Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level5 - High Performance Leadersip #1 - Project Plan and Vision - Turning Crisis into Confidence

 Turning Crisis into Confidence

Dear Toastmasters and guests,

As part of Innovative Planning Level 5, I am completing a High-Performance Leadership project. This project requires two speeches. In this first speech, I will share my project plan and vision. In the second speech, I will share the experience, results, and lessons I learned.

Leadership expert Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

My project began in April 2024, when I was called into an escalation meeting with a customer. Their message was direct: the project was not progressing as planned, confidence was falling, and a significant amount of money had already been spent without the expected results.

The project involved migrating an on-premises web application to the Microsoft Azure cloud environment. Because the existing application was built on an outdated technology stack, the team had to rewrite it using modern technology and deploy it securely in the cloud. The project started in October 2023 with an onsite-offshore team of around 10 to 12 members, and it had to go live by December 2024 to address security vulnerabilities and support better online accessibility for end users.

After six months of execution, the project was still not moving in the right direction. That made this more than a delayed delivery issue. We were a major strategic partner to the customer, so if this escalation grew further, the impact could reach global leadership on both the customer side and the vendor side. The business risk, relationship risk, and delivery risk were all very real.

Because I had worked closely with the customer manager before, I was asked to step in and help recover the project. My responsibility was not just to solve a technical problem, but to lead a turnaround. I needed to study the operating model, identify requirement gaps, understand skill gaps, improve communication, and create a realistic go-to-green plan that could restore control and rebuild trust.

My vision was clear: bring the project back to a stable and predictable path, restore customer confidence, and still achieve the planned go-live by December 2024. But my vision was bigger than meeting a deadline. I wanted to build one team instead of separate onsite and offshore groups, improve the quality of requirement communication, reduce avoidable rework, and create an environment where people could perform well without constant crisis.

To make that vision real, I wanted the team to work with clarity, discipline, and mutual respect. I wanted developers offshore to receive detailed and accurate requirements, without losing meaning in translation from Japanese to English. I wanted the team to follow Agile ceremonies with purpose, not as routine events, so that issues could be surfaced early and decisions could be made quickly. I also wanted team members to have a healthier work rhythm, with less weekend work and better work-life balance, because sustainable productivity is always stronger than burnout.

Another part of my vision was to make this project a learning opportunity for the team. If we improved our delivery model, people would not only complete this project successfully but also carry stronger skills into future assignments. At the same time, I had to stay practical. The customer had already invested heavily, so my revised plan had to be effective, efficient, and sensitive to both cost and confidence.

That reminds me of a timeless truth often attributed to the former president of America Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

So, my first step was to understand the root causes behind the delay and then translate that understanding into a practical recovery plan. If an existing process was helping, I would strengthen it. If it was slowing us down, I would change it. If it was not adding value, I would stop it.

The former CEO of Wells Fargo & Company Richard M. Kovacevich said, “A vision and strategy aren’t enough. The long-term key to success is execution. Each day. Every day.”

To turn this vision into action, my project plan had seven steps:

1.      Conduct a root cause analysis to understand the reasons for delay, confusion, and low confidence.

2.      Create a realistic go-to-green plan based on facts, priorities, and recovery milestones.

3.      Align internal leadership and secure support from my management and project leads.

4.      Present the recovery approach to the customer with transparency and accountability.

5.      Rebuild trust by gaining customer approval and commitment to the revised direction.

6.      Execute the plan with strong governance, clear communication, and disciplined Agile delivery.

7.      Lead the team to deliver the project successfully by the December 2024 deadline.

 

This was my project plan and my vision: not only to recover a troubled project, but to lead people, restore trust, and create better results for both the customer and the team. In my next speech, I will share what happened when this plan was put into action. Thank you. 

Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level4#2 Managing Difficult Audience - 2024 Variable payout/Merit increase Outcome Discussion!

 2024 Variable payout/Merit increase Outcome Discussion

 

Good evening, folks and pillars of the organization. I welcome you all to the announcement on the outcomes of this year’s appraisals and Variable pay & salary increment. First thank you all for all the hard work for last year and for all the successful execution of the projects. We have not got any major escalations from our major clients which showcases our continuous dedicated support. Majority of our customers have renewed the contracts with us which showcase their strong belief in us as a strategic partner.

Now Generative AI & AI Agent is in the trend, and we are successfully integrating this technology internally and to our customers. We have invested heavily on these technologies and we have started bearing fruit now.

Ours is a global company and the global business environment, economic conditions, and the achievement rate of KPIs for the entire company, not just Japan, affect the variable bonus payout rate.

For the last financial year, our company’s top line was $23.9 billion, which represents a 1.9% decrease YoY. Our bottom line is $1.81 billion, which is a slight increase of 0.5% when compared to the previous year, with an operating margin being 13.3%, which is way less than our competitors’.

This year we saw Trump administration taking control of the white house. Already we are seeing so much uncertainties day by day due to this. Since US contributes to most of our business, we are not clear on the effect of making in US enforcement to our group companies as we have interests in both engineering and services.

 Our board discussed and debated various scenarios considering changing uncertainties in the parts of the globe today where our primary business happens. As announced by our CEO, our company’s overall revenue decreased by 2%, Additionally our Japan unit also experienced a decline, with a 5.3% negative growth, marking the first in 11 years since the establishment that we did not achieve growth. In this context, the Business performance factor(BPF), which is the indicator of calculating variable compensation, was in the 80% range. As a result, with those Exceeding or higher performance rating received more than 100% of the bonus target, those with Succeeding rating did not reach 80%.

Individual communication regarding compensation by managers started last week, but we would like to share the situation with everyone here. Despite the challenging global economic conditions and the tough business environment for the consulting industry, urgent actions are being considered to bring Japan unit back on growth mode, including discussions with our CEO who visited Japan last month. We ask for your understanding of the circumstances in response to the business situation in 2024 and for your continued contribution and cooperation towards growth in 2025.

After lots of deliberations, it was decided to approach this year with very caution. For this year, Only Exceeding & Exceptional rating will get the salary increment. Succeeding & below rating will not get the salary increment. This is in line with the above-mentioned market conditions. We are far better than our competitors when compared to the variable payout percentage and salary increases for this year. This shows the prevailing market conditions and our company’s cautious approach.  

From this year onwards, we have introduced new processes to provide more controls to the individual accounts for merit distribution. We are introducing the role of pay plan manager who can distribute the hike % within their team members according to the account’s needs and stability.

Hopefully we believe that within another couple of months, we will have clarity on Trump’s import tax details, and we can plan well. Since we operate as a local entity in most of the regions, we do not have much impact in the services industry, but we will have an impact on the engineering side where we do import engineering goods to the US.

I request you all to have a detailed discussion with your team members on the variable payout percentages and salary increments. We should explain clearly to them and make them understand the decision by our board considering last year’s financial outcome and prevailing market conditions.

We have also rolled out Microsoft co-pilot for all our employees considering the Generative AI & Agentic AI trend in the market even though the license costs are high. Kindly cascade with all your team members to utilize this opportunity to learn copilot and start enhancing their skillsets. It is going to be a game-changer in the upcoming years. It is good for the employees as well as our organization.

Kindly identify key members in your team, maybe 5% of which we can have special negotiation for them for Salary increments in case of resignation. We should anticipate attrition and plan efficiently so that it will not affect the delivery to our customers.

I once again thank you for all your contributions for last year and hope the same for this year also. Thank you.

Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level4#1 Managing Projects - Saving the Project!

 Good evening Toastmaster of the evening and fellow toastmasters. Today I am going to explain the recovery of an IT project at my work.

Last year April, I was asked by the customer to join a management meeting, in that meeting I was told that the client project manager wants to scrap the project as our team at offshore was not able to deliver even a single delivery as planned in the last one year. He requested the money spent on this project to be considered as sunk cost to his management as he doesn’t have confidence to deliver the project by December.

The customer has already spent more than a million dollars on that project. His management was totally surprised and afraid of the consequences from their senior management. If we go and tell the management that we are incurring a million-dollar sunk cost, then it will raise various questions on their management capabilities as well as us.

To save the face, we told the customer that we will analyze the root cause of this issue and come up with Go To Green plan. I started working on the root cause analysis. I started having extensive discussions with the customers and our team members and documented the issues and sorted them into the highest priority order. Some of the key issues identified are

1.      There is no dedicated offshore project manager for the 15-member team. Since we operate in Time and material mode, the customer thought that they could control the team from onsite directly.

2.      There is no dedicated technical lead who knows the existing system and helps the team with any queries.

3.      Requirements are not clear from the developer perspective.

4.      The current lead at onsite was overloaded and not able to reply to the team’s queries on time.

5.      Daily scrum calls are extended for hours, and the total daily meeting hours are around 3-4 hours on average due to various reasons, and it completely spoiled the team’s productivity.

6.      Daily extended working hours and weekend work have affected the team’s morale.

Due to all these issues, the team morale is low, and senior resources want to move out of this project.

Against these issues, we started writing our action plan. Dedicated project manager at offshore, Business system analyst at onsite and offshore for requirement clarity, dedicated technical lead at onsite. We presented this to the customer & the customer was convinced of the identified issues and the action plan from us. We projected the final release date within December with phased monthly releases in the subsequent months.

The only constraint we faced was that the customer clearly told us that they couldn’t pay for additional resources as they already burnt more than a million dollars into this project.

So, we had many discussions internally with our management and were convinced to invest non-billable resources in this project as part of our recovery plan but ensured that the profit margin won’t go below standard. Our management also agreed, and we added one Business System Analyst at onsite and re-mapped existing lead at offshore as project manager and added a replacement for him. We also added one Business System Analyst  at offshore. I took control as PM from onsite. 

We started strictly adhering to Scrum ceremonies. We ensured that the daily scrum meetings do not go beyond 20-30 minutes. Requirement walkthrough sessions are recorded and kept in the common repository for future reference. Requirement clarification queries from the team are properly addressed and the members started enjoying the work. We ensured to avoid weekend work and extended work hours to have the work-life balance. We also introduced a bi-weekly session on “Get to Know your team” where every team member will present about themselves nothing about the work. This session played an important role in getting to know each other and it really gelled the team together. The team members loved these sessions as they started hearing different life paths & ambitions of their colleagues.

The timelines for the phased releases are very tight so that even one slippage could push the project end date to the next year which the customer doesn’t want. We all stick to the plan though we had minor hiccups in the releases. At the end of December, we have done all the releases as planned. It is a great achievement for all of us who planned meticulously and worked very hard for this.

What I learned from this project are.

1.      Members in the team should enjoy working on the project.

2.      The leader of the team should enable the camaraderie within the team.

3.      Psychological safety should be provided so that the team will not be afraid of taking risks and showcase it as a safe environment.

4.      Key roles/Bottle necks of the project should be identified and addressed as early as possible.

5.      All the leaders within the project should be allowed to take decisions in their capacity considering the project objective and timeline.

Over to the TMOE!

Club-ISC - Feb 2025 - When life hands over a lemon…

One day I went for a walking in a nearby park. My attention was grabbed by. Waoh! Waoh! Waoh! Waoh! (Barking) .

The dog enthusiastically jumped like a bouncing ball, twirled like a twister and played with the fellow dogs. It played enthusiastically with the owner.

Suddenly I found something odd with that dog. I watched him closely and astonished to find that he has only three legs. It seems that the dog has lost a leg due to some accident. The dog showed no sign of handicap or remorse. I got awe inspired.

Good evening contest master, fellow toastmasters and guests.

On a warm Sunday morning, I got a call from my cousin.

He said “Next week … our Singapore uncle is coming for his house warming ceremony”.

I got very excited on hearing that our Singapore uncle Mohan is coming.

Immediately I started to think about my Singapore uncle Mohan. He was born and brought up in a middle class family. He finished his schooling and was very much interested in doing engineering. But, due to his financial situation he joined polytechnic. After that he worked in a mechanical lathe in Chennai. Seeking a better livelihood he went to Bangalore. When he reached Bangalore he didn’t have any money. He even slept in the railway station for 3 days with limited food like a pauper. Then he got a job in a company and worked like a bumble bee to become the top performer in his job.

After a couple of years working in Bangalore, he found an opportunity to work in Singapore and moved to Singapore. He was the top performer in that job also. After a brief stint in that job, he switched over to sales in another company. During the course of the job he frequently travelled all around the globe and he was regarded as the best sales person in the entire sales community in his field. In the meantime, he started his own venture in Chennai. Within five years the company progressed northwards and now at the age of 60, he is a multi-millionaire owning assets in both Singapore and India.

On the other day, I met him in an event. I wished him and asked ,

Me: Uncle, What is the major reason behind your success? Didn’t you ever worry when life handed you just a diploma?

Uncle: Thani, I was worried when I had just a diploma. At many times I thought how I am going to have a good life with the meager salary and with a diploma education. All my worries vanished and I was reincarnated after reading a story by Dale Carnegie.

Me: Oh! Can you please share with me the story uncle?

Uncle: Definitely!

Once upon a time a man lived in Chicago and had five sons. One day he called his five sons to a meeting and handed over a share of his father land to all his sons. The next day all his sons eagerly visited the land and shocked to find, that the land is present near the forest and is fully occupied by the most venomous rattle snakes. Four out of the five sons consider the land as barren and left. But one son thought he can do something with it. After couple of years, he started exporting the poison of rattle snakes across the globe to all the pharmacy companies manufacturing antitoxins. He also exported the canned rattle snake flesh.

When life handed him the most venomous poison in the world, he accepted it graciously and become a successful person. “Be the best in your job, everything will be taken care”.

When life handed him a small lemon - a diploma, he accepted it and went on to become a successful entrepreneur.

Nelson Mandela says, “It is what we make out of what we have … not what we are given, that differentiates one person from another”

Dear Fellow toastmasters, what is the thing that life handed over to you?  Are you worrying that the thing you received in life is worthless or very small?

When I introspect my life so far, Am I not given fairly by life? I really agree that life has given me far beyond when compared to my uncle.

My parents gave me a wonderful start to me by which I had done my master’s in computer applications, 18 years later I had done my MBA, through the course I got professional certifications. This month, I got my Japanese language certification N2. Though my lemons may not be comparable like other achievers, but I am trying my best to make it a lemonade.

Don’t worry about the lemon handed by the life; strive hard until you make lemonade.

What is your lemon?

Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level3#1 Descriptive Language - Excruciating Start!

 

Excruciating Start

Good evening toastmaster of the evening and fellow toastmasters. Today I am going to elaborate the commotions and feelings during my first term in my M.B.A course which started on October 2022.

I started my M.B.A journey like a person onboarded a ship to the promise land. We must take a minimum of 36 credits and maximum of 40 credits to graduate. Each course will have a credit of 1 to 1.5 credits based upon the duration and complexity. Each term is 3 months. If it is 1 credit, we will have 4 classes in 3 months. if it is 1.5 credits then we will have 6 classes in 3 months. So, I must complete 25 to 28 courses to get all the credits. All the classes are conducted every two weeks.

A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step, my M.B.A journey of 40 credits started with the 4 subjects of 6 credits in the first term. They are

Essentials of Marketing and Strategy

Human Resource Management

Critical Thinking

Business Analytics

Two classes were online, and two classes were conducted at the campus in the first term.

At the start, I was very eager to attend and learn but as the classes progresses, my eagerness started to fade away and it seems my ship headed for the hell instead of promise land.

Since I am going to the student life nearly after 18 years, I am totally out of sorts for the student life. After 2 weeks into the term, my hair in the head started withered like the leaves during the fall season. I started imagining myself without hair post completing my M.B.A.  

Critical thinking course is all about how efficiently we can solve the problem with how many effective solutions. It will be like 5 why analysis to find the root cause of the problem and address it.

While doing the Critical Thinking course assignments, my mind behaved critically ill, and I started behaved like a mad dog with my family. My family also understood the stress which I am in and started sympathizing with me. I have become the 3^rd student in my home after my son and daughter. Instead of critically thinking on the assignments, I started thinking critically about the next 2 years of my course that how I am going to fare the upcoming terms. Getting 40 credits seems to be like reaching the top of the mount Everest.

Though Business Analytics was interesting on hearing the stories in the case studies, I was tormented by the assignments in that course. Each assignment completion & submission has become a herculean task. I started working on late nights to complete the assignment and in the sideways saw my hairs in the head withering away. On passing of every day my head had become more shinier in the mirror. My wife cautioned me that I will loss all my hair in the head prior completing the M.B.A.

HRM (Human Resource Management) though it is more theoretical, I can study with somewhat ease when compared to Critical Thinking and Business Analytics. We studied the case studies of various HR process of huge companies and how it got evolved through kaizen.

Essentials of Marketing & Strategy is also more theoretical. It dealt with the various principles of Marketing & Strategy. More than the course, I enjoyed the dinner after the class with the fellow students and lecturers at the nearby restaurant called Spice Hub.

The dishes in that restaurant are still flowing in my mind regularly. The light brown fresh tandoori chicken with crispy baked salted potatoes placed around it with the tickling sound of the hot iron plate directly from the tandoori oven, blue berry lassie in the pot shaped bottle, the fragrance of the hot masala chai, the deep-fried squid with mayonnaise, the green evenly diced avocado-shrimp salad. I can say on and on. All the dishes are mouthwatering.

Even though the first term of 3 months seems to be a small mound in my 2 years journey, but I felt it like a mountain hill. Each week has become a great ordeal to me. My once sparkled eyes started possessing black rings around it.

I held on to my nerves to sail through the turbulent phase in my M.B.A journey. At-last I saw the light at the end of the tunnel after 3 months. I was able to complete all the 4 courses with good grades. Yes, I felt a sense of accomplishment which carried me for the next term though my head had become more shinier in the mirror. I had totally a different commotions and feelings in those 3 months which I faced huge challenge and started fighting with myself to improvise myself to tune to the student mode which enabled me to face the upcoming terms in the M.B.A course.

 

Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level3#3 Delivering Social Speeches - Best Mentor!

                                                                     Best Mentor!

Good Evening Toastmaster of the Evening & Fellow toastmasters and Guests.

Today I want to award the best mentor award to my mentor DTM Saro Velrajan for the guidance and insights he provided me for the past 10-15 years.

Around 2011, he returned to India after lived in the US for 12 years. I first met him in a toastmaster’s club meeting in 2013 in Chennai, India. At that time, he was taking club officers role & gradually moved to the district officer roles in his toastmaster journey. I was struggling to speak fluently but was eager to learn. Post one of my speeches, he came to me and asked whether he can be my mentor. I was happy and soon accepted it.

Post that, prior presenting my speech, I will share my script upfront, and he will review and revert with his comments. I will incorporate his comments and present my speeches.

Around 2015 when I returned from Japan after a 1-year work in Tokyo, In one of the club meetings he asked me about my job and my pay details. He suggested that for my skillset and years of experience, I am getting way below the market average pay, he suggested me to try for jobs in the market. I took his word and searched, within 1 year I got a good job with 30% pay rise.

Around 2021, he quit his high paying job to pursue his passion of corporate training. Last year he published his book on 5G wireless networking & about to complete his doctorate in his field. He is a prominent speaker in his field. He is so passionate about toastmasters, For any toastmasters related details, you can visit his website saroscorner.com.

Even though, I have moved to Japan, whenever I visit India, I will get his appointment and get his valuable feedback. Two years back, in one of the discussions, he asked me about my goals and suggested me to pursue MBA as he also done MBA in the US in the past. He told me that studying MBA will give an advantage to me to understand the business perspective behind the decisions in the corporate world. He convinced me that having MBA will provide me opportunities to enter the C suite. He also shared his experience of doing part time MBA during his job. He told that only the initial stage will be some hiccups, once you sustain the early months into the course you will be used to it, and you can easily complete the degree.

I took his word and joined part time MBA at Globis university in 2022 in Tokyo. Now it is 2024, I have completed the degree. I have become an improvised version of me now when compared 2 years ago. Thanks to my mentor.

Our relationship has grown beyond toastmasters and today I want to thank him again for the impact he had on me so far to bring the best out of me. I am very happy to award the best mentor award to my mentor DTM Saro velrajan. Thank you!

Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level3#2 Delivering Social Speeches - Thank You!

                                                                 Thank You!

Good evening Toastmaster of the evening and fellow toastmasters and guests.

Today I want to thank my wife, son and daughter for their patience for the last two years in enabling me to complete my MBA.

In 2022, when I told my wife that I was going to do MBA, she was not aware of the implications for her and the kids. She asked me couple of times that it is really needed at this age for me to do MBA. Since she came to know that I decided to do MBA on the suggestion from my mentor, then she understood that it is difficult for her to convince me not to do. I explained her the advantage of doing MBA in overseas university and the impact it will bring to my career. But she cautioned me to think twice prior enrolling to the course.

At that time, my son is 10 years old and my daughter is 7 years old. My wife worried that if I started concentrating on my studies, I will spend less time with my kids. I convinced her that in whatever possible way I will try to spend time with them which it turned out later to be not possible. In October 2022, the course started, and I enrolled 4 courses in a 3 month term so that I can get the target of 40 credits to complete the course within 2 years. It was so tough in the beginning as I am again transitioning myself into a student after 17 years with parallel work. Since I took 4 courses per term, it means each course will have 6 classes and 24 classes in a period of 3 months. It was so hectic; my world has become work and study. 

In some time, my wife pointed me this that I totally stopped spending time with the kids, but she understands the hectic schedule I am into. She started supporting me. My son and daughter also understand that I am also doing my assignments along with their homework. I promised them, that post my MBA, I will spend a lot of time with them.

In July 2024, I got all my maximum 40 credits even 3 months prior to the scheduled completion. I felt elated on this accomplishment. At this moment, I really wanted to thank my wife, son and daughter for their patience in allowing me to spend my time only for myself for the last 2 years. I appreciate their sacrifice and support they provided to me. Thank you my wife Gomathi, son Devaprasanna and daughter Khavipriya!