Praveen Malik, The startup and Sales Guru


                                                  

In this months interview I talk to Praveen Malik, Tha Startup and Sales Guru.

Praveen is a startup enthusiast and sales conversion guru. But his first love remain in Project Management. Praveen is a well-renowned speaker, trainer, author, and project management coach. He helps PMP aspirants through his project management blog (https://www.pmbypm.com/). Nowadays, he devotes a major chunk of his time & energy in growth hacking startups and small businesses (http://resourcerede.com/).


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Hope you enjoy the show and until next time remember project management is funny. 

Thanks,

Nige


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Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:01  
To get through

Nigel Creaser  0:05  
so as I told you, we're recording it. Yeah. Brilliant. Just drop the pen, right? Let me just have a sip of water.

So, today's guest is Praveen Malik, from Venus, a surf certified project management professional with a rich 24 years of experience a computer science engineer by education and having a great working experience managing large multi geography projects and programmes. He has a unique distinction of working in different business environments, software, product development, software services, product oriented Product, Software, services and software as a service. He has a wide range and exposure to different application domains such as healthcare, government services, insurance and banking and has worked across a number of clients in with us, Europe and in India, working with organisations such as Ferris Inc, HCL Technologies, Ethernet technologies and RMSI. Most of these in the capacity of programme manager or PMO member, and he was instrumental in establishing and eventually heading up the India Development Centre for various think nowadays, he devotes his time to providing consulting services to in project management and software engineering regularly undertaking assignments on sales support, project planning, project tracking, business analysis, software design, and process definition optimization. He also delivers high end training, notably the PMI preparation courses that he has on his wife site for project management. And I'll talk about this later. I think he has an interesting cricket from looking at one of his links on LinkedIn. So Praveen, welcome to the Sunday lunch project podcast.

Unknown Speaker  2:05  
Thank you, Nigel. It's nice thing, some kind words for me. Thank you so much.

Nigel Creaser  2:10  
No problem at all. So let's get straight to it. Where were you born?

Unknown Speaker  2:16  
I was born in New Delhi, India, New Delhi, being the capital of India and I have been here since my birth and currently living here. But I've travelled all across the world. USA, Europe, Australia,

Unknown Speaker  2:36  
Southeast Asia, many other places.

Nigel Creaser  2:40  
And that's where you live in there.

Unknown Speaker  2:43  
Yeah, nice. Stay in your daily life. Yes.

Nigel Creaser  2:46  
Okay. Brilliant. And for those of us, like me, you don't understand geography very well, especially of the large countries in the world where about sees New Delhi in relation to the shape of, of India.

Unknown Speaker  3:00  
It's not India. If you look at the whole geographical world map, then towards the western side is the Middle East. nations like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, all these countries, where the northern side of India, it's China, and about that, it's, it's Russia and other hostile USSR countries. And towards the eastern side. You have the Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia. So this is a little bit off. And in the south, is surrounded by sea, which is like one part is Indian Ocean made it part of the Indian Ocean. And so the Delhi is somewhere on the northern side of India. And it's a capital. It's a very small city as compared to the rest of the India. Very small city.

Unknown Speaker  4:12  
Okay, cool. Great.

Nigel Creaser  4:14  
Yeah. So are you there? family friends? What's your, you know, family situation?

Unknown Speaker  4:19  
Yeah. So I've been married for about 15 years now. 2004, we got married. And we've got two kids loving good school going kids got a loving wife. He used to work earlier, she was into market research. But she takes care of us, all of us nowadays.

Unknown Speaker  4:45  
So that's a small family that we have.

Unknown Speaker  4:50  
Other than that, my parents, they are no more living. Unfortunately. That's all of us together right now.

Nigel Creaser  5:01  
So you said that you were born in New Delhi new Batman there? Did you? Did you stay there when you're growing up? Is that where you grew up?

Unknown Speaker  5:08  
Yes, I

Unknown Speaker  5:11  
did my schooling here.

Unknown Speaker  5:13  
My college education was also in India, but not exactly New Delhi a little bit further away from the New Delhi in a different state. And throughout my life, that is my school going life and college when I was here, only studying. But when I got into job, then I started travelling for business and career related purposes. But as my base has always been, you know, Delhi, and I've been staying here since my boat. Right?

Nigel Creaser  5:48  
So what was it like growing up there? And was it was a we did you want to be a project manager when you were growing up?

Unknown Speaker  5:56  
No, not at all. In those days, I didn't know what project management was. That was when I was in college, or even before that. It was the project management or rather, you can say water projects, I got to know only when I started doing the job. If you talk about the my growing up days, schooling, going days, college going days, I always wanted to be something I wanted to do something in technology, I was always fascinated by the gadgets and and the different instruments, latest things that were coming. So I, I didn't have any money to buy in those days, the things and the other thing was that

Unknown Speaker  6:43  
in India in those days,

Unknown Speaker  6:47  
the new gadgets would never like launched immediately. But you could always read a newspaper that something is happening. So I was always fascinated by what's happening. And then I wanted to do something with technology. And luckily, or maybe it was by purpose. I got into engineering, which was computer science engineering. And so this crafted my carrier towards technology. But yes, I am talking about project management. I didn't have a clue till I passed out and started doing job. What project management or what projects work.

Nigel Creaser  7:29  
Yes, it seems to be a common storey. Yeah. So so that engineering side of it was that from very young that you were into that sort of the new gadgets, and that was that kind of in your teenage years, or?

Unknown Speaker  7:45  
Yes, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  7:47  
So when I when I did my completed my schooling, I wrote entrance examination to get into an engineering college. And I bought good score got a good college, which was a dominant run state funded college. And in those days, it was, I would say, somewhat lucky for me, because computer science was just beginning to shape up. I started my engineering in 1991. And, and that was like early 90s, or the period where the the IT industry started taking shape. Slightly late 80s to early, early 90s, when it was starting to taking the shape. And then by mid of 90, that was like booming. And that that was like the biggest period of the IT industry. Whatever I've seen since then, since then, that is mid 90s, to the late 90s, early 2000. So so I think I was lucky in that sense that I chose computer science engineering. It was a hard thing at that time. I could have chosen some other engineering subject, but but I chose this. So that's why I got into technology. And I started

Unknown Speaker  9:16  
getting a feel of

Unknown Speaker  9:19  
the different

Unknown Speaker  9:22  
like computers in the in those days. And like in those days, the computers were really like, like you. You can say it's ancient from what we get today. Yeah, yeah. floppy drives and disc operating system and Unix terminals and all those things. But it was fun. So you could actually work on the internals, the real inside the computer, what was happening, you can feel it.

Unknown Speaker  9:51  
It was fun in those days. Yeah. Cool.

Nigel Creaser  9:56  
So obviously, you went to college, you did your engineer and what what was your first job in that you did all the first few jobs and it sounds like you went into the actual hands on software engineering roles.

Unknown Speaker  10:08  
Yeah, so so

Unknown Speaker  10:11  
I passed out in 95. And immediately I got a job in in a company, which was providing software services to some US based clients. In fact, my if I remember correctly, my first project was with a product for a client, which was into healthcare space. And they had some big hospital chains as their clients.

Unknown Speaker  10:47  
And these

Unknown Speaker  10:53  
they wanted, they had a

Unknown Speaker  10:57  
Unix be based claims management system, and they wanted to report it to in those days, it was like a latest technology that IBM OS to operating system, which has since been debunked, in those days was very, like, popular, not very popular, I would say but very, like people wanted to do something in order to in those days. So they they wanted to re engineer the whole system into innovation. And so at that time, I started working for my company, and this company had this project from this client. And we wrote the networking layers for this project, the software. And it was like extremely new thing for me. So I had not learned things in college. We're talking about technology, it was like, it was very interesting in those days. And this was my first brush with the project because it was it gave me an opportunity to work in a large team. So they were like people from the US company. We were working. There were some people from our US office that were working in this this project. And then we we were sitting in India, and we were working. And in those days again, interval internet was not a full blown thing. And we used to communicate through FTP channels through some other means to coupons. It was not like the regular thing as it is nowadays.

Nigel Creaser  12:50  
Yeah, I remember Rana time i was i was working in one of the banks in the UK, and some of the more senior members of the other department had email. But it was quite I, for some reason I needed the email. And it was quite an unusual for someone to migrate to get email, because it was very much on a limited basis, which when you look back now it's quite crazy that that was that? It feels weird that that would be the situation, isn't it? Yeah, we all have about 10 email addresses these days.

Unknown Speaker  13:27  
A drop of a hat you can create one more?

Nigel Creaser  13:29  
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Where you had to go through a load of justification.

Unknown Speaker  13:34  
Yeah. So.

Nigel Creaser  13:36  
So obviously, you were doing your software engineering, you involved in projects, what what was it that added? How did you end up being a project manager or when you started being referred to or a food yourself as being a project manager? How

Unknown Speaker  13:51  
did that happen? Okay, so, so, what happened that

Unknown Speaker  13:56  
after doing my first project, it was really interesting, I could feel that project, software development is not just about technology and doing programming and doing coding, networking and all those things, it is also about working with other team members, some coordination is required communication is required and you have to be in sync with the overall objective for whatever you are doing. to somebody has to bind the team together, somebody has to think about the larger objective and, and provide the proper motivation to all the team members. So I could realise that maybe I was not ready for, for management role at that point of time. But I could realise that this this, this thing is much more important than just implementing the technology. And but but after doing this project is for the long project, my contribution, we're appreciated by the company, and our by the client also. And they called me to us it was a short trip one month clip, and engage me in a different project for a very small duration of time. And at that time, I got a rush of project management where I was interacting with the client as well as the Indian, my Indian counterparts. It was more of a communication and coordination kind of thing. But

Unknown Speaker  15:38  
it gave me

Unknown Speaker  15:42  
some idea about what project management was. And, of course, in those days, you might know that they will not let no formal project management courses as such. Till today, very few universities provide a former project management courses, the budget, realise that there's something called Project Management. And of course, the internet was not so much possible that you can just go on to the search engine and type project management or let's say, million website will come up and you can read what project management was.

Nigel Creaser  16:14  
No, it's true.

Unknown Speaker  16:16  
So that was my first brush. And then the other thing that really happened is like I like I was saying that I didn't know it was booming, in the in those days. So it was like moving very fast, accelerating very fast. In the in those days and not of people were required, that is the software engineers were acquired. So those who are in my position, they got promoted very early. Luckily, and those who showed some motivation, some interest in going higher up managing a few thing they had the red carpet for them. So I would like I could say what I was one of them I, I proved my credentials. I got a smaller project to manage. As early as 1997, which is like two years after I passed out. It was a small project. But yes, it was a project. And that that gave me the first brush for project management. Yeah.

Nigel Creaser  17:21  
Tell me about that project. What was that? What was that project?

Unknown Speaker  17:24  
Okay, so that project was what the same client.

Unknown Speaker  17:28  
And here, so they were healthcare software provider for the big hospital chains. So they wanted to create us scheduling system for doctors, and the, the machines that are there in the hospitals, like x ray machines, other bigger machines, and labs and all those things. So they wanted to create a scheduling system so that the resources are appropriately used. And secondly, the doctor if they are scheduled for an appointment, they know the patients know that this is a scheduled time, etc.

Unknown Speaker  18:09  
And

Unknown Speaker  18:11  
so, so this was a completely new development, and they involvement to this. And

Unknown Speaker  18:20  
at that point of time, I,

Unknown Speaker  18:26  
like one of my senior asked me, okay, why don't you use Microsoft Project to create a schedule for your project? I said, What is Microsoft Project? I didn't know, at that point of time. So so he just this is it, maybe explain it five minutes that this is it, and you can just put your tasks and what I started and ended and all those things. I said, Okay, let me try.

Unknown Speaker  18:54  
And

Unknown Speaker  18:56  
I installed my ghost project on my PC. Did some scheduling, I don't, I wouldn't say that I was completely successful. But it was a start. So I learned project management, the ropes of project management on my way up while managing about the the project gave me an experience, it gave me knowledge of what really project management is. It's only later I realised that there's a theory behind the project management. Initially, for a few first few years, it was all practical experience, which taught me what to do and what not to do. Sometimes, things would go right, and the client or the senior management would appreciate something things went wrong also. And then I would learn from those failures are the mistakes, and then move on and try not to repeat those the same thing again. So it was a learning exercise initially. But then I think I I learned a lot from those practical experiences.

Nigel Creaser  20:03  
Yeah, sounds like a little bit of trial and error.

Unknown Speaker  20:05  
Yeah.

Nigel Creaser  20:08  
So looking at those obviously went on and did load what what sort of you mentioned earlier that you travelled quite a lot, what sort of industry and countries have you worked in?

Unknown Speaker  20:20  
Okay, so it was primarily us in in the 90s. Because my company was a US based company, which is a branch office in India. So I went to us a few times in those days. And plus with a big problem in those days that as it was taught was y2k problem. But the American companies, American banks, they were like hiring software and user left, right and centre to look at why two key things. So I went to us many times in those days and work with different clients. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I didn't work on y2k about on different other things. But after 2000, I got an opportunity to work in UK also have a bill for a big publishing client. I worked in Malaysia for a bank. Not exactly working for a bank working for my company who was who had a project on the bank. Yeah. and

Unknown Speaker  21:32  
work with an Australian client

Unknown Speaker  21:36  
with of course, one or two Indian class later part of after 2005. I think the government client, Indian woman client. So yeah, we travelled across, I've never been to Germany

Unknown Speaker  21:51  
did a small project over there.

Unknown Speaker  21:55  
But in in those days, the English was not as much spoken in Germany, then then it is now. So it goes a very small tenure. Very small stint. But as I travelled to on on work purposes and other pleasure purposes, in Europe, in America, Australia, of course, Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and did all different kinds of projects. banking, insurance, health care. What meant to name a few, but everything was a software project of the net for different means.

Nigel Creaser  22:39  
Yeah, understand. So. So I suppose

Unknown Speaker  22:45  
that the What did you find that the

Nigel Creaser  22:47  
difference in cultures from obviously, working in India, and then going into these different areas, what was your experience to the culture differences? There

Unknown Speaker  22:58  
are a lot of guys our differences everywhere you go, the people when you're communicating with the people, your clients or otherwise, they react differently, they talk differently. And as a project manager, this is the first thing that you must learn that you are working for a different department different with different cultural people, and you must understand and appreciate how do they work? And sometimes it is weird that some people are doing something and you feel that, Oh, this is not regular. Of course, they would feel the same about me when I'm going to the country, but but then you have to learn how, how do people do those things? And why do they do do those things? So just to give you one example, it was, I don't know, funny example. When I first went to us. In those days, the McDonalds was not in India. The women first went to us. It was like maybe first or second day in my in us and I went to the McDonalds driver heard about it. Of course I've read about it because a big conglomerate, and then I went there and then I ordered something. I think it was different nuggets or something. And the lady at the counter asked, okay, which sauce? So, I said I'll have tomato sauce. And this lady started laughing, smiling. I thought it's weird. Why is he laughing? Where did was my accent? not correct? Didn't you understand or whatever? Say is again, she asked with sauce. I said I'll have tomato sauce. Then I realised that in us this basic catch up? Yeah. Are not sauce to sauces, like something is like a sentence or something like, yeah. So so so. So it's not that I'm not heard the word catch up, or I didn't confuse it. But but in the, in the cultural terms, I didn't know how, what, then what to what not use. But but there was a funny thing, and then told me something that one must learn the local language, local culture when you're going there. So moving forward, I started looking at before, before going there, I started to maybe you read the something about that country before going there. There was another instance like when I went to Germany, first time around, the Germans are very, I would say straight on the face kind of people, but they would say what they want to say so so sometimes it feels odd, to the other person that some some people will may feel that they are that this person is not polite. But that's how they speak. So when, when I first went there, I also felt that Oh, like they're very brash and upfront, and on the face of they are saying something, but but then I realised that, that that's the part of the culture where maybe that's how their upbringing is, and it's not that they want to front you or make you angry, they just, they just say what they see that they were like many other instances where the there were cultural differences. And of course, when I am going somewhere, maybe it's UK or Germany, I I come with a baggage of Indian culture. So, some people may like some things, some people may not like something, so I have accepted that and, and try to do the thing, which are which are best for that particular situation.

Unknown Speaker  27:22  
Not centuries and centuries.

Nigel Creaser  27:25  
So looking at all of your

Unknown Speaker  27:27  
the projects that you've

Nigel Creaser  27:31  
run over your career, what, what's the largest and and when I say largest, I don't necessarily mean what was your biggest revenue project or your biggest number of people is reduced? Whatever, whatever you see as being larger might be the biggest influence that project had on your end customer? And what Tell me about that one, what I'm most importantly with is what did you learn from that piece of work?

Unknown Speaker  28:00  
Yeah, sure. So

Unknown Speaker  28:04  
in in the year 2004, I got married at that point around the same time I switched jobs. So I joined a chill technology. It's one of the big five IT companies in India, and it has a global presence. And so this was like, newly married and wanted to enjoy that first year of marriage, so as to say, and then I got into a project, which was a slightly challenging project, I would say, in fact, very challenging, I would say, I suppose the Divas project manager has left and they were looking for a project manager and I got into actual technology, they tested this project upon me and which was like alternative laid. And they were like every day there are some escalation from the customer. And it was an insurance project,

Unknown Speaker  29:08  
a claims management project

Unknown Speaker  29:12  
and an American client. And the technology was also knew for me at that point of time. But by that time I had I was not really doing programming and other stuff, but but still when you have a new technology that adds dimension to the challenges that you have. So therefore the new technology, multi location project, insurance company, and project already delayed. So they were like many factors, plus my personal life, married life, newly married. So I just wanted to enjoy all those things put together, it was a, I would say a difficult thing. The team was also slightly larger, it was the multi location project. So the client was based in Houston, Texas, and USA. I was when I joined I was in India,

Unknown Speaker  30:13  
then

Unknown Speaker  30:15  
there was

Unknown Speaker  30:18  
another branch office of the plants company

Unknown Speaker  30:22  
in California, so those people also chipping in with their stuff. And so we had our Excel team, also two people who are sitting in a chill office in United States with a number of different teams who are working together in this. And from the chill side, I was a project manager.

Unknown Speaker  30:48  
And

Unknown Speaker  30:51  
since the project was already laid, I first I understood what the challenges why it was delayed. And I found out that this basically a challenge related to the requirements of client had not given the requirements properly or it was like our engineers, the requirement analyst business analysts didn't documented properly. So it was a Buddha things. And so that that was the main challenge. Those had, we used to have client calls every day in the evening, that is India evening. Because they were like every day something or the other some escalation of the other small, big everything was there in every day. Yeah, 2000 fires. But like I understood the whole thing, after after a while and started talking to client in in good terms. The project was finished, I won't say that it was not delayed, it was still delayed. And from the Prophet perspective, also, it was not as profitable as it was perceived to be when it was finished. But at the end, the client was satisfied, in the sense that they gave us more business after this. But they also realised that it was a challenging project. And it was a big project, multi location project. So they also realised that there were challenges all through, they also realised that it that there are so many people are working. And they also didn't realise the complexity of the project. But they were appreciative at the end. they appreciated the effort. We had, I had my own learnings from that, in the sense that this was my first insurance project. I learned quite a lot about the insurance companies work. What is claims management, I also learned

Unknown Speaker  32:55  
how to

Unknown Speaker  32:58  
work in a bigger company. So before I seal technologies, I was working with a smaller software companies. And so internal politics was all not as much but with a sale technology is when you have like, like thousands of people on their role then the internet Indian politics kicks in. And then I also learned about that. At the end it was I think, a good good ending. Yeah. Excellent.

Nigel Creaser  33:27  
So when you sit down when you start talking about your wedding, I thought I knew the Indian weddings were quite big. I didn't realise it was going to be your largest project for a minute then. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  33:41  
So we I changed my job in April 2004. I got married in August 2004. And yeah, so Indian weddings. Indian weddings are very large.

Nigel Creaser  33:54  
Yeah, I was thinking yeah, that would be that would be a big one. If you had a big massive one beginning your project.

Unknown Speaker  34:00  
Yeah. Because like, I was working like Monday to Friday, like it was? Well, I was in office, maybe one hour, one and a half hours in commuting. So like practically like 14 hours every day in office or commuting and then

Nigel Creaser  34:21  
makes it tiring, doesn't it?

Unknown Speaker  34:23  
Yeah, no, we were like dating at that time. My wife and me. And so every day, I would find some time where my wife was also working at that time, you will find some time to meet not not every day. But I would say almost every day, at least four times a week. Saturday, Sunday, like what it seems like you as you said this the grand wedding in India. So we had to do a lot of shopping. So we were doing our own shopping, my wife family were doing their own shopping. So it's close, we'll be taking care of the arrangements on the for the wedding day and everything. So it was crazy in those days.

Nigel Creaser  35:06  
Sounds like fun. So let's let's think about more of a different thing. So obviously, you've delivered a lot of different projects over your career. And some of them go well, and some of them don't. So what would you say? Is the the biggest mess up that you've made our project? And what did you learn from it?

Unknown Speaker  35:33  
Okay, I would say the

Unknown Speaker  35:40  
biggest mistake was when I started doing the product development. This was what I sell technologies.

Unknown Speaker  35:48  
And at that time,

Unknown Speaker  35:52  
the This was around, I would say 2001. Yeah, stop, that.com burst, and then 911 happened and all those things. So economy wasn't downturn, it impacted the industry, also, the company I was working for, didn't get as many projects as they had anticipated. So but the company, all the IT company went back in those days had a lot of cash. And they started investing in products. So I was also made in charge of one such project Product, Software product.

Unknown Speaker  36:38  
And so this was at that time very new to me.

Unknown Speaker  36:43  
So working for a client is I would say still easy in one way of putting the client pressure, but the client gives you the requirement clients into the objective and clients is funding. So you know, how many team members would be there etc. but very you are and you have your own product, you have to think about lot many other things. What would work? What would not work define your own requirement for the product? Will it work in the industry or not? Will the will the potential clients accepted. And then of course, the sponsor from your own organisation, they wouldn't be behind your back to finish up as early as possible. So I, in the initial part, it was a big mess.

Unknown Speaker  37:33  
Because

Unknown Speaker  37:35  
I like whatever small team, we had the week one, properly analyse the requirements. And the senior management Also, since they just thought about an idea, and they said this is the idea and now run with this idea. So they also didn't have the complete expertise and giving us the requirements at that point of time. So initially, we created some requirements, documents started working on it got an approval on the requirements document from the policy management. But when you're doing the product, two things are very dynamic. So every day something new would come up. And requirement can change on a drop of a hat. So it was Yes, it was a big mess up in in those days, even though the scheme was very small. It was internal to our company. So I had not I was not dealing with an external client. But then I realised Okay, so product creation is completely different. Animal and regular software service a different thing altogether. Yeah. So somebody I it was a learning exercise.

Nigel Creaser  38:55  
Excellent. So let's go back to something a bit more positive, surely, what would you say of all the projects individualise your proudest product delivery project delivery, sorry.

Unknown Speaker  39:06  
Um, I would say

Unknown Speaker  39:11  
not related to the product, product delivery acid. But

Unknown Speaker  39:16  
I would say that my biggest

Unknown Speaker  39:22  
achievement, or you can say the things I'm most proud is about handling half of the team members motivating them. telling them that, okay, this is where we want to go that like software projects are, like long our projects, and people spend long hours in the office. And sometimes they have their own family challenges, personal challenges. Sometimes the client is very harsh and pushy, and they want everything, like tomorrow. So So keeping up with the challenges. getting the work done from the team is a difficult task. So I think I'm a people's manager. So my proudest thing is that I could motivate the team member like could retain the team member through the project, I could tell them why we are doing what we are doing. And people have always, always stood up with me, but barring maybe one or two instances, but mostly largely, they stood up with me and and given me the energy to move forward.

Unknown Speaker  40:38  
So

Nigel Creaser  40:40  
that's kind of covers a lot of the background. Really what we were going to talk to you about and for Danny as a singer didn't talk about was the mention of cricket earlier. I noted that from your LinkedIn, you have a cricket blog. views on there. So I'm guessing we can't we can't not talk about cricket. I guess that you spend some time watching cricket? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  41:07  
No, no, not at all. I used to play when I was young when I was a kid. But not, not after that. So yeah, I used to write a cricket blog, in fact, that that's where I started my blogging. Right. Yeah. So I took a mid career shift in 2008. And I started doing trainings and coaching on on project management.

Unknown Speaker  41:37  
And then, at that time, when you're starting something new, you had don't have

Unknown Speaker  41:44  
much of business, but you have to die on your side. So at that point of time I started writing and I thought cricket is a good thing. And since you are in UK, you would have heard about IPL Indian pre nearly which is like the biggest ticket Carnival so as to say in the world.

Nigel Creaser  42:06  
I get the founder, India and cricket are kind of synonymous with each other.

Unknown Speaker  42:11  
Yeah. So in 2008 IPL started, which is like the internal league in India where different cricket teams play against each other, and then they fill the gap. So it's a more than a month long tournament. And so my when I when I left my job, it coincided with the IPL. So I started writing about cricket and IPL and all those things. And it was not about what was happening on the field because they're like, every day you will get so many news storeys about what's happening or what would it what, etc. It was more about my interpretation of those news. storeys. Yeah, my opinion about what happened and why it happened. And what would have happened in the past ground. Enjoyed for a few months

Unknown Speaker  43:06  
that writing about cricket.

Unknown Speaker  43:09  
But then it went to last, partially because of two reasons. Number one, when I started writing, I wasn't enjoying it. But then then it was taking too much of time. So I thought, if I'm writing and I'm, it's taking too much time, why not write about something which will help me business wise? Yeah. And that's where my project management blog started. And the second thing was that when I was logging in one, the cricket, since there's so many people who cover cricket or any other sport, it's very difficult to get through and find your own audience. So nobody was reading, or maybe, whatever the reason, maybe I didn't get so much appreciation all my followers, so I thought my wife wanted me. So there's one like the motivation, motivating also, for these two reason I started my project management blog is all around 2010. And stop writing on the clicker, which it's kind of different now. So I don't try to encrypt it. And then by project management, when I started, it was on blogspot. And then I had some immediate audience also because I was conducting trainings. And I would go to those training sessions. And then they will be like 2030 odd people notations, sometimes more. And I would say I'll give this as a blog I write about if you have any questions, anything you can just drop in an old you can write your form and read a knowledge etc. Some people started following it over a period of time it started growing in popularity be initially it was on blogspot. And when I started doing in popularity by I thought why not take my own domain and, and my own thing have my own server chakra. And being a software engineer, I could always do these things very easily. So 2014, I kept it to my own domain. And from there the popularity just through the first few years it was when I started the project management blog, it was more for the purposes of getting more business. So I thought, if I'm writing something on project management, and people are looking at it, and they will appreciate my knowledge, my expertise on project management. And eventually I might get some business, I might get some at least inquiries. I did. But the purpose not not much beyond it. But moving forward. Around 2014 15 times when I shifted my blog from blogspot to my own domain. Then I realised that blog could be much more powerful than just getting some art training opportunities or some more business coaching opportunities.

Unknown Speaker  46:18  
And I started

Unknown Speaker  46:21  
I created ebooks, specifically for the BMP. And started monetizing the blog. Because over a period of time, what has happened is the blog has grown so much, like from 2015 to lecture today that it is giving my me much more income than my training regular kind of paintings. Yeah.

Nigel Creaser  46:51  
That's definitely worthwhile doing that.

Unknown Speaker  46:55  
Yeah. Definitely worthwhile. A small team also to give what for the blog? Oh, excellent. Excellent.

Nigel Creaser  47:06  
And I know I've used blogspot myself on it. Well, I do use blogspot for my blog and moved across. I've got a diverted URL at the moment because, man, I find it a really good platform. Actually, it's it's sticks. We don't know what's happening here. My Alexa device is making noise.

Unknown Speaker  47:29  
Like Mike was telling you that?

Nigel Creaser  47:32  
I don't know why that was it was like repeating what I was saying. It must have thought I said Simon says that's interesting. Yeah, I use as how to use blogspot, myself. And yeah, find some of the features are amazing. But for setting up a basic blog is which is ideal, I thought. Excellent. So I'm over the last few questions. lad. The first one is when was the last project book that you read.

Unknown Speaker  48:09  
Sometime over the project book I read regularly be sent to the art of war, the English version from my Sam Zoo that Chinese art of war.

Unknown Speaker  48:25  
I read entrepreneurship books.

Unknown Speaker  48:30  
I not really read a project management book sometime. But the last one

Unknown Speaker  48:39  
I don't really remember.

Unknown Speaker  48:42  
So the business,

Unknown Speaker  48:45  
the business book, which was you can say related to project management,

Unknown Speaker  48:53  
which was

Unknown Speaker  48:59  
following LA. It's just

Unknown Speaker  49:09  
the immediate, right. And so this this book is about small businesses. And it's from an American author called Michael Gerber. And that was first published in late 80s. And it's a very good book. And I think, even if you don't own a small business, it must read for any project manager.

Nigel Creaser  49:35  
It's a very good point because many I think the project management ethos needs to be if you think of your project as a small business, and you can approach in a very different way.

Unknown Speaker  49:49  
Yeah. And it just looks talks about the processes about the importance of implementing those defining those processes and implementing those processes. How small businesses can become great businesses by just by implementing the processes so it's a pretty good book it's a small book and written very new said easy language. You just get any anyone who understands the value of the process should read it. It's an excellent book.

Nigel Creaser  50:27  
Cool so what was that again? Because I think it deadline broke up a little bit. So what was the name of the book again?

Unknown Speaker  50:34  
Yeah, it's it is he met he met by Michael Gerber

Nigel Creaser  50:43  
and actually spending email MIT

Unknown Speaker  50:47  
e myth with

Unknown Speaker  50:52  
the US for entrepreneur entrepreneur Smith There we go.

Nigel Creaser  51:07  
I took a look at that myself. So and so as we were on a podcast what was the last project podcast you listen to

Unknown Speaker  51:18  
last podcast I think II here to pray for us to once every few few weeks from Cordelia special the BMP

Unknown Speaker  51:37  
What do you say

Unknown Speaker  51:39  
BMP coach and a trainer he has his own company

Unknown Speaker  51:44  
so I listened to his podcast once in a while

Unknown Speaker  51:49  
that's about it I don't I'm not I don't listen to many other podcast project management Bhaskar I nowadays I have listened more on the blogging Tosca Parker the to marketing podcast talking about the blogging podcasts that are like very good blogging boss, the podcast from Neil Patel.

Unknown Speaker  52:14  
He's an American blogger.

Unknown Speaker  52:17  
But probably management Yes. Mainly college.

Nigel Creaser  52:21  
Cool. And blokes what what project management blog Do you read was your last one that you read?

Unknown Speaker  52:30  
Okay, so

Unknown Speaker  52:32  
I always leading with one thing I always do. I may not have read the books for a while. But I regularly read project management blogs. So they're like number of blogs, to product management. There is one analyst is not his own blog. I look at my other up EMP related blogs

Unknown Speaker  52:59  
like this one from a hard

Unknown Speaker  53:02  
money. Then there is a project management blog, the PMD oriented blog from a guy named Edward. He's based in Hong Kong. So keep on reading the blog post. Some are interesting, some are not so interesting. But then at least I get an idea of what where the world is going. What what other people are doing. What are they writing about? Sometime I'm searching, I find it interesting post. And I just read it.

Unknown Speaker  53:39  
Okay, cool.

Nigel Creaser  53:42  
So I've got two final questions. And these are kind of looking back. Well, what would you say to season pm?

Unknown Speaker  53:57  
Oh, yeah.

Nigel Creaser  53:58  
What what sort of tip would you say to the season Pan? In the moment?

Unknown Speaker  54:03  
Okay, um,

Unknown Speaker  54:05  
so, I would say that

Unknown Speaker  54:09  
the on top of communication, communication and communication, like it takes a lot of time when you're doing project management, but still stay on top of communication. Yeah, if you're around for communication, then Toronto, or on the side of over communicating rather than the sender communicating. So whether it's written communication, verbal communication meetings, one to one meeting group meetings, whatever it may be. Communication doesn't only mean that talking, talking, talking, it also means listening to what other people are saying understanding what they want and do not want. And understanding the expectation and meeting those expectations. And sometimes saying no, we cannot do this very important. Communication with especially with the senior management with the member with the the client,

Unknown Speaker  55:11  
the main stakeholders of the project, it's very important.

Nigel Creaser  55:15  
Yeah, just Yeah, I agree. Stop that scenario of, of being clear in your communication, sometimes you say no, and not be very clear within. So let's see what the thing you need to do on that, isn't it? So the last question, and then I'm going to let you get on with your day. Yeah. Let's cast our mind back to 1997. When you first started, when someone had said, right, you might want to use Microsoft Project. What? What advice would you give to Praveen back then in the heyday of the 1990s?

Unknown Speaker  56:00  
The question I would say,

Unknown Speaker  56:06  
in those younger days, you have a lot of energy, and you want to do everything, like in a jiffy, and everything. Like it should be done yesterday, etc. My one advice to my younger selves could be that take one step at a time understand the scenario, before taking any action do not do things and especially talking about Microsoft Project, I would say that

Unknown Speaker  56:32  
I should have maybe

Unknown Speaker  56:35  
bought a book on Microsoft Project. At least read a few first few chapters introductory chapter about Microsoft Project. And then we started implementing something Of course, it had already taken a little bit more time. But it would have been much more fruitful. Use a tool as it would have been. Yeah. So. So we're gonna do things in a haze. And do not always start doing thing just because it needs to be done. Take a step back, understand the scenario. And then and

Nigel Creaser  57:09  
then act. Yes. Yeah, that's really good advice. Well, thank you for being that's been a really, really interesting. And I hope you've enjoyed yourself. So if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best, best way to get ahold of you?

Unknown Speaker  57:33  
Oh, they can contact me through my blog, which is www.pm by pm.com. I have a contact page. The messages directly come to me I respond. They can communicate my LinkedIn handle, just start transforming Alec and get my handle. Be there. But I think the two best ways to get in touch with me.

Nigel Creaser  58:01  
seem they seem to work for me.

Unknown Speaker  58:03  
Yeah. In fact, if you search my name on Google, like you will get my LinkedIn you'll get my blog, get my Facebook also get a couple of other things like I would say Twitter handle

Nigel Creaser  58:18  
101 different connection techniques these days. And that's brilliant. And I'll include all that, that links and, and all that into the show notes. So finally, again, thank you very much for agreeing to come on the end onto the podcast. And that's it and have a great rest of the day.

Unknown Speaker  58:39  
Yeah, the pleasure of mine, Nigel. Have a great day.

Unknown Speaker  58:41  
Bye. Thank you.

Nigel Creaser  58:44  
I'm gonna stop recording now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai


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