Software People Stories
302 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 days ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsStories of what worked and sometimes what did not, in the course of discovering, designing, developing and delivering software based solutions – as shared by practitioners who went through these situations.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Mnemonics and Improv
September 25, 2020 09:44 - 49 minutes - 27.4 MBIn conversation with Jayant Swamy, Program Manager and Author of many books with Gayatri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting He started his career in finance with a CA, went on to do his MBA from IIM Bangalore, and learnt his penchant for teaching While doing his MBA Jayant swamy taught MBA students art of presentation and persuasion skills • Jayant Swamy has coached MBA aspirants in public speaking and taught finance at local B-schools • Jayant moved to the US in 1998 and works as a ma...
When Work is Play
September 17, 2020 09:12 - 46 minutes - 25.2 MBIn this conversation Harsha Mutt is sharing his career story with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting where Harsha talks about *Lessons from role transitions *A Bangalorean, helping his father run a printing press during school days *Studying Engineering and cost accounting, in parallel *A career choice to join Infosys, that he is very happy about *Learning basics of computer science and languages from the founders of the company, as a trainee *His first major transition in life - moving from ...
Shifting Sands
September 10, 2020 09:54 - 31 minutes - 17.4 MBTune into the conversation between Chitra from PM Power Consulting and Nitya Krishnamoorthy, a seasoned IT veteran and leader. Nitya shares her journey and experiences on -Career choice, supporting parents & wanting to be far away from Biology -Start of career and 10 years as a technologist -Personal and professional transformation and taking a break in the middle of her career -Transition from an Individual Contributor to manager to IC again and managing teams across countries -Recognizing ...
Four Innings Career
September 04, 2020 13:31 - 34 minutes - 17.6 MBIn conversation with Tech Executive and Principal consultant from PM Power Consulting, Zafar Ahmed shares his experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey. Zafar draws out his 4 decades of experience as 4 phases in a cricket match with one exciting inning built over another. Started as a passionate programmer in Tata steel working in their transformation In the second innings, became part of IT services revolution shifting base to US and owning a start up He moved to Indi...
95: Taking Calculated Risks
August 27, 2020 23:30 - 40 minutesIn this conversation, with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, Ramesh Emani shares Starting his career with Tata Burroughs and after 3 years moved to Wipro Infotech, at that time - and stayed on for 25 years Being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug when he was almost 50, with a desire to have a startup before he retired How he became a manager in his second project itself, with less than 2 years of experience and had to manage most team members who were senior to him His principle of spendi...
94: 5 Tantras of Enterprise Agility
August 21, 2020 05:26 - 33 minutesPM Power Consulting is launching its second book soon, 5 Tantras of Enterprise Agility. Tune into this conversation to listen to the how the book evolved through the story from the author Paramu Kurumathur, the product owner J Veeraraaghavan and Sivaguru.
93: Answering the What IF?
August 14, 2020 01:42 - 44 minutesEpisode Sub-Title: Living the Product Leaders’ Dream In conversation with Product Management Leader, Krupa Natarajan where her software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on her journey Started technology journey with fervor to learn and curiosity about Technology Transformed her thinking during the dot com bust to understand value delivered by her and for the customer Established a career as a product leader after spending many years in the engineering side Engineering d...
92: Cascading Passions
August 11, 2020 11:04 - 38 minutesIn conversation with Coaching Guru, Sivakumar from PM Power Consulting , he shares experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Discovered passion in a cascading manner by way of experimenting Current full stack developers and enjoyed starting in software as a full stack engineer Software projects are social organizations that needs to be nurtured Understanding of fulcrum and levers that you have to balance people and capability development Stories of two contrasting ...
91: Changing Technologies
August 06, 2020 03:37 - 31 minutesIn conversation with Coach Extraordinaire, Arun Swamy where his software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Multi touch point start in software - as a research assistant, contract job after doing MS and finally landing US Army related work Returned to India to seek stability and part of the growth wave of product companies HP taught the value of Org values and profit being a side effect Proud to be part of two generations of agile way of working - initially i...
91: Changing Ecosystems
August 05, 2020 22:07 - 31 minutesIn conversation with Coach Extraordinaire and Technology Executive, Arun Swamy where his software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Multi touch point start in software - as a research assistant, contract job after doing MS and finally landing US Army related work Returned to India to seek stability and part of the growth wave of product companies HP taught the value of Org values and profit being a side effect Proud to be part of two generations of agile way...
90: For the Joy of Learning
July 24, 2020 08:44 - 36 minutesIn conversation with career Project Manager, Sankar V S, Regional Digital Services & Products leader in Arup he shares his journey starting from a part time trainer to IoT and analytics experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on His start of journey with software as a trainer in C++ Considers himself as a self starter and staying a continuous learner Difference in communication and unsaid patterns in HK China and that made him move to Project management/Business Analysis Fearles...
89: Twists and a Tale
July 18, 2020 03:12 - 39 minutesIn conversation with an Infrastructure Automation Expert, Ram Iyer, where he shares experiences with Chitra From PM Power Consulting on How he became an automation engineer Early career in Infrastructure guided, mentored and learned with the help of great managers and lead engineers What it takes to understand an enterprise solution, from building reports to writing automation code How the operations view is missing when applications and products are built. Thoughts on design for scale a...
88: Stories of Self Belief
July 11, 2020 08:52 - 41 minutesIn this conversation with Mritunjay Singh (Munjay), SVP, Infosys and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Munjay’s journey Started the journey with Tata Steel in their computing arena Moved to software looking at the uptake in technology growth Changed his perspective on scaling technology sourcing after a large deal Belief in people can walk on water and having a cross functional skills has been a constant endeavor Speaking about modular sourcing, he shared how clients have contact...
87: From Order Takers to Agenda Setters
July 03, 2020 06:09 - 41 minutesIn this conversation with Rajaram Venkataraman, Convenor Technology panel FICCI and CEO of VelTech TBI, Founder of Navya Insights, President SPIN Chennai and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Rajaram’s journey Rajaram talks about his passion in computers started with his peers in the family He reminisces the Initial days of working in TCS with Lakshmi Narayanan(Vice Chairman of Cognizant) and Chandrashekar (Exec Director of TCS) in the same office in TCS Being a liaison between Gove...
86: Shifting Mindsets
June 27, 2020 07:08 - 30 minutesIn this conversation, Nimisha Mukherjee, Engineering Manager at RedHat, shares her stories and experiences with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting about - How she fell in love with computers in class 3 First lessons in user interaction design Tips on how to get users to change a habit or become familiar with a new design Supporting the new age developer & development environments The evolving role of a developer and developers as first customers Blue sky opportunities for designing...
85: Hunger to Learn
June 18, 2020 23:44 - 45 minutesIn this conversation, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talks to Smita BS, Delivery Head at Torry Harris Integration Solutions. Smita shares her perspectives on: The various roles she has played over the 17 years of her career across multiple industry verticals Starting as a developer and creating frameworks for testing How her mentors trusted her to take on new responsibilities and provided guidance The advice she got from one of her mentors about not drawing self imposed boundaries How...
84: Think Just Enough
June 11, 2020 23:20 - 30 minutesIn this conversation Nalini Krishnan, Head of Competency Management at TCS for the Salesforce business shares her views on her career with Chitra from PM Power consulting on - - How much of our making is our own thinking and doing - How much of the past we carry as baggage or bias - Picking up all kinds of challenges and getting out of one's comfort zone -Various ways of looking at problems - her 3-dimensional approach to addressing technical debt - experience managing customers & clients rel...
83: Trusted Relationships and Education
June 04, 2020 23:32 - 28 minutesIn this conversation with Santhana Krishnan (SK), coach from PM Power Consulting and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore SK’s journey Fascinated by computers through the eyes of the Tamil writer Sujatha Started as a tech entrepreneur setting up ERP for a spinning mill Worked closely with different persona of users and ensuring usability for tech agnostic members. Learnt true sense of agility by continuous integration, deployment and feedback While building India market for ThoughtWor...
82: Cloud Maturity and API Dynamics
May 29, 2020 00:14 - 34 minutesIn this conversation with Meera Chari from IEEE and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Meera’s journey Started as a computer engineer with curiosity and need to learn Meera spoke about entering the electronic commerce world as a product engineer Learnt from a mistake made during prod deployment made her acutely aware of software development need to be supported by disciplined infra management Layers of software along with security, latency, firewalls’ importance in problem solving Und...
81: Data, Risk & Decisions
May 21, 2020 23:04 - 32 minutesIn this conversation, colleagues Srinivasan Sundararajan (Srini) and Chitra from PM Power Consulting are talking about Srini’s experiences and stories around - - A product of circumstances - Education at IIT Madras in Mechanical engineer, introduction to computing and problem solving by working across departments at IIT - Developing backup software in a manufacturing company and early lessons - Examining data above and beyond - Risk taking, evaluating and owning your decisions - Transition f...
80: Machine Learning and EQ 2.0
May 14, 2020 23:49 - 29 minutesIn this conversation with Thiagarajan (Thiagu) Ramakrishnan and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Thiagu’s experiences around ML journey Worked as software engineer in IBM, ML Engineer in TeraData and Principal in Dell now Started the ML fascination with coursera course by Andrew Ng Research papers and meet-ups are a way of working in emerging technology on the multiplicative curve Benefited from the power of meetups to get clarity in way forward and continues to contribute in confere...
79: Resilience & Passion
May 07, 2020 23:30 - 41 minutesIn this conversation PM Power colleagues Ramki (Ramakrishnan Sethuraman) and Chitra explore Ramki’s experiences around How he got into software and IT Early programming days in C on mainframes and becoming a DB2 expert Change in mindset towards the what and why v/s how first Building performance into a system for a solid foundation Experience in the financial sector; at the forefront of adopting technology Essence of client interactions, empathy, value and understanding Playing several roles ...
77: Purpose Oriented Products
April 30, 2020 23:30 - 25 minutesIn this conversation with Karthi (Karthikeyan) Swaminathan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthiswaminathan/) , Vice President and GM of Tact.ai and Gayatri from PM Power Consulting explore Karthi’s experiences around Collaborations with doctors started in college Started working with products to customize and working closely with users Part of the open source movement and solve fellow developers problems Lost opportunities around cloud investments in the tool space Medical professionals creati...
78: Lockdown Lessons in Agility
April 29, 2020 23:27 - 28 minutesThis episode is an accompaniment and a broad spectrum exploration of experiences and narratives as collated by Sivaguru from PM Power consulting, during conversations with people across IT/Software and Non-IT businesses on how they responded to the needs of business with covid-19 changing the environment. The complete report is available here (https://bit.ly/7lockdownlessons) This episode, a conversation between Sivaguru & Chitra, delves into and across the findings shared in the report. The...
76: Leader or Individual Contributor
April 26, 2020 04:45 - 30 minutesRajiv Puranik, VP platform engineering and cloud operations at Vocera Communications & Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting are in conversation as Rajiv shares His professional experience with Twillio, Apigee, Yahoo before Vocera covering corporate, engineering roles as well as startups What developers should know, when building products, the ‘-ities’, beyond the algorithms A personal devops horror story How developers can have empathy of what happens after code is written Devops is the first l...
75: Software for Different Countries
April 17, 2020 01:06 - 39 minutesSivaguru from PM Power Consulting is speaking with Badri Narayanan, Vice President of HCL Technologies Ltd Geography and culture aspects of IT delivery plays a critical role in not just UX/UD Communication/ project mgmt and various inter dependencies Roll mapping of local talent in critical roles and having close business relationship are key things to put in play for long term success Bridging cultural differences in Japan was around having additional business analysts with bi lingual capabi...
74: Signal Processing to Data Engineering
April 09, 2020 23:28 - 30 minutesIn this episode, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Jayantha <> who shares his life as an engineer and working in Europe amongst other things such as - - Telecom engineering to data engineering - Getting help and guidance in a new place and new company - From his lens of how software has evolved over generations - designing products for different customer segments - How data engineering folks work with other people like product managers and business folks - The importan...
73: Comics and Cybersecurity
April 02, 2020 23:33 - 32 minutesIn this conversation Shravan, a Doctoral student, shares his thoughts and experiences with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, related to How a comic strip triggered curiosity to explore software development How writing software is like solving puzzles His interest in security aspects while programming His initial personal projects Where one can get problems or ideas to take up research in the realm of security Vulnerabilities related to the software supply chain How verified programming as a ...
72: Software and Cinema
March 26, 2020 23:37 - 34 minutesIn this episode, part of our series on Women in IT for the Month of March 2020, Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Shobha CS, Founder Director of Tent Cinema School where Shobha takes us through her journey of - - Start of a multifaceted career in software development and management to skill development and cinema - Using her creative bent of mind to find motivation & strength at work and manage life better - Having an open mind to handle changes, welcome anything...
71: Dispersed Teams - 7
March 23, 2020 04:00 - 10 minutesThis is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches and from some of our clients as well. In this episode, Malavika Garimella, marketing consultant for PM Power Consulting, shares her views and tips as an experienced worker from home and how she is handling her work at...
70: Dispersed Teams - 6
March 22, 2020 01:42 - 4 minutesThis is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches and from some of our clients as well. Listen to this quick monologue from Gayathri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting on Be organized, get things moving, as a home care taker Allocate rooms for house members and gi...
69: Dispersed Teams - 5
March 22, 2020 01:40 - 14 minutesThis is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches and from some of our clients as well. Listen to Sethuraman, Delivery Manager at Metric Stream share his perspectives with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting on - Managing a support team Customers understand BCP communi...
68: Dispersed Teams - 4
March 21, 2020 07:04 - 10 minutesThis is a special series, Dispersal, focusing on the aspects related to forced, dispersed working from home.This captures perspectives from PM Power coaches. In this episode, listen to Paramu Kurumathur talking about - Dealing with lonliness - Worries and anxieties about the future and no one to talk to - On what leaders can do - How teams can continue daily practices of scrum and keep with agile values - what the future of remote working can look like - Remembering to have fun through this c...
67: Algorithms and Systems Thinking
March 20, 2020 05:33 - 51 minutesIn the third episode for the women’s special in the month of March, Gayatri from PM Power Consulting talks to Shalini Chaudhary, Head of Technology Caspian Systems about her journey and challenges and learnings across - Understanding algorithms for making tea Social conditioning and wearing specs to create a geeky self Moved by the full page ad from Infosys to join the software industry Creating a lightening resume Moved from developer mindset to testing and customer mindset Feeling powerful...
66: Dispersed Teams - 3
March 20, 2020 05:16 - 9 minutesThis is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches. In this episode, Chitra shares her views with Shiv on - Why this mode of working feels like a disruption - Dispersal in nature v/s whats happening now - What teams can do - in terms of holding each other and creating...
65: Dispersed Teams - 2
March 19, 2020 01:29 - 11 minutesThis is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches. In this episode, S Srinivasan or Srini as he is popularly known, shares his views on - The word from agile values - "over" - What people can use "over" as to discover a higher order purpose - Loss of water cooler mom...
64: Dispersed Teams - 1
March 19, 2020 01:04 - 7 minutesThis is a special series of episodes, called Dispersal, in view of the ongoing pandemic, that has caused what we believe is a widespread dispersed working from home. Whats working and whats not, how are people feeling and other insights. We share perspectives of PM Power coaches. The first one, by S Sivaguru is captured via his blog here (http://pm-powerconsulting.com/blog/tips-for-a-suddenly-dispersed-team/) . He shares perspectives on - Distributed v/s dispersed teams - Tips on time plannin...
63: New Narratives, Beyond Binaries
March 13, 2020 06:55 - 52 minutesIn the second episode for the women’s special in the month of March, Gayathri and Chitra from PM Power Consulting are in conversation with Jacintha Jayachandran, Author, Coach & HR professional and Sushma Joshi a communication & employee engagement specialist who have worked for tech companies. They share stories of their non-IT roles and working with IT professionals and cover topics such as - Coming to IT by accident; the journey from pharma and journalism to IT Understanding the vocabular...
62: Magic and Dialogue
March 06, 2020 03:28 - 28 minutesWe begin our special series for the month of March in celebration of Women's day with 4 episodes. In this one, Maggie Imbamuthaiah Managing Director of Anita Borg India India is in conversation with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting where she shares her experiences and perspectives on Bringing technical women together through stories How women easily fall into an isolation trap Discovering and working with exceptional women Cultivating a place for support for entrepreneurs - a possible ...
61: Transforming Education
February 27, 2020 23:24 - 34 minutesIn this conversation, Mani Ratnam, Senior Vice President at Strategic Education Inc shares his thoughts and experiences, with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, related to: The transition from being a techie to someone visualizing and creating a larger impact How wanting to take ownership of the impact helped in this transition over time Getting guidance from many experienced mentors and learning by doing / failing Using a data driven experimentation approach, based on some formal models suc...
60: Knowledge is Power
February 21, 2020 01:22 - 36 minutesIn this conversation Ved Prakash, Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) at Trianz, shares his perspectives and experiences with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, about: His education in engineering and management His experience as a techie Being the first person in the company to lead an industry vertical How he was asked to make knowledge management more effective in wipro; what, he thought would be a 2 year stint, became the turning point in his career The opportunities he saw in making larger im...
59: Balancing Future Tech v/s Immediate Solutions
February 14, 2020 00:29 - 38 minutesIn this episode, Balakrishnan Sreenivasan - a Distinguished Engineer with IBM shares his perspectives with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting on His experience that led to becoming a distinguished engineer How one has to internalize and abstract models [such as TOGAF] to solve large enterprise problems Starting with documenting an existing architecture.. How hard could that be - until you realize the possible ways in which it can be used On whether he has seen Conways law in practice How abst...
58: Diving Deep into Data
February 07, 2020 00:14 - 45 minutesTune into this episode, a deep exploratory conversation between Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting and Rinka Singh, Co-Founder, AccelerateFire shares his stories of Being a serial start-up-person Doing things outside of the day job, including starting the Software Process Improvement Network (BSPIN), Bangalore How he got interested in quality, process etc The experience of getting representatives from many organizations to come together and share data Some of the driving thoughts behind the o...
57: Off-Roading and Messy Hands
February 02, 2020 04:01 - 33 minutesIn this conversation between Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting & Sharad Sharma, co-founder of iSpirit Foundation, Sharad shares several off the beaten track perspectives on His multi-threaded career navigated via multiple s-curves How to create innovative software products, a dual immersion necessity If you read it in the news, dont follow it! Solving problems through different layers of work happening in different realms - the apple and android battery case. Understanding your personality ar...
56: Dilemmas and Honesty
January 22, 2020 23:33 - 35 minutesTune into the conversation between Pallavi Srinivasa, Director of Product Management at Cisco and Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting where Pallavi shares her basket of a variety of experiences and thoughts around - Magic happening via bits n bytes - Connectedness of people, information & energy - Customer experience, product thinking and development, and the role of human emotions in developing solutions - Cost of impatience in using technology and AI v/s slow growth in a holistic manner...
55: Creating a Rhythm in your career
January 17, 2020 08:43 - 36 minutesWe welcome our listeners back to the Software People Stories with our first podcast for 2020. Gayathri and Chitra, colleagues at PM Power consulting thoroughly enjoyed this un-crafted conversation and were pleasantly surprised at what unfurled. Tune into their conversation where Chitra shares her experiences on - How a career journey is often not on a ladder but looking at it as an exploration Mindswitch happened when she moved from development to testing Looking at software from customer em...
Thank you, Happy New Year!
December 23, 2019 23:59 - 4 minutesIts been a great year with 54 episodes. Plenty of stories from around the world through the voices of people sharing their experiences, insights, lessons, advice, perspectives and so much more. We take this opportunity to thank our listeners and our guests for supporting the Software People Stories and wish you all a very happy new year. We are taking a short break and will be back with people stories and much more. Stay tuned! Cheers, Sivaguru, Chitra and Gayathri PM Power Consulting.
54: Insights from vignettes
December 09, 2019 02:53 - 37 minutesThis conversation highlights stories and experiences of Jayesh Chakravarthi, Co-Founder and CEO of Recast technologies with Sivaguru from PM power consulting on Selling technology, solutions & software Envisioning solutions to solve Bengaluru traffic problems Entrepreneurial experiences and product validation 3 good tips for entrepreneurs on how to take an idea to a feasible business The importance of having multiple founders; including thought & experience diversity and how to handling chan...
53: 2nd Generation Product Technologist
December 02, 2019 02:24 - 38 minutesListen to Jeetu Narayan, Business Executive, Entrepreneur and Technology specialist share insights with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting on a wide array of topics that include - Being a second generation IT professional in his family Considering himself to be a product technologist Getting hooked on to computers through games Addictive products and the attention economy Building things useful for your customers Different learnings from startup, mid market companies The importance of EQ Water...
52: Helping Society in Many Ways
November 23, 2019 22:12 - 40 minutesThis is a conversation between Hariprakash Agrawal, Entrepreneur & Agile Coach with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, where Hari talks about: Graduating from IIT Kharagpur and coming to Bangalore Taking up a process related role as a fresher Starting his first company ‘OpCord’ for optimization and coordination Building his first automation Creating a product based on Excel to create BDD [Business Driven Development] based tests Starting a solution for car pooling, to address some common soci...