Shop Floor experience with Ramesh Rajagopal

This is part 1 of a 2 episode conversation. In this episode, Ramesh Rajagopal, a Coach at PM Power Consulting, shares his experience related toGrowing up in Madurai, a major temple town Learning Tamil, though his grandparents were from KarnatakaHis temple visits, on the way to school as well as on specific occasionsMoving to Bangalore and seeing the changes over the decadesPassing out as topper in his school for the SSLC gradeChoosing to switch colleges to study with his cousinDeveloping a talent - in his own words  -of sleeping in moving buses, whether sitting or standingLearning the importance of extra curricular activitiesApplying to TELCO, based on a newspaper adAsking for a role in R&D, though TELCO was a predominantly manufacturing organization and getting itNot being able to join as planned, due to his father’s health, but being able to make it a little later, when things got betterUnderstanding that work culture varies from context to context and his interesting experience on the shop floor with his managerImportance of practical experience on the shop floorTaking interest in and learning computersLeveraging his engineering and manufacturing experience to help the software development teams in L&TJoining GE and diving deeper into software engineeringWith a focus on systems, getting an opportunity to lead the quality functionFour stages in career development: learning, doing, guide others, shape people by laying the pathGetting into Agile approachesHe started my career as an R&D engineer at the Engineering Research Centre at Tata Motors (TELCO) in 1981, then he joined L& T during 1984, initially as a Design Engineer for Earthmoving machines. Later, he moved into Manufacturing Planning. He joined GE India Technology Center during end 2000, as a Project Manager-Delivery and stayed with the organization as it later changed hands to become GXS and OpenText. He also worked as a consultant for the Agile Transformation group for 4 years at Standard Chartered Bank, Kuala Lumpur helping teams and teams of teams to adopt to the new ways of working – from Technology teams, Retail Teams to Data and Privacy teams.With over four decades of experience which includes over 20+ years in software Product development, Delivery, Quality and several years in manufacturing domains of Automobile and Earth moving equipment, mow a Principal consultant at PM Power, part of Agile Transformation and DevOps Service lines.