Go back & remember the days when villagers used to gather time to time to have conclusive conversations regarding current issues and ensuring a beneficial outcome. Now replace those villagers with few techies. Wondering what will the scenario be like?
Now that’s what we are doing by organizing Chaupal – a monthly knowledge sharing event full of techies. It is being conducted since the past few years to ensure knowledge sharing through a wider platform.
Not just to explore the very area that we lead at, we ensured Chaupal to be our way to leave aside our working hat and to explore the others that we can don.
So we decided to pack Chaupal to a newer version 2.0. Initially having been assigned the task of organizing the first version of Chaupal 2.0 to our team, we thought it as a task which we have to complete on time including discussions and iterations similar to processes we follow in SDLC.
So the assigned team discussed and came up with idea to carry forward the same parampara (Traditional way) and we were very happy about that. Having done the initial discussion, we realized that Chaupal
Is not about:
- Just being a timely exercise denoting a formality of culture
- Re-experiencing the past
- A defined paradigm
- Just knowing the problem
Is about:
- Sharing the wider implication of a newly incorporated technology
- Coming face to face with our latest achievements, technical or otherwise
- Resolving rather than revolving
- Ensuring that a team is able to grow collectively
What we wanted to do is ensure that we can bring our team to a platform where we make ourselves in complete sync to our thoughts and be able to seamlessly interact and bring to light our achievements. Also, an activity involving your peers should not merely become a task and its wider impact and purpose should be always known and clearly understood.
After much deliberation, we were able to decide that Chaupal needs 100% bandwidth of every participant and we are not compromising on their mindshare. Hence,
- This is going to be nowhere near our office
- This is not going to be too hard on being time bound
- The focus of this Chaupal shall be to understand Chaupal and realize its deeper importance
- And obviously, gyaan is always served best with some drinks!
Having done our initial homework, we realized that we have understood the soul of Chaupal and were deep into it. It was like we were feeling, thinking, sleeping and breathing Chaupal as we never wanted the slightest doubts in our minds throwing a probability of a flop thoughtwork.’
Now that a successful event has been thoroughly enjoyed by its audience, the organizer can proudly boast of inculcating the very essence of an activity that was nearing a point where it could have lost its meaning.
We kept the usual gyaan at bay and emphasized on realizing ourselves both as an individual and as an inherent part of a team. We were able to find innovative solutions to our small yet irritating daily issues. And sure did we ignite that passionate and competitive zeal to zoom ahead and achieve more!
I personally realized that many a times at our workplace, we ceremonially do activities pertaining to legacy where such activities not just become a sack but also burden nobody wants to carry. It is for us to realize the deeper impact that these activities were designed for and believe me, you would start indulging in them religiously.
– Rahul Singh
