Abstracting needs, creating solutions with V Thyagarajan

In this episode, Thyagarajan, known as Raja - a Senior Management Executive and Chief Operating Officer with nearly 4 decades of experience in the IT industry involving International and multi-cultural environments, shares his story including points related to: How his uncle and brother were influential in getting into software after doing an MS in management Being part of a team that started a company, and being an entrepreneur without knowing it Being a pioneer in the Indian IT industry, by having an approach of creating tools to improve development productivity or products to solve customer problems Innovating techniques to create solutions, long before others, when there were no standards to do some things Challenges of running a company that offered professional services as well as products Transitioning from a developer to more managerial roles Some of the lessons learned in being an entrepreneur Applying technology based thinking to create generic solutions Testing in a development environment versus running in a production environment and related lessons learnt Balancing and prioritizing requests from various users and having a process to build the solution in an evolutionary manner The ways in which software development has changed over the years What it takes for someone to shift from a service / project mindset to a product mindset Raja is a Senior Management Executive and Chief Operating Officer with nearly 4 decades of experience in the IT industry involving International and multi-cultural environments. His experience includes: Managing operations of an IT company, with its offshore center in India and marketing/sales offices in the US, that has over 200 employees. Handling IT projects and product development hands-on combined with heading the operations, ensures understanding of the operations in Toto. All round leadership experience of managing all aspects of the business - S&M, Technology, Delivery, HR and Finance. Innovatively creating products and services and delivering through hands on leadership