This post talks about the way a project starts, and ultimately gets validated during its operations.
For a project leader, it's important to plan the individual projects really well, and seed them with that "one great idea" that truly defines the project through and through. The "one great idea" is the defining moment for the project leader when the project commences, it's that visionary's moment of truth, moment of joy. And the joy multiplies manifold when later in the age of the project, independent externals validate the original belief with which the project had started.The PROTON project came to my mind in July-August 2007, when I realised that the PT education group needed to get into formal business school education space pretty quickly now (then). We had the experience, the team-strength, the reputation, the honest intentions, the fire, the passion, and all the good reasons to do so.
I was faced with the big question in August 2007. What will be the defining idea for PROTON? I realised - it could be nothing else but "a transformational educational experience for each and every student". It had to be truly "transformational". The tools, the approach, the people, the infrastructure - everything had to be truly different and exceptionally high quality.The power of this unique vision thing was apparent to me as I studied several large scale projects that various organisations have executed across the world, across sectors. From Dhirubhai's massively ultra-mega style visions, to Mohammad Yunus's starkly grassroots driven approach, the leader's vision has truly defined every aspect of the reality that finally emerged, and still is. It is one of those things in life that you can possibly do only once with the project. It defines its DNA. It puts a structure for the world to identify the project with.
( This is a long, fascinating, against-all-odds kind of story I will post separately later. Readers will enjoy peeping into the working of the fantastic PROTON team while raising the project from scratch and making it work in 12 months flat. )
So then, once the basic vision was crafted (and later refined several times), we set to executing it. Being a manufacturing engineer helps here, as operations come to me naturally. The added fact that I have always carried the garage enterpreneur spirit inside me made day-to-day operational involvement in a new project really easy and enjoyable. (I had to make do with only 50% of my work time for PROTON, rest being designated for PT education).
So now, today was a big day. Some really solid validations happened for project PROTON.
As part of our regular expert guest lecture series (conducted once every fortnight), we had a panel of 3 distinguished speakers at PROTON Indore campus. The event was connected live with Ahmedabad via video-conference. The talk was special in the sense that it was completely a panel-discussion only, driven by audience queries. There were no speeches. The speakers were : Mr Roger Harrop, Mr Brian Chernett, and Mr Rakesh Bhargava. All are distinguished CEO trainers, with decades of global training experience.
I sat through the entire talk to check for some validations happening in real time. I was especially eager to discover the quality of my product about to hit the marketplace (the second year students who are due for graduation soon, and are in the race for final placements now).
My acid test queries (which I had posed to myself) were
- What will be the quality of questions that Protons (students) will ask the panel?
- Will the questions truly reflect the effort that we have put into their academics, and grooming?
- Will the techonology backbone (V/C) work seamlessly?
- What will be the panel members' natural opinion (reaction) on our students?
- The quality of questions asked was WORLD CLASS (though the articulation still needs improvement)
- Yes! The questions reflected it in ample measure
- Surprisingly, it did! (with a minor echo problem that arises when Indore speaks to Ahmedabad)
- It was "We are very glad to have come here. There are things we need to do together!"
My advice to project leaders/managers : To truly find out how your project is doing at any stage of its life, seek out simple answers to the most straight, most penetrating questions. The joy of discovering positive feedback is truly emotional.
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11 comments:
Dear Sir,
Today when the discussion about India was going on, speakers told that India is still lacking in quality. I was surprised with the same thoughts all they had. And tried to find out the reasons behind it, after a long and healthy discussion with my colleagues I found that we are making presentations everyday, we do our homework regularly but our quality is yet not improved till that extent which is needed, which should be !!!!
Japanese are considered for their best quality in the world. Why it is so?
I read one book of Mr. Dale Carnegie in which he wrote about improving the efficiency of working hour with the improvement in quality of the product on which Japanese people work.
Lets see what is that approach? They (Japanese people) take a rest of half an hour after working of every three hours to (They have special rest rooms in their work premises) make themselves fresh, Which keeps away them from wearing out, and create a interest toward the work. A Fundamental point emerges here that if we are doing a work with full of interest then definitely quality will be there.
Now I am coming to the conversation from where I started that, why our quality of work is not improving. One of the reasons might be that we are not doing our work with full interest; we are doing it just for the sake of doing. It May be because of inflexible hour of working!!!
Thanks sir to get available such great speaker.
Yesterday I saw the time-table that EGLS by Mr. Roger Harrop. I googled about Mr. Roger Harrop, visited his website, saw many his youtube videos.
Today, the session was very interesting and insightful. Especially the spirituality in management and in India was very thought provoking and great talk given by Rakesh sir.
Thanks sir.
Ravi : good to see your comment. I have believed in the dictum "Hammer breaks glass, but forges steel". Cheers!
Hulesh : good to see your approach. You are googling, youtubing and researching. That's the spirit. It's the approach that matters. Keep it up. And wait for Friday - a great Global MDP is in the offing.
Sir yesterdays EGLS by Mr. Rogers Harrop was very interesting.And also Mr. Rakesh Bhargaw facilitated it very beautifully.
Thankyou sir
Regards
Praveen Patidar
Ever since India decided to go global, one hears the word QUALITY bandied about with tremendous alacrity, and of course, ‘How the Japanese Do it’ but rarely have I heard anyone ever explain what Quality really means, except one article a while ago in the Times of India, which touched upon the fundamentals of quality. Its not TQM, KAIZEN, 5S’s, SQC, Six Sigma and what have you & of course, the Japanese Way by Ishigawa or anyone who looks remotely Japanese. It is not trying to imitate them by screaming meaningless Japanese words and phrases during exercise routines. Those phrases and words stem from their culture. Where we are and how we are stems from our culture. It is no coincidence that we are a third world nation, it is a product of our doing, where we have forgotten the basics and only imbibed the manifestations of our culture. Most Hindu rituals have a practical and scientific basis but we blindly follow and try to repeat, with scant idea and success, just as we do Japanese Quality Management.
All these Quality Management Techniques are just tools, and they are not going to make us a QUALITY country, any more than Garbage Trucks are going to make our cities clean. QUALITY is a culture, it is inherent. The article in TOI spoke of the Japanese culture, they way they keep their house, their flower arrangements, their bonsai gardens and what have you. It is inherent to their culture, and cannot be duplicated, even the Americans tried and failed. There is a movie called Gung Ho, the story of MAZDA when they entered the US and failed miserably. They had tried to do it the Japanese way, finally the Americans did it their way.
It is good to read and learn what others are doing, absorb it, but one must not see just the superfluous stuff and try and duplicate. It’s as bad as understanding a book in depth, by seeing its cover.
If ever we have to become a successful nation, and a quality producer, we have to change from within and not try and copy the outward manifestations of quality systems and techniques. We have to strike at the root and do it our way, with discipline and fundamentals, from doing the small things right and doing it consistently not by adapting rest rooms and soothing music etc – it has to be inherent to our culture and that will have to start becoming the core of our education and maybe in a few generations we will be the benchmark of quality and the Japs will scream select Hindi phrases in their exercise routine !!!
SM
Yes! real success only can be got by the use of our own skills and common senses, just copy the method of others is not enough, we should analyse it as perspective of our environment and culture. And as you rightly said this is the right use
our education.
(i'm trying for contribution as group discussion)
With regards!
Hi Sir, if you can write some words on complete operations handled during (the day of idea of proton to 1st july 2008) period. I think it would be really of great insight, how an idea takes diffrent shapes & finally gets in to action. Thanks!
Dear Sir,
In Gung Ho movie all the Japanese ways failed miserably and ultimately they completed their target by American way. But here if we try to identify the reasons that, why they are could not applied their ways then according to me its their “mindset” who was not allowing them to adopting new and productive techniques. And their mindset changed, they were able to complete their target by whichever way.
.
But when we talk about improvement in quality of Indian products. These points are very much applicable especially in manufacturing concern.
1.Mentality of Indian workers (Casual approach).
2.Low pay scale which de motivates them.
3.Bad working environment. (For example Google Inc. provides them full flexible hours which keep them motivated towards innovations.)
4.Lack of training and development.
With regards
Hi Ravi, you are quite right. In fact the Japanese played a double-cross on the Americans! They got their best brains - Edward Deming and Joseph Juran - to train them into the quality culture, and whoops! In just 15 years the tables had turned.
Nice information, I really appreciate the way you presented.Thanks for sharing..
http://www.w3cvalidation.net/
if validation is performed properly(as you have given example) before the product is launched then we will never get/produce low quality product which is very often in country like india.
specially govt organization are not meeting quality requirement.
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