

Software People Stories
PM Power Consulting
Stories 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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Apr 9, 2020 • 30min
74: Signal Processing to Data Engineering
In 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 importance of understanding users of the product even for data engineers
- Understanding GDPR while working on personal data
- What different views of data down a funnel can reveal and recognizing anomalies
- Transitions from telecom engineering to a services company and then a product company
- How agile practices need to chosen to suit ones needs
- shares thoughts on people considering an IT career and moving to Europe for work
Telecommunications Engineer turned Software Professional turned Data Engineer working at Omio in Berlin as a Senior Data Engineer and Lead of the Business Intelligence platform team.
Formerly worked at Thoughtworks in Bangalore.
(Hobbies are guitar, sports and art)
LinkedIn | jayantak | linkedin.com/in/jayantak/
Instagram | mellowcolour | https://www.instagram.com/mellowcolour/
Twitter | mellowcolour | https://twitter.com/mellowcolour

Apr 2, 2020 • 32min
73: Comics and Cybersecurity
In 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 technique is still nascent
The evolving concept of software sandboxing
Power demands of complex computing, such as bitcoin mining and IoT devices
Some research into saving power on android phones
The possibilities of 5G
The eroom’s law and increasingly complex algorithms
How quantum computing can help in compute intensive areas such as drug discovery
Applications of AI for social or societal problems
Technology fighting technology for good [such as anti-virus]
On offensive security
His thoughts on taking up IT as a career or field of study / research
Shravan Narayan is 4th year PhD student in the fields of computer security and programming languages at the University of California San Diego. He spends his time working on how to safely include untrusted buggy code in large applications through the use of memory isolation, colloquially called sandboxing. Before this, he worked at Microsoft for three years in Redmond, Washington as a software engineer in the windows update team. His non computer science hobbies include playing the tabla and speed solving Rubik's cubes.

Mar 26, 2020 • 35min
72: Software and Cinema
In 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 new
- Learning from the networks of BSPIN (Bangalore Software Process Improvement Network) and knowledge management special interest group
- How a group of companies came together to share experiences in software development and gain trust to share data for purposes of benchmarking
- A proper approach to get people to rally around a purpose
- Using knowledge management practices to share and successfully roll out organization wide initiatives
- Some insights from her experience in the field of KM
- Learnings from having spent a lot of time in quality engineering
- Transition to skill development and later to cinema
- Her thoughts on the future of education
- Living a life full of colour
Shobha CS is the Founder Director of the Tent Cinema Film School. She started her career in software development at Kirloskar Computers and later at PSI Data systems. She worked at Perot systems in the role of SEPG Head and Sr. Director of Quality and Operational Excellence that included Knowledge Management. She has over 30 years of experience in focusing on software delivery and internal operations.
She ran her own venture Artis Academy a training institute offering vocational training in broadcast journalism in collaboration with NDTV, along with courses in hardware and networking, spoken English and ethical hacking.
Shobha now runs a film school offering workshops and courses in film making, acting, scripting, cinematography, Editing, and lyrics writing.
Shobha holds an MSc in Physics from Mysore University. She has received awards from BSPIN, given guest lectures at various institutes on Knowledge Management and has been an active participant in the CII Innovation forum.
Her interests are in the area of connect between Quality & Knowledge Management, Training young minds, Leadership and Spirituality, Culture and Learning.

Mar 23, 2020 • 10min
71: Dispersed Teams - 7
This 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 this time with the following -
Sharing my workspace with more people, making space
Keeping kids engaged, handling interruptions, regulating screen time, accessing free books and audio resources
Grandparents help, rope them in
Dedicating playtime, respecting kids time like they do yours
Keeping a schedule, flexible
Managing work with identifying communication modes, pro-active outreach
What to do when you are stuck

Mar 22, 2020 • 4min
70: Dispersed Teams - 6
This 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 give space to each other, better still time box it
Taking care of your health, with early morning and late evening walks as a scheduled activity
Continuing with online events as a facilitator, creating virtual break out rooms and facilitating collaboration with proper tool handling

Mar 22, 2020 • 15min
69: Dispersed Teams - 5
This 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 communication
Experience with him as an individual working from home to an entire team working in a dispersed mode
How to start and end the day
Handling range of team maturity from face-to-face discussions to now getting onto skype or teams [or webex with customers]
We will know our productivity better in a few days
3 things that help
Trust the team
Give them guidance: week plan, daily goals
Have SPOCs for smaller teams
Send everyone: team + management: what is the EOD achievement

Mar 21, 2020 • 11min
68: Dispersed Teams - 4
This 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 current situation

Mar 20, 2020 • 52min
67: Algorithms and Systems Thinking
In 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 as a quality gateway
Story of importance of integrity in one's role
Keeping lights on when apps were down, technology leader experiences
Location strategy of moving 9 cities across 3 continents
Understanding your priority and believe that you are adding value to the org and speak your mind
Be able to accept consequences
Creating working agreements with spouse makes relationship stronger!
Soul searching and what emerged from there
Pay it forward model in all three dimensions

Mar 20, 2020 • 10min
66: Dispersed Teams - 3
This 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 virtual circles of trust
- What individuals can do - in terms of acknowledging what they are feeling, sticking with routines and doing at least 1-2 things each day
- Looking out and appreciating nature around us with hope that this too shall pass

Mar 19, 2020 • 12min
65: Dispersed Teams - 2
This 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 moments & side-bar conversations
- Formal remote work mechanisms would work, but..
- Social distancing and isolation
- Planned banter & a sense of belonging
- Inducting new joinees into an organization at this time


