Intent & Capability. Never Resources.

Fifteen years ago, I walked into my first program management role and heard something that made me wince. A senior executive was discussing headcount planning and casually referred to our engineering team as "resources to be allocated." These weren't spreadsheet entries - they were people I'd just spent weeks getting to know. Anupam, who could debug anything after his morning chai. Asha, who had this uncanny ability to spot design flaws before they became disasters. Sandeep, who'd been coding since before most of us owned computers.

That's when it hit me. Every corporate objective, every ambitious target we set, comes down to two things: Intent and Capability.

Intent isn't just leadership saying they want better outcomes for customers. Real intent is when you see a VP rolling up their sleeves at 8 PM because they genuinely believe the solution matters. It's the difference between hitting quarterly numbers and actually solving problems that keep people awake at night.

But here's what I've learned managing teams across Mumbai, London, and Singapore - capability isn't just budget allocation. Yes, you need financial backing. But true organizational capability? That's when someone like Sandeep decides to stay back and mentor a junior developer, not because his KRAs demand it, but because he remembers when someone did the same for him. It's when Asha suggests a completely different approach that saves six months of work, because she feels heard and valued enough to speak up.

I've seen companies with massive budgets fail spectacularly because they treated people like interchangeable components. And I've watched small teams punch way above their weight because leadership understood that behind every successful program is someone who chose to care about it.

Maybe it's time we retired "human resources" altogether. How about "Human Capability" instead? Because the moment we start talking about people as resources, we've already missed the point.

What do you think? Does the language we use in corporate environments shape how we actually treat people?

Build teams that actually deliver... themselves

Last year at 5:47 PM one Friday, one of my lead engineers pinged me: "We're blocked on the API integration, the integration team went dark, and the release is due on Monday" My immediate instinct was to jump in, fix it myself, make the heroic save—after all, I've been doing this for 15+ years and know exactly how to untangle these messes. But here's the thing about leadership I've learned the hard way: the moment you rob someone of solving their own problem, you've stolen their growth. So instead I asked: "What are your top three options, and which one would you bet on?"Delivery consistency isn't about clockwork precision or robotic adherence to sprint velocity—it's about building a team that knows how to think when things go sideways. Because things will *always* go sideways at 5:47 PM on a Friday. The best teams I've built weren't the ones with the fanciest tech stack or the most impressive resumes; they were the ones where each person felt ownership, not just over their code, but over the outcome. When someone on your team wakes up at 2 AM thinking about an elegant solution to yesterday's problem, not because they have to, but because they genuinely care—that's when you know you've built something real.Team morale isn't just donut parties and motivational quotes (though I'm not opposed to good donuts). It's that moment when your junior developer presents an architecture idea that's actually better than yours, and you're genuinely delighted rather than threatened. It's watching someone who joined six months ago now mentoring the new hire with the same patience and enthusiasm someone once showed them. Morale lives in the space between "I trust you to figure this out" and "I'm here when you need me"—that delicate balance where people feel both challenged and supported.The engineer from Friday? She came back in 40 minutes with a workaround involving a clever retry mechanism I hadn't even considered. We shipped as promised on Monday, and more importantly, she later owned that entire integration pattern across our services. These are the strange and abstract victories that create great teams—not the perfect sprint retrospectives or the flawless burn-down charts, but the accumulated moments where people surprise themselves with what they're capable of achieving. That's the real delivery consistency: building teams that solve tomorrow's problems you haven't even thought of yet. And most importantly, trusting your team to solve them in time for the milestone delivery.

The Art of Leading Without a Manual: Lessons from Managing 30+ Engineers

Three years ago, I inherited a team that looked suspiciously like a collection of brilliant individuals who'd rather debug code than attend meetings. Sound familiar? As someone who once convinced his family to let him ride a motorcycle by sheer persistence over "1 year, 9 months and 22 days," I knew this would require a different approach than the standard management playbook.
The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to be the smartest person in the room and started being the most curious instead. During our first team retrospective, instead of dictating process improvements, I asked a simple question: "What's the one thing that makes you want to throw your laptop out the window?" The responses were brutally honest and incredibly insightful. Our deployment pipeline was slower than Mumbai traffic during monsoon, and our code review process had more bottlenecks than the old RTO where I once got my license.
Here's what I learned about leading technical teams: they don't need a boss, they need a conductor. My job isn't to know every line of code or architect every solution. It's to remove obstacles, amplify their brilliance, and occasionally translate "this will take five minutes" into realistic timelines for stakeholders. When one of my engineers spent three days optimizing a query that improved system performance by 40%, I didn't question the time investment - I celebrated it in our all-hands meeting. Well worth the boxes of donuts for the team that week!
The real magic happens when you create space for people to be themselves while working toward something bigger. Whether it's implementing ISO 27001 compliance or delivering a critical client feature, success comes from understanding that every engineer has their own version of that perfectly timed motorcycle kick-start - you just need to give them room to find their rhythm. Today, our team delivery rate has improved by 35%, but more importantly, they actually look forward to our Monday stand-ups. Not bad for someone who "dislikes speaking with people, unless I really really like them."

Delivering Software Like Tuning a Royal Enfield: Patience, Process, and a Good Mechanic

There's something beautifully analogous between delivering enterprise software and getting a vintage Bullet to start on the first kick. Both require understanding the intricate mechanics beneath the surface, both demand respect for process, and both will humble you faster than you can say "deployment pipeline."

After 20 years of wrangling code releases and managing $3M+ budgets, I've learned that successful software delivery is less about heroic last-minute saves and more about boring, repeatable excellence.

The epiphany came during a particularly stressful client delivery three years ago. We were implementing a complex integration, and our Agile transformation was about as smooth as my first attempt at riding that Bullet - lots of stalling, some embarrassing moments, and the occasional backfire. That's when I borrowed a page from Raju bhai's garage wisdom: "Every machine has its rhythm, you just need to learn to listen."

So instead of forcing our team into textbook Agile practices, we started adapting the methodology to fit our actual workflow, not the other way around.
The results were transformative. Our delivery cycles shortened from 6 weeks to 3 weeks, our on-time delivery rate jumped to 92%, and most importantly, our code quality improved dramatically. We implemented continuous integration that actually worked, established code review practices that enhanced rather than hindered productivity, and created automated testing suites that caught issues before they became customer problems.

The secret sauce wasn't in the tools - it was in treating software delivery like craftsmanship rather than just cranking out features.
Today, when I review our weekly delivery metrics with clients, I see the satisfaction in their faces that mirrors my own when I hear that perfect mechanical tick of a well-tuned watch. Clean code deployed seamlessly, features that solve real problems, and systems that scale gracefully - these aren't accidents, they're the result of patient, methodical excellence. Some might call it boring, but there's profound beauty in software that just works, every single time.

All things mechanical, the polite ticking of the escapement mechanism of my HMT Sunil

 

I spend a lot of my time pursuing very varied and abstract interests. Took up cigar smoking a couple of years ago, and sourcing good cigars has become a fulfilling passtime. Then I went the audiophile way with a pair of IEM's and a DAC and an apple music subscription for lossless streaming music. All in the name of doing things right, and doing the right things. At least those things that brought me pleasure.

This year I started obsessing over one particular mechanical hand-winding wrist watch manufactured nearly 3 decades earlier by HMT, a now defunct state-owned watch maker. The mere realisation that there was such a device named after my dearly departed friend and brother Sunil had me dreaming of getting my hands on it. The search began through several instagram handles, and subreddit's until I found good ole facebook to have a post with this watch by a Mr Das based in Kolkata. I wasted no time and reached out to the gentleman, who was kind enough to video call with me to display the watch, its functions and fit-for-purpose nature. He agreed to part with it for a meager sum and shipping costs which I readily transferred. The watch was delivered 4 days later and I was beaming all day in the office eager for the day to end and for me to get back home to Sunil. I remember unpacking the box and ripping apart all the tape to get the watch out. 

As soon as I picked up the watch from the box, it was immediately apparent that the metal bracelet was several sizes too small for my wrist and not properly attached to the spring bar hole on one end. I carefully took the bracelet off, and proceeded to wind for the first time my HMT Sunil. 36 clockwise turns later the crown showed resistance and I knew the main spring was fully wound and would now gradually unwind to power the movement. The rhythmic ticking of the escapement mechanism was a sound that brought me untold joy! It was now time to observe the watch for 24 hours until the next morning at 8:30 am when it would be time for another winding and accuracy check. Come the next morning I was pleased to note there was no loss in accuracy and the watch showed 8:30 am as I leaned back to wind it once again revelling in the magnificent mechanical design in my hands!

I then set about trawling reddit for a Nato strap in the 16mm dimension. After falling through several rabbit holes I finally found khisa.in an Indian leather goods maker who made 16mm nato straps. I immediately ordered this excellent strap and in 2 days it was delivered. To my annoyance, at first it seemed to be too thick to fit the gap between the case and the spring bar hole and the spring bar would keep popping out instead of staying firmly in place. Cursing my misfortune, I wrote to khisa.in explaining how much I loved the strap and how sad I was that it just wouldnt fit. I sent this email at 11 am on Sunday morning. At 12 pm Mr. Sudip the proprietor of Khisa.in called me on the phone and inquired about the problem I was facing. As I did my best to explain what was happening, he immediately understood he is speaking with an amateur hobbyist with little to no idea of what he is doing, and immediately offered to come home at 5:30 pm and check it out himself! I was floored at this response from Sudip and couldnt believe how my luck had turned! That evening, a couple of friends also came over as meeting Sudip (who is a watch afficionado and connoisseur himself with upwards of 2000 watches in his collection) was too enticing to pass up on.

So the clock strikes 5:30 then 5:45 then finally Sudip walks into my place, a pleasant middle aged gentleman wearing a Seiko 5 automatic, true to form. He meets us and takes his place at my work table where the watch is laid out on a small microfiber cloth alongside his khisa.in strap and the included spring bar removal tool and two spring bars which he insists on sending along with his straps to encourage customers to install their straps themselves, and forming a better bond with their watches. He repeats, he is not a trader, he is a hobbyist and is constantly fighting the extinction of the species of vintage mechanical watch collectors. So he takes a good long look at my HMT, fits one spring bar, and while fitting the second one observes the obstruction in the hole in the case. He asks me to take it to a proper watchmaker, there are two near the house, to clear the obstruction and maybe also service the watch if required. I immediately agree and we spend the next 20 minute talking about watches, my father walks over with his Actus Seiko, a gift from my uncle for dad's wedding 50 years ago! And we swap stories about our hunts for watches and he gives us an insight into his world where he is dismayed with the number of fake and painted vintage watches in the market but is simultaneously happy that guys like me are getting interested in these mechanical wonders and getting into the hobby.

That was how my Sunday evening was spent! In the company of an excellent and distinguished gentleman, with the stories about great watches, great hunts for watches and great memories. These are the strange and abstract occasions which create great memories. For now, I will leave you with a few pictures of my HMT Sunil and the HMT Janata I just bought from Mr. Das.

HMT Sunil

Khisa strap:

HMT Janata

Motorcycle driving license test

 Admittedly, this incident happened nearly 2 decades ago. Why do I recollect it today, and more importantly why does it feature here after so many years of oblivion? I don't really know, some weird neural synapses fired and they caused a memory recall of their own accord. Promise, I did not cause this to happen.

Anyway, onto the meat and potatoes then.

Sometime after my 17th birthday I had applied for and received a learners license for motorcycles. This was a paper booklet with my photograph on the first page and a bunch of empty pages after that. This is all before the age of card licenses, yes I am that old, no I am not obsolete. I continued using the learners permit for nearly 2 years, renewing it every 6 months, simply delaying the pukka license test because I was still convincing the family to allow me to ride a motorcycle. That, however is a different story for a different post, it took all of 1 year, 9 months and 22 days for me to plead, beg, coerce and bulldoze the resistance at home until I got the motorcycle, a glorious Yamaha RX-100. Unfortunately I had to sell this in a few months as I quickly realised I really really wanted a Royal Enfield Bullet Std. 350. And so, I acquired a second hand bullet around my 20th birthday. Not really knowing how to ride one, I hung around a bullet mechanic, learning the upkeep, maintenance and lingo for a few months. Raju bhai was an indulgent sorta fellow who didnt skimp on details and passed on much of his tribal knowledge to me that year. 

Then one evening Raju bhai asked me for a favour. A customer's bike needed to be picked up from near my house and brought to the garage, but he didnt have the time to spare. Not knowing I only had theoretical knowledge on riding a bullet, he asked me to go and get it. The overconfidence only granted by youth was fortunately available to me in excessive quantities. And so, I went to pickup the customer's Bullet. I reached the building and his watchman handed me the keys to the bike. Now I had watched Raju bhai kickstart the bullet a few hundred times, and even helped him do that often, so I knew there was a separate key for the ignition and a second for the fuel cock. After turning them both on, I knew the ammeter needle had to be brought to deadcenter using a choke + slow kick. Then depending on how the stars were aligned and how merciful the Gods of Internal combustion were on you, a swifter kick should ideally bring the engine to life with the trademark dug dug dug cadence of the standard 350.

Fortunately, the bike turned over after a few iterations of the above and I swung a leg over it and took the position. Please note, back then helmets were not mandatory, and I was wearing shorts and sandals. Something my older self would look back on with several facepalms. So I put the bullet in gear with the toe of my right foot pushing the gear lever up engaging first, let the clutch out slowly while giving some throttle, and miracle of miracles the momentum started building without the bike stalling on me! My nights of simulated motorcycle riding seemed to have borne fruit! As I rode the 5.5 kilometers between that building to Raju bhais garage, every turn, every stop at a redlight and every open stretch of road added to my confidence and in about 14 minutes I had mastered the art of riding a Bullet standard 350.

Cut to the day of my pukka license test. This happens in thane at the old RTO which has a small ground where the officer conducts the test. He usually sits at a table in one end of the field to have maximum visibility on the figure 8 drawn in chalk which has to be ridden by the aspirants. My test was scheduled for 9:30 am. I got a little late and pulled into the RTO field at 9:45 am and parked my Bullet adjacent to the RTO officer's table while he watched me coast to a stop and put the bike on its center stand. As I casually sauntered to his desk with my learners permit and form to get in line for the test, he stopped me with an upraised palm. His paan (betel leaf) filled mouth formed a question, "kuthun aala bike gheun", this translates to "from where did you ride here on the bike". I told him my home address which is a bit more than 6 kilometers away from the RTO. His instant response was, "zhala tujha test, form de mi pass karto tula", translated to "your test is done, give me your form, I am passing you". And with that I took the stamped form and walked over to the window to get my pukka license! Was this carelessness on the part of the RTO officer? I believe not. As riding a Royal Enfield Standard Bullet 350 at the age of 20, as casually and nonchalantly as I had did imply a certain amount of skill and expertise. Had the officer asked me to ride the figure 8, I would have done that easily too. This isn't a boast, it's just the truth. I rode that bullet for 4.5 lakh kilometers across India over the next 9 years until I moved on to other motorcycles. But the Bullet is still the origin of my love for all things on 2 wheels!

9 things revealed

 Sharing 9 things about myself:

1. I like black coffee. No adulteration. Copious quantities of it.

2. I am bad at cooking, but great at being a food critic.

3. I wake up before 6 am every morning. Not voluntarily, blame the sleep cycle.

4. I dislike speaking with people, unless I really really like them.

5. I love driving/riding my car/bikes.

6. I hate socks

7. I dont have any photographs of the most memorable moments of my life.

8. I remember other peoples birthdays (with an assist from Google Calendar)

9. I used to whistle well, dont anymore.