhancement frameworks. She is a strong people manager with the ability to hire right talent, build, motivate and nurture multiple high-performing teams. Annie currently heads Financing IT and Group Wide Process for Danske IT and Support services in Bangalore, India, a subsidiary of Danske Bank. Prior to this, she worked with Unisys India, HCL Technologies and Deustche Software. Annie via [LinkedIn](http://linkedin.com/in/annie-abraham-a33a3513)

A Journey from Programming to Coaching In this episode, Savitha in conversation with Chitra from PM Power consulting, shares her views on - working with chaos and pressure while discovering one's strengths over coffee - Why boredom is a good thing - Learnings from working across captive, product & services companies with freedom to explore various roles - Using coaching as a means of strength to connect with people - The power of freeing your mind - Alternating focus between work & life

Tune into tips from a techie turned transformational teacher ! Sivaguru from PM Power is very happy to share his conversation with Suresh Ramaswamy, a successful serial entrepreneur, who started with roles in IT and then pivoted to helping others discover themselves as a transformational teacher. When this conversation started, we were expecting a highly technical discussion from a VLSI architect, but what it ended up being was -- literally mind blowing! At PM Power, we have always combined the hard and soft aspects - including mindful approaches for deriving the maximum impact from the journeys of delivery excellence . This conversation touches on some of the mindfulness aspects that can make an entrepreneur or an individual contributor successful. In this conversation, Suresh shares his perspectives on * Personal development and transformation * Keys for entrepreneurial success, including looking at entrepreneurship as going beyond an escape from corporate stress * Operating in an environment of Uncertainty and risk in a startup * The importance of having a balanced and impactful intent * Identifying core objectives for your startup * Letting go - to learn, manage stress etc * The need to be inclusive * Personal and professional relationships And a peek into his latest book, "Just be" which is about moving through and living life under an infinite guidance. Suresh Ramaswamy is the award-winning author of the personal transformation bestseller Just Be, Transform Your Life and Live as Infinity. As a transformational teacher and visionary entrepreneur, he is passionate about igniting and catalyzing the transformation of humanity. With his background as an electrical engineer and technology executive, he brings an inspired yet pragmatic approach to elevating consciousness on our planet. Held in high regard by people around the world, Suresh’s light-filled presence and guidance awakens them to their innermost essence. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/just.be.book/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sureshramaswamy.author/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sureshauthor https://SureshRamaswamy.org

In this episode, our podcast guest, Roopa Dharmapuri shares her perspectives on the interconnectedness of life & work among other views with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting, through * Her journey from development, to testing and product management. * Anchoring engagement at work and in life through curiosity and learning . * Stepping into customer shoes. * The importance of establishing trust and transparency while building and delivering products. * Being influenced by various company cultures & nurturing collaboration. * Mentoring career women and how to have an aspiration to come back Roopa Dharmapuri is a Senior technology professional with 17+ years of global experience delivering software products to market. Her domain expertise spans Enterprise Security, Strong Authentication, Identity & Access Management, Enterprise Mobility Management, Application Lifecycle Management & CRM Solutions. Roopa has held various leadership roles in Engineering and Product Management at various companies and is currently a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Acalvio Technologies. LinkedIn Profile:http://linkedin.com/in/roopa-dharmapuri-1a7b03 Twitter: @rdharmapuri

Continuing on our theme of conversations with women in IT, in this episode, Vandana Malaiya, whose career has seen roles in hardware, embedded systems, setting up team and organization level processes and setting up a venture and to a social venture and some senior leadership roles in the corporate environment,in conversation with Sivaguru,shares her perspectives on -The need to and opportunities to keep on learning -Adopting standards and consistent adherence for outcomes -How economic and governmental ecosystems can help or hinder startup aspirations -Balancing career and family aspirations with support from her husband -Physical and emotional challenges for women after 50 -Supporting girls and women become successful -Some typical challenges faced by all startups -Need for men also to develop empathy Vandana Malaiya is an IT professional with over 30 years of experience in the industry. She has worked with companies IBM, Verifone, DCM Data Systems and her own start-up EximSoft. She now works with the social sector primarily in the area of education of girl child and women empowerment. She is passionate about advancement of women at the work place and has worked extensively on programs for women leadership. She continues to keep her connect with the IT industry through consulting and mentoring. She is a BE(Hons) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani and an Executive MBA from IIM Bangalore. She has worked in India and US. She loves travel and all forms of art. She can be reached via - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vandanamalaiya); [Twitter](http://@vandanamalaiya) and her [Blog Page](http://vandanamalaiya.com/)

In this episode, a freewheeling panel discussion among four accomplished women from Global Automation Inc., Bengaluru covers, among other things: - their own individual experiences in IT, in creating or consuming solutions - balancing demands at work and outside - support systems for women at work and home - empathy for customers and how that helps in evolving products - the importance of continual learning - creating and nurturing a healthy work environment - peer support and recognition

In this conversation, Chitra from PM Power & Swetha Sivaram, Sr. Manager at IBM, talk about her journey in the world of technology as Swetha shares her experiences on - * Choice of computer science engineering * Perceptions at work * Transitions from a telecom engineer to app developer to systems engineering * Humanistic insights from work experience * Sharing experiences by and for women in technology Swetha Sivaram is a Senior Engineering Manager at IBM India. She has over 17 years of experience in the software industry spanning the domains of telecom, application development and most recently, systems engineering. She has led various engineering teams and with her expertise in transformation management, agile development and goal-oriented execution skills, has helped teams challenge status quo and achieve their potential. Swetha is passionate about helping women in tech careers achieve their full potential and is actively involved in several efforts both within IBM as well as externally. Swetha has a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from BITS Pilani and among other things, enjoys solving large puzzles (read 5ft*4ft).

In this conversation with Sivaguru, Gayatri from PM Power Consulting - also known as G3 - shares her experiences and experiments on a wide range of topics including -Cultural aspects of managing large application portfolio transitions -Personal transition from maker to a coach, to help teams transform to agility -The concept of work-life balance -Her personal experiments with an appraisal system at home

In this conversation with Sivaguru, Anupama shares her experience related to: -Efficient algorithms -Skills an architect needs -Differences in architecting small and large applications -Tips for women who need to or want to take a break This episode covers 2 broad aspects of software architecture - 1\. Evolution of architecting a software system, from over 15 years ago to today, and the evolution of a software architect's role. Starts at 5:13 2\. Differences in architecture for small v/s large organizations & dilemmas architects face when things are ambiguous. Starts at 28:45 Anupama, has been developing software, for the last 25 years and has built applications across different domains - manufacturing, customer service, storage, e-commerce, health tech. She has dabbled with multiple technologies and languages, starting from C/C++, Microsoft MFC and MS SQL Server and then moving on to Java / JEE, MySQL and Postgres and AWS platforms. Most recently she was responsible for the architecture and delivery of Hospital Management System, a part of the health tech product suite. In this role, she has scaled the product architecture from the small hospitals segment to a medium-large hospitals. She has played a key role in seamlessly evolving the architecture from a predominantly on-premise deployments to cloud-hosted / SaaS and hybrid deployments. She had designed and built data server / tape server products which helped enterprises backup terabytes of data, most efficiently, on a regular basis. She has led teams delivering custom and add-on services around these products, and also built medium to large scale e-commerce and web applications on Microsoft and JEE platforms. For a brief period in between, to be able to devote more time for her kids and family, she was freelancing as consultant architect with very early stage startups, setting up their product architecture and development frameworks. She actively engaged with a group of women all working out of home, to build and deliver end-to-end custom software for small startups.

In this conversation Chitra shares her experience with Sivaguru related to * What she learnt developing mission critical systems * How playing basketball helped her appreciate goal focused teamwork * Helping other women to make their voices heard

In this conversation with Sivaguru, Diwakar Menon talks about * The focus for testing effectiveness would be to address risks * Some stories of testing in projects adopting agile approaches * High functioning development organizations * What made him launch a startup And some more.. Diwakar Menon has over 30 years of work experience ranging from test consulting to delivery to pre-sales. He has been the head of service delivery for key customer contracts that encompass a variety of services from Software QA, Testing, Application Development, Application Management, Infrastructure Management and Business Support Services across a multiplicity of pillars like Telecom, Banking & Financial Industry, Government, and Health. He is the co-founder of Last Mile Consultants , a boutique test consulting organisation, that works with IT Service providers, product organisations, captives and startups and helps set up or improve their software testing function, focusing on test strategies, capabilities, test automation, or process transformations. Diwakar possesses a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University. Prior to founding Last Mile, Diwakar has worked in global organisations like Tech Mahindra, Perot Systems (now Dell), Deutsche Software, Tata Unisys (now TCS) and CMC Ltd.

Join a new host from PM Power Consulting Chitra, in conversation with Sivaguru to learn more about how he unravels his pursuit of - * Excellence in business around results through all-pervasive leadership * Managing knowledge gained by doing, learning and adapting * Disciplines to deliver software * Sport and coaching for breakthrough performance * Uncovering intuition, spontaneity, awakening senses and connecting with people using podcasting.

L Ravichandran, known to most as L Ravi, is the President and COO of Tech Mahindra. In his career of over 4 decades, he has seen and been part of the growth of the IT industry in India. In this episode, Ravi talks of his experiences, views and what customers expect from IT in conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power Connsulting. Listen on.. * The relevance of statistics and the evolution of data science * What we can learn from war thinking to plan software projects * How to get maximum benefits from agile approaches * Customer expectations of business outcomes

In this conversation, J Veeraraaghavan shares his experience and perspectives with Sivaguru on - * The mindset needed for developers and testers to play as a single team * How use of right words can bring in significant changes * What approaches are needed to build great products * Leveraging personal values and beliefs for career success * Future of software development and software factories

In this episode, we invite you to listen to Dorai Thodla, serial tech entrepreneur, in conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power. Dorai is the founder and CTO of Technology Strategies LLC, based in the United States. He is a mentor at KCG College of Technology Chennai. He is passionate about teaching students and mentors product startups. Dorai also gives talks on emerging technologies and their impact while consulting with companies on how to build tech communities. He believes in the paradigm of “building to learn” by encouraging teaching via “doing” so students see their learning transform into a product that extends around a complete stack. Dorai lives in Chennai and spends time in the Bay Area and Seattle outside of India. He is currently involved with the following initiatives : •[Build2Learn](http://www.build2learn.in/) • [InfoAssitants](http://infoassistants.com/)– a set of tools for collecting and analyzing information. Dorai can be reached via [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/doraithodla/) or [@dorait](https://twitter.com/dorait) Dorai shares his experience and perspectives on • Identifying opportunities and building micro products • Some creative applications of one of his products • Looking at effective ways to learn software development, by building under guidance • He also examines and offers solutions to questions on “how to make your product discoverable and useful”

In this conversation Paramu Kurumathur, Principal Consultant with PM Power Consulting shares his views and experiences, in conversation with Sivaguru, related to * His experiences with nimble practices to more formal waterfall approaches to agile. * The impact of technology on the way software is developed. * How global architectures evolve. * Contrasting character development in writing and feature development for software. * Future for the CIO role and if it can be a career option And some more...

In this episode, Sivaguru and Vishweshwar Hegde from PM Power, are in conversation to discover interesting facets of Vishu’s journey through his career. Vishu shares several interesting nuggets that range across – • How he maps his learnings from his passion for trekking, to work life and big differences one can make by being a pathfinder or a herder. • Yoga, meditation and managing outside by mastering inside • Knowledge era paradigms • How to influence others to achieve outcomes in terms of quality • Having meaningful professional conversations with hardware professionals • Facilitative leadership and influencing styles

In this episode tune into conversations between Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting & Sandeep Dasgupta, Vice President R&D - Gaming Systems at Scientific Games. In this conversation Sandeep talks about some of his world views that have shaped his work style as well as professional practices. Among other points, they cover * The change in mindset needed when moving from a number crunching oriented language like FORTRAN to object orientation * How Sandeep learnt the differences in perspective between a techie and a business user, when working with data * How his experience led him to formulate the idea of natural software engineering * His views on Agile practices His views on Edge AI Sandeep is a passionate technologist with varied and deep experience in Product Development, Technical and Solution Architecture, Emerging technologies, Engineering methodology and process, Agile methodologies, Innovation and IP Development. He played various interesting roles in Engineering and Technology, ranging from building India's first online Stock Exchange, designing and developing Platform-Independent products in the early 90s, architecting and developing "Zero Latency Enterprise" products at the HP Advanced Technology Labs, being Lead Architect for one of the world's top-selling retail banking products, heading engineering for Industry-leading Online Real-timeTrading Products to designing best-of-breed frameworks for Agile Engineering. Sandeep has an excellent track record of leadership in Product Development, Platform Development, R&D, Custom Application Development, Technical and Solutions Architecture, Systems Design, Performance Engineering and Product Engineering Process. Read some of his blogs at [Theories I am developing](Theories I am developing - http://www.naturalsoftwareengineering.com My thoughts on technology - http://sandeep-dasgupta-technology.blogspot.in/) [My Thoughts on Technology](http://sandeep-dasgupta-technology.blogspot.in/)

In this episode, I would like to share with you two incidents that helped me refine my own understanding of user needs and experience. From two different projects at different times, how I learnt: * That the purpose of a developer is to solve others’ problems [and not just look for the next personal challenge to solve] * Distinguishing user needs and wants * The power of conversations with users * The need and importance of empathy for the user ways of working and work environment, when designing solutions * The power of iterative development, with frequent user experience based feedback

Agile transformations, like any other are challenging for most organizations. This episode engages experts from PM Power Consulting J Veeraraaghavan, Vishveshwar Hegde and Anand Natarajan in dialogue, sharing their agile leadership coaching and consulting insights. The dialogue also explores common challenges and approaches to agile transformations for leaders and geographically distributed teams with diverse view points of the experts. The case study reads as follows : **Trailblazers Inc. have decided to embark on an Agile transformation journey with their SVP of Engineering. Mike Simpson, personally kicking off an initiative targeted at improving predictability, reducing cycle time and improving customer responsiveness. Mike wants Neeraj who is the VP of Engineering at their Bangalore development center to drive this initiative with Scrum as the primary approach and complete the transformation within the next one and a half years.** **Neeraj approaches you as an Agile coach to help him with defining and implementing a program that will ensure the success of this initiative. ** To Summarize key aspects from the dialogue: 1. Define specific objectives for this initiative based on senior leadership directive. 2. Use a wholistic approach (rather than just training) that considers where the organization and teams are currently with respect to the objectives and specific interventions such as training and coaching targeted at addressing the gaps identified . 3. Ensure senior leadership team at both locations has bought into the initiative and is fully committed to it. 4. Use of constructs such as different levels of planning, scrum of scrums, meta scrums etc. for effective cross-team collaboration.

In this episode, Shiv will be talking to Gopalan, the Managing director of Global Automation, India. Gopal, as he is also called, has been in the international IT products and services industry since 1979. Listen to Gopal sharing some personal stories that touch upon various points including: * Attitude of working for someone * Culture aspects, when working in various cultures * Arrogance of a fresher - or how one can miss out the real user needs * A tough situation he faced, caused by the differences in implementation of a standard protocol in the Airline industry, which, in hindsight - appears funny * Cyclic Redundancy Check – CRC * His views on Agile * His views on technology / architecture patterns * Some suggestions for Skill / capability development for those entering software field now

My name is Sivaguru. I have been in the IT industry since 1980 - and started my association initially with hardware - building a single board microcomputer - and them switched to software. Over the years, working with multiple technologies to create solutions across various domains - and working in multiple countries, I gained a lot of experience by doing myself as well as learning from others. I share two specific learnings in this episode. 1\. The importance of DevOps for every developer 2\. The importance of user experience or designing with the user in mind Do join me and share your thoughts as well.. .