Chapter 45: Training: Accidental Entrepreneur (Methods of Learning)

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“Learning is excellence of wealth that none destroy; To man nought else affords reality of joy.”???????????— Thirukkural (400)

We all spend time in classrooms and various organized academic settings to learn. While these learnings are an important part of understanding complex subject matters with historical data, there are many other ways to learn. I was a reasonably good student at school, my learnings outside the conventional schools helped me navigate through complex technical problems and people problems tremendously. As I look back, I realize that I had systematically applied a few strategies to learn new topics which has brought up this level of success.

Learning by Breaking Down: Breaking down every problem, business or technical, into smaller manageable size pieces was my first learnings from the experienced engineers at my first job. At the beginning, I tried to understand every aspect of the projects and wanted to contribute to the program. After a few weeks, I was struggling and was not getting much accomplished. Talking to a senior engineer, he asked me to focus on the area I was asked to learn and TRUST others to do the same and complete the project. This was difficult at the beginning as I wanted and needed to understand the entire project to contribute. Once I focused on my area and worked with others to define the interfaces between my designs vs others designs, it became easier.?

????????Later in my life, as I became the lead and manager for larger projects, I made a point to have few meetings to explain the full scope of the project. Then I broke down the project into smaller manageable pieces and assigned them to each engineer. While I encouraged everyone to discuss their opinions on overall designs, there were clear set boundaries for each engineer to focus on. This helped us scale the team better for completing projects in an efficient manner which provided clear ownership and accountability. This is me applying the KISS principle for success of the project and team.

Learning by Testing on Small Area: When I write a code or come up with a detailed business presentation, I don’t start with complete content. My approach has been to define the overall flow and then focus on key areas and experiment with ideas in the focus area. By doing this, I tend to avoid massive redo or going on a completely wrong path and miss the deadline. Let me provide some examples in this area. All my chip design projects, at the end, had to interface with another chip or system. Just by implementing that interface in simple terms, when the project was ready for integration and testing, we would have a working interface, in software terms APIs. Many people focus on internal technology and delay final integration by weeks and months without thinking about this early.?

?????????Another area where I apply this concept of testing in smaller areas is the core technology of the product. If we were to design every corner case and code at the beginning, in case the scheme or algorithm doesn't work for our problems, we would’ve wasted a whole lot of time. This doesn’t mean that we don’t think about all the cases, yet on implementing just focus on core algorithms and then add other areas. By coding the core areas and integrating in overall design and testing for basic functionality, interoperability, and performance, I have eliminated major risks to the programs at the early stage.

Learning is Ageless: As you would have noticed from my writings, I have worked with very experienced people as well as young smart people. I try to observe people’s behavior and learn from them. It is not only for me to educate myself more but also to understand where others are coming from for me to manage them effectively.?

?????????Most of you would have noticed that I quote an ancient Tamil treatise on the art of living which was written more than 2000 years ago. I was lucky enough to learn about this at a very young age from a teacher, Mr. Periyathambi, in my village. Since he was my father’s friend, I got a head start with his students at the age of 9 or 10. He didn’t make us memorize 1330 couplets of Thirukural or other writings. He spent time with us breaking down each couplet into simple and clear words which formed those couplets. Then taught us to reconstruct the complete verses with our understanding. That gave me knowledge to pick up the couplets after nearly 40 years and understand the deep meanings. This didn’t come easy at the beginning. Therefore, I reached out to one of the young people in our community, Pranavan, to help me select appropriate Thirukkural couplets for my writings. Over time, I learned from Pranavan’s approach and my early learnings, I am able to choose appropriate couplets for my writings.

As I stated, it is important to break down tasks into smaller pieces and test out the theories in smaller areas prior to embarking on a complex project. This can be as simple as taking time and running it in your head or taking a few weeks out of a long project and trying a few things out. These learning methods helped me avoid expensive mistakes and reduce time to market. For entrepreneurs as well as startup people, this can be a life-or-death process for companies to survive with limited resources and time to market opportunity cost. Have you encountered anything similar to this? Leave your comments below.