SPIN Chennai celebrates the spirit of excellence and innovation at 15th Edition of Watts Humphrey Awards 2024

Watts Humphrey Awards 2024, an initiative by SPIN Chennai (www.spinchennai.org) marked a triumphant culmination of recognising and honouring case studies which have demonstrated business impact through Trikonas (Trikonas stands for Methods of Excellence, Innovation and Digital Transformation).
Software Process Improvement Network (a.k.a) SPIN Chennai (not for profit entity) is one of the 100+ SPINs in the world is a 29 year old knowledge network out of Chennai, affiliated to Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute. SPIN Chennai instituted Watts Humphrey awards in memory of the world famous quality guru Dr.Watts Humphrey (hailed as the father of software quality across the world) for contributions that generate value for customers through implementation of practices including Agile, DevOps, Automation, Design Thinking, Lean, Six sigma, CMMI 2.0, High Maturity Processes, AI-ML, Innovation etc. This industry award has been happening every year since 2010 (post the demise of Dr.Watts Humphrey in 2010). Watts Humphrey collaborated with SPIN Chennai between 2000 and 2010 and have created the Watts Humphrey Institute which had its office in Guindy Industrial estate, Chennai, prior to 2010.

Themed “Business Impact through Trikonas”, the competition finals with LIVE jury round, Awards event as well as the book release was held at “Raman Hall” at the IIT Madras Research Park on Dec 13th. More than 150 delegates from various sectors across India, including Large and medium size companies, Start-ups, Entrepreneurs, Industry experts, Policymakers, business consultants, and educational institutions attended the LIVE Jury round as well as the award ceremony.
Distinguished Chief Guests for this year’s award ceremony included Mr.G.Srinivasan, MD and CEO of Galaxy health Insurance, Chairman of IOD Chennai and Former CMD of New India Assurance and United India Insurance as well as Dr.C.Velan, CEO of Ceebros, Chennai. They both shared their invaluable insights through their keynotes at this event.
Expressing his delight on being the Chief Guest at the 15th edition of Watts Humphrey Awards 2024 and presenting the awards to various winners, Mr.G.Srinivasan applauded Dr Rajaram Venkataraman and the Watts Humphrey Organizing Committee and SPIN Steering Committee for the diligence and discovery that happens when such events are conducted to uncover case studies which normally go buried within organizations. These are great learning and inspiration for lot many smaller and medium size companies and entrepreneurs. He also appreciated how this kind of discovery can improve the profile of India and Indian Software in the world view.
Dr.Velan, CEO of Ceebros who was the Guest of Honour at the event highlighted the remarkable efforts in community building and the conscious efforts by SPIN Chennai team to nurture the Trikonas in terms of “Methods of Excellence, Innovation and Digital Transformation” over the years which has resulted in SPIN Chennai uncovering lot of wonderful case studies from across the country.

Playing a pivotal role in architecting and orchestrating the 15th edition of the Watts Humphrey Awards, Dr Rajaram Venkataraman highlighted how this year’s theme, “Business Impact through Trikonas,” encapsulates the essence of what it takes to thrive in an era marked by rapid change and unprecedented challenges. The three vertices of this triad—Methods of Excellence, Innovation, and Digital Transformation—serve as powerful pillars for achieving tangible, sustainable business outcomes. He also said when these three elements—Methods of Excellence, Innovation, and Digital Transformation—work in harmony, they create a powerful synergy. This synergy drives business impact in ways that are measurable, scalable, and sustainable. He also pointed out examples like in healthcare, where excellence in processes ensures patient safety, innovation leads to breakthroughs in treatments, and digital transformation democratizes access to care. The results are transformative on multiple levels—economic, societal, and environmental
During his welcome address, Dr.Rajaram highlighted not only how SPIN Chennai has been leading the industry process and technology trends by enabling insights from global thought leaders & guru’s like Dr.Watts Humphrey, it has been an OPEN forum for exchange of knowledge around software processes, technologies, management practices, HR practices for its members and associates.
During the award ceremony, Dr.L.N.Rajaram, one of the core founding members of SPIN Chennai recounted his experiences with Dr.Watts Humphrey during the period (2000 to 2010), when Watts Humphrey visited Chennai multiple times and jointly held meeting with various teams from the industry and corporates for improving awareness and improvement on Software Processes. Speaking on the Jury and the Judging process, Mr.Rajamanickam, the Jury anchor highlighted the stringent process adopted to shortlist the top 12 finalists from the 38 contestants and finally select the top 2 in each category. The judging panel for this year’s Watts Humphrey awards included Mr.Rajamanickam, Dr.Sandhya Shekhar, Mr.Ananth, Mr. Ramesh and Dr.Sankaran. The International journal IJITCE was the International Journal partner for the Watts Humphrey Awards Event.

The event also had a book release on Digital Transformation called “Digital Metamorphosis: ACE Reshaping Business and Life” authored by Ms.Sujatha Sivaraman, (a SPIN Chennai member) which is a tale of extraordinary resilience and renewal of a company, teetering on the brink of extinction, only to rise from the ashes through a remarkable transformation program called Digital Renaissance. In this journey, transformation was not just an option—it was an imperative, breaking free from outdated practices to emerge as a true victor.
In the Large company category, the case studies of TCS and LTI Mindtree were declared as winner and runner-up respectively while in the Medium and Small company category, the case studies of Impiger and Thryve Digital were declared as Winner and Runner-up.