Software People Stories

This is part 2 of the conversation celebrating the milestone of 250 episodes, with our guest host Gopalan.

Gopalan was the first guest on the show and agreed to play host and have the hosts as guests!

In part 1, he was exploring aspects related to how the hosts prepare for an episode and how different formats worked for the Software People Stories.

In this part, he continues to explore his curiosity of how the minds of podcast hosts work, in handling planned and unplanned situations.

He asks

• Some things that went wrong and what went right.. 
• About similarities of podcast editing and movie making
• Some difficult guests, who would veer off topic
• How does one stay in the conversation, but stay detached
• Handling situations when known persons say things that you do not feel the same way about or know it may not be completely factual
• How one would resist the temptation to not get into arguments or negating something that a guest says
• Some of the podcasts that Gopal listens to

We hope you enjoyed some of our experiences in bringing you 250 episodes of stories of software people.

We believe that everyone has a story to tell that will inspire or educate others.

When would you like to tell your story?

Or, if you would like to submit somebody else’s story, and be a guest host, please record a sample or the full conversation and share it with us.

This a very special episode for all us, hosts - and assume, for you, our listener as well.

This is the 250th episode of the Software People Stories.

About 5 years ago, A desire to learn something new and leverage that learning to pay it forward to the community, led to the launch of this podcast.

What started as Software Lifecycle Stories pivoted to Software People Stories and thanks to all your encouragement and love, we are at 250.

This episode is a little different from the usual episodes in that we have reversed the roles.

The very first guest on the show, Goplan, plays the host and the three co-hosts, me, Chitra and Gayatri are the guests.

In a freewheeling conversation, Gopal had many questions about what happens behind the scenes and inside our minds in the context of being associated with the podcast.

The topics covered include:

• What the experience has been for the hosts to have a consistent and regular schedule
• How was the experience of discovering new aspects of people that you have known for long, through the podcast conversation
• If the hosts had a structure in mind for the conversations
• How such structures work when there are multiple guests

Gopal asked for some examples of things that went right and some things that did not go as per plan.

The answers to that questions and more interesting questions, listen to the next episode, which is part 2 of this special conversation, to celebrate the milestone of 250 episodes.

In the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Woody Zuill, Expert Coach and co-author of Mob Programming, shares his career journey

• Balancing the speeches and consulting with consulting engagements
• Woody shares tips and tricks of being in the speaking networks
• Woody talks about joy of creating his own businesses - Almost 16 of them is creating 
• Woody shares early experiments on signs and making new things
• He shares his passion of making his day productive by avoiding repeated steps and automate
• Woody shares his deep inflection points in his career that has positioned him today 
• Woody also shares his ideal places to work and attracting like minded people to work 
• Instead of Doing what others are expecting of us and always uplifting to oneself also
• Woody also shares deep views on how one needs to contribute for a better tomorrow

Woody has been programming computers for almost 40 years, and have 20+ years of experience as an Extreme Programmer, and 15+ years as an Agile Guide of some sort. He truly believes that code must be simple, clean, and maintainable so that we can realize the Agile promise of Responding to Change, and that we must constantly "Inspect and Adapt".

Woody is a co-author with Kevin Meadows of the book "Mob Programming, A Whole Team Approach". He’s a prolific speaker on this topic at conferences, user groups, and meet-ups all over the world.

More generally, I've delivered workshops, trainings, and coaching sessions on Agile Software Development, Mob Programming, and Software Development Practices for a number of firms including Ericsson, Schneider Electric, Qualcomm, Intel, H & M, King Games, Capital One, Twitter, and Spotify.

Woody can be connected at https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodyzuill/ 

In the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Woody Zuill, Expert Coach and co-author of Mob Programming, shares his career journey

• Shares how he joined software development after he created tools to improve his day-to-day life
• Jokingly Woody mentions how he didn’t have to clean up(unlike doing carpentry) after a hard day at writing code
• Early experimentation on pair programming and having fun and how he found that explaining ideas, listening each other and accepting each others opinions - most importantly stop interrupting others
• Talks about the story of using pair programming for knowledge transfer in a rapid manner
• Shares his principle on how experimenting is the fastest way to build cultural nuances
• Paying attention to others emotions and deeply listening enables - Listen as if the next sentence is the most important thing we are going to listen
• His motto - Be the best team member that you can be 
• Woody shares tips and tricks on deep listening skill and staying curious
• Aha moments Woody has had how “Teams” have evolved
• How can you lead from without any of the influence and how that led him to become a speaker and teacher

Woody has been programming computers for almost 40 years, and have 20+ years of experience as an Extreme Programmer, and 15+ years as an Agile Guide of some sort. He truly believes that code must be simple, clean, and maintainable so that we can realize the Agile promise of Responding to Change, and that we must constantly "Inspect and Adapt".

Woody is a co-author with Kevin Meadows of the book "Mob Programming, A Whole Team Approach". He’s a prolific speaker on this topic at conferences, user groups, and meet-ups all over the world.

More generally, I've delivered workshops, trainings, and coaching sessions on Agile Software Development, Mob Programming, and Software Development Practices for a number of firms including Ericsson, Schneider Electric, Qualcomm, Intel, H & M, King Games, Capital One, Twitter, and Spotify.

Woody can be connected at https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodyzuill/ 

In the second part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru continues his conversation with Mohan Ram

Mohan talks about

• The challenges in working with details as well as abstractions
• The cost of not understanding implicit requirements and the importance of progressive elicitation of requirements
• How coaching and observations of people who were doing well in these aspects
• Why crossing the initial hurdle of winning the confidence of your clients / users is extremely critical for the success of a project
• His personal philosophy in working under contractual constraints - of cost or timelines
• How Agile approaches are suitable to work more effectively under dynamic scope conditions
• How individuals can find a balance between having or not having an aptitude for technical or managerial flavors of work
• How he developed an interest in philosophy and constant learning
• What he would like to do with the ancient wisdom, in applying them to day-to-day contexts
• His thoughts and tips for career questions

Mohan Ram is a Principal Consultant at PM Power Consulting, he works with Clients in their Agile Transformation initiatives, Digital Innovation and Transformation journey and helping build Individuals and Teams that are capable of effectively Delivering outcomes and Managing these Transformations in a Confident and Sustained manner. 

In the first part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Mohan Ram, a senior professional in the IT industry who has played various roles related to networking software development to business line management and now a coach with PM Power Consulting.

Mohan shares

• His growing years in a conservative family in Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu
• About how his life was comfortable, not luxurious and how those days and culture had a strong influence on his life
• Getting into IT. probably more by chance and then liking the opportunities to apply logical thinking and solving problems for others and the gratification of seeing users benefitting from the solutions
• Moving to systems engineering and networks and looking at those technology areas and find applications in the commercial world
• The opportunity to be mentored and coached by good managers
• Discovering his strength of going beyond just technology and connect with customers, into more techno commercial roles
• His feeling of being thankful for being at the right places at the right times
• His interest in ancient wisdom, yoga, vedanta, music etc - all towards finding and keeping a balance in life
• Looking forward to the next phase of his life
• The support and concerns that he received from friends and family
• The opportunity to work with  geek, to contribute to create and refine a network operating system with one of the early startups in the networking space, that triggered his curiosity to get into software
• Getting into creating software products as well as services, particularly managed services 
• Seizing an opportunity to address new and greater challenges nd moving from C-DAC to HP
• The two important switches:
• Coming out of monotony
• Seeing a bigger opportunity
• An important aspect of being a good mentor; and learning to look at the forest and not get lost among the trees - leveraging his strength of paying attention to detail
• Switching to project and program management roles and stress the need to understand the nuances of project management

I asked him about how he was able to work in zones of abstraction or ambiguity, while interacting with customers - to understand requirements and come up with an approach or solution and create a project plan to execute, when his strength of attention  to detail.

The answer to this question and a lot more in part 2 of the conversation.

Mohan Ram is a Principal Consultant at PM Power Consulting, he works with Clients in their Agile Transformation initiatives, Digital Innovation and Transformation journey and helping build Individuals and Teams that are capable of effectively Delivering outcomes and Managing these Transformations in a Confident and Sustained manner. 

In the second part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Vadeesh Budramane,Founder and CEO of AlgoShack, shares his career journey

• Shares his thought processes on why a product company to be started 
• He also shares the decision parameters that he considered and that’s common across entrepreneurs
• Journey to be gratifying to the founders and early employees
• Celebrating every small milestone from ID issuance, website, logo and creating a sense of moving in the right direction
• Ability to make an impact in the automation - Vadeesh talks about creating an inclusive environment
• Vadeesh shares the principles in which AlgoShack is created in terms of usage of tools and techniques and democratization of quality engineering
• He further shares how AI is embedded in the test process
• Vadeesh talks about creating fit-for-purpose solutions that’s specific in the domain
• Vadeesh talks about his advice to people joining the testing industry
• Enabling automation testers to modularise and optimise test cases constantly keeping users and non functional scenarios in mind

Vadeesh is currently CEO at AlgoShack and he has held several roles such as Senior Vice President at Sutherland Global Services,  Director & Head of Healthcare Vertical at Computer Sciences Corporation and Managing Director at FCG.

Vadeesh has 32 years of experience focused on product engineering, innovation & IP creation. In his 15+ years of experience in senior leadership positions, Vadeesh has been responsible for strategic planning, end-to-end operations, and P&L. He has built globally competitive leadership teams, orchestrated strategic customer engagements, and created significant value for stakeholders.

Vadeesh is a leader with experience in managing offshore delivery center and vertical delivery with a team size of 3000+ people & $250m P&L. He has experience across healthcare, ISVs, telecom, and real-time embedded systems industry verticals and North America, UK and Europe markets that include global delivery, customer engagement, business development and P&L responsibilities.

A leader with hands-on experience in seeding and developing globally competitive leadership teams, developing competencies, transforming delivery organizations and driving business models for outcomes.

Vadeesh can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadeeshbudramane/ 

In the first part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Vadeesh Budramane, Founder and CEO of AlgoShack, shares his career journey

• Vadeesh talks about starting in the embedded programming with Time Division Multiplexing and has built and learnt numerous protocols and standards
• He has also multiplexed his time across different domains such as Automotive, Medical instruments, Healthcare and Telecommunication 
• Vadeesh shares his experience why he started the firm AlgoShack focused on the QE 
• Combat the challenge of building quality software by automating automation testing
• He shares his experiences on how critical devOps processes in the medical field and thinking about holistic environment 
• He shares how he has built a keen sense of understanding the domain of telecom with different protocols
• While he took up assignments in Healthcare, the type of stakeholders and touchpoints has moved him back to a learner of the domain
• Vadeesh shares his passion of teaching and learning and thanks his Wipro days to inculcate that and further strengthened while working for HCG
• Vadeesh decided to start a firm in test automation for embedded systems and we will hear more about the start up journey in the next episode. 

Vadeesh is currently CEO at AlgoShack and he has held several roles such as Senior Vice President at Sutherland Global Services,  Director & Head of Healthcare Vertical at Computer Sciences Corporation and Managing Director at FCG.

Vadeesh has 32 years of experience focused on product engineering, innovation & IP creation. In his 15+ years of experience in senior leadership positions, Vadeesh has been responsible for strategic planning, end-to-end operations, and P&L. He has built globally competitive leadership teams, orchestrated strategic customer engagements, and created significant value for stakeholders.

Vadeesh is a leader with experience in managing offshore delivery center and vertical delivery with a team size of 3000+ people & $250m P&L. He has experience across healthcare, ISVs, telecom, and real-time embedded systems industry verticals and North America, UK and Europe markets that include global delivery, customer engagement, business development and P&L responsibilities.

A leader with hands-on experience in seeding and developing globally competitive leadership teams, developing competencies, transforming delivery organizations and driving business models for outcomes.

Vadeesh can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadeeshbudramane/ 

In the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Fred George,Consulting Developer in Scienta AS and master change agent, shares his career journey

• Fred shares his experience in creating and nurturing thinking diversity in his London project
• Ensuring that you create a blameless culture and a wonderful experimentation and that’s what enables innovation to flow and no permission culture 
• He shares about creating change management in behaviors starting with extreme rigor in processes. Once the barriers are broken in, processes are completely taken out and that’s when you become truly agile
• Understanding the five key principles on agility  
• Fred shares about rewilding and increasing experimentation 
• He shares his expertise on balancing his brand, building products and consulting
• Fred shares about inculcating no-fear environment and ensuring that he picks the team around him 
• Fred shares his thoughts around how AI needs to be looked at as a way to do your repeated steps - Understanding the essence of the work
• Stay in the learning journey and that’s what enables you to be successful 

Fred can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-george/ 

Fred considers himself a hands-on software developer with executive responsibilities and experience. Early experimenter in micro-service architectures from 2005, and father of the post-Agile process termed Programmer Anarchy. Earlier implementer of new technology for his entire career, including computer networking in the 70's, LAN's and GUI in the 80's, and OO and Agile in the 90's. Very early adopter of Kanban processes. He has used over 70 programming languages in his career.

In the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Fred George, Consulting Developer in Scienta AS and master change agent, shares his career journey

• Fred is a career IBM developer and speaks about the skills he developed
• Fred shares his experience in gaining an MBA degree and speaks about how IBM is great in building great people around your
• Talks about how one needs to imbibe oneself in the talking to executives 
• Shares some of the stories on ensuring that fears are quelled and anticipate the people who are fearing 
• Talks about hard and complex problems that he welcomes to solve
• Fred’s mantra is “I can't do everything well, but Most things can do as well as anyone else”
• Fred shares how he ensures that he gets the right set of team members and mentor them around you. 
• Ensuring that management are taken into confidence in the journey using transparency and metrics
• Fred shares his movement from being in the management cadre in IBM to a consultant and ensuring that he taught himself new language skills. Fred knows about 75 languages over the period of time
• Fred shares his experience on how job descriptions have become very convoluted and complex and that’s leading to dysfunctions
• Fred shares about the new concept of thinking Diversity and what type of innovations that are coming in

Fred can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-george/ 

Fred considers himself a hands-on software developer with executive responsibilities and experience. Early experimenter in micro-service architectures from 2005, and father of the post-Agile process termed Programmer Anarchy. Earlier implementer of new technology for his entire career, including computer networking in the 70's, LAN's and GUI in the 80's, and OO and Agile in the 90's. Very early adopter of Kanban processes. He has used over 70 programming languages in his career.