Think Nagarro Today: How Engineering Excellence drives innovation

In our latest TNT (Think Nagarro Today) blog, we explore how engineering excellence catalyzes creative problem-solving. TNT is a blog series that highlights the expertise of Nagarro's professionals. Today, we feature insights from Ganesh Sahai, Veenu Munjal, and Chandesh Parmar. Read this interesting conversation led by Leslie James and Kerstin Grüneis from the Global Marketing team where our experts talk about how we, at Nagarro, drive engineering excellence through a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and a commitment to delivering top-tier, sustainable solutions that meet client expectations.

Our experts:

Chandesh Parmar, an Account and Delivery Lead at Nagarro, describes Nagarro’s work culture in one word: CARING. His hidden talent? He excels at building and nurturing strong, positive relationships. Associated with Nagarro since the past 10 years, Chandesh has implemented Engineering Excellence in many of his projects with proven success.

Ganesh Sahai, CTO and Excellence Enabler at Nagarro, treasures the camaraderie in his team and their shared vision of continuous improvement in a caring way. If he had to eat only one food for the rest of his life, he would choose okra, a plant native to East Africa and popular in India, often referred to as lady’s fingers.

Veenu Munjal, Nagarro’s Custodian of Customer Success, aligns closely with the value of CARING. When he speaks about CARING, he breaks it down into its core components. If given the chance to have dinner with any historical figure, Veenu would choose Jawaharlal Nehru, to gain a deeper understanding of historical events.

What is the Engineering Excellence Journey in a single sentence?

Ganesh: The Engineering Excellence Journey framework is designed to instill a continuous improvement mindset within project teams.

Can you provide a brief example?
Ganesh: Let’s say a team is working at a certain level of velocity. The framework encourages them to consider how to move from one velocity level to the next. They analyze their data and assess what can be improved within the existing team structure. For instance, if rework is needed, they measure and look for ways to reduce the tasks to save time. If requirement gathering is unclear, they work on refining it so that each story begins with greater clarity and efficiency. It’s all about striving for the next level by nurturing a mindset of continuous improvement.

What inspired the creation of the Engineering Excellence Journey framework? Why is it important?
Chandesh: The Engineering Excellence framework doesn’t impose rigid structures on teams. Instead, it guides them to set goals and metrics based on client needs. It empowers teams by giving them control over their direction, which is aligned with Nagarro's #CARING philosophy. The framework supports teams on their journey, helping them achieve these goals and ultimately benefiting both clients and the project’s quality and success.

Veenu: The framework adopts a bottom-up approach, providing guidelines but leaving the execution to individuals within the project. This allows them to define their own KPIs, set benchmarks, take small steps toward improvement, and track their progress. Responsibility for KPIs isn’t placed on one individual; it’s distributed among the team, fostering a collective drive to address challenges and make continuous improvements.

Ganesh: To add to the inspiration part, Apple is considered one of the most valued companies today. Their early handheld device, the Newton, was a failure, but they kept improving. Eventually, the iPhone became one of their most successful products. The journey to excellence is built on persistence and learning from failures.

Veenu: The framework focuses on delivery quality but extends beyond that. It touches on all aspects of customer and people engagement, including learning, growth, business topics, value addition, governance, and more. Teams adopt these principles step by step.

How many Nagarro projects are currently on the Engineering Excellence Journey?

Ganesh: We have roughly 250 projects in various stages of the journey, involving around 3,500 resources. We have a specific criteria for onboarding projects. For example, projects with fewer than three FTEs are not onboarded, as tracking KPIs can be difficult in smaller teams. Over a period of time, we’ve seen a steady ramp-up in participation.

Do team members carry the framework with them when they switch projects?

Ganesh: Absolutely. For instance, when a PC or DM moves from one project to another, they often bring the Engineering Excellence framework with them if they’ve seen good results. We’ve even had customers request that all their projects within a given account be onboarded onto the framework.

Can you share examples of challenges where the framework helped solve problems?

Veenu: There are two notable use cases. The first involves projects with teams that work closely with customers or multiple vendors, creating dependencies. In these situations, the framework allows teams to focus on smaller, internal KPIs where data is within their control. The second use case involves operational projects that can become stagnant. The framework helps these teams identify areas for improvement and take actionable steps to drive progress, which ultimately boosts morale and project outcomes.

Chandesh: We were one of the first projects to be onboarded onto the Engineering Excellence framework. Alongside the framework, we conduct regular project reviews where teams are empowered to discuss challenges and refine their metrics. One project, I recall, had difficulty meeting client demands due to unrealistic goals and frequent changes in requirements. We shifted the project methodology from Agile Scrum to Kanban, onboarded the Engineering Excellence Journey, and began measuring key metrics like requirement stability and defect density. As a result, both the product quality and team morale improved, leading to better client satisfaction.

Ganesh: An interesting observation is that teams involved in the framework tend to engage more in learning and development activities, which enhances their skills and overall satisfaction. More than 80% of projects onboarded in the Engineering Excellence Journey have a CSAT score of five or higher (out of six), and over 95% have an NPS score of eight or higher (out of ten).

Has this framework been deployed beyond Nagarro for clients?

Ganesh: Yes, in two ways. First, when customers learn about the framework, many express interest in onboarding all their projects. We’ve also scaled up our internal tools, including Falcon and an AI bot called Falcon AI, which provides valuable insights to project CEOs and DMs. We’re currently introducing this to select customers through a three-step process, including an introductory workshop, a half-day boot camp, and continuous engagement in areas of excellence.


Leslie & Kerstin: Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your insights. Your contributions are invaluable, and I believe this is a testament to how Nagarro is pushing the boundaries of engineering and project management. We look forward to seeing how the Engineering Excellence Journey framework continues to evolve and drive success, not just within Nagarro but across the industry.