I am Rajesh Naik–consultant, trainer and author by profession, and also a founding partner of QAI India Limited. I currently live in Bangalore, various airports, and client offices.After my B Tech (Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras, 1979), as I wanted to avoid job responsibilities, I joined IIM Ahmedabad for post graduation in management. I graduated in 1981 and opted for IT by joining TCS, then a cute 800 person company. Bitten by a six-year itch, I switched to a fertilizer company, only to recall (with the smell of molasses up my nose) why I preferred IT to chemical engineering. Next stop, NIIT, and then some other assignments and I finally broke free of hierarchy and began to work independently as a process and quality consultant around the time the ISO 9001 wave hit Indian companies.
In 1994, I joined QAI while it was being formed, and have stayed all these years (too long, some say). I have helped QAI clients with project management, software estimation, software testing and reviews, ISO 9001, and SW-CMM (now transformed to CMMI). I have discontinued my role as a CMMI Lead Appraiser (a decision I had taken in Sept 2008). My current interest areas include human capital management and performance alignment using PCMM and Balanced Scorecard.
Over the last fifteen years, I have co-authored seven books. I am really excited about my new book, Aligning Ferret: How an Organization Meets Extraordinary Challenges. It is a business novel that uses a crisis in a fictitious, Bangalore-based company to convey alignment and performance management concepts.
My wife Swapna Kishore, the co-author I have worked with for my published books and for my latest project, is currently focusing on writing speculative fiction. My son Vipul Naik is doing his graduate studies in math at the University of Chicago, and also (occasionally) blogs at http://thinkingbeyondcompetition.wordpress.com and http://whatisresearch.wordpress.com.