Diversity makes a smart team

A single color does not make a picture and just a single note would make such a boring song! Similarly, a team that is made up of just one type does not realize its complete potential.

A diverse team is smarter, more productive, and fun to work in.  Ye main hi nahi research bhi kehata hai!

In one of my projects, we had an opportunity to get a large multinational company onboard our HR management system product. They had a workforce of around 15000 people. It was a golden opportunity to prove the worth of our system. The problem was, “they were able to give us the data just 24 hours before going live.”

Since that was their foundation day. They were not ready to budge on this requirement. No onboarding in stages, just one big bang.

We were all trying to think of a solution of how to provision 150000 users in less than 12 hours and be ready on the next day. Considering the data upload, provisioning, and testing it was a big ask even with automation.  I just said to the team “If we could just stretch this night by 6 -8 hours we would have this project in the bag!”  One of our QA members was quietly observing our head shaking and hand wringing. Then he said very hesitantly “Madam, are all these employees in one country?” I said “No Prasad, they are across multiple countries from Japan, the US to Mexico. That means we will also have to test the internationalization is done right” and then he said “But Madam, that also means that they are in different time zones as well, so there you could have your 6-8 hours of difference between various time zones. Not all of them would be starting their day at the same moment.” And that was Eureka for us! Each country was going to inaugurate the system as part of foundation day celebrations on their premise!” We planned our onboarding batches by country and won the day and a huge client base! I asked Prasad later how did you get this idea? And he said “My dad has a catering business, we sometimes have an order of preparing more than 500 Puran polis, which is difficult. But not all of them are required at the start of the mealtime – they can be replenished as they finish. That gave me the idea!”

A diverse team gives you this strength, since they are coming from different backgrounds, they bring in different perspectives. Some bring in patience, some knowledge, some bring in energy. Together they make a winning combination.