WHAT CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY
If you were to talk to Mr. Carmine Warn and ask him about me, I truly believe, the following is what he would say (I am writing here his opinions, thoughts, words, statements as I have heard directly or indirectly from him):-
In 1998 at Merrill Lynch we had embarked on one of the largest and most ambitious project we had ever undertaken – PCR – Private Client ReInvent.
The project involved reengineering, rewriting over 600 existing applications. The first phase of this project was an estimation phase for about six months. During this phase we were required to do Component Based Analysis and Design so as to estimate the size and scope of the project.
On this project we had several teams: A team of about 25 methodologists from Andersen Consulting whose team lead was Mr. Colin Scott – the senior most and best Methodologist at Andersen. Over Ten teams of Business analysts to do requirements analysis and design and a team of 12 independent senior methodologist headed by myself. One methodologist from the Andersen team was required and one methodologist from my team was to be attend and guide design sessions in the Business analysts teams.
For my team of independent senior methodologists I hired some of the best and senior most methodologists that I could find.
I interviewed Capt. Surender Malhan sometime in June 1988. He performed amazingly well on the interview. At the time of interviewing we had told him that he would work from Somerset office location, but after we confirmed him, we changed our mind and decided that he work from Princeton location. Captain declined the offer since commute to Princeton was too long.
We continued interviewing for another two months, but could not find someone better than Captain, so we called him in and agreed to let him work from Somerset location.
Captain was unquestionably the brightest methodologist on our team.
At that time we were following the TRP-ROAD methodology from Andersen Consulting – they were in charge. Mr. Colin Scott was considered – the final authority. As time passed it was increasingly evident to everyone, the design Andersen team did was not workable. In the last month of the design-estimation phase, everyone and myself were very concerned with the results. Andersen team were in charge of the design methodology. It was clear that our design was not good and our estimations were off mark.
The biggest concern was – what methodology to follow in the next phase of the project – the actual design and development phase. I called in Captain and the Andersen representative in my team (Luis Montero) and asked both to submit a proposal – to propose a methodology for the next phase of the project.
Captain, worked on it for a week and based on his experience and his knowledge of our needs, he came up with a high level overview of a methodology which he called the MEGA Methodology – a Methodology for Mega projects customized to the needs of PCR Project.
Myself and everyone in my team of 12 independent methodologists chose MEGA over the Andersen Methodology that Luis Proposed. I gave Captain the go ahead to continue working. The internal politics was intense.
Captain's six month contract was coming to an end and he preferred not to extend it. About two months later, Merrill Lych let go the entire team of Andersen Methodologists.
I think Captain Malhan is exceptionally brilliant.
--- Mr. Carmine Warn. Vice President. Merrill Lynch.