LEARNINGS FROM WAVE4 P&G

I have been working for the P&G account for past two years and after two years of this roller
coaster ride from being virtually novice to a relatively experienced IT professional I have witnessed a
number of staggered processes which lead to poor quality of product, late working hours and
continuous weekend work for the employees. We need to analyse the reasons which lead to such
situations which are neither healthy for employees nor for the clients who in return get the half -
baked solutions as in the hurry to deliver the project we forget the major aspect of developing a
product i.e. quality. Below mentioned are the few processes which we missed as per my perspective:
1. Planning: This is basically the foundation of any project irrespective of any industry. While
preparing the project plan below mentioned steps should be followed:
1.1 The technical team should always be at the forefront in any requirement gathering.
The technical team needs to break up the whole requirement into different modules
and decide the timeline .
1.2 The technical team needs to analyse the technical challenges if any keeping in mind
the competency of the team which would work on the project as well as the experience.
1.3 There needs to be a buffer time for any development we undertake depending upon the
complexity of the solution.
1.4 There should be proper KT session given to any new member in case the development is
not fresh. There should be a Reverse KT session after which the person giving the KT
session needs to take the decision whether the resource is technically competent and
has the required knowledge of the project functionally and technically.
1.5 Once the development starts the role of the functional team should be providing right
data and act as a bridge between the technical team and the client requirements.
1.6 There should be no functional testing when the development is going on. This would
give the developer ample time to develop. Slowly with proper unit testing he would gain
confidence in the product he has developed. This would lead to lesser defects in the final
product.
2. Landscape:
2.1 We need to follow the basic landscape architecture i.e. Development->Quality-
>Production. I have found that during Wave4 we have missed this basic thing.
Any landscape level decisions should be taken only by the technical
We are developing in the same landscape and the functional team are testing in the
same landscape. This leads to mechanical fixing of the defects raised by the functional
team. The technical team is expected to fix the defect before the next cycle of testing
starts. In the hurry to meet the timeline the whole process of thinking, analysing goes
for a toss and there is little learning.
3. Client Demo:
3.1 The idea of having the demo in between developments is never helpful. We keep on
focussing on demos and keep on focussing on a single scenario with single set of data which would
obviously run since we execute it a number of times before the demo. We forget that we have
missed a major thing quality which goes for a toss with the number of defects rising rapidly during
the SIT and UAT.
4. Hierarchy : There should be a single leader who needs to take the onus of delivery of the
project and the person needs to be someone who has ample technical knowledge and is
crystal clear of all the processes. There should be no place coordinators in the team. Lesser
leaders would streamline a number of things.

5. Audit: On a monthly basis there should be a proper audit by an external team of all the team
members including the managers to check the role of every team member in the team and
his actual contribution in the project. If the person doesnt meets the expectation then there
is no point of keeping the person in the team.

6. Team Building: Dividing the whole team into separate teams based on the technologies is
not healthy. This creates disconnect and it seems we are not working as a single team.

The points raised above might seem to be amateurish but I feel if these basic things are not
met it creates a frustrating working environment and whole concept of engineering is lost.