Tathagat Varma

- Strategic thinker and result-oriented do-er with interests in People Excellence, Process Effectiveness, Project Management, Product Innovation and Business Leadership.

- Over two decades of software product development expertize with Defense Research (DRDO), and leading MNCs Siemens, Philips, Huawei, McAfee, NetScout and Yahoo! in 3G Softswitch, Core Routing and Gigabit Switch Router, Digital Video Broadcast (DVB), Consumer Internet, Network Management and Workflow Management solutions in various technical, leadership and business roles.

- Currently lead Strategic Transformation Programs, Outsourced Product Development (OPD), and Business Operations at Yahoo! R&D India, which includes Business Excellence, Enterprise-wide Agile and Scrum deployment, Mid-management Engagement and IP Program.

Experience with Conventional, Incremental and Iterative Software Development

- 1997: as quality manager at Philips Healthcare, did some experiments on accommodating spiral development in a CMM environment for a healthcare project. We struggled, but learnt a lot.

- 1998: as project manager, led software development for Set-top Boxes at Philips Digital Networks in iterative (non-timeboxed) and incremental manner

- 2001-2003: as program manager/engineering lead, succesfully delivered three large development programs in datacom and telecom domains at Huawei Technologies that were essentially planned in a waterfall manner but the execution was done incrementally to mitigate risks in the program and achieve steady progress.

- 2004: as Engineering Director at Network General, defined a process to limit work in progress for a sustaining team - a very early attempt at Kanban process. The ideas were essentially inspired from Tom Gilb's EVO project management approach, and we front-ended the process by a kanban-style limit on work in progress, and back-ended the QA process with timeboxs of one week. I recently presented on it at Agile-Scrum International Summit, Bangalore. Here is my work and presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/Managewell/applying-kanban-in-enterpriseclass-products-sustaining-engineering-an-experience-report

- 2006: acquired PMP (from PMI, USA)

- 2008: acquired CSM (from Pete Deemer, CST) and sowed seeds for adopting it in Network General

- 2009: acquired PRINCE2 Registered Professional (from APMG, UK)

- 2010: Started the Agile and Scrum Adoption Program ("ASAP") at Yahoo! India R&D - a center-wide program to adopt agile methodologies and engineering practices across 150+ projects at Bangalore, India. I made a presentation about it in Mar 2012 at Bangalore Scrum group (presentation http://www.slideshare.net/Managewell/the-asap-journey) and presenting more about it at the key event Agile India 2013 next month. I am also part of the Agile Core Team at Yahoo! Inc. My job is to lead the center-wide strategy, advise VPs and mentor directors and coaches on improving their agile adoption through combination of learning, training, engineering, people and organiational practices and policies, and lead any such strategic program to implemented them horizontally

-2013: acquired CSPO (from Scott Dunn, CST)

My professional interests:

- I blog on all issues relating to management and leadership of software development at http://managewell.net

- all my presentations, including classes that I have taught (on Project Management and Business Ethics) is available at http://slideshare.net/managewell

- I believe in advancing the profession, and in this regard, deliver talks at industry and companies. My work is available on my blog at http://managewell.net/?page_id=2

- I volunter with ALN Bangalore chapter (part of founding team), IEEE, PMI