Yesterday we, the graduating batch of PGSEM had an informal closing ceremony. To pull each other’s leg, we created obscure awards like ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Campus Casanova’. Voting for such awards happened real-time by sending SMS to a particular number/cellphone. An Android app running on that phone, received the messages and hosted the results via a web-interface. Voting results were available real-time and projected were on a big screen.
From an operational/engineering perspective, this was a grand success. The very concept of this kind of voting; technology used; design; everything going smoothly without any glitches.. perfect! From the event organizers’s perspective this was brilliant. What more could PGSEM guys done to spice up the event! This was a shot in the arm for PR guys trying to internally sell PGSEM.
But, did it serve its true purpose? Some of the awards were created to pull a particular person’s leg, but unexpected persons won most of the awards! This can easily be explained by or should have been anticipated before as, the event happens in a big auditorium; not everyone will come for the event and whoever comes, comes with their family. During an event in auditorium the level of interaction will generally be less, that too when you are with your family, it will even be worse. If the voting medium is voice vote or raising hands or physical paper, then the organizer pulls the information from the participants. But in case of SMS voting, the participants has to take the initiative to vote. Moreover sending SMS takes some effort and money.
When this whole sequence is viewed in terms of value creation, for operational reasons, PR and Engineering perspectives might influence the measurement process rather than the total value creation.
Even in my work-place, I have seen similar things. Some projects will be kicked-off just because it attracts high visibility and provides opportunities for the project team to show case their skills, well knowing that no one actually needs the project. Why does that happen? It is again because, the processes that we have fail to measure the total value creation but focus on short-term sexy things. 🙂
Posted by Arumuga Azhagan 
Reflections 