1. Book of Quarter Initiative 7th Sep 2008 Uday Shankar AB, MindTree Book of Quarter Team
2. Agenda WHAT Is BoQ? WHY Is BoQ Necessary? HOW Does It Work?
3. What BOQ is? BoQ (Book of Quarter) is an initiative in which group of minds select a particular book for a quarter and discuss and learn that book among each other. The content is discussed and learnt chapter wise with one of the group taking onus for one of the sessions and later taking turns, through regular weekly discussions
4. WHY BoQ? “To foster learning, and there by encourage people to revamp and gain knowledge of new technologies and concepts” Other Benefits: Provides a platform for cross pollination of ideas and learning's Provides a platform for building inter-person communication skills Inline with CLASS value of organization
5. HOW it works ? Anyone can propose a book (Technical/Managerial/Soft Skills) anytime during the year. Minds can cast their vote for the books. The vote will be open for a week (typically the 3rd week) during the last month of every quarter. The books will either have to be purchased by the interested mind or obtained from library. The entries that have the maximum number of votes will be selected for the group formation. The groups will be formed in the 4th week of the last month of the quarter. A group will have minimum of 5 members and maximum of 7 members. If required, we may split the group and do it in 2 quarters. The BoQ committee will select a group leader and launch the BoQ groups for the quarter at the end of the last month of the quarter. The group leader will be responsible for organizing the meetings, steering discussions in the right direction and ensuring the progress and appropriate tracking of activities etc.
6. HOW it works ? (Contd…) Once all the group leaders have been selected, a session will be held to discuss the guidelines for steering the discussions to all the group leaders. The group will meet in the 1st week of the quarter for the first meeting, where the expectations will be set. The group will split the book into sections, based on chapters/topics and plan the quarter. Each section will be assigned a group member, who will initiate the discussion. The discussions should commence from the 2nd week of the quarter. The group must meet every fortnight. If the groups are comfortable with more frequent meetings, they can do that. Each meeting could be for an hour. For procuring the learning credits (4 credit points), Each member of the group should write a one page document about the book or the section that he owns before the end of the quarter. After successful completion of the book, learning credits will be awarded as per the learning plan that has been published by C2.
7. Guidelines to Group Leaders The group leader will be responsible for organizing the meetings. The meetings should ideally be held during the initial part of the iteration. The leader can decide on a suitable date based on the group’s preferences. The group leader along with the BoQ committee will obtain the books and distribute them. Group leaders need to ensure that everybody has spent effort in reading the sections selected for the week. The group leader should ensure that the person responsible for the section to be discussed has read the section and prepared before conducting the meeting. He can postpone the meeting to some other day in the same fortnight, if the person has not prepared. But all effort should be made to ensure that continuity is maintained and the group doesn’t miss any meetings. Group leaders need to ensure that all members of the group are attending the meeting regularly and that there is active participation from everybody in the group during discussions. Group leader with consultation from the BoQ committee will be responsible for giving learning credits. Each member of the group should write one page document about the book or the section that he owns at the end of the quarter.
8. Guidelines to Group Leaders (Contd…) Each member of the group should write one page document about the book or the section that he owns at the end of the quarter. Some guidelines on conducting the meeting are below: Recap of the previous meetings learning - This will include, but not limited to, Important discussions that happened and addressing any unanswered questions from the previous meeting. The person responsible for the section can point to the important sections and the group can read these sections and discuss. The section leader can summarize the discussion at the end of the meeting. Ensure that the group leader is aware of the responsibilities and to moderate the discussion in the right path If required, participants will be asked to help out where ever help is required(put as benefit to the org) A thought process to brainstorm on a Tech Timeout should be accommodated in some of the discussions. Exercises should be utilized by the group and gaining hands on experience should be the priority.
