Value and Break Through
Value Discovery:
I worked as a software developer in an IT services company. I played the role of a team leader for a sub-project from the main project. I knew my team well and our teams used to be changed once in 4-5 months. Our project was based on an SLA, wherein a Change Request had to be closed within a stipulated amount of time. We had some time-bands where the client pays more, the sooner we close the change request. My project manager had assigned roles to different members in the team and my role was to ensure that the work was done on time and help the junior members of the team when they face some difficulty.
Since I was also involved in training new members joining the team, hence I had a fair idea about the skill set of my team members. The project was performing as foreseen, and the number of times we closed the change requests well before the deadline was very low around an average of 3 per month, hence the number of times our project earned a bonus pay-out was less. Our team had a core-programming team and a documentation team as well. I knew that three of the employees working in the documentation team were good programmers. Hence I spoke with my project manager to let me advice on the selection of team members during the next change of team members in the project. After these 3 programmers were brought onboard the core-programming team, we started closing on an average 8 change requests every month. This was a significant change in performance of the team. We earned appreciation and better bonus pay-outs from the client.
My transition along with 3 of my developers to the core-programming team from the documentation team was a classic case of value discovery where-in the costs were the same, but the value which we delivered to the client increased several fold. I earned a ‘Blue Certificate the following cycle for consistent good performance for the next 3 months, which entitled me to some company branded merchandise. Though this is cost incurred for the company, I think it is negligible compared to the amount the company earned because of the bonus payouts.
My core team was never deployed to the documentation