IT Skill and Team Buildin - Real Life Success Stories by Prem Kamble

My Real Life Case Stories in
IT Skill Development, Team Building & Team Culture Development

These real life stories show that it is possible to get extraordinary performance from ordinary people through effective delegation, freedom of work and trust in people.

These stories describe how I successfully created Centres of Excellence using very ordinary talent. It is not only important to train people in the appropriate skills, it is also important to train the managers to be able to encourage creativity and learning, not to curb talent and to have the courage to take risk at the right time. More often than not, it is the managers who kill the curiosity and creativity of young minds. At the same time, it was my responsibility to give my manager the freedom, and the confidence that his job is not at stake if he failed. Creative work cannot be done under severe pressure.

These cases simply state the real story - what happened with me and what was the result. No claim is made that these are the best practices. They worked for me. It is for you to debate for yourself and decide your own strategies.

Here are a few real life case studies....

From Bench to Centre of Excellence

How a relatively inexperienced team sitting on the bench (unassigned developers who have no live projects and are waiting for new projects/ orders to arrive) gave birth to a Centre of Excellence of an emerging technology. This is my real story of getting extra-ordinary performance from ordinary people.

This case is about tapping the skills of a an excellent developer who had no formal technical programming training, but who was programming as a hobby. Though he had no professional qualifications, the good thing was that he had done practical work at his father's business as a hobby and learnt the hard way. It was important to protect his creative spirit from waning, as it was very likely that the more experienced and qualified developers in his team would nip his creativity in the bud. It was important to protect and nurture his unique skills.

Key Success Factors

My article published in in-house Magazine of DSQ Software Ltd. (SEI CMM Level 5 company), where I had set a record of delivering all software projects on time as a Project Director. Presents the key techniques used for team building, team motivation, trust and timely delivery of projects. This is an abrieged version of the article "The Management of Mondaq is Shocked to Know that.." listed below.

Full version of my article published in in-house Magazine of DSQ Software Ltd. (SEI CMM Level 5 company), where I had set a record of delivering all software projects on time as a Project Director. Presents the key techniques used for team building, team motivation, trust and timely delivery of projects. The abrieged version titled "Key Success Factors" is listed above.

Empowering the Project Managers

IT Project Managers, particularly in an in-house IT set-up, often become masters of business processes with their long association and discussions with the business managers. This I found was very true in one of the companies where I joined as a Head of Software. To my surprise, I found that the managers, though capable of contributing effectively in process improvements through automation, were afraid to open their mouths and give suggestions for improvement.

I soon came to know their fears - opening the mouth was like axing their own feet. The moment they gave a new idea, the customer would want it implemented immediately and put heavy pressure on the managers to deliver the solution. So the managers never opened their mouth to avoid unnecessary and unjust pressure. This case is about how I empowered them to be able to contribute their best ideas to process improvement without the fear of undue customer pressures.

Read how I found ways to reduce customer pressure first, and also give a good stress free working environment to the managers by shielding them from customer pressure. ...

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My Success Stories
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All Articles by Prem Kamble

Also See:

Seminars for CIOs and IT Managers
Seminars for CEOs
Seminars for HR Managers