Effective Criminal Management

Just blogging one of my most unforgettable moments when I was in TCS – Bangalore (working for Ameriprise Financials with OB8). Ameriprise is a Financial Institution (AMPF) that spine Off from American Express (AMEX) since 2005. TCS has relationship with AMPF and AMEX. TCS associates at offshore, working for these customers together celebrate a grand function called ‘Sangam’ every year. I think it was the last quarter of 2009, when Sangam for that year was celebrated. I was then half a year old in OB8.

Amongst the events the ones in which our team is known for is – Badminton (Sunder), Throw-ball (Sadhana and Harshali), Cricket (Vinay, Rajesh and Sowndar), RFP (Kunal and Ashok). The one event for which the entire OB8 became famous was for cubical decoration. And this cubical decoration is all what I am having blogged.

We were a team of around 35-40, a mixer of all age groups – some married old people (if I mention the name Asha will kill me), some young folks (if I don’t mention the names Sundar and Sownder will weight-lift me) and some handsome guys (hope I get a treat from Ashok and Saroj). But what use… it was hard to get a theme for our stall. All the other bundles started off and were in good shape… and we had only about 3 or 4 days for judges to come. We all would look at each other and then at the watch, when called to the board room to discuss about this. At one point we thought of withdrawing.

Pan waala Kunal was our newly charged in PL then. Kunal and few others discussed for a while and came up with a mind blowing theme. They correlated life cycle of documents in AMPF with life cycle of a prisoner. Not only that. These guys redefined the term ECM as “Effective Criminal Management” which was originally “Enterprise Content Management”. (ECM is the technology domain for Document Management).

The analogy is as follows,

• 1.    A document being scanned – a person caught by policemen.
• 2.    Indexing the document – person being photographed while holding number board
• 3.    Document stored repository based on its business kind – person kept under section pertaining to the crime
• 4.    Meta data of the document maintained and document awaiting next action – person details maintained at the FBI office.
• 5.    FileNet, IU and other repositories where the document will be finally stored – person in prison
• 6.    Stored documents can be viewed by an application called OFM (Online File Manager) where the view depends on the type of user – person can be view if Only Friend or Family Member
• 7.    Document archived – Life imprisonment
• 8.    Destroy document – prisoner sentenced to death

Sinto Pinto (Mr Sinto Anthony, the master mind of the scene) joined the criminal minds. We bought lots of thermocal started constructing fence for our jail (three cubes of our team mates). After we had put that across – it looked like those wooden compounds that we see at hill station. From outside – it looked as if those three cubes where covered with snow. From no angle it gave a feel of JAIL.

Sinto drew numerous cartoons, like policeman, 3-4 models of same kind but with different posts and grilled jail gates. Harshali, Rajesh, I think even Ashok and Saroj also started cutting thermocal models. As each model was getting ready – Shruthi, Elja and Asha started painting models one by one (went back to school days). Those few days, the cube which Saroj and I shared was the workshop – no one could see the floor-carpet. It was themocal cuttings, paint brushes, Fevicol, a mini messed up stationary shop. People use to come to our desk as and when they get bored, and start painting any incomplete models.

Asha surprised everyone with many small thermocal trees which she made at home in one night. I believe her daughter and husband were kind enough to help OB8. Saroj and Kunal placed their reservations immediately. Hope they took it home after the event. As most of it was getting on track – Hima, Sudeshna, Sadhana, Asha, Prasad and Rajesh were kind enough to come on weekends to put that all on intended places. Ofcourse, criminal and the master minds were also there.

We were all set for the judges to come. Kunal and Ashok walked them through the jail explaining the analogy. But we clearly made out from the judge’s face that they were not happy with the theme as it was pessimistic. But the judges proved us wrong. In couple of days, after all the events are over (if I remember it right, it was 18^th Dec 2009) the grant finale was held at Good Shepherd Auditorium (the one near MG Road, Bangalore). Our team occupied two rows (one behind the other) somewhere in the middle. As the comparer went on announcing the winners and runners, we suddenly heard something and didn’t believe it until we heard the second time. We looked at each others face. What we heard was, “The Best Creative Stall goes to OB8 from Amperiprise – The Effective Criminal Management”. Our entire team filled up the stage to receive the award. As a team we achieved something great.

Some highlights on the model…

Policeman model was the first one to be created, I think at least six or seven of team mates would have painted that one model, in parts, when they find time. The funny thing is, we named that model after Gaurav’s name. I still remember people said, “hey, I am going paint Gaurav’s shoes…”, and someone else replied “I just painted his cap and badge, wait until it gets dry…”. I remember we also named prisoner-models after Rajasekar, Praveen Adiga and Alveen. Actually it resembled them and hence named so (not created intentionally).

 

The one model that lived, enjoyed and suffered for at least one year was – the model named after Alveen (my poor onsite counterpart). Saroj was our TL (for me and Alveen). Looking at how that model was at my desk, he would understand how well my day started off with Alveen. If the model is on the desk with a shining thread around the neck as a medal then everything is good. If the model is kept hung with that same shining thread then something should have gone wrong (either he should have blasted me or I would have got nicely from him).

The Jail Window for OFM/IU and indexing analogy models were the other two highlights. A model also carrying a white numbered-board has the number format same as the ones that are followed for documents. The caption Only Family Members caught every ones eye as it every much correlating.

These kinds of activities are only part of IT. Our BAU (AMPF’s BAU and deliverables) should not be affected. In spite of most of us were completely into this activity for that one week there wasn’t any escalation from clients. It was all because of those who had less or no time spend on decorations. They balanced our works. A team that had (has and will have) all mixture.

Hats Off to OB8 members