With the customer - Day 1
9AM. I was seated in a conference room surrounded by delegates from T and M (two really biggie Indian companies) and our company guys, with a number of Miranda, Coke, Pepsi, their dieted versions, water bottles very aesthetically arranged across the oval table. Not to mention the projector and a big screen for the presentations. The delegates were fiddling with their laptops trying to find enough ports to connect their machines.
9.15AM. The delegates from B (the customer, a European biggie) were about to come in. The ice seemed too thick to be broken. The faces looked like they just got up after a fall into the coovam river. The silence was killing me. I finally opened to a guy “Hi, I’m Kishore, and you are from..” Surprisingly the ice broke in a jiffy. Each one started enquiring the other and soon all of us had spoken. Though I still don’t remember most of their names though.
9.40AM. The guys from B entered, with blazing blazers and their typical accents. There were 6 of them. I was particularly impressed with a plumpy guy who walked in with a nonchalant “Hey guys!” and gave out wide grin. I raised my hand to return his gesture. Heck, nobody saw me! And then no more time was to be wasted. We were into business.
10AM. We had to team up with the T and M guys. We split into 2 teams (T1, T2. I was in T1) each containing delegates from all the three companies.
It was actually a new generation IT methodology in action (and I can’t say more about that for IP reasons!!). The two teams had a mix of Business Analysts, architects and developers from both T, M and my company. We had to develop an understanding of B’s business need, analyse the requirements, prepare the data model, visualize the UI and come up with a prototype – all in a span of 2 days. 1.5 to be more precise! The 2 teams must work independent of each other. B would finally choose the better prototype as the base to proceed with their work.
10.30AM. And so, it began. Many rounds of brainstorming among us and with the guys from B. I sat down in translating the business into technical terms, while a guy already started with UI. I added some code, but left them at a template level. Operational work was left for tomorrow.
1.15PM. It was a wonderful lunch. Some very biggie guys had joined us. It was a privilege having an informal chat over lunch with people of such industrial caliber.
1.30PM. Back to business.
5.30PM. At the end of the day T1 and T2 presented our progress to B. T2 are a bit ahead of us.
Tomorrow morning, we have to finalize certain stuff with Team 2 and B. And then proceed independently with an operational prototype by evening. As I write this line, I'm feeling totally exhausted. But it was an amazing day today, filled with an unparalleled exchange of ideas.
May the best Team’s prototype be chosen! (And may that be my team!).
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9.15AM. The delegates from B (the customer, a European biggie) were about to come in. The ice seemed too thick to be broken. The faces looked like they just got up after a fall into the coovam river. The silence was killing me. I finally opened to a guy “Hi, I’m Kishore, and you are from..” Surprisingly the ice broke in a jiffy. Each one started enquiring the other and soon all of us had spoken. Though I still don’t remember most of their names though.
9.40AM. The guys from B entered, with blazing blazers and their typical accents. There were 6 of them. I was particularly impressed with a plumpy guy who walked in with a nonchalant “Hey guys!” and gave out wide grin. I raised my hand to return his gesture. Heck, nobody saw me! And then no more time was to be wasted. We were into business.
10AM. We had to team up with the T and M guys. We split into 2 teams (T1, T2. I was in T1) each containing delegates from all the three companies.
It was actually a new generation IT methodology in action (and I can’t say more about that for IP reasons!!). The two teams had a mix of Business Analysts, architects and developers from both T, M and my company. We had to develop an understanding of B’s business need, analyse the requirements, prepare the data model, visualize the UI and come up with a prototype – all in a span of 2 days. 1.5 to be more precise! The 2 teams must work independent of each other. B would finally choose the better prototype as the base to proceed with their work.
10.30AM. And so, it began. Many rounds of brainstorming among us and with the guys from B. I sat down in translating the business into technical terms, while a guy already started with UI. I added some code, but left them at a template level. Operational work was left for tomorrow.
1.15PM. It was a wonderful lunch. Some very biggie guys had joined us. It was a privilege having an informal chat over lunch with people of such industrial caliber.
1.30PM. Back to business.
5.30PM. At the end of the day T1 and T2 presented our progress to B. T2 are a bit ahead of us.
Tomorrow morning, we have to finalize certain stuff with Team 2 and B. And then proceed independently with an operational prototype by evening. As I write this line, I'm feeling totally exhausted. But it was an amazing day today, filled with an unparalleled exchange of ideas.
May the best Team’s prototype be chosen! (And may that be my team!).