Our Thanksgiving Tradition 

November 2025 was truly an exciting month for me, for many reasons. While journaling my wins for the month, I found myself thinking about a very special tradition we’ve maintained in DCKAP for several years now: our Thanksgiving look-back. 

It’s a common practice towards the end of the year to review how the year went, and prepare for the upcoming one accordingly. For the India team, this happens on Thanksgiving. 

As a distributed community, we have only a few occasions in the year where we get to meet up and discuss work in-person. Our Thanksgiving meetings are one such occasion, where people travel from across the country to the Chennai office to do just that.

Core Focus 

DCKAP is home to a lot of experiments and innovation in progress. In previous years, we had updates being shared across product lines. In recent times, however, we’ve opted for a product-specific approach. We found that it gives us more time to talk about challenges and brainstorm ideas for how to solve them. 

We also ensured to go quarter-wise with our review and findings. Oftentimes, when reviewing the whole year, we have to highlight more standout events for time. This approach is efficient but can often leave a lot of potential opportunities out of the scope of the meeting. This time, we reviewed each team by the quarter, on the great suggestion of @/Lavanya M, Senior Manager – Finance, DCKAP. 

Beyond the slides

We have always been fans of substance over format. So while we do plan out the agenda well in advance, each team is free to present their review in any way that best suits them. This year we saw presentations and charts, but also editable documents and open tabs — each allowing for discussions unrestricted by set “formal” methods. 

We never miss a chance for a good team picture. 🙂

An open floor 

Each presentation allowed for conversation. Not just from senior management, but across all those attending the meeting. We analyzed questions, offered potential solutions for challenges, got multiple points of view, and challenged one another. I’m happy to report that we made excellent use of the time set aside for this, and that everyone in the room engaged in problem-solving during the meeting: even the more reticent folks. 

A fun lunch

Given that we had multiple team members travelling, we also had a fun lunch session open to all in the city. It was great catching up with various members of the team and sharing a meal together: a cornerstone of celebrating Thanksgiving. 

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the meeting and team lunch. It was a productive couple of days and a key highlight of the quarter for me. I’m also excited for the upcoming months as we see many of the recommended courses of action play out at the hands of a very talented team. There are only three more Wednesdays left this year, and we intend to make the most of it. 

Thank you for reading. 

Karthik Chidambaram.