IT Skill Development & Team Building: Real 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:

1. How idling bench strength was converted to a centre of excellence in a SEI CMM Level 5 Co.
2. How a Graduate Trainee was made an expert in a rare skill
3. How a hobbyist programmer's skills were tapped to the maximum
4. How a team was motivated to deliver record breaking 5 projects on time in a SEI CMM Level 5 company.

And more real success stories....

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.

Delegation is a fundamental character trait that involves entrusting tasks to others and relaxing post-delegation. It also reflects your ability to take risks and your trust in people. However, many individuals become anxious after delegating, resorting to micromanagement or incessant checking. The article discusses the key prerequisites for an effective delegation strategy.

This article is about improving employability skills among youth, particularly among engineering students. It focusses on the skills required by industry, particularly the IT industry, and ways and means to develop those required skills among the students to make them more employable. It tries to bridge the gap between industry and academic institutions.

I was given ready content from a US university and asked to conduct Employability Training to Engg. College students. As an industry professional, I found the content too theoretical and not effective. I created my own content and found an effective & fun way of improving IT and employability skills.

Instead of cosmetic improvements in presentation style, personality development, language skills,etc., I found ways to make them internally and technically stronger, so that they succeed not only in their first interview after college, but through their entire career

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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More Reading:

My Success Stories
More Articles on Team Development
Articles on Psychology by Prem Kamble
All Articles by Prem Kamble

Also See:

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