Jam hits the Big Blue in India

BANGALORE: Over three days in the past week, close to 19,000 employees of IBM India participated in what the company calls a 'jam'.
A jam is like a massively parallel conference. You could also think of it like intense Facebook-ing over some really serious subjects. Employees post views and suggestions on the company's intranet on issues ranging from their careers to possible innovations and how to take IBM forward.These posts are discussed and debated. The company will eventually sift through the entire discussion, identify matters of concern, valuable suggestions and innovative ideas, and use those to redesign practices and policies, and to create new business ventures for IBM.
Many forward-looking companies are beginning to involve employees in framing their vision and practices -- to give them a sense that they are being listened to, and because of the growing recognition that great business ideas can often come from the employees. But this task gets complicated as company size grows. While town halls are common in IT companies, they can't involve very many people in one go. And people tend to be reluctant to stand up and make a point; they would much rather jot it down. That's where the IBM jam works. In India, where IBM has over a lakh of employees, technology in the form of a powerful intranet – that even provides for searches, alerts and auto-tracking of important issues – is being leveraged to democratize' the company. "It's town halls, employee surveys and suggestion schemes all rolled into one," says Chandrasekhar Sripada, head of HR in IBM India. And it removes the physical limitation of time that's there in, say, town hall meetings. You can post at a time of your convenience.
To ensure discussions do not become chaotic, there are hosts/facilitators and subject matter experts who steer and summarize discussions. "But it's completely non-hierarchical," says Susan Jain, VP of marketing & communications at IBM India. Anyone, she says, can open a theme.
So, which issues drew the most participation? If you thought it would be personal career problems and complaints about company indifference, well, that was No. 2. The highest response was in the area of building a smarter nation', and one issue in this category posed by IBM India country head Shanker Annaswamy drew over 500 responses.
"Shows IBMers are rising above themselves," says Chandrasekhar, with a laugh. Then, on a more serious note, he points out that employees feel many of India's problems could be solved with technology. "They see it being done overseas, in areas like transport and utilities, and believe it can be done here too," he says.
IBM started the jam concept globally in 2001. It chose its centennial year to conduct the first India-specific jam. It's turned out to have the maximum participation in a mini (country-specific) jam in the history of IBM. At the company's India leadership meeting next month, the jam discussions will be analysed. And then would come Chandrasekhar and Jain's real challenge. "Our credibility to do the next jam depends on our ability to implement the outcome of this jam and communicate it to people," says Chandrasekhar.
To encourage participation in the Centennial Jam, a great deal of pre-event publicity was done, and 'jam jockeys' were employed to go around IBM's facilities to get people to participate and hand out prizes to those that were adjudged to have made the most valuable suggestions on a day.