My Professional Journey

It has been already 4.5 years since I started working and I thought that it is right time when I consolidate my learning and make myself ready for new challenges!

People generally mention their work life as pretty commonplace and routine, but I feel that there is so much to learn from your peers, manager, team and the evolution that you see in yourself while dealing with variety of people, clients and projects. I have thoroughly enjoyed my work life and what it demanded from me in the form of technical, subject matter, attitudinal and behavioral skills.

Some of the key milestones:

• First project- Perfect fit for MBA (Segmentation), however it made it very clear that irrespective of your knowledge of subject, you are toddler in the professional world. I learned SAS coding and working on highly unorganized data with very poor quality, which defies all the theoretical analysis building. More than that, I understood that this project was not about segmentation. For that we already had a tool, it was more understanding of the client's business, their perspective on the project requirement, and how to stay up in a team with 5 technical experts who determined the trajectory of the project. We had already drilled this business problem into a technical process and I had to connect some dots.
• Pilot for a big player- This was the most interesting phase for me! I had resolved to make sure that we must nail it and I was involved somehow in 5 of the 6 projects! Now that was "fun and learn" a lot of business sense. What to recommend, how to recommend, drill down and obviously playing with lot of data. Gather, Prepare, Analyze till you get something significant. We didn't do any of high end advanced analytics as compared to my last project. Still, it was a true problem solving. Yes! in many of the cases, we validated client's hypothesis or added a few to it.Yet, the journey was fulfilling right from kick off to end presentation. It was worth it and did I say that we won the pilot!
• Text Analytics- This is worth a mention. Everything in this project was ambiguous and had 3 or more ways of doing it. We never could converge and every time, when we thought that it is finalized and aligned, we had a new discovery! There were lot of nightouts, weekends, holidays, special events consumed but the end results was something we all are proud of! It was a project where I learned a lot about handling an indirect question with the toughest group of people. No pain, no gain!
• First Dedicated analyst- This was a new thing on the board and I was the first one to go. My client was generally perceived to be very demanding, however, right after a week, she sent appreciation mail to the higher management asking if she could reserve me for 5 years. I thought that I had won the case, while it was far from over. Those everyday calls,  where I received so many ad-hoc and change requests from her end, and then some complain emails from our sponsors, I was learning a lot-how to deal with a person who would raise it to my management for anything. Moreover, next steps or priorities lasted only for that day, the next day they changed drastically. However, with those requests,  two thing happened- I became immune to appreciation/ complain, I gained high domain expertise.
• Training coordinator- Meanwhile, I did some coordination and training for new batches, which opened doors for multidimensional learning and finding avenues to learn more. Finally I realized one of my key strengths- I get things done! If it is all about accountability, seniority levels didn't trouble me a lot. I knew that we have to get it done and followed up to make sure it does get done. Moreover, having good relations and some flexibility went a long way in making people ready to help.
• Being a Manager- This is pretty interesting. I can start delegating and just review! No that is not the case. In fact you have to be on your toes almost always. Here, you can influence, review or plan, but the execution still matters the most. Every individual is different with different needs and ambitions. What works for one, doesn't do for another. Then there are moments something goes completely wrong and you have to understand and be a shock absorber! You want to allow them best growth possible, condition them to take next level of responsibilities and do their appraisal- It could be extremely rewarding or horribly upsetting for you as well. I have seen both extremes of the spectrum and felt overwhelmed completely. One has to be really hard not to let it affect them.

That is what I could remember the most important milestones in my career so far and how they caused my evolution as a professional. Well I am still learning the tricks of the trade and surviving some.