Team Phir Hera Pheri triumphed at L&T Outthink 2019 as National Runners up
L&T Outthink 2019, is a competition where the best minds from India's B-Schools plunge into the profound waters of System and Business Development. L&T Outthink is a true reflection its organiser - thorough, professional and industry leaders.
Everything is possible with friends
Working in a team was an experience and also easy because we were at the end of the day friends who trusted each other. Phir Hera Pheri is a band of three men - one looking for redemption, one looking for glory and the third looking for email updates. With a combination of deep knowledge on smart cities, resources, creativity, analytical thinking and winning confidence it is a team to reckon with.
Our team was composed of three members; Aditya Nambiar - the infrastructure expert who was also a guru of PowerPoint presentations, Rajeesh Jegadeesan - the veteran and technical expert who could provide intricate solutions and Aditya Kovvali - the person keeping the updates. By pulling our weight and making sure we were doing it for the team not for ourselves, we were able to pull through. While Rajeesh and Nambiar had long debates on approaches and problems, at the end of the day the whole point was to see where to go ahead. The goal was more important than any of us. To the point where one night before the competition we rehearsed our presentation a total of about 8-9 times keeping the time constraint in mind - this ensured that on stage we looked as coordinated as we were on the back end.
Learning from our mistakes
We had reached the national finals last time but this time decided to learn from our mistakes. 8 teams made it to the finals of L&T Outthink 2019. We saw FMS Delhi (who eventually won) as tough competitors along with IIM Shillong. IIM Sirmaur also had their research figured out.
Our strategy was simple - we had the subject matter expert and PPT guru Aditya Nambiar, the veteran and guide Rajeesh and the one with too much time on his hand Aditya Kovvali. We worked on the case by having discussions regularly, splitting the work and meeting deadlines. Along the way we took the help of my Uncle, who was an expert on traffic systems - it went a long way in taking us ahead of the other teams. The case was very detailed and the questions involved both thorough research as well as out of the box thinking to get good solutions. The judges were some of the smartest in the country when it came to smart cities.
Our everlasting memories
Moments that will stay in our mind is how Rajeesh would improve the team morale with his positivity. We remember that while preparing in the second round (the round before the final) he told us "All this is good, but we need to focus on how we will present this in the finals". That confidence in our making it to the finale even before having a solution to send for the second round improved our team morale and to this day I and Nambiar admire his confidence. It was one of our X factors.