Mindtree Going The Agile Way For UID Project: Analysis

Software services company, MindTree on Thursday bagged a multi-crore IT deal from the Nandan Nilekani-headed, Unique Identification project.

As part of the deal, MindTree will develop and maintain applications for the Unique Identification (UID) project, now known as Aadhaar, MindTree said in a statement. The project timeline is of about 12 months, and the team involved in the implementation is working round the clock.

‘Project Management,’ is a skill that every CIO wants to hone and eventually master. Proficiency over it might also give the CIO, the ticket to move up the ladder. One of the deepest secrets of project management success is the methodology to implement it successfully. The ‘Aadhaar’ project is an apt case and can shed light on successful project implementation.Given the sheer magnanimity of the project that covers you, me and essentially 1.2 bn people of this country, very few IT projects can equal this.

To get more insight on this, Biztech2.0 spoke to Anjan Lahiri - President and CEO IT Services, MindTree, who shares the roadmap for this project. The company has adopted the ‘Agile’ methodology of software development to implement this project.

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Before we talk about the project implementation, it’s important to discuss team management, provisioning of resources and the project management office. “More than fifty experts (including business heads, visionaries and technologists) are working on this project. The Agile methodology mandates that the team members are physically present at one single location,” informs Lahiri.

Mindtree’s CIO, Sudhir Reddy, in this project has the role of ensuring the provision of necessary resources to the team members. “Sudhir has made sure in ensuring that the required tools, technologies, environment and support is provided to the team,” Lahiri says.

The Agile methodology speaks about the different project management practices that are required. There is a lot of self-management to be practiced. Agile propounds a team approach as against creating hierarchies and reporting. So, there are standup teams that meet in the morning to discuss what they will be doing, and once in the evening on what has been done. This keeps the communication flow open and not compartmentalised, as is the case with the hierarchy approach.

The Agile Methodology for ‘Aadhaar’

Any typical project goes through the process of Design, Develop, Test and Implement. The Aadhaar project is in the Development stage right now. It’s been a few weeks since the work on it has been initiated and is being run on aggressive timelines. “We are running the project on the Agile methodology of software development. In this methodology the entire team doesn’t go through a complex design and development phase. They have to go through two- three weeks of sprints, in which they do iterations of design and development in literally two weeks time,” says Lahiri.

Application Development to Capture Citizen Data

The ‘Aadhaar’ implementation consists of a very large number of interdependent projects. “The first and the most critical piece is the building of this application, which will act as the front-end to authenticate the citizens,” explains Lahiri. The citizens, for getting the UID will have to submit their name, number, biometric data and other details to the computer. This data will be collected by the application, which is being developed by Mindtree. Conceptually it’s a simple application but it has to be built for a population of 1.3 bn, and has to be applied at thousands of locations across the country. This application will be designed in a way that it will be unique to every individual, and will recognise the person with its number, on the basis of the data provided.

Once the numbers are have been allotted and the citizens start availing services, there will arise the need of rapid authentication. The ‘Aadhar Authority’ has guaranteed a stipulated response time, within which the users can authenticate themselves. For example, when a citizen wants to open a bank account, he/she will provide his/her UID number and will in turn be authenticated within a certain time frame. The UID will be authenticated by an application, which will again be developed by Mindtree.

The Importance of Biometric Data

To have this authentication in place, the information must be based on the biometric data of the citizen. This will then make India the first country in the world, to have the entire biometric data of its residents. But this will not be an easy task, as various challenges such as different disabilities and the like will have to be taken into consideration.