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00:00:00,000 [Music] I and welcome to the Sunday Launch Project Manager podcast 00:00:21,760 for Sunday the 27th June 2021. This is your host Nigel Creaser. 00:00:44,640
And today I meet Shilina Somani, the Positive Project Manager. Enjoy! [Music] [Music]
It’s me again. We don’t have a formal sponsor for the podcast. We’d love one. So if you’re interested, pay me an email at us at NigelCreaser.com or grab hold of me on any of the social media
channels. Whilst we await an illustrious sponsor, by the way the rates are very cheap.
00:01:07,920 I’d just like to promote a couple of my books. I have two books on
project management that I have written previously, what I have written.
The first one was called when I was a project manager. If you’ve not
heard of it and you have Kendall limited, you can get it for free on digital.
00:01:25,840 If you are not on Kendall limited, it’ll cost you 99 pay unless I can get Aradon to set it for free, which they seem to struggle to do at the
moment. It talks about, it’s the story of four project managers talking about their illustrious career. You may recognise
00:01:46,880 some of the theme. And the second book, “What is project management the sketches?” A further continuation of hilarity and
poking fun at our profession, which hopefully will rise a smile and some recognition in projects and people you’ve met through the years. So grab a couple of
00:02:09,040 jumpcrossed to Amazon or jumpcross to NigelCriser.com, open up a
shop and you’ve got all the links there. And well that’s it, on with the news. [Music]
00:02:43,600 Hi, it’s me. Just thought I’d let you know this quite a bit of distortion on
this new section. But as most of the comments I have there are quite off
the cuff. I didn’t want to rerecord it when they have it come across as
being particularly fake. If you can’t abide the crackly noise of it,
00:03:02,160 think you can just about hear what I’m saying. But if you, it’s a bit
annoying, if you jump along to six minutes, fifteen in the episode, then
you’ll jump straight onto the interview section. So apologies for that and hopefully service will improve going forward.
00:03:21,680 So the last couple of weeks have been fairly chilled and fairly relaxed at
the minute. I am still not back in with the plan of improving my crease
significantly from that little health point of view. When I was in the strip, I was about three major things really,
00:03:51,600 which they moved in an anxiety and then the other was, I realized this
way, it’s getting a deep, steep focus just for me, a symptom or a cause
or a jump. So the need to be anxiety is significantly, but I have noticed that my ability to focus is still not at a level like me.
00:04:16,400 I’m comfortable with some good stuff, but I just see it’s getting better for
days. Which is great. And if there’s anyone that is about to see what sort of things, please check to
00:04:33,040 and touch it, friends, colleagues and I see you getting touch with some
professional things that you have. So that’s it, on that side of my health
and rest of my health, I’ve mentioned it before. I’ve trained it for the one minute, and I’ve heard your mum say, “Watch, and yesterday I run my fitness,
00:04:51,440 I’ve been at it all my life, and I’ve done 40 miles, and covered with a
15-1/2 miles in a minute, quickly, then I’ve done 40 miles in a minute,
then I’ve done something absolutely good like to do with that. Just, I’ll
keep going and keep improving, I’ve become a little bit, because I keep doing that.
00:05:14,880 If you feel so inclined, I’m raising money for Alzheimer’s research, and you can, it’s a charity that’s closely been affected by dementia
Alzheimer’s and it’s a nasty disease that does not give you a very low number of M.
00:05:37,040 And even if you let me see, there’s very little, you can take a treatment
that can help with it, so you don’t mind getting to know researches, it’s critical. And if you can spare a few pounds for that,
00:05:52,400 “A dominoe for the Victor King” “The Victor King” (music) 00:06:06,500
And that, that, that, that, that, that exercise And we’ll be better at
calling, you know, the Victor King. Yeah it, I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to be, I’m going to be.
00:06:16,200 I’m, you know,, doing things and chill, yeah. You know, the, the, the, 00:06:23,560 the… Not people.
So, that’s, (music) Please, pick a step, create it.
00:06:30,200 You know, set a, a, a, two headed guests. And not the guests, what 00:06:40,680 you’re headed, but, you guess. To interview.
00:06:48,120
And, it seems to go okay. And I’ll get a couple weeks. I’ve still got a pin that a few more people on, some other interviews.
But I am thinking of not, uh, publishing everything, but you know, it’s the summer, when they see you in the UK for those six weeks. And so, I will take eight break and then be, to Mac, September, September.
00:07:03,320 I’m just going to get a couple more interviews. And then be, to, to, to,
to, to, really start from September, as ever, if anyone is out there, what’s still, um, coming to show it to you.
00:07:14,720 So, no, some of those interested to come, or show. And, um, that’s
about eight really. And then, we have a list of the, uh, show it to some time.
00:07:25,520 And, uh, let some time go. And, see if we start with that, uh, have a 00:07:46,720 good proper chat. And then, um, so, um, I hope you do.
I’ll speak to you later. Today, I’d like to welcome onto the show, Shilina Sumani, CHPP, RPP, F-A-P-M, F-A-T-E-A. I’m just embarrassing her now.
00:07:56,520 Um, she is a member of the inaugural group of the charter, uh, project professionals, uh, the APM’s, uh, recently, uh, recently released
certification a couple of years ago now. Um, I’ve known Shilina now for, we’ve just working out before the conversation about 18 years
00:08:12,480 where we met when she presented at one of the events I was involved in organising for the PMI UK chapter in Birmingham at the Botanical
Gardens of fantastic setting it was. And we were chatting about NLP.
00:08:23,920 Um, she as, uh, driving and leading supporting people and projects to successful outcomes in effectively managing change. That’s what she does.
00:08:33,160 Passionately independent project management consultant for over 35 years with program, project, and product management teaching,
facilitation and experience across broad range of sectors. Um, there are, uh, LinkedIn profile has a vast list of things that she’s been involved in with, um, examination boards and higher apprentice schemes.
00:08:56,160 I urge you to take a look, she’s a proven coach and mentor, um, and,
uh, yeah, just, uh, an expert I would call you Shilina. Thank you, I think. Welcome to the show.
00:09:09,160 Thank you, Nigel. It’s a pleasure to have you on. Um, I, as we say, we
met, uh, sort of 18 years ago and, um, you know, kept in touch a little bit, haven’t we?
00:09:21,160 And it’s, um, but it seems 18 years seems to have shot off really quickly. It does. I didn’t think it was that long ago. 00:09:30,160
There was me saying, oh, I think it’s about 10 years ago. Uh, no, 18. 00:09:35,160 Yeah.
00:09:39,160
00:09:43,160 Yeah. It’s crazy, isn’t it? So let’s, let’s get on with the guerrilla.
00:09:47,160 Oh, the questions we’ve got. So let’s start off. Where were you born?
00:09:52,160 I was born in East Africa. It was Tanganyca in those days. Tanzania. 00:09:55,160 Now, and I think in England, they call it Tanzania. Right. Right. Wow. Okay. And, and where are you now?
00:10:02,160 Uh, now I live in Northwest London in Harrow. And, uh, yeah, live at 00:10:06,160 home with my lovely daughter. It’s life’s good.
00:10:12,160 Good. Cool. And, uh, you said you got your daughter there.
That, that your family tell us that your family parents. Gosh, that’s, it’s interesting. It’s a complex question.
So, so my parents, um, don’t live anywhere near me. And, uh, I come
from a healthily dysfunctional family. So my actual family is obviously my daughter and really, really good friends.
00:10:23,160 Some who I’ve known even longer than you, 40 years. Um, some I’ve 00:10:30,160 known 20 or 20 years. Some I’ve known just a couple of years. 00:10:35,160
So, so my close friends are a really family. Yeah, brilliant. And so, so where did you grow up?
Did you grow up in Tanzania or? Well, interestingly, I grew up in Oxfordshire. So although I live in London, I, I have this sort of
convoluted accent because of growing up in a village in Oxfordshire.
00:10:47,160 And, uh, and so most of my education was, was in and around that
area in, in the early years at least. And, and then I ran away screaming to the big cities and, and around the world. Oh, brilliant.
00:10:58,160 So, um, talking about that time then. So when you were in Oxford, was
it, um, is it in like a, a smaller village? Was it in one of smaller towns or, was it Oxford itself?
00:11:17,160 Well, both, funnily enough. So, so it started off when we first came to
the UK living in Oxford itself. And as, as many immigrants to the UK did, they, they came to city, conurbations and, and so on.
00:11:29,160 And my parents eventually eventually moved out to a smaller town. Back in Wantage, um, which is about 15 miles away from Oxford. So
most of my schooling, comprehensive school in, in Wantage, walking to and from 30 plus children in a class and of course no technology.
00:11:44,160 Yeah. Back in the day. Back in the day, yeah. So, thinking of that then
when you were, um, there in, in, in Wantage, rural Wantage thinking,
right, what, what, why, what are shillings going to be when she grows up?
00:11:59,160 Was it a project manager? No, actually, I was a Star Trek fan. I still am
actually, and seeing a horror on screen, which of course was the only person of color that I saw in the early years.
00:12:12,160 Um, she was all into communication, spoke multiple languages and,
and facilitated all kinds of stuff. So she was super cool. And I wanted to do something like that.
00:12:22,160 I also wanted to be a vet. And I also wanted to be a train driver because they went places. Oh, what?
00:12:29,160
00:12:33,160 That’s a good mix. Yeah. So, yeah.
So, so basically communication astronaut. Change over that astronaut,
not so much because I quite like the sun and I understand it’s quite cold in space. So, so not quite keen on that one, but that the idea of
traveling communications and culture has always been something that’s excited me.
00:12:50,160 Not least of which is, is growing up as the only people of color in the
town for a long time. Yeah. Um, the absence of, of recognizable culture and interaction was quite significant for me growing up.
00:13:02,160 Yeah, it would be because it’s kind of you’re, you’re always going to feel
different. Absolutely. And, and other people will make sure that you feel different.
00:13:11,160 Yeah. And that sets, especially in that era as well. Exactly.
00:13:16,160 It’s slightly different as we talked earlier, not not changed, but different to that then. It is now anyways. Yeah.
00:13:23,160
And so. You were educated in one touch. Did you, did you, which, which of those routes did you pursue?
00:13:32,160 I’m guessing you didn’t do, I’m guessing you didn’t become a vet. Although it would have been useful. You could have been treating trebles and things like that.
00:13:40,160 Oh, triple how cute. Yeah. Absolutely.
00:13:43,160
I love the fact that you know that. So I was a rebel. I was brought up in
a fairly strict household in terms of my family’s background is Muslim
and, and obviously, Camille is immigrants, different values, different culture sets.
00:13:55,160 I was a rebel. I was a rebel. Well, that surprises me. 00:14:00,160
Yeah. I can see the glench in your eye that doesn’t surprise you at all.
So I went to Oxford College of further education with the intention of
doing languages at A level and then my parents were very keen for me to go on to university.
00:14:14,160 Of course, I was very keen to rebel. So not attending lectures becoming
very good at pool. Being the external vice president for the students
union, things like that of a more alternative nature were far more fun.
00:14:26,160 So I did that and failed spectacularly. Oh, wow. So how did you go on 00:14:32,160 before that then?
00:14:39,160
Well, I’ve got a long story. I’ll cut it as short as I can. I had part time jobs by the time I was 15.
So I was saving money. So once I’d failed my A levels, I went off
traveling and traveled for about 10 months or so. So mainly in the US and Canada came back.
00:14:50,160 Did a very short secretary or course. It was supposed to be a year, but I
did seven months of it because I’d come late and I’ve no patience to get through the thing. I started working as a secretary for a group of accountants and then into my passionate love for books for black or
scientific publications and inspection copy services and working with authors and books, which I’ve always
00:15:16,160 had to do with meeting people like David Attenborough or submit 00:15:24,160 interact. Yeah. And technology began then.
So I got involved with implementing systems and training uses and
being super users and things like that. So I started back then, but as always with a mix of different things. No, right.
00:15:35,160 So it kind of kind of went from that kind of kind of sounds like a kind of
similar thing to me because I went into a agency. Was a super user for
an accounting system and then the IT people asked me, do you want to come and work in the IT and do that because we need to want to do this and it kind of that kind of moves there and then so how so.
00:15:55,160 So that’s kind of things. So how did you get into being a PM then was
that part of the implement systems or was it actually it was later on and
it was accidental as many of us are back in the day. These days people
are much more deliberate in in their paths, but but back then it was somebody turning to me in fact I’d done a presentation and and was
speaking to foreign exchange systems and I’m working with expats and managing their data and so on.
00:16:21,160 And I’ve done a presentation on that because I’ve been doing some sales consultancy work. And afterwards a gentleman came up to me
and said, we want you to run this project. And I sort of fell over laughing
and said, but I’m not a project manager and they said, yeah, you are and everything you’ve just talked about and explained tells us that you’re the person we need.
00:16:42,160 So yeah, that’s how it began gosh my late twenties so astonishing to
have that kind of confidence put into fact it was early twenties, but
yeah. And that part began somebody else believing in me and me being
too scared to say no, I don’t think so. So was that in the so when you say foreign exchange not not for X money wise no.
00:17:08,160 No, it was more to do with with the exchange of so expats in terms of
people working abroad working internationally, managing all of their
data. So again, remembering that back in the day computers were still
relatively new so we were doing things like basic basic databases and
things like that and programming was back in MS. And things like that back in the day.
00:17:29,160 So what had happened was I’d been responsible for consulting and helping build a system that was all about the people and about
understanding which permits they need to travel. Vaccinations all of that
kind of thing and then all of the logistics around moving people from one part of the world to another children’s schooling family
requirements all of that kind of thing and then retaining all of that and managing their performance and their ongoing career. And managing
their salary changes going into different currencies allow is all of that so
that’s how complicated it was but but for me I love detail so for me it’s great fun.
00:18:07,160 Brilliant. So what other industries did you work in then? Yeah, yeah, I
think you think you’ve been in a few different industries in your work. Yeah, I’ve really been fortunate because I’ve done a combination of both well both in fact three areas, project management delivery
obviously training and supporting facilitating growth and also coaching for performance and so on.
00:18:33,160 So the main industries I have worked in have been things like oil and gas real estate local government things like that but because of my
interactions with everything else, I’ve also worked in health and safety.
I’ve worked in pharmaceutical finance, banking, retail, you name it. I’ve
pretty much touched any in every industry. It’s been so much fun and
obviously it’s a constant state of learning, which is the other thing I love about it.
00:19:00,160 Yeah, I remember when I when I went for four years with Oracle before
that I’d been in a couple of different the manufacturing in a bit of
banking and now I’m in kind of more finance side of it but in that time I dumped into local government I had national government I had had several different industries and understand like there was one I
remember which was fascinating in in its own way was it was a one of
the whole sailing organizations that do like Xboxies PS2. All that sort of
stuff they’ll buy then they sell on through to different companies and stuff but they do lots of returns and all that.
00:19:45,160 Just the whole priorities around what they did was something I had no concept of what they had to do with their systems in it and again
another one with the mobile phone company in contracts. So I was all
starting up on how the systems for pricing that and how they have if they’ve got 50 phones they have this much margin to make and all
these things and you just learn all these different things you think I
never even knew that it’s like it’s like watching that show how is it made
fascinating to me that because it’s it’s where they just have someone in
a factory and they just go this is how it’s done that’s how it’s done. I
think it’s interesting and you know I remember being in pharmaceuticals for the first time and understanding the process from discovery to
manufacture and how many failings there are along the way or working
with air traffic control and understanding their roto systems and things
like that and you know when you fly a lot as I have done over the years
it’s quite concerning when you see the truth behind some of that stuff.
00:20:41,160 Yeah, flying a little bit for a while. Yeah, it’s funny I heard I heard
someone talk about airports at one time and the fact that actually a lot
of the airports revenue and that it’s not about airplanes. No. It’s that retail business that’s in there as well.
00:21:02,160 It’s massive and then you’ve got all these independent businesses that
are in there and you’ve got to give them facilities and all that sort of stuff and making IT changes and if you like if you make an IT changes to someone getting an early coffee as they walk through the door well
that’s kind of okay mess about with it. If you’re doing something to the
bag of handling or air traffic control you want to make sure that spot on don’t you. Yeah, absolutely right.
00:21:25,160 You can shut a continent from sort of like one of the big airports you
could shut a whole continent just by making small change so yeah. The little levers on these different organizations and what makes them
important is just it is fascinating to find that. It is and it’s such a privilege
because again with coaching teaching it particularly you get to go into the real nuts and bolts of what people are doing.
00:21:50,160 So it’s an example when I was working oil and gas learning about pigs
that that clean pipes when when you’re bringing oil and gas on shore
and things like that and an offshore functionality and things like that.
You just don’t realize the complexity of these different industries until
you’re on the inside of those so it’s a real privilege to work with people across industry. Yeah, because you look from the outside and everything seems pretty straightforward.
00:22:16,160 And when you think about that like you say that by not having those pipes clean the pace and speed they can get the oil through and how
much money that slows down. And the quality of what goes through the
pipe you know and that’s true for all of us you know the quality of what we do depends on how we maintain it so. Yeah, true, very true.
00:22:41,160 So you’ve got this glow this sort of massive mix of different industries
you’ve worked in and you’ve you you were asked to do this project. So
is this one of my questions is what was your first project? Remember is is that your first project then that one.
00:22:56,160 My first project was nothing to do with project management. It was moving out of home and and having a mortgage for a first time and
having to pull all of those threads together. And I think that’s something
that I come back to a lot both in teaching it and in talking to other
people is we all do projects all the time we just don’t realize it right.
00:23:13,160 So moving out of probably the most scary you know sitting in front of the bank manager and confirming that you would commit paying this
money and being responsible for maintenance and bills and all of that
kind of thing. So so without being disingenuous that was probably my
first significant project. But in terms of being paid for work then yeah my
my first most significant project where I was in charge was an oil and gas project.
00:23:41,160 And obviously linked to IT and logistics and so on and it was fascinating. I learnt so much I worked between London Aberdeen and
Paris and it was you know multiple stakeholders, multiple complexities
health and safety people can die if you get stuff wrong. So yeah quite quite fascinating but also hugely demanding.
00:24:02,160 So as your first project there had you been on the little project training. What did you do when you’re the project manager? Yeah.
00:24:13,160 And you kind of go and I’m guessing it’s kind of similar to me a little bit is that you got where it where what does that mean? What does that really mean? Give me the triggers. Unless you’ve been trained quite
often you don’t realise what it means even though it can be quite simple in concept.
00:24:33,160 I’ve never seen anything simpler around projects but yeah for me I’ve always been a detailed person. So I’ve always loved reading, loved
learning that kind of thing. So so when I was approached for this the
first thing I did was say I need to understand what you think I can do.
00:24:48,160 And I need to understand what time you’re thinking of and all of this
kind of thing. So I sat down with the individual who’d approached me
and said okay tell me about this. So they said they wanted to replace their HR pay payroll and logistics system across the UK within two faces obviously into Europe.
00:25:06,160 And they wanted to do it in six months. So I fell off the chair laughing 00:25:16,160 and said can’t do that. I can’t do that. I know I can’t do that.
But what I will do is I’ll undertake a three month contract with you where
I’ll do all the fact finding and understand where the boundaries are of all of this and come back to you with what I would recommend, what’s
available, what we think might be able to be done and we’ll see from
there. And they very kindly did that. So I started off with a three month
engagement just purely to give them proof of concept as I now know it.
00:25:40,160 And we know it or feasibility study and things like that. And on the basis
of that I ended up working with them for two years. Yeah, it’s that it’s
that it’s that concept discovery concept, doesn’t it? Yeah, that thing of it’s quite often that you.
00:25:55,160 You’ve got doing those is so valuable because if you just throw yourself
straight into trying to do it, making a few old bunch of assumptions
without any basis of what you got your assumptions. Whereas if you do
those analysis to start off with something as big as soon as you say that
and you’ve got it. Yeah, you’ve got a HR payroll logistics. So so do we want to do this all the mongo?
00:26:15,160 Do we want to stop logistics and not be able to pay people on the same day? Yeah, probably don’t do you? So then immediately start saying let’s phase things and by phasing that draws at the time.
00:26:26,160 Exactly. And this is before the days of things like I lost the name now,
but even things like sage payroll or SAP and things like that. So way
before that, this is when we were having to write systems to do these things. So so the complexity was completely different and an understanding the needs requirements was completely different.
00:26:47,160 But for me and and this is where I’m I’m very fortunate not only in my background, but but my nature is around ethics and integrity. So I couldn’t I not couldn’t I would not undertake the role without
understanding whether I could actually add value. So I’m not somebody to say well, I’ll sign the contract and I’ll work it out later.
00:27:07,160 I actually need to know can I offer value is this something that I actually
can deliver and want to deliver. Are these the type of people I actually
want to work for? That’s that’s quite a big question as a self employed person too. So the integrity was really important to me.
00:27:24,160 Yeah, it’s interesting that these are the people I want to work with because I have a friend who couple of friends who run a marketing
organisation. And they’re very strong on the fact that they have a way that they work. Yeah.
00:27:37,160 And some people come to say, Oh, we don’t want that. We want this.
And it’s kind of well, that’s this loads of other people can do that for you.
We don’t do it that way because that’s not what we think is the best.
00:27:48,160 And another example, similar to that, I heard, I don’t know if you there’s
a podcast called manager tools. Yeah. So I heard one of the things one time where they got a way that they do their coat their feedback coaching and one to one’s in the structured ways of doing it.
00:28:06,160 And they had people writing to them going, well, I know that you say do
00:28:13,160 it that way. But if how can I do it different? Because I don’t like that. 00:28:21,160
And it’s kind of like, we don’t tell people how to do it. This is how we tell people how to do things. This is our advice. This is our coaching.
If you’re not going to do it, don’t go and do something else. If you’re
really uncomfortable with it. And I think that I suppose the word now
authenticity isn’t it is the word that I do for is if you’re having to be not you. Absolutely.
00:28:35,160 You’re not being your best you. Yeah. And just follow on with with that example was I was approached to do some speech and coaching work about 18 months ago now.
00:28:45,160 I liked the concept working with people both with English first language and English as a second or subsequent language. But the methods
they used and the text they used were so old and in some cases quite
pejorative. Shall I say it’s possible and I said to them, I said it with with with all honesty and transparency.
00:29:06,160 I cannot work with you. These are the text you’re using because they’re 00:29:13,160 pejorative to women. They’re pejorative to people of color. 00:29:19,160
And I will represent in that way. Oh, but these are tried and tested and I said that’s fine. It’s not for me.
I can’t represent when what you’re presenting has a problem from my
perspective. Yeah. And it’s I’ve found there are times when you you feel that disconnect, don’t you?
00:29:31,160 Yeah. And if you feel like there’s a discomfort there. Yeah. 00:29:37,160
And it’s as you say, you’re not bringing your best game, the best you to
the position if you’re have a doubt of what you’re doing. Absolutely. I
think you’ve got to believe in what you’re delivering and what you’re delivering.
00:29:47,160 So sometimes when you’re not, it’s kind of it and you can tell other people can tell. Yes. And remember that challenge of when you you
don’t believe in what you’re doing, but you have to put food on the table.
00:29:59,160 Yeah. So I’m not saying, you know, I recognize that I’m privileged that I was able to choose and so on despite having a checkered educational past. I still had the capability to make choices and and the determination and hardheadedness about it to fight my corner as it were.
00:30:17,160 And that’s born of racism of being female. And of course of finding your
own space of creating my own space. But there are times that I had to
just suck it up and do the work because at the end of the day you have to put food on the table too.
00:30:32,160 Yeah, yeah, and I think we all go through that and it’s just it’s getting
yourself into that balance isn’t it where you can actually make those
choices in a stronger position. So talking about that project, really. Yeah.
00:30:49,160 Let’s talk about scale. Okay. What is the largest project you’ve managed?
00:30:58,160 Now, when I say before you’ve answered me, when I say largest, I don’t
necessarily mean I’m demillion pounds or millions of it’s what felt like
the most I should change this word to the most significant project that
you’ve ever identified in your opinion, whether that was impact on the users impact on society, impact on your bank balance, whatever is
whatever was the most significant to you. Yeah, so I think it’s significant.
00:31:25,160 I’m probably going to talk to change a word again and talk about
complexity because for me that that was the most significant part for
me. And that was the first time of working in real estate and commercial
real estate. So the UK and I won’t go into a lecture about commercial real estate because I’m not an expert in real estate, but the
complexities of commercial real estate and the different dimensions of it
from, from real estate in the different sectors retail housing industry and
so on and so on to the complexities of the services like capital markets
versus buying selling landlords renting all of that kind of thing. It’s a very
established industry, particularly here in the UK, I’m talking hundreds of years old. So understanding the complexities, the vagaries and the
depth of detail because a lot of it has to be auditable for legal reasons and so on.
00:32:20,160 That was phenomenally complex and I loved it. So we did that across
17 countries working with a fabulous team, a company called in real, who are based both here in the UK, but primarily their development
team is in India. So working with all these different cultures, all of this data and then the variations by country and how they used to
information and the sorts of information they wanted to publicize and
the sort of information they wanted to hide, which in some countries you can do in this country, you can’t. Yeah, and you wouldn’t. So even
understanding the integrity of the different uses of data was fascinating and then you get into GDPR and all of that.
00:33:05,160 So I could go on for hours, but but technologically data industry culture,
multiple time zones, all of that fabulous, so exciting. And the legislative
bit on top of it as well, I suppose. All of that and an auditability and traceability and so on.
00:33:24,160 And also people who are very set in their ways, lots of people have been in the industry for many, many years and they like pencil and paper and they don’t want to change and you know if they had their
way, they’d still be on type practice. So even getting people to move on
in their thinking and QR codes and things like that, fascinating. So with
that project, yeah, or a program to be fair. Yeah, what did you learn? What’s the biggest thing you learned?
00:33:54,160 How long do you have Nigel? I, so much, I learnt a lot about myself in
terms of my ability to take on retain and use knowledge and information and work across cultures. I learnt so much about real estate and
granular detail about data, which I, I won’t go into. And I also learned that the more you take on, the more people let you take on.
00:34:20,160 Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, and it was exhausting and into the
detriment of my health and well being, where I just simply kept taking
things on. So, so I learnt a lot about saying stop and no and carving out time to think do you think’s like sleep?
00:34:40,160 Yeah, because it gets that point, doesn’t it with things like that where
you will go. I don’t know if it’s the same thing and I don’t know whether
I’m projecting my experience that we were talking earlier is that you’ll get something all happened in a program project, whatever you’re
doing. You think, right, we need all hands to pump, I need to just sort that.
00:35:02,160 Yeah, so it’s only going to be a couple of weeks. We’ll sort it. Yeah. 00:35:08,160
And you can do. And then just a couple of weeks where you kind of get
back into the even keel and then there’s something else. Oh, I’ll take that on because it’s only a couple of weeks.
00:35:16,160 And then and you keep doing that thing where you kind of overload
yourself relax over, looge yourself for like so until the point where you don’t ever. Come down from operating at that same level, do you? Yeah, I think it.
00:35:33,160 It wears, doesn’t it? It does and my experience was slightly different in
that because I’m generally very empathic and very aware of people. I was very conscious of not wanting to overload people and not have them work weekends and so on.
00:35:46,160 But I wasn’t that caring of myself. So I was still working at stupid o’clock
in the morning or night and at weekends and trying to fit the rest of my
world around that. But not taking the same care of myself as I was of those around me.
00:36:00,160 Yeah. And yeah, I can I get that. It’s it’s it’s something you can. 00:36:06,160
It’s hard. It’s another it’s kind of thing we’re a little bit where how can I
expect someone else to do that if I’m not going to do it. And I’ve tried to before I say to guys, don’t.
00:36:22,160 I don’t expect you to do all these extra hours. You need to tell me. Yeah, 00:36:31,160 in some people are just do it anyway.
Yes, it’s a balance because sometimes it’s not self gets just the kind of
person they are. They absolutely love doing it and they love working all year. That’s what they want to do.
00:36:39,160 But then and then you’ll you get that kind of feeling guilty because you’re not doing the same. Then if your manager is doing the same,
you get that same, but a guilt flying around as well. It can make a lot of
pressure for you to do that to ease the burden of other people as well, I think.
00:36:58,160 Yeah, I think the thing that I would one of my main faults as well as
strength is is the intensity with which I do everything. So I do everything with with passion and 110% commitment, which which I know isn’t
overused phrase, but, but I really do work with that intensity and the
pressure that you talk of. I put on myself other people didn’t expect it of me.
00:37:19,160 It was my expectation and my lack of self care that that had me working under very, very tense and stressed it and worn out circumstances
because I didn’t take care of myself. Yeah, and I don’t know whether
you think this and whether it’s in that scenario, you were looking at that and actually they matter work that you were taking on there. And
actually you need to be thinking, right, how do I give that to someone else or how do I use some of the other things to me and that delegation.
00:37:57,160 And I literally was, yes, two days ago, I was writing about this specific is
one of my topics in my next book is about delegation as a tool. Yes, as
a productivity tool because I think it’s underused by all of us. And when it is used, we’re sometimes not very good at it.
00:38:16,160 But it in there and I’m the same. I poke fun at myself a little bit on the
fact that if there’s a nice little spreadsheet that needs to be created with
a few, wizzy things, I kind of go, I know I can knock this together. To self send spreadsheets to Nigel.
00:38:34,160 You’re talking about being in the industry. I was 18, I was using Lotus
one, two, three. Yeah, I remember the days when it had the ad in to be able to make the prettiness of it.
00:38:48,160 And then move to Excel, I still use Lotus one, two, three navigation
settings on Excel. That’s how long I’ve played with spreadsheets and
my daughter’s four to 14. She’s doing Excel spreadsheets and my little ones doing Excel spreadsheets.
00:39:01,160 Yeah, if you’ve got any issues, come, I can’t, that’s one that absolutely
know that there’s quite, I’m not, I’m not at the top. But I’m pretty good
on knowing what to do with them. And therefore I can quickly knock up
together something and pull it together and I do find, I do know that I do that.
00:39:15,160 And actually, is that the best use of my time? I think sometimes yes, 00:39:22,160 some, although is it Nigel?
Yeah, you know, I do it too, where I’ve got a report to pull together or a
spreadsheet or something. And I’ll do it because it’s fun. You know, it’s,
it’s almost mindless in that, you know, a bit like coloring in a book.
00:39:34,160 It’s just fun. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 00:39:39,160
And I end up with, but I can go for too far with them sometimes. But I
think it is an example. It’s kind of, it’s one of those things where we grab the things that we like doing,
00:39:50,160 not, not in a Mac, you value kind of way, but it’s kind of your
comfortable doing them. You feel okay doing them. But actually, if you
look at the value to the organization, the value to the project, the value to your own outputs and products.
00:40:02,160 And if you look at the value to the project, you’d be able to see that they
go, that person over there could easily do this 90% as well as I can do it. Yeah.
00:40:12,160 In, I, it’ll take cost me time to invest in them to get them to it. But the
longer term thing is the fact that if you’re influencing that report that’s get down,
00:40:23,160 and you’re influencing 100 people or 20 people, you’re spending then
those three quarters an hour that you wouldn’t have spent. And that’s where the, the, the value of the allocation is about every jifine.
00:40:34,160 And that’s the thing we forget. I can do it quicker than just explaining it 00:40:41,160 to them. That’s about the time in front of your face. 00:40:45,160
00:40:51,160 It’s not about the strategic bit. Yeah. And sometimes it’s not even a 00:40:56,160 matter of time.
I simply love what I do. I absolutely love project management. I love getting in the detail and stuff.
I love working with people. So it’s, of course, I’ll do that. Yeah, sure. I’ll, I’ll make time because I love it. And in a case of being a mechlemaniac and wanting to do it all yourself, it’s purely a sheer passion for it.
00:41:04,160 And just loving everything and problem solving and, and getting things
right and getting them to a decent quality and things like that. I love it. Yeah.
00:41:14,160 And it’s just sitting there and get, I think it, and the things I say is you
need that priority list. Whether it’s your personal priority list or whether
it’s your organizational priority list and your project priorities list. Yeah.
00:41:24,160 You need them there. You need them all ranked. And then when you
00:41:33,160 pick up a piece of work and it’s hard to do, we should sit there and go. 00:41:39,160
00:41:42,160 I shouldn’t be doing that. Yeah, not today because it’s not in that that 00:41:47,160 priority list. So true.
00:41:53,160
It’s so hard to sit back. We don’t do it with every task. We see the email.
We’re getting and we’re going to do it. But actually we should be going. No.
Yeah. But it’s, and that’s something that we can, we can always improve on. We can always learn to do it.
And it’s one of those things that’s like health and fitness, all that sort of
thing. You, you stop doing it every time and then you find yourself and then you’ve got to. Get back and we’ll write.
00:42:04,160 I need to be disciplined again, doing that. Absolutely. Well, I hope you 00:42:19,160 enjoyed the first part of that interview with Shilina.
I’m sure you enjoyed the second part when you come back next week.
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00:43:36,160 Enjoy the show. So thanks very much. Have a great day and speak
next week. Well it’s goodbye from me, Nigel Creaser and it’s goodbye from him, the Sunday lunch PM.
00:43:50,160 Goodbye. [Music]