Software People Stories
297 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 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.
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Episodes
46: A Courageous Decision
October 13, 2019 01:40 - 37 minutesIn this conversation, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talks to Sukumar, Co-Founder of Tiny Magiq, where Sukumar shares his stories about: His friend who inspired him to get into software How, on his first day at a client’s place, he did something totally unconnected - as he thought - to software His first lesson at work - attitude! What one can learn from working on a maintenance project How his first role with a sales responsibility was so stressful, tending to a breakdown Mustering the co...
45: The Mind of an Author
October 05, 2019 04:11 - 34 minutesIn this conversation, Paramu shares his experiences on writing books with Sivaguru. Listen to this chat between 2 colleagues at PM Power Consulting covering Paramu's views on : Where ideas come from, or where he gets his inspiration on topics to write about Specific triggers for this two published books so far [and the third - a technical book - he is working on now] On writing sequels and if they are expected by the readers as more of the same Book writing being a team sport The challenge of...
44: A Technologist at Heart
September 28, 2019 01:05 - 40 minutesMany stories play out in our lives. Listen to a lively chat between Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting and Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of Progress Software, talking about - How he got into IIT How a joystick that got him into programming His early interest in AI Embedded code to Enterprise code Building a distributed relational database Building on something that he already knew, to get into completely new areas, such as marketing His thoughts on ‘AI in everything’ How technology can be co...
43: 4 Decades in 2 Phases
September 19, 2019 04:58 - 44 minutesEpisode: 4 decades in 2 phases Sub title: Consultant to Implementer In this conversation Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with his old friend Neelu (PK Neelakantan). Listen to their conversation as Neelu talks about: Two significant phases of his career Playing software development and business development roles A major personal decision to move base from India to the US An urge to do something on his own About losing the job at the time of the dot com bust About an enviro...
42: Re-Discovery and Agility
September 11, 2019 08:17 - 44 minutesIn this episode Jayaprakash JP, coach and consultant talks to Chitra from PM Power consulting about - Being an engineer at heart & how his career began in the software industry, working in product & services organizations - Continuous rediscovery, love for learning, and curiosity - Building enterprise health applications - Experiencing different work cultures between services & product organizations - Co-discovering & co-developing customer needs in a VUCA environment with inclusivity & coll...
41: Everything comes around
September 05, 2019 23:05 - 42 minutesThis conversation between VK Kumar, a seasoned architect and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting brings to light Kumar's narratives on The solid grounding that formal and structured training can give His initial work on one of the first globally successful products from India What he learnt about practical use of technology from a consulting role Becoming an architect What cross-over cables taught him Challenges of working in a distributed team Making meetings effective through a practice of re...
40: Transformation Stories
August 29, 2019 05:00 - 44 minutesIn this conversation, Veena Ramagoplan, Co-Founder and Director of Inroads Leadership Development and Chitra from PM Power talk about Veena’s variety of experiences such as Overcoming careless whispers and successfully leading a team of 50 sailors on a 250km trek Facing cultural experiences while handling global transitions Being exposed to people management at a very young age, handling the media glare, and being in the Limca book of records The importance of self belief & responding with a...
39: Confidence and Constant Learning
August 23, 2019 01:47 - 29 minutesListen to another interesting conversation between colleagues J Veeraraaghavan and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, as JV's shares his experiences on Various role transitions in JV’s career and how he handled them The motivation to excel in the responsibilities he took up How his core strengths of communication, interface with people, being able to talk the language of the customer, being a good listener helped in getting new responsibilities and challenges Learning on the job Realizing th...
38: Photo Processing to Product Management
August 15, 2019 01:18 - 46 minutesHere's a conversation between Sairam and Sivaguru of PM Power consulting as they uncover facets of Sairam's journey from when he began working in film technology and film manufacturing to his extensive experience in software design and development. Sairam has worked alongside industrial engineers which helped him to learn, understand and associate his thinking with JIT, Lean, Kanban, BPR etc. He has adopted IID [Incremental and Iterative Development] – (unknowingly) as early as 1994, to turn...
37: Banana peels and monocultures
August 08, 2019 01:25 - 33 minutesEpisode: Banana Peels and Monocultures Stories from an Agility Coach Listen to Viktor Cessan, agile coach, share his stories, in a conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power consulting, as Viktor talks about - How he got into software His first startup, even while he was in school Starting as a content handler Understanding the challenges of working with remote teams Using feedback to improve one’s style of working How learning from others fueled the desire to share Connecting with the organiza...
36: A Life Full of Stories
August 02, 2019 02:21 - 31 minutesIn this episode, Gopal & Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting are in conversation as Gopal shares his rich experiences through several anecdotes based on - The first transition from an individual contributor to a ‘leader’ Understanding the style of letting others do work Managing peers and allowing your natural instincts to play a role How one can manage divergent priorities between individuals and team aspirations Significance of opening up and talking Managing customer expectations Managing ...
35: An Inevitable Entrepreneur
July 25, 2019 07:54 - 40 minutesIn this episode, Chitra from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Padmaja Narsipur, Founder and CEO of Clearly Blue Digital where she shares her journey and experiences on - - Starting a career in Software and how she became a tech writer. - Moving to being a solopreneur - The Clearly Blue Story - Having to bring her career to a halt *& discover new things to do; - Free lancing and the hamster wheel - Self management & time management - Discipline of free lancing to enjoy flexibility ...
34: Databases and Digital Newbies
July 18, 2019 04:11 - 45 minutesIn this episode of the Software People Stories, Visweswaran SK (also known as Viswes) and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting uncover fascinating software experiences from Viswes around - How he started software development using punch cards Writing utilities for spooling printouts Exposure to database systems while working on a commercial application Developing a database system on SN computers Hackathon like approach for the dev team Learning to work within 256 kB! DECUS-C compiler: a communi...
33: Dreaming Wild, Applying AI
July 12, 2019 22:54 - 47 minutesListen to Hima Patel from IBM Research and Chitra from PM Power Consulting as Hima shares stories from her passion around artificial intelligence and machine learning through some fascinating experiences. She talks about - Building intelligence, beginning with a book Image processing experiments and fun with friends Research and Software, partners in crime Invention & Innovation Data lakes, silos, federations and marts - making sense for business Languages of business and analytics, working ...
32: Estimation and Planning
July 04, 2019 00:35 - 35 minutesListen to this conversation between Sridevi Devathi from HCL and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting as they talk about Sridevi's career and journey around - How she started as a developer and then moved to quality Moving into estimation and setting up the estimation CoE Different generations of software architectures / models and various models for software development Some challenges that have continued to bother teams over the last couple of decades related to estimation Relevance of histori...
31: Engineering Software to Software Engineering
June 27, 2019 04:55 - 40 minutesJoins us in listening to Paul Arieckal from Global Automation and Sivaguru from PM Power consulting as they have conversations around Paul's experiences in - Learning the rigour of software development as computing resources were scarce Considering constraints at the time of design Making assumptions while designing applications: timetracker story Relevance of top down design in the age of cloud and microservices Trimming the footprint of an application from 2 GB to less than 200 MB Drawing ...
30: Observation and Detail Orientation
June 21, 2019 09:46 - 39 minutesVasu and Chitra, colleagues at PM Power Consulting are in a free wheeling conversation as Vasu shares myriad nuggets on - - Starting his career in Tata Steel - Generating PLOP reports for management review (its in the podcast!) - Developing products at Wipro; from idea to product; building a cost effective project management product. - Secrets of MS Project & software development - Experiences from product development & finding ways to gain customer insights - How he stayed at companies for ...
29: Digital Journeys
June 17, 2019 01:42 - 44 minutesIn this episode, Mosesraj R, CIO & Head of Delivery Excellence at Brillio and Chitra from PM Power are in conversation as Moses shares stories on - Where his career began - Fundamental principles working across manufacturing and IT - Understanding the meaning of value to deliver the right solutions & build successful products - Managing customer expectations - Balancing the roles of CIO & delivery excellence head - Some tips to enable digital transformation - A back to the future retrospectiv...
28: Emerging from our cocoons
June 07, 2019 07:07 - 43 minutesIn this candid conversation Neeraja Ganesh, Head for JobsForHer foundation and Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting, talk about Neeraja's experiences through her journey. She shares - Learning from whatever came her way as a means of growing and sustaining herself Discovering the power of asking Personal transformation from an introvert to being a confident communicator Process implementation to suit different functions Being uncomfortable with comfort in a role & using her strengths to pla...
27: Of Pascal, programming and performing systems
May 30, 2019 22:49 - 43 minutesAnecdotes from heterogenous experiences. In this conversation Milind and Chitra, colleagues at PM Power Consulting are in a conversation as Milind shares his experiences on - - Curiosity and liking for computers, with an aptitude for software & a natural ability to write code. - A love for deep learning. - Writing a pascal compiler, assemblers & deep insights into systems software - Interoperability between proprietorial systems & other heterogeneous environment challenges. - Customer manage...
26: Thoughts and Things
May 24, 2019 08:03 - 35 minutesIn this episode Veena Samartha, CEO of VeCrear Technologies is in a free flowing conversation with Chitra from PM Power consulting. She shares her experiences with - Developing technology from india with convergence of wireless tech & IoT - Having an inquisitive nature & experimenting v/s aquiring knowledge - Experiences building fault tolerant systems - Journey to entrepreneurship - Developing other capabilities to run a company - Facing dilemmas of market forces v/s delivery capabilities an...
25: Experiments & Discovery
May 16, 2019 09:18 - 10 minutesThe Software Lifecycle Stories, brought to you by PM Power Consulting, has come quite some way since the first episode was published. This is a special episode dedicated for our listeners from us saying, "Thank you for tuning into our show!" To help us continue to bring engaging episodes, we would like to hear from you. Please spare about 5 minutes to respond to our [survey](https://forms.gle/gS4t9p9gvH5kySyAA) OR If you wish to record your feedback, please attach your recorded message a...
24: Helping teams be effective
May 08, 2019 09:22 - 41 minutesIn this episode of the Software Lifecycle Stories, PM Power colleagues, Sivaguru and A Narasimhan, also known as AN, explore several facets of AN's experiences that include - * How he launched a startup with some friends * Innovative features by trapping OS interrupts * Importance of process orientation, even for small teams * Getting into techno marketing * Instilling or having a sense of ownership intrinsically * The need to adapt one’s coaching style or delivery based on the ...
23: Building for a global user experience
May 02, 2019 00:38 - 39 minutesDesigning for the future, fulfilling today’s needs Welcome to this episode of the Software Lifecycle Stories. Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Vandana Abraham, Head of Design at Atlassian, India. In this conversation she shares her perspectives on * The difference between design and art * Aptitudes to be a designer * Bridging engineers and designers with empathy * Building experiences for a global audience * Some ideas that were far ahead of their time *...
22: Empathy, with a dose of patience
April 25, 2019 02:39 - 47 minutesWelcome to another episode of the Software Lifecycle Stories. In this episode, Sivaguru and Anantha Natarajan (who prefers to be called Anand), colleagues from PM Power Consulting, speak about several topics including: * Is software development ‘engineering’? * Trusting one’s feelings * Treating IT as an enabler for business * Creating functionally satisfying solutions to make a difference for the users * Lessons from building something ahead of time * Becoming and Being a coach...
21: Work Life Rhythm
April 18, 2019 01:57 - 34 minutesIn this conversation, Annie Abraham - head of Financing IT and Group Wide Process for Danske IT and Support services in Bangalore - shares her thoughts and experiences with Sivaguru from PM Power on - * Transformation & Modernization projects * Applying Agile approaches in a large program * Women and agile / if agile ways of working is women friendly * Finding one’s own rhythm to balance responsibilities at work and home * Tips for those starting out on their careers Annie Abraham...
20: Innovation & Discovery
April 12, 2019 06:59 - 29 minutesA Journey from Programming to Coaching In this episode, Savitha in conversation with Chitra from PM Power consulting, shares her views on - working with chaos and pressure while discovering one's strengths over coffee - Why boredom is a good thing - Learnings from working across captive, product & services companies with freedom to explore various roles - Using coaching as a means of strength to connect with people - The power of freeing your mind - Alternating focus between work & life
19: Just Be - Right Now!
April 04, 2019 05:03 - 48 minutesTune into tips from a techie turned transformational teacher ! Sivaguru from PM Power is very happy to share his conversation with Suresh Ramaswamy, a successful serial entrepreneur, who started with roles in IT and then pivoted to helping others discover themselves as a transformational teacher. When this conversation started, we were expecting a highly technical discussion from a VLSI architect, but what it ended up being was -- literally mind blowing! At PM Power, we have always combine...
18: Curiosity, Continuous Learning & Collaboration
March 28, 2019 05:14 - 41 minutesIn this episode, our podcast guest, Roopa Dharmapuri shares her perspectives on the interconnectedness of life & work among other views with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting, through * Her journey from development, to testing and product management. * Anchoring engagement at work and in life through curiosity and learning . * Stepping into customer shoes. * The importance of establishing trust and transparency while building and delivering products. * Being influenced b...
17: Standards, Startups and Spousal support
March 21, 2019 04:56 - 40 minutesContinuing on our theme of conversations with women in IT, in this episode, Vandana Malaiya, whose career has seen roles in hardware, embedded systems, setting up team and organization level processes and setting up a venture and to a social venture and some senior leadership roles in the corporate environment,in conversation with Sivaguru,shares her perspectives on -The need to and opportunities to keep on learning -Adopting standards and consistent adherence for outcomes -How economic an...
16: Happy Customers, Happy Employees.
March 15, 2019 00:47 - 1 hourIn this episode, a freewheeling panel discussion among four accomplished women from Global Automation Inc., Bengaluru covers, among other things: - their own individual experiences in IT, in creating or consuming solutions - balancing demands at work and outside - support systems for women at work and home - empathy for customers and how that helps in evolving products - the importance of continual learning - creating and nurturing a healthy work environment - peer support and recogn...
15: Puzzles & Perceptions, WorkEthic & Humanistic Insights
March 06, 2019 09:37 - 35 minutesIn this conversation, Chitra from PM Power & Swetha Sivaram, Sr. Manager at IBM, talk about her journey in the world of technology as Swetha shares her experiences on - * Choice of computer science engineering * Perceptions at work * Transitions from a telecom engineer to app developer to systems engineering * Humanistic insights from work experience * Sharing experiences by and for women in technology Swetha Sivaram is a Senior Engineering Manager at IBM India. She has over 17 ye...
14: Transitions, Transformations and Annual Appraisal for Couples
February 27, 2019 09:30 - 46 minutesIn this conversation with Sivaguru, Gayatri from PM Power Consulting - also known as G3 - shares her experiences and experiments on a wide range of topics including -Cultural aspects of managing large application portfolio transitions -Personal transition from maker to a coach, to help teams transform to agility -The concept of work-life balance -Her personal experiments with an appraisal system at home
13: Architecting software solutions and Conscious career breaks
February 21, 2019 04:33 - 55 minutesIn this conversation with Sivaguru, Anupama shares her experience related to: -Efficient algorithms -Skills an architect needs -Differences in architecting small and large applications -Tips for women who need to or want to take a break This episode covers 2 broad aspects of software architecture - 1\. Evolution of architecting a software system, from over 15 years ago to today, and the evolution of a software architect's role. Starts at 5:13 2\. Differences in architecture for s...
12: Mission Critical systems, Basketball and Women in Tech
February 14, 2019 10:14 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBIn this conversation Chitra shares her experience with Sivaguru related to * What she learnt developing mission critical systems * How playing basketball helped her appreciate goal focused teamwork * Helping other women to make their voices heard
11: Testing Stories and the Startup Bug
February 07, 2019 06:03 - 46 minutesIn this conversation with Sivaguru, Diwakar Menon talks about * The focus for testing effectiveness would be to address risks * Some stories of testing in projects adopting agile approaches * High functioning development organizations * What made him launch a startup And some more.. Diwakar Menon has over 30 years of work experience ranging from test consulting to delivery to pre-sales. He has been the head of service delivery for key customer contracts that encompass a variety o...
10: The Business of Excellence, Coaching & Podcasting
February 01, 2019 04:34 - 29 minutesJoin a new host from PM Power Consulting Chitra, in conversation with Sivaguru to learn more about how he unravels his pursuit of - * Excellence in business around results through all-pervasive leadership * Managing knowledge gained by doing, learning and adapting * Disciplines to deliver software * Sport and coaching for breakthrough performance * Uncovering intuition, spontaneity, awakening senses and connecting with people using podcasting.
9: Data Science, Outcomes
January 24, 2019 03:33 - 43 minutesL Ravichandran, known to most as L Ravi, is the President and COO of Tech Mahindra. In his career of over 4 decades, he has seen and been part of the growth of the IT industry in India. In this episode, Ravi talks of his experiences, views and what customers expect from IT in conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power Connsulting. Listen on.. * The relevance of statistics and the evolution of data science * What we can learn from war thinking to plan software projects * How to get m...
8: Product Engineering, Personal Values and Teamwork
January 19, 2019 04:33 - 43 minutesIn this conversation, J Veeraraaghavan shares his experience and perspectives with Sivaguru on - * The mindset needed for developers and testers to play as a single team * How use of right words can bring in significant changes * What approaches are needed to build great products * Leveraging personal values and beliefs for career success * Future of software development and software factories
7: Microproducts & Building to Learn
January 10, 2019 06:24 - 50 minutesIn this episode, we invite you to listen to Dorai Thodla, serial tech entrepreneur, in conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power. Dorai is the founder and CTO of Technology Strategies LLC, based in the United States. He is a mentor at KCG College of Technology Chennai. He is passionate about teaching students and mentors product startups. Dorai also gives talks on emerging technologies and their impact while consulting with companies on how to build tech communities. He believes in the paradi...
6: Cross Country Cultures
January 07, 2019 01:06 - 44 minutesIn this conversation Paramu Kurumathur, Principal Consultant with PM Power Consulting shares his views and experiences, in conversation with Sivaguru, related to * His experiences with nimble practices to more formal waterfall approaches to agile. * The impact of technology on the way software is developed. * How global architectures evolve. * Contrasting character development in writing and feature development for software. * Future for the CIO role and if it can be...
5: Writing better software by trekking
December 20, 2018 08:21 - 22 minutesIn this episode, Sivaguru and Vishweshwar Hegde from PM Power, are in conversation to discover interesting facets of Vishu’s journey through his career. Vishu shares several interesting nuggets that range across – • How he maps his learnings from his passion for trekking, to work life and big differences one can make by being a pathfinder or a herder. • Yoga, meditation and managing outside by mastering inside • Knowledge era paradigms • How to influence others to achieve outcomes in term...
4: World Views and Natural Software Engineering
December 12, 2018 03:34 - 47 minutesIn this episode tune into conversations between Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting & Sandeep Dasgupta, Vice President R&D - Gaming Systems at Scientific Games. In this conversation Sandeep talks about some of his world views that have shaped his work style as well as professional practices. Among other points, they cover * The change in mindset needed when moving from a number crunching oriented language like FORTRAN to object orientation * How Sandeep learnt the differences in per...
3: Power of Conversations
December 05, 2018 04:56 - 13 minutesIn this episode, I would like to share with you two incidents that helped me refine my own understanding of user needs and experience. From two different projects at different times, how I learnt: * That the purpose of a developer is to solve others’ problems [and not just look for the next personal challenge to solve] * Distinguishing user needs and wants * The power of conversations with users * The need and importance of empathy for the user ways of working and work ...
Managing an Agile Transformation for Success
November 20, 2018 05:10 - 14 minutesAgile transformations, like any other are challenging for most organizations. This episode engages experts from PM Power Consulting J Veeraraaghavan, Vishveshwar Hegde and Anand Natarajan in dialogue, sharing their agile leadership coaching and consulting insights. The dialogue also explores common challenges and approaches to agile transformations for leaders and geographically distributed teams with diverse view points of the experts. The case study reads as follows : **Trailblazers Inc. ...
Culture, Protocol, and Other Stories
November 15, 2018 04:46 - 34 minutesIn this episode, Shiv will be talking to Gopalan, the Managing director of Global Automation, India. Gopal, as he is also called, has been in the international IT products and services industry since 1979. Listen to Gopal sharing some personal stories that touch upon various points including: * Attitude of working for someone * Culture aspects, when working in various cultures * Arrogance of a fresher - or how one can miss out the real user needs * A tough situation he ...
Episode 0 - The Importance of DevOps and UX
October 05, 2018 04:24 - 8 minutesMy name is Sivaguru. I have been in the IT industry since 1980 - and started my association initially with hardware - building a single board microcomputer - and them switched to software. Over the years, working with multiple technologies to create solutions across various domains - and working in multiple countries, I gained a lot of experience by doing myself as well as learning from others. I share two specific learnings in this episode. 1\. The importance of DevOps for every develope...