Why appreciation matters?

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

It was a Monday afternoon. I was busy coordinating with the networking and hardware support team, for some of the operational issues that we were facing with our systems. I and my team were developing a web based application for one of our healthcare clients and it was one of my busiest days in the company. Suddenly, Mahesh pinged me on our global chat system, from one of our development centers. He said "Hi, Sabyasachi, what’s up? Hope you are enjoying your new assignment. I just thought of informing you that Harry has publicly acknowledged the contributions of your entire team and a certificate of appreciation have been sent out to everyone. We have sent your certificate to your development center, since you have been assigned to your new project in a different city. Enjoy the day!!! “

As a project manager, Mahesh was managing quite a few projects in the testing services practice. Harry was the Vice President of our testing services practice and was responsible for managing the operations of the practice in all the development centers across the country. The testing services practice had a business need for developing a scenario repository portal which would help the clients in knowing more about the vertical, its projects, and all the testing scenarios. It would also be quite helpful for the senior management in starting a new business engagement.

I and my team had successfully implemented the project well within the schedule and budget. Mahesh had asked me to help him on this project, besides some of the other projects that I was already managing, as he was keen to implement a vital project such as this, within the planned schedule of 4 months. Although it was an internal project for our organization, I thought of volunteering for this project as this would give me another opportunity to know more about our testing services practice. The most challenging part of this project was that most of the team members were working from different development centers located in different cities across the country; and managing teams virtually was not an easy task. However, I was fortunate enough to have a team who were skilled on .NET technologies and were quite dedicated towards the project.

Once while having a chat with Mahesh, I asked him "Mahesh, what do you think about the team's performance on this project, till now?” Mahesh replied, "The portal is nearing completion and most of the stakeholders are quite happy about what they are seeing on this portal. But, Sabyasachi, we may not be able to acknowledge the entire team's efforts. However, we would definitely like to thank you for your help, especially since this project is an internal project and you have helped us despite managing other projects." Now, this was not something that I really expected from Mahesh. Even though, I didn't like what Mahesh said, I thought of discussing this topic with him after a few days and tactfully avoided any conflicts with him at that moment.

However, this was an issue which left me thinking for a long time after I reached home. I knew how dedicatedly the team members had worked on this project. Each part of the project including the system design, database design, coding, testing , documentation, VPN connectivity issue etc., were carefully addressed by the team . The least that we could do for them was to appreciate them for their efforts and say "Thank You!”. Although, it was an internal project, the project would add a lot of value to the business in the testing services practice. Later, that evening, I thought of doing something about the issue. I created a document containing a list of all the team members, their roles and their contributions and presented it to Mahesh after a few days. This helped Mahesh in understanding the level of efforts that each one of them had put in for this project.

Later, when Harry visited the development center, Mahesh arranged for a demo of the entire application and briefed him about functionality and the value that it would bring to the testing practice and the business. He also updated Harry on the efforts that each team member had put in for this project. Later, Harry had publicly acknowledged the efforts of each one of the team members including those who were working from different cities and asked Mahesh to send out a certificate of appreciation to every team member.