Anand Ramanan
Media 881984 Publishing
Knowledge Adventure
Anand Ramanan is a member of:
Could you tell us briefly about your family background?
My dad has a marketing background with around 35 years of experience spread across FMCG products, real estate, cement industries and helped educational institutions after retirement.
I have a sister and she too was working in telemarketing and quit her job as search marketing head for India
Plans for the Future
As a BU head in a services organization.
Changes in the industry
The QA industry especially in India has become much more systematized, domain oriented and automated.
QA services are now being offered as an end-to-end service proposition and is proving as a cost effective arrangement. Testing as a Service through crowd sourcing is an extension to this.
A Fine Balance:
This has not been a Challenge at all. These Work Life Balance, Learning Curve are just becoming jargons that this IT industry has enforced upon this generation in my opinion.
You badly manage your time and you are accountable for the outcome - that's all.
Most Important Lessons
1. Learn to look at your job as something that gives you money; a mean to various ends.
2. Create a life outside of your work.
3. Do not be insecured about the volatility of this industry. You are not alone.
4. Avoid soul-searching and self analysis.
Role Model
I am afraid there is not a single person. I don't believe deriving success out of becoming one of them.
Points of inflection
1. The 1-year when I ran a business when I was 20. I learnt more than what an IIM could possibly teach me.
2. The 3 years when I worked at Knowledge Adventure. The most I aligned working with Americans and learnt cohesively working towards a common goal.
Current and Previous Responsibilities
I do Global Program Management while I was into Product Management for about 3 years. I feel that Product Management and Program Management are converging into one single role giving more scope for authority and smooth decision making especially in matrix organizations.
Currently working at
1. People management
2. Program management - resource loading and schedule
3. Collaborating with product management and technical teams and delivering to business
Most Important Decisions
1. To start a company
2. To quit my company in 1 year and taking along the stride of IT boom
3. To have a mixture of experience in product-based and service companies.
4. To switch to businessy roles at the right time after I served as a Tech Lead for about 3 years.
The Journey So Far
DTP operator in a printing press, Data entry operator in a proprietorship, EDP Executive - IT support, Managing Partner in own company, Sr. Software Engineer, Team Lead, Business Analyst, Product Manager to Senior Business Manager at present.
Essential Advice
Manual testing is no job by itself. No value-add and you are nowhere in this industry. Orient yourself with a particular domain (Game testing for instance). See yourself as someone who can offer testing services end-to-end in all types of business models 5-7 years down the line.