IT Professionalism In Consulting

mattazoid · Post by **mattazoid** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 1:30 am

I have often heard from colleagues and friends who relocated to India about how lot of dev teams in India are built with inexperienced folks (incl freshers) and how difficult it is to get them to take accountability for their work.

A friend who went back as a Project Manager was frustrated due to this very fact. My wife who works at PricewaterhouseCoopers has a colleague who said when interacting with folks in PwC India they faced the same issue. How much ever you tell them to let you know if there is a delay they developers will not...for whatever reasons. Whats worse on a conference call with folks in US the India-team were overheard talking about finding other jobs.

Another experience from a r2"ier". Interviewer at Cognizant asked her why she was talking in an American accent. Knowing my friend she has been in the US for a few years and also did her Masters here. And defintely she does not have an artifical accents. Has anyone encoutered similar behavior. A kind-of anger towards r2iers.

Now I realize this is different from company to company and team to team, but I would sure like to hear about others experiences regarding this.

Old-Spice2 · Post by **Old-Spice2** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:08 am

>>> My wife who works at PricewaterhouseCoopers has a colleague who said when interacting with folks in PwC India they faced the same issue. How much ever you tell them to let you know if there is a delay they developers will not...for whatever reasons.

This is more of a cultural issue. In India, people do not say "I don't know". Usually they keep quiet without any response or give vague reasons but rarely admit their ignorance. Even on the street if you ask for directions, people will give wrong answers instead of saying, "I don't know".

You need to attend cross culture familiarisation programs. Many US companies offer that for people looking to relocate or deal with ODC. I know in one company, the program gives basic information about cricket and other hot topics that fire up Indian team.

HighTorque · Post by **HighTorque** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:25 am

Yes, agree, it is a cultural issue. I noticed it too during my recent visit to our ODC facility in India. To what I heard from few R2Ied managers, managing a big team in India is not an easy thing :emteeth: , it requires skill and experience in that setting. Most of us IT folks R2ing from US etc may not have this experience/exposure. Helps to atleast familiarize before getting into that setting.

Another observation. Going into a strong technical role with contributions to R&D or Architecture managing a small tech team might also be a good idea than people management in a larger scale. Too much headache from all sides or so I keep hearing, esp if one is new.

r2i_100 · Post by **r2i_100** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:31 am

mattazoid;61864
Another experience from a r2"ier". Interviewer at Cognizant asked her why she was talking in an American accent. Knowing my friend she has been in the US for a few years and also did her Masters here. And defintely she does not have an artifical accents. Has anyone encoutered similar behavior. A kind-of anger towards r2iers.[/quote]

I have heard from some R2Iers in my company (internal transferee) that they were shown "ground" for first few months by fellow India workers: this included boasting their choice to stay in India, basing American culture, comments on accent.
The real problem is many folks in India have grown with industry and not necessarily due to their competence. Example: In India you will not find any 10+ year experience person going into labs or looking at code, most of them are "Managers", where as you can easily find a similar experience person in US working as individual contributer writing code..

sv117 · Post by **sv117** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:27 pm

In india - Everyone wants to be manager - so that they could assign work and take off ( at least 1 hour before the junior guys ddoes). The junior guys goes for coffee/smoke/bathroom 20 times a day - chatting etc. Even if they write wrong code, they don t feel the impact. Some guys - who are sent offshore, land in US, with out even a sweater . They forget brining notebook/laptop/scribbling pad to meetings.... All wants title, have lot of ego and dont want to bow head to anyone.

sv117 · Post by **sv117** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:31 pm

Even meetings are a mess - Here in US, If a person talks in a conf room, rest all guys will listen. (I had a chance to dial into some of the India meetings - its really a fish market - chaos)

Old-Spice2 · Post by **Old-Spice2** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:43 pm

>>>I have heard from some R2Iers in my company (internal transferee) that they were shown "ground" for first few months by fellow India workers: this included boasting their choice to stay in India, basing American culture, comments on accent.

If returned NRI walk around with Bisleri bottle or keep their nose up regarding their overseas lifestyle, there will be a backlash from locals. When I deal with ODC staff, I talk in their language and try to blend with them. Have no issue and many of the warring faction talk to me and bitch about their local office politics. I have worked in India for 8+ years, may be that makes the difference.

mattazoid · Post by **mattazoid** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:12 am

I am not expecting any special positive treatment just because I am r2i"ing" from US. But it seems that we can expect some special negative treatment occasionally :). So I guess we should be ready for that and prepare mentally.

Look even if I lose my accent (assuming that i have one) can i lose the professionalism that i gained working here. I am not saying that folks in US are more or less professional but I believe quite a few people who work and move back to India take with them a positive professional attitude...and a sense of accountability and responsibility that can only help the Indian firms.

DoctorJ · Post by **DoctorJ** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 1:58 am

mattazoid;62750Look even if I lose my accent (assuming that i have one) can i lose the professionalism that i gained working here. I am not saying that folks in US are more or less professional but I believe quite a few people who work and move back to India take with them a positive professional attitude...and a sense of accountability and responsibility that can only help the Indian firms.[/quote]
Off late, I've developed a feeling that "professionalism" and "positive professional attitude" of people R2I are very similar to people entering "politics" and having a "positive political attitude" - specially in the Indian enviroment.

Personally, I've known clean and action oriented people getting transformed (I mean in their attitude) over time after entering politics or after successful R2I (although people who R2I seem to sustain their professionalism longer).
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I wonder if it's possibly a case of the system corrupting us and/or our reputation. -DJ :cool:

DoctorJ · Post by **DoctorJ** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 2:05 am

sv117;62449Even meetings are a mess - Here in US, If a person talks in a conf room, rest all guys will listen. (I had a chance to dial into some of the India meetings - its really a fish market - chaos)[/quote]
And, may I ask...what time of the day/night it was for you and for the folk in India??? On my part, I wouldn't blame an individual if he dialed-in to a call from a fish market - specially if it was his after office/work hours.:p
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Is it fair to make an assessment without being considerate of other's sacrifice or commitment. -DJ :cool: