A week in the life of Mrs. Rao

We spent five working days with Mrs. Rao, who runs a 480-student CBSE school in Pune. Here's what we learned.

She has been a principal for nineteen years. She has used four different ERPs, two attendance apps, one fees-only product, three WhatsApp groups per class (for parents, for teachers, for staff), Tally for accounting, Excel for everything else, and a small army of registers her staff still keep "just in case the software goes down".

She wakes up at 5:45. By 7:30 she is in school. The first thing she does is open her phone and look at three things: the attendance percentage from the previous day, the fees collected the previous day, and any urgent messages from parents. She doesn't open a laptop until after 10.

"I have one hour where I can think. I don't want to spend it logging in to four different things."

The biggest insight from the week wasn't a feature gap. It was a rhythm insight. Software designed by people who use it at desks fails for principals who use it on phones, in cars, between classes, in the canteen with one hand because the other is holding tea.

Patashale's mobile-first principles came from Mrs. Rao. The "Today" view on the principal mobile app - the three numbers she checks at 7:30 - is hers. The bulk-fee-reminder action that doesn't require navigating four screens - that's because we watched her give up on the previous tool's version.

We'll write more in this series as we visit more schools. If you'd like us to come watch yours, write to [email protected].