FIFA - Biggest Upset 

             My knowledge on football or soccer has always been very limited. Being borned and brought up in India, i am a cricket enthusiastic like other major indians. I hardly followed FIFA games ,know very handful of football players like Messi and Ronaldo due to they world wide popularity. My interest towards FIFA has gone up from early 2010 when i was in the US for a brief 3-4 year period, remember watching most of 2010 FIFA world cup (19th Edition of FIFA) matches for the first time. I even remember watching FIFA 2010 final between Spain and Netherlands with group of colleagues in a cafe (@Columbus, OH) with a large group of Spaniards surrounded in the restaurants, Spain won the world cup with 1-0 Lead. It was great fun to watch, not only that I enjoyed the FIFA atmosphere but also realized why FIFA is so popular across the world. Post this, started following almost every FIFA tournament very closely, even knew few additional player names from Germany, France, England, Brazil etc. 

                It is 2022 - FIFA fever started in Qatar with 2 biggest disappointments at a league level. Just wanted to note down these for my own records, along with a quick recap of other biggest disappointments in FIFA from the past.

                    As i just watched the match between Argentina and Saudi Arabia, i would call it as one of the biggest disappointments that i had come across though there is still high chance Argentina can beat other two teams(Poland, Mexico) before qualifying for Pre-Quarters. No one believed Saudi Arabia, a team with 51 FIFA rank would beat 3rd ranking Argentina at a league level. It is a historic moment for Saudi Arabia, in fact their president announced 1 day public holiday across the country as part of their celebrations. 

                     We also witnessed 2nd FIFA - 2022 disappointments between Germany and Japan. No high expectations from anyone on Japan considering 23rd Ranked team against 1st Ranked Germany, perhaps everyone felt it would be a cakewalk for Germany winning against Japan, but Japan proved wrong and won the match with 2 last minute goals winning the match with 1-2 lead. It was a historic moment for Japan as they had never beaten their European opponents. Otherside Germany's poor world cup form continuous, having finished bottom of their group at the 2018 tournament. 

                         Will continue add.... :)

                          I am writing this on 12th Dec 2022, two top teams reached finals (France and Argentina), Argentina overcame their first loss against Saudi Arabia, returned so strong that they beat all strong teams in QF/SF and reached finals with ease. 

                                      It is going to be another interesting FIFA finals to watch, can't wait to watch the finals on Sunday 18-Dec-2022. 

                                      

            

MindTree first 1 year Experience

MindTree First 1 year Experience

#Mindtree #First1Month @Projec Manager

As on 2012 April, i completed 1 Year in MindTree. This blog is to share my first 1 year experience with MindTree. 

Honestly, I have not heard MindTree until i received a call from the consultant who explained about project manager opening with MindTree, i started exploring MindTree from different websites to know company profile and i was impressed with MindTree growth in the last few years.  I finally got an offer from MindTree in Mar 2011 and joined in April 2011. 

First One Month

Though initial one month was of no serious project assignments,  but it helped in understanding MindTree processes better before going on job. First 3 days, we were in Arboretum classes where they explained about MindTree Introduction, various organization specific processes, finance management, MindTree formation etc.  I could relate each of these MindTree processes better after i read Subroto's book on "Entrepreneur", realized the importance of introducing various processes at an organization level. I also utilized this initial leasure time to attend various organization wise trainings to name few "Function Point Estimation", "MindTree Certified Project Manager". Over all first one month went very well and at the end i convinved myself that i took a good decision joining in Mindtree. 

In this process, also met good friends like Srikanth Chandrasekhar , Diptaraka, Sridhar they were all Campus hires joined from IIMS

First Project in MindTree, NFUM CCP

I was assigned to Insurance IG headed by Naresh. Initially it took a while to get my first project assigned, after a long waiting (about 2 Months) i have been assigned to NFUM-CCP Project. 

What is NFUM?

NFU Mutual is the largest agricultural insurer in the UK and in the top ten UK Insurance Companies. They operate in the general and life insurance, pensions and financial services markets.

NFU Mutual has over three hundred offices and agents across the UK with approximately 6,000 employees.

The Head Office is based in Stafford-Upon-Avon with local offices, agents (GI) and direct sales staff (Life) spread across the UK with a call center operation in Glasgow.

I involved in CCP project from day1, i had ample time to understand the CCP business requirements and client needs better before starting of the project.

What is CCP?

CCP - Claim Contact Portal  - It is a portal to integrate with the core Claim system to maintain contacts, tracking claims information. There was very balanced team with Experienced as well as good number of freshers in the team. My manager was Shrini Vadavadagi, he mentored me on the importance of setting up processes and ensuring the team follows them from Day1. Except some minor hiccups with requirement finalization, rest of the project went smooth. We closed the project with very high gross margin of 70%.

Throughout this project, i got an opportunity to interact with Sr. Leaders such as Ramesh Goapalakrishnan, Veera Raghava, Venkataraghava P K. Great learnings from their reviews, kind of questions they used to ask etc.