My interview for Project Management Institute, Young Project Leaders - 2020 and Project Economy

1. 1. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of, and why?
My greatest professional achievement was establishing myself as an Entrepreneur
at the age of 18 years. I had no financial assistance from my family to start a
company and so I had to work as a freelance Software programmer and Graphics
Designer at the age of 16 to save some funds for my company. This taught me to
prioritize my time, build great habits and stay focused on my goals. I’m proud of
this accomplishment.
Some of individual achievements in my journey so far are as below:
● Built high-quality Video Rendering Farms with 500+ Nodes - 2012 - 13’
● Implemented large-scale post-production workflows for Major Digital Post-
Production Companies - 2012 - 13’
● India’s youngest Managing director - 2014
● Technology partner for India’s biggest photo trade show & Implemented
End-End trade show management and surveillance system - 2014
● Part of Indian Express Young Entrepreneurs Article Series - Dec - 2014
● ISBR, Bangalore published a case study on Rajesh’s entrepreneurial journey
- 2015
● Implemented award winning VR & AR applications for Industrial Safety -
2019
● Built an e-Learning Platform – 2019

2. 2. What is the most influential project you've worked on—and why?
As an ardent lover of Computers, I started working on software projects when I
was 12-13 years old. I have built websites and also built custom desktop
applications and moved to Hyderabad from my hometown at the age of 16 in the
pursuit of finding a career in the IT Industry. I have worked as a freelance
programmer and graphic designer with reputed organizations in Hyderabad for
two years and at the age of 18, I started an IT services company and named it as
Techimax IT Services Pvt Ltd.
My first project at Techimax was to build a technology platform for India’s biggest
Photo Trade Show held at Hyderabad in November 2014. Techimax has been
chosen as a Technology Partner for the Photo Trade Show which has a footfall of
more than 100,000 visitors during the exhibition.
As part of that project, I have to build the technology platform for Crowd
Management - Visitor Registration, Stall Registration, Visitor Tracking, Stall wise
footfall duration and also responsible for the Surveillance of the complete Trade
Show. In a nutshell, I was responsible for building all the IT Applications related to
the Photo Trade Show within the timeframe of 45-50 days. The project has been
executed successfully and met all the expectations of the sponsors by providing
the required Visitor Analytics and helped them to further promote their products.
The project has been very influential in my entire life as this project has helped
me in unleashing my true potential and let me learn a lot of new areas within the
IT landscape. Without this project, I would have never got any opportunity to
learn some of the critical skills required to execute a project successfully such as
Stakeholder Management, Time Management, Cost Management and Resource
Management.

3. 3. What project in the world most influenced you personally, as a child or as an
adult, and why?
As a Millennial Kid, I am very excited to see a Personal Computer for the first time
in my life at the age of 6 at my uncle’s house and it fascinated me the most, it
became my best companion till date. I am from Generation Y and very happy to
witness the huge transformation of the IT Landscape in the last 15-20 years.
Everyday a new innovation is made, some of these innovations turn out to be
impactive to the everyday lives of people. In the process these projects have
made dreams a reality through creativity, adaptability, and perseverance–and
continue to shape the world around us.
A Personal Computer with Windows Operating System was the first influential
project in my life. As a child, I used to believe that Bill Gates as a highly intelligent
individual invented the Computer but later, I realized that it is a collective effort
of 1000's of programmers at Microsoft who built the Personal Computer &
Windows OS. My quest for the computer did not stop there, I kept on reading
books and talking to my uncle about how these 1000’s of programmers came
together to build the personal computer. After a few years, when I was 16, I
understood that building a Software or Hardware is a collaborative effort and
there is something called Project Management which helps to build the products
successfully. As a child, a Personal Computer with Windows OS was the most
influential project as it helped me to learn a lot of new things without stepping
out of my home.
As an over enthusiast of Computers, I could not continue my formal education
after 12th Grade and started spending a lot of time on learning new things on
Computers. In the next phase of my career as a Programmer, Google Search was

4. the most influential project as it has accelerated my learning of new technologies
and trends in the Industry.
In the real world, building Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower amuses me for the Team
Collaboration, Cost, Time and Resource Management methodologies followed to
execute these projects successfully. These projects are always influential and
inspirational as these projects are of large scale with 1000’s of workers and loads
of money to build such magnificent pieces of architecture which have lasted for
centuries. I draw inspiration from all these influential projects in my day-to-day
operations of running multiple software projects.

5. 4. What is your mantra for leading projects?
When leading Projects, I often adopt the mantra of “Zero Surprises”. When
leading a Project, if you plan effectively, build the right relationships and
communicate effectively at all levels, then there will be “Zero Surprises”. If you
build trust with the team you work with, and the sponsors whom you work for,
and encourage transparency at all levels, there should not be any surprises.
As a Project Leader, creating the right culture and clarity of vision is very
important in addition to PM methodology and process. I have built effective
planning capabilities in my teams.
Effective Planning is my mantra for leading the projects.
All my project kick off meetings include not just the project team and senior
management, but other associated groups like quality assurance, Technical
Support, HR and Admin Teams in order to understand the project requirement,
milestones and risks. When involved, Logistics, HR and Admin Teams feel the
importance of the project to the company and automatically buys greater
commitment. As part of my project planning, I conduct the following activities
diligently to avoid any surprises during the project execution.
Requirement Baseline - To deal with the chronic problem of vague, inaccurate
and untestable specifications, it needs to be ensured that a requirement baseline
must be agreed upon before the beginning of project planning activities.
Project Estimation - An experienced project team is assigned to agree to the most
realistic estimate of project size, effort and cost. At least two independent
estimates will be called for, preferably using two different methodologies based
on actual data of similar past projects. The estimates and schedules will be

6. refined as more information becomes available. We emphasize the importance of
comprehensive estimation techniques to address effort, schedule, cost and
project profitability up front at the proposal stage of the project.
Resource Allocation - When it comes to allocating resources/talent or hiring new
talent for various modules, our PMs will first identify all possible roles required in
a project, identify personnel fitting these roles, allocate responsibilities,
authorities and accountabilities.
I have followed the above Project Management methodologies effectively while
leading the projects.

7. 5. What is the one must-have skill to succeed in The Project Economy—and
why?
In every sector, an adaptive mindset based on the core techniques and skills of
project management is now essential. The days where project management was
mainly a technical skill set deep in the IT function have long gone. It’s time to
reconsider our approach to talent and the skills needed to succeed in the Project
Economy.
One McKinsey study of over 5,000 business projects found that 56% delivered less
value than expected, and 45% had cost overruns. Some 17% went so badly that
they threatened the company’s very survival. Duke’s research has found that a
lack of change management skills is the top reason for these project failures. The
researchers looked at firms across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific and found that
95% of project-based workers are neither certified, nor even called project
managers, even though their roles involve managing and delivering projects. You
will find these professionals all over organizations today. These project-based
professionals may have no interest in pursuing a career in project management,
but they need project management techniques to succeed. The Project
Management Institute (PMI) has warned that shortages in project management
talent and skills could cost employers around $200bn over the decade to 2027.
From the above, it is very clear that the project management skills are essential to
succeed in the Project Economy and the one-must have skill is the Change
Management Skill in the current VUCA world of Projects.

8. 6. What is the one must-have skill to succeed The Project Economy of
tomorrow, and why?
We’re in the midst of the transformative impact of the Fourth Industrial
Revolution, the time is now to start preparing for the future of work. Even just
five years from now, more than one-third of the skills we believe are essential for
today's workforce will have changed. Fast-paced technological innovations mean
that most of us will soon share our workplaces with artificial intelligences and
bots. The only way to stay ahead of the curve is by adopting a commitment to
lifelong learning so that we can acquire the skills needed to succeed in the future
workplace.
Due to the speed of change in the future workplace, people will have to be agile
and able to embrace and celebrate change. Not only will our brains need to be
flexible, but we’ll also need to be adaptable as we are required to adjust to
shifting workplaces, expectations, and skill sets. It's time for all of us to begin
acquiring skills that will make us valuable resources in the future workplace.
The one-must have skill to succeed in the Project Economy is effective leadership.
Every project needs a leader, who is inspiring and helping others become the best
versions of themselves. He or She is the team’s No.1 cheerleader and chief
encourager, but at the same time, not afraid to call out the team when they drop
the ball; they bring balance to the project and team. Leading them well means to
serve them by taking responsibility for how you as a project manager are going to
make your team’s life better today. Be the person that moves mountains for
them. Be the one that greases the wheels. Be the one to move all the barriers that
could get in their way.

9. 7. How are young people changing the world of projects now?
Young employees are no longer happy to stay in one role for decades. Job-
hopping is more popular among younger generations, with Generation Z changing
roles frequently to give their career a boost. It also gives employees fresh impetus
and new challenges. Businesses can tap into this trend, without losing valued
members of staff, by ensuring that work never becomes stale.
This new way of working – which PMI calls ‘the project economy’ – needs
adaptability, flexibility and malleability. People actually start acquiring these types
of skills very young, which is why it is believed that project management skills are
life skills. These life skills help the youth to be more effective at communicating,
collaborating, critical thinking, and decision making.
Regardless of what industry these young people aspire to be in – and regardless
of the role anyone plays in an organization, success will depend on knowing how
to manage and lead projects and deliver value to the organization, to customers,
and to society overall.
Young people today are looking for companies that have some kind of ethical
standing and social impact – those that believe in something beyond just making
money. It is a sustainable way of working because companies that are centered
around values will be in a great position to attract talent in the future.

10. 8. Fast forward: What’s one way managing projects will have changed by 2030?
Innovation and creativity are the key components of value creation, while
employee expectations and working cultures are changing all the time. We are
seeing new forms of working that are enabled by digital technologies, on projects
that are both complex and global. Understanding and managing these changes is
vital, if we want to continue to provide solutions that truly meet the needs of our
clients and stakeholders.
By 2030, forward-looking entrepreneurs who have invested in the development
of agile, flexible and creative employees will find themselves in teams that are
able to combine the advantages of the human mind with the most efficient
functionalities of future technology. We will see two major changes in the project
management - Virtual Teams and Automation.
Virtual Teams - We’ll see highly centralized workplace models based on long-term
planning replaced by decentralized models of flexible and adaptable virtual
teams. Virtual teams offer the advantage of access to a more diverse workforce.
It’s relatively easy to set up a team of global specialists based on a project’s
requirements. Communication happens through digital technologies and often
relies on virtual rooms to manage projects. And advances in mobile technologies
mean individuals and teams are now able to work from anywhere at any time. But
the shift towards virtual team working also brings challenges to the management
of projects. Those running projects need new skills in communication and team
management. The challenge might lie less in finding the right employees and
more in finding managers with the necessary skills to manage a virtual workforce.

11. Automation - Driven by rapid advances in digital technologies, the nature of work
is being transformed. While artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics grow more
sophisticated, jobs are being reinvented. Collaboration and communication
through increasingly intuitive user interfaces could lead to fundamental changes
in workplace structures and may offer new possibilities for productivity and
creativity in the workforce. Human-machine collaboration will open the way to
virtual and network-based companies and value streams.
Gartner Says 80 Percent of today’s project management tasks will be eliminated
by 2030 as Artificial Intelligence takes over. Even in the future where
professionals across the world have been gradually replaced by increasingly
capable systems, core elements of project management will still provide an
irreplaceable human combination of leadership, integration of specialists, and
ethical behavior.

12. 9. What famous or historic person would you want on your project team, and
why?
I would love to have Alexander the Great as my project team member because he
is a great visionary, team builder, mentor and he showed us some timeless
leadership lessons.
Alexander’s life teaches us many leadership lessons which remain applicable to
the modern world and we can easily relate to the leadership qualities required for
efficient project management.
Compelling vision - Alexander’s success is largely because of his compelling vision
of conquering the World. Alexander spoke to the collective imagination of his
people and won the commitment of his followers.
Matchless Execution - Alexander not only had a compelling vision but also has the
brawns to turn into reality. By maintaining an excellent information system, he
was able alter his strategy immediately after his spies briefed him about the
enemy’s motives and implemented them quickly.
Committed Team - Alexander knew how to build a committed team around him
who would do anything to make sure they win. He allowed his generals to build
on their strengths. He was never insecure that his juniors or peers would one day
grow larger than their shoes.
Lead by Example - Alexander set the example of excellence with his leadership
style; he led his troops quite literally from the front. When his troops went hungry
or thirsty, he went hungry and thirsty; when their horses died beneath them and
they had to walk, he did the same.

13. Encourage innovation - Alexander realized the competitive advantage of strategic
innovation. He encouraged his corps of Engineers to design some of the most
creative battlefield weapons - the ‘Scorpion’ is a great example.
Invest in talent management - Extremely visionary for his time, Alexander spent
an extraordinary amount of resources on training and development. He not only
trained his present troops but also looked to the future by developing the next
generation.
Organizational governance - Alexander has put proper mechanisms of
organizational governance into place, using checks and balances to prevent faulty
decision-making and the abuse of power of his generals.
The unique thing about Alexander the Great is that he did it all in his 20s and in
his brief 12-year stint. He built the largest empire in ancient Greek history and his
conquests allowed Greek culture to spread far and wide whose influence is
spoken 2,000 years later.
In summary, Alexander the Great has all the qualities required for an ideal project
team leader/manager.

14. 10. How does your strategic leadership keep organizations ahead of the curve?
As per my understanding Strategic leaders are those who lay the groundwork and
he or she can anticipate and exploit tomorrow’s opportunities now.
My leadership style is to enable my employees to become the business
differentiators. I practice this on a day-to-day basis to help my employees own
the organization and thus build competitive advantage.
Listen to your team members: I feel that whenever my people start feeling that I
am listening for understanding to help them, meaningful and engaging
conversations take place.
I consciously put in the effort to listen to not only what my team members are
saying verbally but also try to understand what is unsaid, feelings unexpressed
and non-verbal cues. The most important thing here is the action taken by me
after listening to the team members. Most of my actions taken on projects convey
a very strong message that ‘the team members are important to the
leader/organization’. Once team members start believing that they are important
in the eyes of the leader/Organization, they share their thoughts unhesitatingly,
which they would not have done otherwise. Trust enables people to willingly go
the extra mile not only to make the organization successful but also in enabling
the organization to stay ahead of the competition.
Building an emotional connect: When leaders help team, members build an
emotional connect with the organization, employees behave as good citizens,
supporting fellow members in organizational cohesion and deep bonding takes
place. The emotional connect enables discretionary behaviors – to do more for

15. the organization, employees engage in meaningful actions and put in the best
effort to add value readily.
From my experience, I can claim that whenever I build an emotional connect with
my employees as a Leader and treat them as a strategic advantage, I have seen
my employees often outmaneuver and outperform.
Openness to Learn: As a Leader, I am always open to learn something new from
my team members, many of them are younger than me and who are way below
in the hierarchy. This shows that I am courteously respectful to superior
knowledge & skill possessed by my team members and not the position they hold.
The moment employees start believing that the leader respects their expertise
and that they are open to learn from them, they become partners in business
I provide supportive assistance to my team members and provide an ecosystem in
which my team members thrive to succeed. Highly motivated team is a key
success mantra and it is helping me in keeping my organization ahead of my peers
in the industry.

16. 11. What project management skills help you execute next-gen technologies
such as AI and IoT successfully for your clients?
With the rise of the next-gen technologies such as AI, ML & IoT, it is becoming less
of a “nice to have” and instead essential for technical project managers to have a
deeper understanding of these concepts. Owing to the changes in the very
ecosystem of projects, there will be a significant shift in the role of the managers
handling these projects.
AI project management calls for a different approach when compared to
traditional project management, the differences between AI projects and
traditional IT projects are manifold.
Most of the AI Project fails primarily due to misaligned expectations and
insufficient data management capabilities. The key skills required by the AI
Project Managers are Stakeholder management, Cost, Time and Resource
management.
Stakeholder Management - There is a possibility that stakeholders may expect
much more from AI, ML & IoT Projects than what they can actually deliver. This is
usually a problem stemming from the hype created by the media when writing
about AI products, and thus, it is important for the project manager to set
reasonable expectations.
The most common causes of scope creep in ML projects are related to trying to
do too many things at once and underestimating the effort needed to prepare the
data. The data infrastructure setup and data cleaning jobs are much more linear
than usual software development and might require a different project
management methodology. It takes much longer to build the right data

17. infrastructure and prepare the data to be used than building the machine learning
model to run the data. This is a big consideration for project managers as they
manage teams and think about AI scope and project estimates.
Simply assuming you have the data needed, in the format needed, is the most
common mistake PMs make when just starting with ML projects. With data
preparation and cleaning often being the more lengthy part of the ML project
process, managing this step is essential.
Talent Management - With the current demand for world-class AI experts, the
competition for getting the right talent is fierce. So, we hire the best talent as well
as build the inhouse talent so as to avoid any resource management issues while
executing AI Projects.
Cost & Time Management - The AI development landscape also tends to open up
several opportunities as the cycle matures. Meaning, for a project to be deemed
complete, it has to cross several stages of exploration and hits and trials. While
the outcome of the approach is almost always high revenue friendly, it often leads
to high development cost and extended development timelines. Hence, we split
the AI development lifecycle into these steps: ideation and data discovery,
prioritizing MVPs, and developing MVPs into fully-fledged products.
AI projects can be better managed by making change management an integral
part of the Agile process. The principle that AI program managers generally work
on is fail-fast, wherein the idea is to explore expeditiously and fail right at the
beginning of a wrong approach, instead of at a later stage in the development
process

18. To tackle all the above problems, we manage the stakeholders, so they
understand that it’s better to start with quick wins rather than grandiose plans.
We communicate this approach continuously throughout the project, as we build
and test.
In summary, the impending AI revolution brings forth a set of interesting, dynamic
projects that often come with a modified development process, a differing team
archetype, and new challenges. Project managers who are able to grasp and
execute on these new concepts will be instrumental players in creating the AI, ML
& IoT products of the future.