We wore the "boots" for the first time!

A couple of months back, @Nikhil Kelkar (SPLM Director, Pune, India) encouraged the Pune collaboration team to come forward and start planning the various activities that would shape the Technology Conclave 2018 #TechConclave2018. Site leaders rolled their sleeves and geared up to prepare for the event.

It was suggested to contribute to the "Productivity and Quality" track but I felt myself drawn to the "Bootcamp" direction due to the urge of producing the #sequel this year and we dreamt to take it to the next level. Our team was lead by @NitinBhide, our chief consultant. #leadwithnitin . Working with him was not only an opportunity but pleasure indeed.

We plotted our story. Along-with a team of 4-5 senior leaders, we planned a Theme of making the platter of 12 BootCamps, none of which was a random choice topic. We wove them around a theme that focused on "PaaS , UX , Testing and PLM products". The task was not easy. Teams had to be formed. A survey was conducted and interests were captured. Topics were filtered through to get the right sized and right weighted stories to be prepared for doing #handson. These were called BootCamp Topics. We had to take the first shot in the first week of November and release the movie in the first week of December.

Just selecting the topics didn't set the equations right. The main challenge was to prepare an army of the flag holders. Ownership culture at Siemens #ownershipculture #proudtobesiemens make people grab a handle onto the opportunities and give their best.

Almost 30+ employees from different groups got ready to lead the mission , in a day's time.

These were the same faces in the crowd who had at times shown their expertise, conquered challenges and had made a difference during their contributions. These were the people who had worked in altogether different teams but had the inner desire to get together... Some had worked with us in Teamcenter Product Development, some in COMOS PLM Development, some shook hands on the Global Delivery Network opportunities and some we met during Site-level trainings...A few, we had only waved at in the common office canteen!

Paths cross but a simple line of trust makes the collaboration happen...

Everyone has a dream but needs a sound sleep to enjoy it and the comfort to enjoy a rich sleep comes when one gets a cozy blanket to wrap around.

We got an incredible amount of help from @Sanjeev Korti @Prateek Thakkar @Vineeta Shrivastava @Shweta Joshi, @Mangesh Vare @Ganesh Kshirsagar @Avinash Khot @Subodh Budhkar @Shrikrishna Khare @Swapnil Sathe @Vinayak Shinde @Mahadev Tanpure @Ram Mehtre and the list doesn't end there...

Folks, how about saying "Yes" to this post and tagging yourself in this Success!!! We encourage that!

We sowed a crazy idea of "#Holacracy" a.k.a "Self Organization" and planned to try it out with this type of project. Although this is the kind of principle we follow in Agile, this time wished to do it a little more methodical way.

The unofficial name for basic training is "boot camp" as well. It is hard to determine when that phrase was coined but we suspect that it comes from the idea that basic training is where many recruits got to wear military boots for the first time

So when it is the first time wearing the boots, it can be tough to march, that too in a Self Organized way, in sync with the army... sounds a little challenging right?

But we were confident that the teams would make it! And it happened as planned!

Leaders of the each boot-camp owned the responsibility. They reached out to people to make teams. They planned the content. They did everything in a decentralized way. This activity was an off-academic (off their day-to-day work) one, so at times the non-availability of a single in-charge could have posed problems. We proposed the #co-leadership model and it worked beautifully! At the same time, they truly served the team and co-contributed towards the Big Goal. New Leads were born! #NewLeadsOnTheBlock... For the first time more than 10 distinct product teams worked together forming truly collaborated teams. They didn't know each other but when they met, they were set.

The BootCamp activity was not a super-complex activity but it surely was an experience that had a lot of the #LearnToLead aspect and an expectation of Value-Enabled compact knowledge packet delivery in the networking mode.

We achieved a miraculous stride this year.

12 BootCamps, 4 Parallel Tracks, 80+ Bootcampers, 900 registrations against 600 places, 180 VMs and diverse portfolio of topics

Our Infrastructure team is really a super duper team. They now know how to setup the studio in an evening's time and how to scale it JustInTime!! The True BAHUBALI set .

Bootcampers were trained on presentation deliveries, content reviews and mocks were conducted. PLM senior leaders themselves were critical reviewers. Surveys and Registrations were done well in time and no one was disappointed on the registration front .

On the day of the boot camps, venues were over crowded and employees attended in pairs. Confident deliveries were done by new leaders and volunteers were prompt to help. Additional attendance sheets had to be reprinted due to the overwhelming response. People were eager to learn and experiment with technology.When we asked attendees "How many of you could complete the intended Hands ON?" ...look at the response!

The conduct was flawless, infrastructure and facilities support was glitch-free...then for us having them Feel-good to Lead factor was important. #leadership , #Ownership , #collaboration , #healthyteams .We asked teams their experiences of conducting the boot-camps and they spoke their mind.

We captured our memories ..

We concluded our day with 12 power-packed deliveries to more than 700 people.

While we were happy we attempted our best but some moments slipped our attention. We forgot to take attendance in couple of sessions....of course we hacked and found who attended.We could get less time to confirm the topics and so we had to alter a few and so on..

Hence #Retrospective was important. We got together and gathered all those observations where we could improve. Every member on the committee including facilities , admin , IT teams gave their inputs and we got a list of bullets to work on for the days to come.

Many employees met us and thanked.. It was a proud moment but more importantly it made us realize that we were just the anchors . Someone trusted us to park their boats and we could fasten ourselves.

Leaders have to be Anchors

Siemens allows us to be anchors #leadership #siemens #siemenspride . Looking up the ladder , I realized that the holacracy percolated ...