Why should a techie do pre-sales?

As a technologist, I used to always stay away from the world of sales. I hated it. And I hated sales guys even more. Because they would always sell some kind of service which we would either not have or not have currently.

A couple of years back, my boss wanted me to realize how stupid I was to think like that. He asked me to do pre-sales. In my opinion, a pre-sales consultant's job is the most discretely defined of all the positions that lead into the executive management space. A pre-sales consultant's primary responsibility is to convert a lead into a customer. Never was I faced with such a challenge in my entire technical career. All I have to make sure is not to lose a customer by delivering some crappy piece of software. Now that's preservation and not conversion.

This posed me immense challenges because my mindset had to change completely. From a cubicle-guy to a board-room guy. From a SQL-Editor guy to a Powerpoint-guy. From a internal-guy to an external-guy. The last point is very important. Pre-sales makes you more of an external guy. An external guy is one who understands the market. He is the one who understands the customer. He finds problems rather than solves problems.

So now, why should a techie learn pre-sales? Simple. To find problems. The more and more you grow up in your expertise ladder, you realize that you need to find problem patterns. As a senior consultant you are expected to know the problem before hand itself. And have a pattern available for the same. And pre-sales helps you to get into this mindset. Pre-sales will help you to lookout for problems before problem finds you. It will make you think in terms of broader problems and even broader solutions.

You talk to a pre-sales guy. He will give you the problem, design considerations and solution. You talk to a techie. He will ask you the problem and then he will give the design considerations and solution.

I need supervision.

Can you supervise yourself? One of my company's co-founders had published a book called 'The Professional' and he talks about professionalism is about self-supervision. A professional is about a person who knows when he has completed his job; he shouldn't be relying on somebody else to approve the completion of his job. If he does, then he is an amateur or apprentice.

Somehow, I am not convinced about this principle. And the reasons are as follows

1. The world of IT services is ever-changing. In that case, how do I know what is complete? I need some more eyeballs to tell me whether what I have done is correct or not, whether I have completed it or not. I need supervision not only to tell me if I have completed my work, but also who can monitor me on a day-day basis. To track my progress. To tell me if I am on track. To tell me if with this rate, whether I will miss the bus or not.

2. Our requirements are not as static as an undertaker's job. Its pretty fluid. We have to adapt and change. In such a changing process, you need expertise to validate your work. You need supervision to watch over your direction.

We all know the importance of reviews and followups. A world without reviews and followups is a highly idealistic world. A world of programs. Speaking realistically, I wouldn't let my own team self approve their own work, no matter how brilliant the team is. I will certainly get into some amount of detail and followup. I will certainly want to track their progress and not wait for the last day to get a status. Its not because I doubt their capabilities, but because I know that only constant feedback and tracking improves the quality of work.

Getting stagnated...

I have spent my past 8.5 years of my career doing Data-warehousing and Business Intelligence. What next is something that I keep asking to myself, almost everyday? One of my managers stopped by and asked me.

"Are you getting stagnated?"

I was taken aback. I wanted to know why did he feel so. He told me - "Because you are working on the same thing for 8.5 years".

In Indian IT Services, we have this strange theory engulfing every software engineer -

"Every 2 years you need to get promoted and become a Project Manager very soon".

And once you become a Project Manager, you should become a Delivery Manager and then an Account Manager and then...It depends on tall the corporate ladder and how wide it is....

This phenomenon is affecting the whole technology arena. The IT Services industry in India wants an engineer to transform from an "Innovate-new-things-guy" to a "Get-things-done-guy". An "Innovate-new-things-guy" has a lot of technology background and a "Get-things-done-guy" has a lot of management background. I would say the latter is the Supply part of the equation and the former is the demand part of the equation. And the equation needs both the parties. Somehow our IT Services managers are causing an imbalance to this equation by drying up the "Technology pool".

There is never stagnation in the technology pool, because technology itself is not stagnant. Do doctors get stagnated? They sit in the same chair for years and years and do the same kind of diagnosis, though every case would have its own complication.

There is always a career for specialization.

My biggest challenge right now. Follow-ups.

Last 2 weeks in my project were pretty challenging. Reason - 'Follow-ups". I hated the job of following up with someone to find out if they had done their job.

I hated it because I felt I was knocking into their privacy.

I hated it because I felt it was not under my control anymore.

And I hated it because it makes you feel like a beggar.

The more and more I hated it, the more and more I realized that it was inevitable. I had to do it. It is unavoidable. Now, I had this big task of doing something that I hated. Whenever I faced situations like this, there is one thought which keeps me kicking - "If 'I' could learn and write SQL, then I can do anything". SQL is something that I hated a lot. I used to score "Single digit numbers" in my training tests. But today SQL is my career. And I do it passionately. So I decided to apply the same philosophy to follow-ups too. Turn something that I hate, to something that I have to do it passionately...

Vidaathu Karuppu (A Tamil phrase for "an omen that never leaves your back")

Treat it as an omen that will always sit on your back. You just have to be-friend it. Once you start perceiving it as an "always existing" to-do, you will start designing permanent solutions for it. My very first hour in my day is a "Follow-ups" calendar item. I send reminders to all my "follow-up contacts" or give them a call to find out.

Sending a PENDING Status Mail

I send an email with the Subject line as PENDING. It is little bit rude, but I find it working.

Fix an interval and keep reminding

Fix up an interval like 1-2 days or 3-6 hours or any limit depending on the criticality of the process and keep reminding.

Highlight the impact and also the benefit of finishing on time

Make sure you highlight the impact of the delay to them. Also highlight the benefit of finishing it on time.

I use one of these techniques to get my followups closed. But I still struggle, because it needs a lot of patience.

I made a big mistake. Farewell is as important as Introduction.

I made a big mistake. When I signed off from my previous project, I didn't send a "Farewell email" at the right time. I sent a week later.

I worked out of my client's place. I sent an email to all my colleagues onsite (the term used to refer to client's location in the offshoring business) the day I left from the place. But somehow missed to send to my counterparts at offshore. I just sucked.

I didn't realize till one of my colleagues was surprised that I had left the project and I hadn't even conveyed my move. I felt miserable.

Sending a farewell email at the right time communicates a lot of emotions. It says that you care to communicate your decision and you respect them. It says that you would want to stay in touch and finally it says how much you will miss them when they are not around you.

I realized that farewell emails are equally important as an introduction email and it has to be drafted in a nice manner at the right time and not for the sake of sending one.

Cost of Default - A "Derisking" technique

I parked my car in my usual Park-Ride facility and was walking to catch my light rail to my office. I had to enter the parking lot # to buy my tickets. I remembered it, but I was reluctant to take a chance. My train had arrived, but I was prepared to miss it and go back and check my lot#. I walked back to the lot and verified it. My memory was right.

When I reflected back on that incident, I thought it was too risky to rely on my memory and the cost of default was not proportionate to the risk that I take (The cost of towing and the frustration that accompanies with it was just too much to take). The imbalance made me to go and verify it.

Why don't we do it for our own projects? Before we release a piece of code, do we think if it is worth releasing a buggy piece of software? Do we weigh the cost of default to the urgency? Probably, if we start to, it might help us to avoid a lot of unnecessary chaos that we are causing to the IT services industry,

Smaller teams vs Larger teams - What should you work in?

I have been always faced with one dilemma throughout my career of 8.5 years. "Working in smaller teams" vs "Working in larger teams".

Ok !! Let me define first...

Smaller teams - not more than 4.
Larger teams - more than 6.

I have experienced both these worlds, but I keep toggling always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. Or probably its paler on the current side...

I would prefer to work for smaller teams because

1. A smaller democratic setup.
2. Easier to steer the ship. Don't have to worry about too many moving parts.
3. Work gets noticed/criticized/rewarded immediately.

I would prefer to work for larger teams because

1. Highly dynamic and challenging environment.
2. Complex human chain.
3. You will learn scalability (I was born in India).
4. Most of the interviewers ask you how big was your team size and not how small was your team size.
5. You will learn to be more realistic.

Hence, at the end of a project, just like TamilNadu politics, I just vote for the other side. I think both the kind of projects are necessary for the evolution of IT services. And if you bias your opinions towards one of them, you will soon be gobbled by the nature of the game...

Leaving a mark...

I have been playing the role of a DW Architect for a large financial services organization over the past 6 months. When I reflect back on my duties and responsibilities, one aspect came out very strong that gets missed out in the job description.

"Leaves his Unique Selling Proposition trace in the project"

There are often a lot of other crap that the organizations look for like..Coordination between the business and IT....Owner of data models....Provides strategic direction to the IT team...etc...

Do you think Emperor Shah Jahan would have given a big job description to his architect,Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, when he set out to build the Taj Mahal? He described the Taj Mahal as

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.

If you read the last line, it stresses the need to display the creator's glory. An architect should leave behind his glory after he is long gone from the project. That should be the true job description. It should be the one thing that the people would still talk about after he has resigned. The rest of the responsibilities are just enablers for the ultimate glory.

Celebrate even the journey and not just the result

I am a great fan of Aamir Khan, a fine actor in Indian cinema. But more than his acting prowess, what impressed me was his "own opinionated" view on movie making. His one little belief helped me realized a lot in my day-day activities. He has indicated that he believes in the process of film-making - the thrills, the sufferings, the enjoyment, the sacrifices, etc... more than the end result itself.

We do envision the end result, but a lot of us bury our minds in the end result so much that we don't enjoy the day-day process. For example, when we make software, we are so engrossed in meeting deadlines, living up to stakeholder expectations, daily status reports, that we forget to celebrate or appreciate the tiny successes like completing a unit of code without any bugs, writing a nice piece of documentation, being near your team member when he/she has a problem in her personal life, tuning a SQL query to less than 10 times its original running time. We lose all such fun events in the search of the end state, that even when we achieve the end state, it just doesn't taste that great. We pat our backs and are on-board the next "deadline train".

I am planning to introduce a "Success or Failure Celebration" event once a week in my projects going forward where people can celebrate their daily successes and failures. They get recognized for their daily successes. They can talk about their moments when they punched their fists. They can talk about the moments when their hands were there for their friends.

I will keep you posted on my results.

Ownership - Problems end with it.

Often, I find a lot of skilled and talented software engineers, who get stunted in their careers. Reason. Not skills. Not IQ. It's lack of ownership. They become more of "problem announcers" rather than "problem-killers". They just want to tell that there is a BIG, BIG problem ahead, but they don't want to solve it. Because solving is taking risk.

So, how do you get these kind of people to shape up? They are talented, because they find problems for you. Finding problems are like finding opportunities. So, what do you do ? Give them ownership. Give them the task of closing it out. Ask them not to just bring problems. But to "close" it with solutions. Once you give them the ownership, back off. Let them do their job. Don't micro-manage.

Nobody would like the auto-mechanic, if he just says there is a big engine failure in your car. But since the car mechanic has his business to run, he supports it with a big "Resolution" kit, which makes you feel to just leave the keys to him and then just pick the car when it is ready. He has ownership. He will complete it.