Many years ago in my previous organization a finance managers comes to meet us in IT. “One of our finance analyst built a small utility in MS Excel. He has now left the company.”
And I thought “Oh no, no development on Excel”.
He continued, ”the tool got very popular and a lot of our team is using it”.
Me, “So what’s the problem”. He says “It crashes and gets unstable on concurrent usage.”
“Its become the main tool for us in the month end”.
“There is a big project which will incorporate all its features but only goes live next year”
“Can you do something please. I have heard of MS Access”
I think, “What fun is there in migrating to MS Access. Cant even write on my resume”
But I do pick it up. For the next one week I spend time with finance and migrate everything to MS Access. The concurrency problem is gone. No more crashes.
But I think in my head “What a stupid project”. “Development Projects should be on cutting edge technology. Some dotnet, some Sql Server. Some best Project award at its end. ”
One month later, I get a call from finance manager. “Can you join us in cafeteria for 5 mins at 3:30 PM today.”
I say “No no I am busy”. He insists.
I enter cafeteria. There is seating arrangement. It’s the finance department townhall.
I hear my name being called on stage along with the finance manager and one analyst. Our “Project” is being awarded a special prize for making life easy for finance. In a second, small becomes very big. We get a plaque and certificates. With our names imprinted.
I learnt a lesson that day. Sometimes we underestimate the power of small steps in making life easy for our customers.
Leo Buscaglia says “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”