Why IT Professionals in India Work Overtime? - A Management Perspective (Part - 1)

This post was being written by one of my colleagues and we thought it will be a good read for all. It is modified a bit here and purely presented by looking into the managerial people in IT companies. So, here we go.

In Indian IT industry, though the official time is 8 hours, it is normal to spend 10-12 hrs a day in a services company and 12-14hrs a day in a product company. I should know as I have been into both.

You may not work the complete time spent. For me and many other, creative work is like packet communication. It happens in bursts.

Nevertheless, we do spend a lot of time. And why? I finally come out with the following top conclusions.

1. PMs do not perform their work:

I have seen them first hand, second hand, from a distance . . .

A number of them just love to be called the Project Managers. In India, "Manager" word is a magic word. It brings money, marriage proposals, societal recognition etc.

And most of the time they are driven by a huge EGO with a motto that "management is the art of getting your work done by others".

They also do not know many things in project manager. You may be surprised if I say that I have never heard of a project charter in any of the IT companies that I have worked with and I have worked with around 12 managers. Also, NOT a single project manager ever created, maintained or followed a formal project plan!

2. PMs are not technically sound:

A number of the Project Managers I know "do not know the pain of coding". And how will they?

If in a typical services company and where technology is not important, they would have fixed some 10/20 bugs in a career spanning over 6/7 years and rest time spent in politics. Product companies are somewhat better as normally they rise through the rank.

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3. Recruit and think later policy:

Just recruit. I have known companies (media calls them Tier-I companies) recruiting from 2 building engineering colleges next to some drainage systems and they are asked to code. And though the number of engineering colleges is too high in certain parts of India, I'll not comment favorably on quality.

If a person has never done anything and believe me the % of marks from some engineering colleges will shock you. I have come across candidates scoring 95% in English or in their mother tongue, and can not even write a paragraph in English. It is another matter that even W. Shakespeare can not score 95% in English!

It is like "recruiting JAVA programmers, who do not know JAVA!"

A manager once commented to me over a lunch that we can recruit anyone we want. You just can not ignore the training and exercise that we impart into them. But then my friend, how will you make Duck walk like a Swan or how will make Pig smell like a Cow? Training is fine, but what about inherent characteristics?

4. Team members are not taught the value of management:

Management is only for managers. Period.

Once a manager commented to me that "If you do technical work, only do that ... nothing more". That is ridiculous.

It is a totally wrong approach. Every team member, being a professional himself or herself, should know the value they bring to work place. And they need to know certain aspects of management, like time, scope, cost and how they impact the overall project.

5. PMs are not certified and not aware of using really good tools:

Actually, a number of them think, it is a waste of time.

If you talk of a globally recognized programs like PMP, Prince 2, ITIL etc, they will shrink. Actually, they do not want to do it. And the fact is that, most of them can not clear it. And some even say that they are utter "non-sense".

In one survey of a top IT companies (one of the top 3 service providers), it was found that hardly 4~5% managers know how to handle a fixed price budget!


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