How To Bring Predictability In Project Deliveries

This panel discussion was organized by Mindbowser. Inc

The focus of the discussion was to provide tips on how to make project deliveries more predictable. 

The participating panelists were:  

• Aman Jain, Vice President At North Ladder, A Reverse Commerce Marketplace. 
• Umang Salgia, Senior Vice President At Xoriant, Head Of The Tech Division, Developing Solutions In Technologies Like IoT, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, And Analytics. 
• Vikram Barate, Director Of Engineering At GS Lab, Works With Technologies In Networking, Telecom, And Security. 
• Sheetal Gole, Senior Vice President At Barclays, Head Of The Regulatory Reporting Platforms For The Investment Banking Division For Barclays. 

The panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Pravin Uttarwar. Pravin is a serial entrepreneur, tech geek and community builder. His goal is to help companies to set up their remote tech teams and scale quickly. He is the Co-Founder and CTO of MindBowser, an IT services and consulting company. 

Background: 

In technology development, one of the key problems that organizations are struggling with is delivering the product on time. Getting the right tech developed at the right time is consequential for founders riding in this age of digital transformation. Thus, predicting the deliverability and ensuring you achieve the deadlines are all the more important.

This interaction was held to understand how the industry leaders solve this problem at their level. They talk about the problems they face and the processes they have developed to bring predictability. 

Questions And Answers Made During The Panel Discussion

What challenges can one see to bring predictability when it comes to delivery?

“A big challenge is that people do not try to understand the consumer’s needs. So don’t try to solve it just as a technological problem, but also solve it as a perception problem. Put yourself in their shoes. If you can think of a problem that could occur, you will have to go and address it so that you’re not leaving it for a chance. And that’s how you can ensure you set the right timelines and meet them”, Umang shared.  

How can a company make sure that once they scale, they don’t meet problems like setting the right timelines or meeting them?

Umang replied, “At Xoriant, we do multiple things at all levels to set the right mindset and working culture. We have coaching programs in the organization at all levels starting from senior managers. We would like to say they are delivering a product and not providing a service. This empowers people to take responsibility for the product rather than consider it a service they are doing for someone else. The discipline and the mindset are what we should try to drive.  

We also learn from the feedback we get from customers. Because delivery is also about consistency. If you get the same feedback twice, you must ensure you take some hard action.”  

What is the process that you follow to set the right expectations in terms of deliverability for your customers?

Vikram answered, “In GS labs, we always work as a trusted partner to our customers. If there is something we cannot do or something is not going according to plan, we always tell the customer upfront.

Even if the project gets delayed, we believe in transparency. And that transparency starts right from the start of the project. If some things can be done, cannot be done, if it is going to take time, do we have the required skill set, we try to put everything on the table.

And that not always goes into how much business we get, but if we focus on whether we are going to do any value addition, that results in more business.” 

It is hard to explain to non-tech founders what goes inside product development; how do you communicate with them and set the right expectations?

“Non-tech founders are a challenge because you cannot talk to them at an engineering level. Working with a VP of engineering, you need to have sprint plans, they want to be tightly involved. Non-tech founders want to see if you can solve my problem. They will talk at a very high level. They will talk about the business in their mind.

You will have to listen and then decode their requirements into the technical requirements and then convey it to your engineers. You will also have to give them a look and feel of what you’re developing for them. Let them play around with it as often as possible, as early as possible.” Umang said.

Related Read: Technical Terms Every Founder Needs To Know  

What are the different KPIs that one should check to track the progress?

Sheetal answered, “ Unknowns are the biggest ones which lessen your predictability. So, I think reducing the number of unknowns is important. At our company, we have a system where we label our stories as ready or not. This helps us track which still need work and which are ready to go.

Having a product backlog and Sprint with numerous stories is helpful, but not all of them require to be developed immediately. It’s necessary to prioritize the order in which these stories are tackled so that the product manager can focus on what’s most important.

And then we’ve got a bunch of things like the dependencies, a CSO angle to it, all the requirements put in, and all the stakeholders agreed to it. And all the KPIs sort of metrics that we track below it. It could just vary from application to application.

One way to ensure that everything is accounted for is by using a tool or system to help keep track of everything for you. This way, you can focus on other things and not worry much about forgetting something important.”