SPINNacle

- Newsletter from SPIN Chennai April lsquo11

Issue 06

From the Presidentrsquos desk

Interesting Links

Inside this issue

PMI Chennai Chapter events

Visit PMI Chennai

gt From the Editorrsquos Desk

gt Proceedings of

SPICON 2011

gt Interview

gt Brain Teasers

Dear SPIN Members

ldquoIf you donrsquot know where you want to go it doesnrsquot matter which road you takerdquo is a meaningful quote from Alice in Wonderland The primary success of SPICON 2011 rested in knowing where it wanted to go and was determined that the road should be Innovation What else could be more appropriate than innovation when the Prime Minister is also looking at this decade as years of innovation Knowing the road to travel is a job half done knowing whatrsquos required for the journey of innova-tion would only make the job complete SPICON 2011rsquos eloquent eminent and thought-provoking speakers let the light shine Dr Sam Pitroda the advisor to Prime Minister on innovation was rightly the first torch bearer who enlightened everyone on the path ahead on innovation There were many prominent speakers in the fol-lowing hours and they carried the torch of knowledge on innovation

Though the theme lsquoinnovationrsquo encompasses a divergent set of industry SPICON 2011 brought out the role of IT professionals in particular IT is one of the contribut-ing industry to Indiarsquos GDP with export revenues of $76 billion which has put India on the global map and is now envisioned to become a $ 225 billion industry by 2020

Keeping this in mind we brought the policy makers and leaders from the industry to chalk out the expectations through SPICON 2011 that helped in knowing the vision the support available and the work that is in hand for all the participants

Indeed this is one of the conferences where most of the IT Professional forums such as PMI IEEE CSI BSPIN Hyderabad SPIN eWIT AUTVS Centre ISACA and IITM Research Park had extended support Through SPICON 2011 we have taken the baby step in setting the stage But the success would largely depend on how the participants are able to take this forward in their daily work-life

Panelists recommended holding of quarterly workshops for developers line func-tion managers and increase more focus to mould budding engineers from academia we are looking forward to volunteersrsquo support to manage these initiatives

With Best Regards

Chandrakumar Raman

Events Round-up

Establish a leadership forum for open exchange of software process improvement experiences and ideas

Promote achieving higher levels of process maturity and software quality

SPIN Chennai

Our Mission

eWIT

Visit httpewitcoin

CSI Chennai Chapter

Visit CSI Website

Previous SPINnacle issues

Newsletter 1

Newsletter 2

Newsletter 3

Newsletter 4

Newsletter 5

Academia Interface SPIN Talks and Seminars Other Associations

National Workshop on Mobile Computing - RMK Engineering Col-lege mdash 11th and 12th February 2011

Lean Principles and its applicability in Applica-tion development and maintenance ndash by ASQ Chennai Talk mdash 11th March 2011

Specification amp Measure-ment of System Non-Functional Requirements mdash 24th February 2011

Lean Principles amp its applica-bility in Application develop-ment and maintenance mdash 11th March 2011

Improvement Culture in iGATE with a Case Study on Lean Management mdash 21st March 11

STEP IN SUMMIT 2011 on Testing mdash in Chennai amp Hyderabad Feb 2011mdash Quality solutions for In-formation Technology Pvt Ltd

PMI Chennai Chapter ndashKey successful skills for PM ndash One day Confer-ence

eWIT 5th anniversary event ndash 5th May 2011

Page 2

This has been an eventful quarter The annual SPIN conference (SPICON-2011) was conducted successfully on April 29th and 30th at Hotel Rain Tree Anna Salai Chennai Every year the conference revolves round a specific theme This yearrsquos theme was on Innovation Appropriately this event was inaugurated by Sam Pitroda who brought about a number of innovations in the Information and Communication Technology space in India We had a number of luminaries speak on innovation during the two day event We also had an invigorating panel discussion We have brought you the summaries of a few talks of day 1 Our next issue will include the summa-ries of the rest of the talks

This issue also features an interview with Ms Deepa of Intuit India She has been championing the cause of inno-vation at Intuit which itself has a number of innovative initiatives She spoke to SPINNACLE on some of her valu-able experiences in this arena

As usual the President of SPIN Chennai Mr Chandrakumar Raman gives a summary of all the SPIN activities in the last quarter as part of ldquoEvents round uprdquo

A brain teaser is included to un-rattle your grey cells

Happy reading

The Editorial Team SPINNACLE

SPIN Steering Committee

SPICON Partners and Sponsors

SPINNacle

From the editorrsquos desk

Page 3

Chandra Kumar Raman President SPIN Chennai kick started the pro-ceedings of SPICON 2011 by welcoming the dignitaries and partici-pants He also touched upon the theme of the conference and various initiatives taken by SPIN Chennai such as Watts Humphrey Awards to enrich the knowledge of its members and software community

Key note address - ldquoInnovation The Engine for Growthrdquo - by Sam Pitroda We are very grateful to Dr Sam Pitroda Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure amp Innovations for participating in SPICON 2011 in the midst of his extremely busy schedule Dr Sam delivered an informative and inspiring keynote address from Mexico Following is a brief summary of his address

Dr Sam insisted upon the need for innovation in the context of global competi-tiveness and sustained growth of 9 to 10 GDP in the Indian context He briefed participants on the context of innovation government initiatives through the National Innovation Council innovation with respect to software and processes ideas for wider participation by all of us Innovation is all about doing things differently Though traditionally we relate this to products and services we also need innovation in govern-ment education health care financial services software processes etc Inno-vation in the Indian context needs to focus on bottom of the pyramid availabil-

ity and sustainability to solve the problems of the poor Towards this we need to understand the drivers for in-novation and build eco systems that would encourage innovation The National Innovation Council has identified 50 industry clusters where there would be key focus on seeding innovation promoting idea of innovation and developing an innovation culture Several fields within software also have been identified including super computing security and wireless application Simplification of delivery of public services and making them more efficient and productive through e-government initiatives is another key area being addressed Currently more than 10000 professionals are working in e-governance pro-grams There is a lot of room for innovation in the service industries to go up the value chain Software docu-mentation Quality control to name a few A major challenge is the democratization of large information net-works and this would require new software applications in local languages function-specific applications Em-bedded software for local hardware production is also needed Our needs are different and hence we need inno-vation in software for education health care government financial services rural development keeping in mind our specific environment and the Indian context Dr Sam requested that we set up study groups to put our minds together to think out-of-the-box to review intellectual property in the relevant areas create strategies to see what we can do to meet the challenges of making a dent in the global arena There is a lot of innovation in the rural areas and we need to scale this up Common man needs the courage to take problems and try to participate in solving it We need to help prepare a roadmap for a decade of innovation

Panel Discussion on ldquoNeed for innovative processes in IT Companiesrdquo The discussion was moderated by Dr Sandhya Shekhar CEO IITM Research Center and had the following distin-guished guests as panelists -

Mr Arun Jain CEO Polaris Software Lab Mr PWC Davidar IAS IT Secretary Government of TN Mr P Ananthakrishnan Director Intellectual Ventures

SPINNacle

PerspectivemdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

Page 4

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The three different perspectives from IT services e-governance challenges and commercialization and patenting of innovations was very well addressed by the speakers

Mr Arun Jain emphasized the need for leveraging technology to transform current processes and ensure use of IT to achieve scal-ability speed accuracy security and support business innovation and growth He described the COPARIS framework developed by Po-laris for addressing innovation in 7 dimensions ndash Customer experi-ence Operational efficiency performance of applications risk man-agement integration and security of applications He emphasized the need to build a culture of innovation by contextualization of con-tent to the situation connecting the systems to the user context using communication to influence people to follow processes He

urged the process community to simplify vocabulary innovate processes and institutionalize the innovations

Mr PWC Davidar provided an overview of the number of initiatives that is going on in IT enabling and e-governance areas in Tamil Nadu He briefly touched upon the progress made in Health Management information system employment exchange automation commercial taxes and other departments He explained the chal-lenges in e-governance and a lack of proper resource base to fall back on when required He requested SPIN to have special interest groups that can help in specific areas mentor the programs and assist in making processes simple and efficient without compromising the original motive Mr Ananthakrishnan addressed the area of patent and commercialization Though large number of papers are published only a few are actually materializing into patents and are then taken up for commercialization In this respect we seem to be lag-ging behind countries like China Further in international surveys on innovation India has been ranked very low in the pecking order and we do not have a single entry in the top hundred innovations He felt that the Government funding is given mostly to the top tier institutions and suggested that institutions that have a record of encouraging invention and innovation should be given the neces-sary funding to pursue their research Dr Sandhya Shekhar requested industry personnel to engage with educational institutions faculty and students to increase the chances of innovation Organizations could take the assistance of Industry bodies legal framework Government agencies and investors We should build an ecosystem with systemic enablers and sys-tematic frameworks for nurturing innovation

The idea is to identify the problem well before the customer experienced it and to propose a possible solution would create value for a customer Identifying stakeholder values and narrowing down to a few common values among several values of different stakeholders may be needed Among these the viable ones need to be imple-mented evaluated and delivered while monitoring the interests of all stakeholders

Special Sessions on Day 1

The first session was on TRIZ mdash Theory of Inventive Problem Solving by Mr Navneet Bhushan of Crafitti Consulting He spoke about the TRIZ methodology and explained the way it is being used in innovation He gave an insight about the overall TRIZ structure The problem defi-nition using Nine Windows for system analysis was explained in detail Mr Bhushan highlighted the 8 Laws of System Evolution and briefed on how to use TRIZ in Software Innovation

SPINNacle

Page 5

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

Mr Raja Bavani of Mindtree Consulting addressed the topic Inventive problem solving for customer value creation through a case study This is about the project team getting to experience mo-notony and boredom over a period of time Singling out the necessary part or separating the people from processes force field analysis us-ing a home grown tool before investing heavily on third party tools and identifying how a customer can derive value are some of the steps in-volved in problem solving

Innovation and risk management was handled by Mr Nandakumar of DNV The speaker rightly pointed out the existing scenario where the tolerance is zero towards failure increased vulnerability on IT increasing concern for big corpo-rations on environment and increased transparency and corporate re-sponsibility He briefed on the various standards starting from ISO 31000 BS 25999 and ISO 38500 The speaker spoke about the frame-work principles and the processes of some of these standards

Next was Prof L S Ganesh of the Indian Institute of Technology Ma-dras LSG spoke on Inno-vation theory and prac-

tice Defining Innovation as an invention with a creative output with a widespread adoption LSG stated how functional capabilities durability usability and maintainability become important criteria for any product to succeed in the market place He explained how innovation led to value The speaker emphasized the need for for-mal processes to identify innovative idea and then later to imple-ment it Citing interesting examples the speaker explained how techniques such as lateral thinking brainstorming morphological analysis could be used to identify innovation in an organization He concluded saying how India has the potential to implement innovative ideas in the lsquowaste handling spacersquo and be a pioneer

Ms Mahua Roy Chowdhury spoke on Managing and Measuring IP She addressed how to build an IP portfolio manage IP and IP valuation She stressed the need to treat the intangible IPs the same way physical properties are managed She spoke on the im-portance of knowing activities of onersquos competitors understanding different types of IP assets and identifying what are appropriate to onersquos business defining IP goals protecting confidential informa-tion educating and encouraging innovation and finally managing innovation for enhancing onersquos business

Innovation Framework was addressed by Dr Sandhya Shekhar She shared some interesting statistics Ability to adapt and ability to innovate impacted perform-ance of 68 of the knowledge workers While ability to replicate was 41 and ability to adapt knowledge was 34 on a five point scale abil-ity to innovate was only 22 She pointed how in todayrsquos context in-novation is not confined only to technocratic elites Organizations adopt open innovative policies whereby everyone could participate She discussed the eco system based framework for innovation

SPINNacle

Page 6

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The panel discussion was on lsquoInnovation versus Improve-mentrsquo

Dr Rajaram the moderator kicked off the discussion by ques-tioning if process culture would kill the creative thinking that is an essential ingredient for innovation While the process journey has paid huge dividends to the IT industry would in-novation affect the process journey he questioned

Mr Kannan highlighted how in the existing scenario with a limited focus on onersquos own responsibility such as an ODC how innovation can become chaotic if there were no processes Understanding competitors landscape and im-pact on global strategy along with a disciplined process is required to effectively innovate

Mr Navneet stressed on the importance of strategy people organization structure and technology for innova-tion to happen He drew reference from the military systems and concluded by stating that for an innovative idea to be implemented one requires a cohesive system with strategy processes organization structure and technology

Mr K K Raman provided statistical evidence of the miniscule spend namely 2 to 3 of the revenue on R ampD while comparing with the western countries where it is between 10 to 15 of the revenue He mentioned that organi-sations that were in the forefront of innovation had clarity at the top level organization structure needed to im-plement innovative ideas and culture that nurtured innovation apart from a focused approach

Mr Ananth Seshan drew parallels from cricket how innovation has paved the way for growth Just as Rabin-dranath Tagore mentioned where the mind is without fear where knowledge is free it fostered innovation Fear of failure and confinement of knowledge without sharing hindered progress The session concluded with everyone agreeing the need for excellent processes organization structure skills and technology for fostering innovation

Watts Humphrey Award Winners

SPINNacle

Page 7

Interview on Process Innovation mdash Deepa Bachu

Deepa Bachu Director Emerging Market Innovation Intuit India Creating products that completely delight the customers is what she is passionate about Her responsibilities include innovating for the emerging markets using Customer Driven Innovation ndash building solutions that enrich customersrsquo lives by solving important and unmet needs Deepa has 15 + years in User Experience Innovation and Product Development Deepa is an innovation and design evangelist She has presented at several conferences amp is an active member of design and innovation organizations

How do you view define the concept of innovation Innovation is a much talked abouthellip there are so many different views of what innovation is Mine is hellip innovation is nothing but a mindset a mindset to do things differently a mindset of taking educated and calculated risks A mindset of continuous learning on the way It is about trying again and again till you get it right Tell us about innovation initiatives at Intuit There are a number of things we do to foster innovation at Intuit Intuitrsquos goal is to be a premier innovative growth company

Primarily we have innovation initiatives specifically targeted towards emerging markets These initiatives are fully driven out of Intuit India Development Center

Secondly every engineer gets 10 of their time on unstructured projects ndash they can use this time towards any technology product andor process innovation

Third a lot of focus is put on the process of innovation The process of innovation we develop simply increases your chance of being successful while innovating We make no claims that it ensures success it simply increases your chance of success or helps you realize you are heading down a possible unsuccessful path The process helps make sure you understand what main problem you are solving for who has the problem you are trying to solve and challenges individuals or team to come up with multiple solutions (typically three) before choosing one to explore further This will ensure we donrsquot jump to a specific solution too quickly This process and steps are not rocket science these are fairly obvious in the excitement of innovation we often forget to ask these basic questions Having a structured process enhances the chances of success of the innovation initiative We also pro-vide an environment and tools to help further increase the probability of success There are tools to understand the customer better tools for brainstorming etc To facilitate the above innovation focus we train individuals on helping other engineers with innovation We call these individuals innovation catalysts ndash they help others get their creative ideas on the table explore out of the box solutions and make progress on the inno-vation The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others with their ideas Do product and process innovations go together or can one exist irrespective of the other

They definitely go together As I mentioned earlier the entire innovation itself is driven by a process that fosters continuous learning and enhances the chance of success Without a structured process innovation may not reap the full benefits We look at process and product innovation with equal priority

SPINNacle

The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 3

Chandra Kumar Raman President SPIN Chennai kick started the pro-ceedings of SPICON 2011 by welcoming the dignitaries and partici-pants He also touched upon the theme of the conference and various initiatives taken by SPIN Chennai such as Watts Humphrey Awards to enrich the knowledge of its members and software community

Key note address - ldquoInnovation The Engine for Growthrdquo - by Sam Pitroda We are very grateful to Dr Sam Pitroda Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure amp Innovations for participating in SPICON 2011 in the midst of his extremely busy schedule Dr Sam delivered an informative and inspiring keynote address from Mexico Following is a brief summary of his address

Dr Sam insisted upon the need for innovation in the context of global competi-tiveness and sustained growth of 9 to 10 GDP in the Indian context He briefed participants on the context of innovation government initiatives through the National Innovation Council innovation with respect to software and processes ideas for wider participation by all of us Innovation is all about doing things differently Though traditionally we relate this to products and services we also need innovation in govern-ment education health care financial services software processes etc Inno-vation in the Indian context needs to focus on bottom of the pyramid availabil-

ity and sustainability to solve the problems of the poor Towards this we need to understand the drivers for in-novation and build eco systems that would encourage innovation The National Innovation Council has identified 50 industry clusters where there would be key focus on seeding innovation promoting idea of innovation and developing an innovation culture Several fields within software also have been identified including super computing security and wireless application Simplification of delivery of public services and making them more efficient and productive through e-government initiatives is another key area being addressed Currently more than 10000 professionals are working in e-governance pro-grams There is a lot of room for innovation in the service industries to go up the value chain Software docu-mentation Quality control to name a few A major challenge is the democratization of large information net-works and this would require new software applications in local languages function-specific applications Em-bedded software for local hardware production is also needed Our needs are different and hence we need inno-vation in software for education health care government financial services rural development keeping in mind our specific environment and the Indian context Dr Sam requested that we set up study groups to put our minds together to think out-of-the-box to review intellectual property in the relevant areas create strategies to see what we can do to meet the challenges of making a dent in the global arena There is a lot of innovation in the rural areas and we need to scale this up Common man needs the courage to take problems and try to participate in solving it We need to help prepare a roadmap for a decade of innovation

Panel Discussion on ldquoNeed for innovative processes in IT Companiesrdquo The discussion was moderated by Dr Sandhya Shekhar CEO IITM Research Center and had the following distin-guished guests as panelists -

Mr Arun Jain CEO Polaris Software Lab Mr PWC Davidar IAS IT Secretary Government of TN Mr P Ananthakrishnan Director Intellectual Ventures

SPINNacle

PerspectivemdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

Page 4

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The three different perspectives from IT services e-governance challenges and commercialization and patenting of innovations was very well addressed by the speakers

Mr Arun Jain emphasized the need for leveraging technology to transform current processes and ensure use of IT to achieve scal-ability speed accuracy security and support business innovation and growth He described the COPARIS framework developed by Po-laris for addressing innovation in 7 dimensions ndash Customer experi-ence Operational efficiency performance of applications risk man-agement integration and security of applications He emphasized the need to build a culture of innovation by contextualization of con-tent to the situation connecting the systems to the user context using communication to influence people to follow processes He

urged the process community to simplify vocabulary innovate processes and institutionalize the innovations

Mr PWC Davidar provided an overview of the number of initiatives that is going on in IT enabling and e-governance areas in Tamil Nadu He briefly touched upon the progress made in Health Management information system employment exchange automation commercial taxes and other departments He explained the chal-lenges in e-governance and a lack of proper resource base to fall back on when required He requested SPIN to have special interest groups that can help in specific areas mentor the programs and assist in making processes simple and efficient without compromising the original motive Mr Ananthakrishnan addressed the area of patent and commercialization Though large number of papers are published only a few are actually materializing into patents and are then taken up for commercialization In this respect we seem to be lag-ging behind countries like China Further in international surveys on innovation India has been ranked very low in the pecking order and we do not have a single entry in the top hundred innovations He felt that the Government funding is given mostly to the top tier institutions and suggested that institutions that have a record of encouraging invention and innovation should be given the neces-sary funding to pursue their research Dr Sandhya Shekhar requested industry personnel to engage with educational institutions faculty and students to increase the chances of innovation Organizations could take the assistance of Industry bodies legal framework Government agencies and investors We should build an ecosystem with systemic enablers and sys-tematic frameworks for nurturing innovation

The idea is to identify the problem well before the customer experienced it and to propose a possible solution would create value for a customer Identifying stakeholder values and narrowing down to a few common values among several values of different stakeholders may be needed Among these the viable ones need to be imple-mented evaluated and delivered while monitoring the interests of all stakeholders

Special Sessions on Day 1

The first session was on TRIZ mdash Theory of Inventive Problem Solving by Mr Navneet Bhushan of Crafitti Consulting He spoke about the TRIZ methodology and explained the way it is being used in innovation He gave an insight about the overall TRIZ structure The problem defi-nition using Nine Windows for system analysis was explained in detail Mr Bhushan highlighted the 8 Laws of System Evolution and briefed on how to use TRIZ in Software Innovation

SPINNacle

Page 5

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

Mr Raja Bavani of Mindtree Consulting addressed the topic Inventive problem solving for customer value creation through a case study This is about the project team getting to experience mo-notony and boredom over a period of time Singling out the necessary part or separating the people from processes force field analysis us-ing a home grown tool before investing heavily on third party tools and identifying how a customer can derive value are some of the steps in-volved in problem solving

Innovation and risk management was handled by Mr Nandakumar of DNV The speaker rightly pointed out the existing scenario where the tolerance is zero towards failure increased vulnerability on IT increasing concern for big corpo-rations on environment and increased transparency and corporate re-sponsibility He briefed on the various standards starting from ISO 31000 BS 25999 and ISO 38500 The speaker spoke about the frame-work principles and the processes of some of these standards

Next was Prof L S Ganesh of the Indian Institute of Technology Ma-dras LSG spoke on Inno-vation theory and prac-

tice Defining Innovation as an invention with a creative output with a widespread adoption LSG stated how functional capabilities durability usability and maintainability become important criteria for any product to succeed in the market place He explained how innovation led to value The speaker emphasized the need for for-mal processes to identify innovative idea and then later to imple-ment it Citing interesting examples the speaker explained how techniques such as lateral thinking brainstorming morphological analysis could be used to identify innovation in an organization He concluded saying how India has the potential to implement innovative ideas in the lsquowaste handling spacersquo and be a pioneer

Ms Mahua Roy Chowdhury spoke on Managing and Measuring IP She addressed how to build an IP portfolio manage IP and IP valuation She stressed the need to treat the intangible IPs the same way physical properties are managed She spoke on the im-portance of knowing activities of onersquos competitors understanding different types of IP assets and identifying what are appropriate to onersquos business defining IP goals protecting confidential informa-tion educating and encouraging innovation and finally managing innovation for enhancing onersquos business

Innovation Framework was addressed by Dr Sandhya Shekhar She shared some interesting statistics Ability to adapt and ability to innovate impacted perform-ance of 68 of the knowledge workers While ability to replicate was 41 and ability to adapt knowledge was 34 on a five point scale abil-ity to innovate was only 22 She pointed how in todayrsquos context in-novation is not confined only to technocratic elites Organizations adopt open innovative policies whereby everyone could participate She discussed the eco system based framework for innovation

SPINNacle

Page 6

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The panel discussion was on lsquoInnovation versus Improve-mentrsquo

Dr Rajaram the moderator kicked off the discussion by ques-tioning if process culture would kill the creative thinking that is an essential ingredient for innovation While the process journey has paid huge dividends to the IT industry would in-novation affect the process journey he questioned

Mr Kannan highlighted how in the existing scenario with a limited focus on onersquos own responsibility such as an ODC how innovation can become chaotic if there were no processes Understanding competitors landscape and im-pact on global strategy along with a disciplined process is required to effectively innovate

Mr Navneet stressed on the importance of strategy people organization structure and technology for innova-tion to happen He drew reference from the military systems and concluded by stating that for an innovative idea to be implemented one requires a cohesive system with strategy processes organization structure and technology

Mr K K Raman provided statistical evidence of the miniscule spend namely 2 to 3 of the revenue on R ampD while comparing with the western countries where it is between 10 to 15 of the revenue He mentioned that organi-sations that were in the forefront of innovation had clarity at the top level organization structure needed to im-plement innovative ideas and culture that nurtured innovation apart from a focused approach

Mr Ananth Seshan drew parallels from cricket how innovation has paved the way for growth Just as Rabin-dranath Tagore mentioned where the mind is without fear where knowledge is free it fostered innovation Fear of failure and confinement of knowledge without sharing hindered progress The session concluded with everyone agreeing the need for excellent processes organization structure skills and technology for fostering innovation

Watts Humphrey Award Winners

SPINNacle

Page 7

Interview on Process Innovation mdash Deepa Bachu

Deepa Bachu Director Emerging Market Innovation Intuit India Creating products that completely delight the customers is what she is passionate about Her responsibilities include innovating for the emerging markets using Customer Driven Innovation ndash building solutions that enrich customersrsquo lives by solving important and unmet needs Deepa has 15 + years in User Experience Innovation and Product Development Deepa is an innovation and design evangelist She has presented at several conferences amp is an active member of design and innovation organizations

How do you view define the concept of innovation Innovation is a much talked abouthellip there are so many different views of what innovation is Mine is hellip innovation is nothing but a mindset a mindset to do things differently a mindset of taking educated and calculated risks A mindset of continuous learning on the way It is about trying again and again till you get it right Tell us about innovation initiatives at Intuit There are a number of things we do to foster innovation at Intuit Intuitrsquos goal is to be a premier innovative growth company

Primarily we have innovation initiatives specifically targeted towards emerging markets These initiatives are fully driven out of Intuit India Development Center

Secondly every engineer gets 10 of their time on unstructured projects ndash they can use this time towards any technology product andor process innovation

Third a lot of focus is put on the process of innovation The process of innovation we develop simply increases your chance of being successful while innovating We make no claims that it ensures success it simply increases your chance of success or helps you realize you are heading down a possible unsuccessful path The process helps make sure you understand what main problem you are solving for who has the problem you are trying to solve and challenges individuals or team to come up with multiple solutions (typically three) before choosing one to explore further This will ensure we donrsquot jump to a specific solution too quickly This process and steps are not rocket science these are fairly obvious in the excitement of innovation we often forget to ask these basic questions Having a structured process enhances the chances of success of the innovation initiative We also pro-vide an environment and tools to help further increase the probability of success There are tools to understand the customer better tools for brainstorming etc To facilitate the above innovation focus we train individuals on helping other engineers with innovation We call these individuals innovation catalysts ndash they help others get their creative ideas on the table explore out of the box solutions and make progress on the inno-vation The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others with their ideas Do product and process innovations go together or can one exist irrespective of the other

They definitely go together As I mentioned earlier the entire innovation itself is driven by a process that fosters continuous learning and enhances the chance of success Without a structured process innovation may not reap the full benefits We look at process and product innovation with equal priority

SPINNacle

The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 4

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The three different perspectives from IT services e-governance challenges and commercialization and patenting of innovations was very well addressed by the speakers

Mr Arun Jain emphasized the need for leveraging technology to transform current processes and ensure use of IT to achieve scal-ability speed accuracy security and support business innovation and growth He described the COPARIS framework developed by Po-laris for addressing innovation in 7 dimensions ndash Customer experi-ence Operational efficiency performance of applications risk man-agement integration and security of applications He emphasized the need to build a culture of innovation by contextualization of con-tent to the situation connecting the systems to the user context using communication to influence people to follow processes He

urged the process community to simplify vocabulary innovate processes and institutionalize the innovations

Mr PWC Davidar provided an overview of the number of initiatives that is going on in IT enabling and e-governance areas in Tamil Nadu He briefly touched upon the progress made in Health Management information system employment exchange automation commercial taxes and other departments He explained the chal-lenges in e-governance and a lack of proper resource base to fall back on when required He requested SPIN to have special interest groups that can help in specific areas mentor the programs and assist in making processes simple and efficient without compromising the original motive Mr Ananthakrishnan addressed the area of patent and commercialization Though large number of papers are published only a few are actually materializing into patents and are then taken up for commercialization In this respect we seem to be lag-ging behind countries like China Further in international surveys on innovation India has been ranked very low in the pecking order and we do not have a single entry in the top hundred innovations He felt that the Government funding is given mostly to the top tier institutions and suggested that institutions that have a record of encouraging invention and innovation should be given the neces-sary funding to pursue their research Dr Sandhya Shekhar requested industry personnel to engage with educational institutions faculty and students to increase the chances of innovation Organizations could take the assistance of Industry bodies legal framework Government agencies and investors We should build an ecosystem with systemic enablers and sys-tematic frameworks for nurturing innovation

The idea is to identify the problem well before the customer experienced it and to propose a possible solution would create value for a customer Identifying stakeholder values and narrowing down to a few common values among several values of different stakeholders may be needed Among these the viable ones need to be imple-mented evaluated and delivered while monitoring the interests of all stakeholders

Special Sessions on Day 1

The first session was on TRIZ mdash Theory of Inventive Problem Solving by Mr Navneet Bhushan of Crafitti Consulting He spoke about the TRIZ methodology and explained the way it is being used in innovation He gave an insight about the overall TRIZ structure The problem defi-nition using Nine Windows for system analysis was explained in detail Mr Bhushan highlighted the 8 Laws of System Evolution and briefed on how to use TRIZ in Software Innovation

SPINNacle

Page 5

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

Mr Raja Bavani of Mindtree Consulting addressed the topic Inventive problem solving for customer value creation through a case study This is about the project team getting to experience mo-notony and boredom over a period of time Singling out the necessary part or separating the people from processes force field analysis us-ing a home grown tool before investing heavily on third party tools and identifying how a customer can derive value are some of the steps in-volved in problem solving

Innovation and risk management was handled by Mr Nandakumar of DNV The speaker rightly pointed out the existing scenario where the tolerance is zero towards failure increased vulnerability on IT increasing concern for big corpo-rations on environment and increased transparency and corporate re-sponsibility He briefed on the various standards starting from ISO 31000 BS 25999 and ISO 38500 The speaker spoke about the frame-work principles and the processes of some of these standards

Next was Prof L S Ganesh of the Indian Institute of Technology Ma-dras LSG spoke on Inno-vation theory and prac-

tice Defining Innovation as an invention with a creative output with a widespread adoption LSG stated how functional capabilities durability usability and maintainability become important criteria for any product to succeed in the market place He explained how innovation led to value The speaker emphasized the need for for-mal processes to identify innovative idea and then later to imple-ment it Citing interesting examples the speaker explained how techniques such as lateral thinking brainstorming morphological analysis could be used to identify innovation in an organization He concluded saying how India has the potential to implement innovative ideas in the lsquowaste handling spacersquo and be a pioneer

Ms Mahua Roy Chowdhury spoke on Managing and Measuring IP She addressed how to build an IP portfolio manage IP and IP valuation She stressed the need to treat the intangible IPs the same way physical properties are managed She spoke on the im-portance of knowing activities of onersquos competitors understanding different types of IP assets and identifying what are appropriate to onersquos business defining IP goals protecting confidential informa-tion educating and encouraging innovation and finally managing innovation for enhancing onersquos business

Innovation Framework was addressed by Dr Sandhya Shekhar She shared some interesting statistics Ability to adapt and ability to innovate impacted perform-ance of 68 of the knowledge workers While ability to replicate was 41 and ability to adapt knowledge was 34 on a five point scale abil-ity to innovate was only 22 She pointed how in todayrsquos context in-novation is not confined only to technocratic elites Organizations adopt open innovative policies whereby everyone could participate She discussed the eco system based framework for innovation

SPINNacle

Page 6

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The panel discussion was on lsquoInnovation versus Improve-mentrsquo

Dr Rajaram the moderator kicked off the discussion by ques-tioning if process culture would kill the creative thinking that is an essential ingredient for innovation While the process journey has paid huge dividends to the IT industry would in-novation affect the process journey he questioned

Mr Kannan highlighted how in the existing scenario with a limited focus on onersquos own responsibility such as an ODC how innovation can become chaotic if there were no processes Understanding competitors landscape and im-pact on global strategy along with a disciplined process is required to effectively innovate

Mr Navneet stressed on the importance of strategy people organization structure and technology for innova-tion to happen He drew reference from the military systems and concluded by stating that for an innovative idea to be implemented one requires a cohesive system with strategy processes organization structure and technology

Mr K K Raman provided statistical evidence of the miniscule spend namely 2 to 3 of the revenue on R ampD while comparing with the western countries where it is between 10 to 15 of the revenue He mentioned that organi-sations that were in the forefront of innovation had clarity at the top level organization structure needed to im-plement innovative ideas and culture that nurtured innovation apart from a focused approach

Mr Ananth Seshan drew parallels from cricket how innovation has paved the way for growth Just as Rabin-dranath Tagore mentioned where the mind is without fear where knowledge is free it fostered innovation Fear of failure and confinement of knowledge without sharing hindered progress The session concluded with everyone agreeing the need for excellent processes organization structure skills and technology for fostering innovation

Watts Humphrey Award Winners

SPINNacle

Page 7

Interview on Process Innovation mdash Deepa Bachu

Deepa Bachu Director Emerging Market Innovation Intuit India Creating products that completely delight the customers is what she is passionate about Her responsibilities include innovating for the emerging markets using Customer Driven Innovation ndash building solutions that enrich customersrsquo lives by solving important and unmet needs Deepa has 15 + years in User Experience Innovation and Product Development Deepa is an innovation and design evangelist She has presented at several conferences amp is an active member of design and innovation organizations

How do you view define the concept of innovation Innovation is a much talked abouthellip there are so many different views of what innovation is Mine is hellip innovation is nothing but a mindset a mindset to do things differently a mindset of taking educated and calculated risks A mindset of continuous learning on the way It is about trying again and again till you get it right Tell us about innovation initiatives at Intuit There are a number of things we do to foster innovation at Intuit Intuitrsquos goal is to be a premier innovative growth company

Primarily we have innovation initiatives specifically targeted towards emerging markets These initiatives are fully driven out of Intuit India Development Center

Secondly every engineer gets 10 of their time on unstructured projects ndash they can use this time towards any technology product andor process innovation

Third a lot of focus is put on the process of innovation The process of innovation we develop simply increases your chance of being successful while innovating We make no claims that it ensures success it simply increases your chance of success or helps you realize you are heading down a possible unsuccessful path The process helps make sure you understand what main problem you are solving for who has the problem you are trying to solve and challenges individuals or team to come up with multiple solutions (typically three) before choosing one to explore further This will ensure we donrsquot jump to a specific solution too quickly This process and steps are not rocket science these are fairly obvious in the excitement of innovation we often forget to ask these basic questions Having a structured process enhances the chances of success of the innovation initiative We also pro-vide an environment and tools to help further increase the probability of success There are tools to understand the customer better tools for brainstorming etc To facilitate the above innovation focus we train individuals on helping other engineers with innovation We call these individuals innovation catalysts ndash they help others get their creative ideas on the table explore out of the box solutions and make progress on the inno-vation The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others with their ideas Do product and process innovations go together or can one exist irrespective of the other

They definitely go together As I mentioned earlier the entire innovation itself is driven by a process that fosters continuous learning and enhances the chance of success Without a structured process innovation may not reap the full benefits We look at process and product innovation with equal priority

SPINNacle

The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 5

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

Mr Raja Bavani of Mindtree Consulting addressed the topic Inventive problem solving for customer value creation through a case study This is about the project team getting to experience mo-notony and boredom over a period of time Singling out the necessary part or separating the people from processes force field analysis us-ing a home grown tool before investing heavily on third party tools and identifying how a customer can derive value are some of the steps in-volved in problem solving

Innovation and risk management was handled by Mr Nandakumar of DNV The speaker rightly pointed out the existing scenario where the tolerance is zero towards failure increased vulnerability on IT increasing concern for big corpo-rations on environment and increased transparency and corporate re-sponsibility He briefed on the various standards starting from ISO 31000 BS 25999 and ISO 38500 The speaker spoke about the frame-work principles and the processes of some of these standards

Next was Prof L S Ganesh of the Indian Institute of Technology Ma-dras LSG spoke on Inno-vation theory and prac-

tice Defining Innovation as an invention with a creative output with a widespread adoption LSG stated how functional capabilities durability usability and maintainability become important criteria for any product to succeed in the market place He explained how innovation led to value The speaker emphasized the need for for-mal processes to identify innovative idea and then later to imple-ment it Citing interesting examples the speaker explained how techniques such as lateral thinking brainstorming morphological analysis could be used to identify innovation in an organization He concluded saying how India has the potential to implement innovative ideas in the lsquowaste handling spacersquo and be a pioneer

Ms Mahua Roy Chowdhury spoke on Managing and Measuring IP She addressed how to build an IP portfolio manage IP and IP valuation She stressed the need to treat the intangible IPs the same way physical properties are managed She spoke on the im-portance of knowing activities of onersquos competitors understanding different types of IP assets and identifying what are appropriate to onersquos business defining IP goals protecting confidential informa-tion educating and encouraging innovation and finally managing innovation for enhancing onersquos business

Innovation Framework was addressed by Dr Sandhya Shekhar She shared some interesting statistics Ability to adapt and ability to innovate impacted perform-ance of 68 of the knowledge workers While ability to replicate was 41 and ability to adapt knowledge was 34 on a five point scale abil-ity to innovate was only 22 She pointed how in todayrsquos context in-novation is not confined only to technocratic elites Organizations adopt open innovative policies whereby everyone could participate She discussed the eco system based framework for innovation

SPINNacle

Page 6

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The panel discussion was on lsquoInnovation versus Improve-mentrsquo

Dr Rajaram the moderator kicked off the discussion by ques-tioning if process culture would kill the creative thinking that is an essential ingredient for innovation While the process journey has paid huge dividends to the IT industry would in-novation affect the process journey he questioned

Mr Kannan highlighted how in the existing scenario with a limited focus on onersquos own responsibility such as an ODC how innovation can become chaotic if there were no processes Understanding competitors landscape and im-pact on global strategy along with a disciplined process is required to effectively innovate

Mr Navneet stressed on the importance of strategy people organization structure and technology for innova-tion to happen He drew reference from the military systems and concluded by stating that for an innovative idea to be implemented one requires a cohesive system with strategy processes organization structure and technology

Mr K K Raman provided statistical evidence of the miniscule spend namely 2 to 3 of the revenue on R ampD while comparing with the western countries where it is between 10 to 15 of the revenue He mentioned that organi-sations that were in the forefront of innovation had clarity at the top level organization structure needed to im-plement innovative ideas and culture that nurtured innovation apart from a focused approach

Mr Ananth Seshan drew parallels from cricket how innovation has paved the way for growth Just as Rabin-dranath Tagore mentioned where the mind is without fear where knowledge is free it fostered innovation Fear of failure and confinement of knowledge without sharing hindered progress The session concluded with everyone agreeing the need for excellent processes organization structure skills and technology for fostering innovation

Watts Humphrey Award Winners

SPINNacle

Page 7

Interview on Process Innovation mdash Deepa Bachu

Deepa Bachu Director Emerging Market Innovation Intuit India Creating products that completely delight the customers is what she is passionate about Her responsibilities include innovating for the emerging markets using Customer Driven Innovation ndash building solutions that enrich customersrsquo lives by solving important and unmet needs Deepa has 15 + years in User Experience Innovation and Product Development Deepa is an innovation and design evangelist She has presented at several conferences amp is an active member of design and innovation organizations

How do you view define the concept of innovation Innovation is a much talked abouthellip there are so many different views of what innovation is Mine is hellip innovation is nothing but a mindset a mindset to do things differently a mindset of taking educated and calculated risks A mindset of continuous learning on the way It is about trying again and again till you get it right Tell us about innovation initiatives at Intuit There are a number of things we do to foster innovation at Intuit Intuitrsquos goal is to be a premier innovative growth company

Primarily we have innovation initiatives specifically targeted towards emerging markets These initiatives are fully driven out of Intuit India Development Center

Secondly every engineer gets 10 of their time on unstructured projects ndash they can use this time towards any technology product andor process innovation

Third a lot of focus is put on the process of innovation The process of innovation we develop simply increases your chance of being successful while innovating We make no claims that it ensures success it simply increases your chance of success or helps you realize you are heading down a possible unsuccessful path The process helps make sure you understand what main problem you are solving for who has the problem you are trying to solve and challenges individuals or team to come up with multiple solutions (typically three) before choosing one to explore further This will ensure we donrsquot jump to a specific solution too quickly This process and steps are not rocket science these are fairly obvious in the excitement of innovation we often forget to ask these basic questions Having a structured process enhances the chances of success of the innovation initiative We also pro-vide an environment and tools to help further increase the probability of success There are tools to understand the customer better tools for brainstorming etc To facilitate the above innovation focus we train individuals on helping other engineers with innovation We call these individuals innovation catalysts ndash they help others get their creative ideas on the table explore out of the box solutions and make progress on the inno-vation The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others with their ideas Do product and process innovations go together or can one exist irrespective of the other

They definitely go together As I mentioned earlier the entire innovation itself is driven by a process that fosters continuous learning and enhances the chance of success Without a structured process innovation may not reap the full benefits We look at process and product innovation with equal priority

SPINNacle

The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 6

hellip ContdmdashProceedings of SPICON 2011

The panel discussion was on lsquoInnovation versus Improve-mentrsquo

Dr Rajaram the moderator kicked off the discussion by ques-tioning if process culture would kill the creative thinking that is an essential ingredient for innovation While the process journey has paid huge dividends to the IT industry would in-novation affect the process journey he questioned

Mr Kannan highlighted how in the existing scenario with a limited focus on onersquos own responsibility such as an ODC how innovation can become chaotic if there were no processes Understanding competitors landscape and im-pact on global strategy along with a disciplined process is required to effectively innovate

Mr Navneet stressed on the importance of strategy people organization structure and technology for innova-tion to happen He drew reference from the military systems and concluded by stating that for an innovative idea to be implemented one requires a cohesive system with strategy processes organization structure and technology

Mr K K Raman provided statistical evidence of the miniscule spend namely 2 to 3 of the revenue on R ampD while comparing with the western countries where it is between 10 to 15 of the revenue He mentioned that organi-sations that were in the forefront of innovation had clarity at the top level organization structure needed to im-plement innovative ideas and culture that nurtured innovation apart from a focused approach

Mr Ananth Seshan drew parallels from cricket how innovation has paved the way for growth Just as Rabin-dranath Tagore mentioned where the mind is without fear where knowledge is free it fostered innovation Fear of failure and confinement of knowledge without sharing hindered progress The session concluded with everyone agreeing the need for excellent processes organization structure skills and technology for fostering innovation

Watts Humphrey Award Winners

SPINNacle

Page 7

Interview on Process Innovation mdash Deepa Bachu

Deepa Bachu Director Emerging Market Innovation Intuit India Creating products that completely delight the customers is what she is passionate about Her responsibilities include innovating for the emerging markets using Customer Driven Innovation ndash building solutions that enrich customersrsquo lives by solving important and unmet needs Deepa has 15 + years in User Experience Innovation and Product Development Deepa is an innovation and design evangelist She has presented at several conferences amp is an active member of design and innovation organizations

How do you view define the concept of innovation Innovation is a much talked abouthellip there are so many different views of what innovation is Mine is hellip innovation is nothing but a mindset a mindset to do things differently a mindset of taking educated and calculated risks A mindset of continuous learning on the way It is about trying again and again till you get it right Tell us about innovation initiatives at Intuit There are a number of things we do to foster innovation at Intuit Intuitrsquos goal is to be a premier innovative growth company

Primarily we have innovation initiatives specifically targeted towards emerging markets These initiatives are fully driven out of Intuit India Development Center

Secondly every engineer gets 10 of their time on unstructured projects ndash they can use this time towards any technology product andor process innovation

Third a lot of focus is put on the process of innovation The process of innovation we develop simply increases your chance of being successful while innovating We make no claims that it ensures success it simply increases your chance of success or helps you realize you are heading down a possible unsuccessful path The process helps make sure you understand what main problem you are solving for who has the problem you are trying to solve and challenges individuals or team to come up with multiple solutions (typically three) before choosing one to explore further This will ensure we donrsquot jump to a specific solution too quickly This process and steps are not rocket science these are fairly obvious in the excitement of innovation we often forget to ask these basic questions Having a structured process enhances the chances of success of the innovation initiative We also pro-vide an environment and tools to help further increase the probability of success There are tools to understand the customer better tools for brainstorming etc To facilitate the above innovation focus we train individuals on helping other engineers with innovation We call these individuals innovation catalysts ndash they help others get their creative ideas on the table explore out of the box solutions and make progress on the inno-vation The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others with their ideas Do product and process innovations go together or can one exist irrespective of the other

They definitely go together As I mentioned earlier the entire innovation itself is driven by a process that fosters continuous learning and enhances the chance of success Without a structured process innovation may not reap the full benefits We look at process and product innovation with equal priority

SPINNacle

The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 7

Interview on Process Innovation mdash Deepa Bachu

Deepa Bachu Director Emerging Market Innovation Intuit India Creating products that completely delight the customers is what she is passionate about Her responsibilities include innovating for the emerging markets using Customer Driven Innovation ndash building solutions that enrich customersrsquo lives by solving important and unmet needs Deepa has 15 + years in User Experience Innovation and Product Development Deepa is an innovation and design evangelist She has presented at several conferences amp is an active member of design and innovation organizations

How do you view define the concept of innovation Innovation is a much talked abouthellip there are so many different views of what innovation is Mine is hellip innovation is nothing but a mindset a mindset to do things differently a mindset of taking educated and calculated risks A mindset of continuous learning on the way It is about trying again and again till you get it right Tell us about innovation initiatives at Intuit There are a number of things we do to foster innovation at Intuit Intuitrsquos goal is to be a premier innovative growth company

Primarily we have innovation initiatives specifically targeted towards emerging markets These initiatives are fully driven out of Intuit India Development Center

Secondly every engineer gets 10 of their time on unstructured projects ndash they can use this time towards any technology product andor process innovation

Third a lot of focus is put on the process of innovation The process of innovation we develop simply increases your chance of being successful while innovating We make no claims that it ensures success it simply increases your chance of success or helps you realize you are heading down a possible unsuccessful path The process helps make sure you understand what main problem you are solving for who has the problem you are trying to solve and challenges individuals or team to come up with multiple solutions (typically three) before choosing one to explore further This will ensure we donrsquot jump to a specific solution too quickly This process and steps are not rocket science these are fairly obvious in the excitement of innovation we often forget to ask these basic questions Having a structured process enhances the chances of success of the innovation initiative We also pro-vide an environment and tools to help further increase the probability of success There are tools to understand the customer better tools for brainstorming etc To facilitate the above innovation focus we train individuals on helping other engineers with innovation We call these individuals innovation catalysts ndash they help others get their creative ideas on the table explore out of the box solutions and make progress on the inno-vation The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others with their ideas Do product and process innovations go together or can one exist irrespective of the other

They definitely go together As I mentioned earlier the entire innovation itself is driven by a process that fosters continuous learning and enhances the chance of success Without a structured process innovation may not reap the full benefits We look at process and product innovation with equal priority

SPINNacle

The focus is on creating an innovation culture being altruistic In helping others

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 8

Working in a product organization what do you see as the challenges in innovation in India Is it any different from any other country

In India driven by our historical strength in the services arena there is a lot focus on execution excellence In this environment mostly one tends to be ldquospecs drivenrdquo People are used to ask ldquowhat do you want me to dordquo For innovation this mindset should transform for each of them to ask themselves ldquowhat do I want to dordquo One cannot be simply waiting for approvals from ldquocustomersrdquo Innovation requires thinking for themselves asking open ended questions taking risks and increasing focus on strategy Bottom-line the focus shifts to taking initia-tive

Given that India has the highest number of CMMI and ISO certified software companies in the world do you see this process standardization becoming a road block in pursuit of innovation

Our need for certification has to become a quest for furthering our knowledge and collective wisdom The end product is the knowledge and experience Certification should only be a by-product The whole exercise should be driven by need to learn There are a lot of opportunities for what is being called lsquoreverse innovationrsquo Taking innovation ndash process business model mobile cost-efficiency etc that is created for the emerging markets back to developed markets

What is the role of industry-academia collaboration in ensuring we inculcate innovation at grass roots level and at student level

It is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds at col-lege There is a huge potential to be tapped A positive mindset is easier to mould earlier than later By bringing in the industry connections to academia we can provide practical or experiential learning We did an interesting experiment in partnership with IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore) A ldquoproduct camprdquo was con-ducted They were given an idea or a problem and had to come up with a product idea to solve the given problem There was active role modeling ndash playing the role of customer product manager developer support etc This gave students realization that creating product takes more than just writing code They had to understand the customer compre-hend the problem they are trying to solve and come up with multiple approaches to solve the problem They re-alized that a good idea does not need to transform to working code right on day one As Thomas Alva Edison said when he invented the incandescent lamp after close to 500 failed experiments ldquoI did not fail 500 times I learnt 500 different ways of how not to do before I discovered one way of how to dordquo They use what they learn and thus when they are hired by the industry they will be a lot more well-rounded

Someone mentioned there are three types of skills -- soft skills hard skills and innovation skills Innovation skills are skills to think different take risks entrepreneurial skills to really know the customer better than even the customer knows himself Innovation requires one to first think broad widening the horizon and finding multiple solutions and then go narrow zooming in like an eagle on its pray towards specific solution details Innovation should be continuous and ongoing rather than a ldquobig bang examrdquo that characterizes evaluation in most colleges and universities Innovation is not just about having all the answers but about knowing what questions to ask It is about being hypothesis driven Education should reward rapid experimentation rather than demand perfect results along the beaten track Industry and academia should work together for such a paradigm shift

SPINNacle

ldquoIt is absolutely essential to sow the seeds of innovation mindset in the young minds rdquo

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011

Page 9

Un-rattle

Can you find at least 10 words related to Quality from the letters

Rules

Words should be minimum 3 lettered Words should have either lsquoersquo or lsquoorsquo or both Widely accepted acronyms allowed eg CAE

SPINNacle

Brain Teasers

Please send us your comments and suggestions

If you are interested in contributing something interesting for the newsletter we would like to hear from you

You can reach us at secretaryspinchennaiorg

copy All images and illustrations are copyrights of original sources referred They are used only for illustration and information sharing purpose

Comments

L

O

E

A T

N D

F

C M

Mail your responses to secretaryspinchennaiorg

with subject line as ldquoSPIN 06-Brain Teasersrdquo

Gift vouchers would be given to the winners

Name and organization of the winners would be featured in the next edition of newsletter

So hurry up

Last date to send your response 25-July-2011