Minto's Principle !!!

Its amazing, the pace with which everything is happening here !! Last weekend for Term 1 and I face daunting task of surviving another Exams - this time end term. The pleasant side to look at it is the 5 day break after Term 1 and Ahahaa !! Life will be back on track, at least for some time. Lot more to ramble about yet a ever lasting time crunch constraints me to go on.

This blog is supposed to be Concise, Inductive, and Deductive well reasoned. I know its not and can't be so. Ideally, I should be introducing you to a structured writing technique that happens to be my key learning for the day. You think in a pyramid that starts with a theme at top, a set of inductive questions in the second layer, and finally well reasoned and thoughtful elements based on deductive reasoning based on facts at the third layer. I learned about this - Minto's Pyramid - in my today's interactive session with Deloitte Alums and Speakers. So much to take away from this place !!!

I am gonna close here. I know I haven't done justice to the subject through this brief write up. I will definitely come back to revisit this link. If interested, you can check out Minto's Principle here

General Management Club – Interactions with Alumni from Microsoft!!

We conducted our first Alum Interaction session last week with two alums, Surya Shastri (Co2003) and Rao Korupolu (Co2008), both from Microsoft who shared their insights about the role and work of Program Management at Microsoft. First, Surya and Rao detailed their profile and typical work day. Later, they took time to patiently address queries from students. Around 80-100 students attended the informative meet and provided real good feedback about the same.

Some of the key excerpts from the Q & A session including Alumni response are:

• Microsoft has four divisions in India that include sales and marketing, consulting, program management, and product planning. At Microsoft in the Program Management roles, you will get opportunity to work across multiple functions such as legal, marketing, finance, corporate planning, sales, etc

• Not everything in each business is done from India. Hence the overall picture of the business will not be pretty clear from India.

• When it comes to placements is what you have done before and not what you have done here at ISB. They look for what’s transferable from past, can you solve real world problems.

• An important question was asked on Work life balance and the Alums provided real good picture of life at Microsoft. Of course they agreed there may be difficult times but that’s not the order of the day.

• Surprisingly, the Program Management role does not entail P & L responsibility.

• Microsoft conducts 4-5 back to back interviews and goes at length to hire candidate.

• During interview short list, they look for clear stand out things in CV, brand names from school help, leadership stuff in CV, and it can be little harder for people not from technology backgrounds.

• Differentiation at ISB vs. IIM: - Several ladder levels within Program Management. The SVP of Windows and a Software Development Engineer joined the same time in 1985. IIM guy with 1 year experience would need lot more years to reach the level experienced guys will be hired. Interviewers will put everyone in the right place.

• What applies from ISB – You get very good at asking good question via MBA. You may not have answers though.

• Negotiating during interview – Do your job, ace your interview, 5-6 round of interviews, don’t worry about things such as salary n all. Microsoft takes care!! Don’t worry about that.

Overall it was an interesting start to learning experience from ISB via General Management Club and will continue to. I hope I will do a better job at reporting the same next time  !!

6.25% MBA Completed!!

Geeky stuff to list, 6.25% MBA complete but I couldn’t find a better subject to enlist the roller coaster ride till now. ISB loves to take exams – once every 3 weeks and that means we are going to take exams 16 times over a period of ~11 months. After completing the first 6.25%, it’s such a nice feeling. We passed through the intense times of handling the quizzes, assignments, and those tricky questions in term exams. Once done, we celebrated. Big time!! On a single day, 4 parties were going on in parallel. We partied till dawn and then, for the first time, the exams look well worth

Looking forward it appears that every moment this ride is picking up speed. Sometime the speed is imposed by assignments, exams, and quizzes. Other times the speed is self imposed via parties, outbound activities, and sports/fun activities. I strongly feel that if ISB is going to inculcate something common among all the 579 students, it’s sure going to be the spirit to “Work Hard & Party Harder”…and I am looking forward towards to eventual intensity with gleaming eyes!!

B'day Dunking@ISB !!!

11th May - Midnight and it was officially my turn to get dunked. After dunking around 50 people within my first month at ISB and facing arbit dunking several times, it was a nice little change when I was getting dunked purposefully.

For my friends outside ISB, dunking is the coolest and most popular tradition at ISB. It’s unique to ISB too, totally ours. If you know a little bit about life at ISB, you must have heard about this tradition. It all started back in first class of ISB – 2001, when few students caught hold of the B’day boy, waved him three times at the pool, and threw him in. Since then, dunking has become a common thread, an element that creates lot more bonding within the batch than what case studies and lectures can just hope to. I don’t know where those Alums are but they definitely deserve to be felicitated with their names engraved by the pool side.

As for my B’day, few of my class mates - Premjit, Sushant, Apu, and Vikram - had decided to up the ante by those chain mails around bumps, taking the B’day celebrations beyond normal traditions. I tried to kill the enthusiasm by roping in Saikat to pitch in on the group but that didn’t work either. I went to RC with a fair idea that escape route from bumps does not exist but was hoping for more professional treatment. After all, we are doing MBA and will soon be minted into managers, true professional, et all. As I reached, Premjit and Apu were talking of getting warmed up for the bumps. WTF!!! My hopes faded little bit as I sensed the enthusiasm brimming around and definitely got wiped off with the first kick from Sushant. Next was Apu’s turn and from there on, Doom Ddaddakkkk DHAMMM…I stopped counting, just existed, and left my arse’s sanctity on God’s will. Just in time, Surajit and Rahul came to my respite “No more Bumps” – Thanks to diversity at ISB that not all people think alike.

Next it was the turn for the famous swing on pool’s side – ONEEE, TWOOO, THREEEE and….and…I was air borne. Mid-air,I programmed myself to move in slow motion.I have special powers to be able to move in slow motion and bring a small tiny observer who piggybacks on my shoulder to note things around...…In those few millisecond, the observer recorded zillions of thoughts that crossed my mind. The world around me, it said, is what I have created for myself. Weren’t these pics of airborne people what I used to see and dream as an applicant.The dream has just turned true and the observer reacted pretty puzzled that why am I am dreaming about my dream while facing the same beautiful reality. As this point, the slow motion was over and there was a SPLASHhhhhhh…..Alright, Alright! With the shape I am in, it must have been little more that that perhaps….sssSPPPPPPLAAAAAASHHHHHHHHH!!! Click Click....That was “My Kodak Moment”

I stood in the pool witnessing dunking for my study group, quady, arbit dunking for 10’s of other people. We had lot more fun, people jumping over each other, doing all sort of things. What wonderful people I thought. Soon, we were all set for Section E’s patented self dunking – Holding our hands and falling back wards in the pool. That move generally signals the end of dunking ceremony towards the cake cutting where another surprise was waiting. As if bumps were not enough, I had cake polished all over. I completely gave up as Mayank massaged a huge chunk and Rohit made some funny strawberry on my nose poses. Rest people had to satiate themselves with whatever little Cake was leftover and a round of handshakes, flurry of B’day wishes followed before everyone headed back to heaps of books, assignments, and other cruel stuff.

That’s all about my B’day experience@ ISB. As Prayank put it up, it was such a fun at pool today that I feel 10 years younger on my B’day. If I were to think of my 10 best moments at ISB, I am sure this moment will be right at the top and will continue to stay. Thank you once again to all those who made it possible. I shall be equally and perhaps even more a sport for rest of dunking around the year!!!