Member of the Month: Meet Priya Patra

 

You know the saying, "I'm a Project Manager - I chase storms to relax!" Well this phrase aptly describes January's Member of the Month, Priya Patra. Priya works for an IT services company, CapGemini, in Mumbai, the financial capital of her home country, India. She is an active contributor to ProjectManagement.com and was featured in the Ask the Expert series at North America Congress 2015.

When she is not managing projects at work, she is busy managing her home and her two hyper-energetic kids, son -  Rishabh ( 15 ) and daughter -  Rishima ( 8 ).

How did you get involved in project management?

Project Management fascinated me always. My dad was a manager in a public Services Organization in India. I grew up watching him meticulously planning his day’s work while having his morning cup of tea. When I look back I can connect the dots, he was actually planning his day and  his TO DO list. Next day he was evaluating and knocking off the closed items from the list and adding newer ones. As I grew up I started assisting him in tracking his TO DO list.

Today he has retired from work, but still has a diary where he keeps his notes, TO DO list, tracking his finances etc. I think that is how I got first introduced to project planning, tracking, monitoring and closing.

At work, I guess it was a natural evolution. I have a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science, plus an MBA degree. As a fresh graduate, somehow I was always offered a technical job, maybe back in those days I did not have enough experience to be  a manager. Today when I look back, those job roles have actually helped me in planning, tracking, monitoring my projects more efficiently. Over the years, I have evolved from a software developer, project lead to a Project Manager, this where I am right now.

Who or what inspires you to be the best project manager you can be?

Who: My Team and my projects

I strongly believe whatever I am is because of my team; a project success and failure depends on the team you have! Every interaction I have with my team and every project I executed has been a skill enhancement and learning experience.

What: The fact that I am doing my bit, making a difference to my projects, my account, my business unit, my organization, the project management profession inspires me to even contribute more.

What is one thing you wished you'd known when you first started out in project management?

I wish I knew the Agile concepts of project management, continuous delivery, Business value and Minimum Viable Products when I started out with project management. I think these concepts would have helped me to take better decisions and provide more business value to my stakeholders and sponsors.

You come in Monday morning to find that your most productive project team member is no longer with the company. You have been working together on a project for six months. What are your next steps?

First of all:

1. Go for a walk outside, trying to sink in the news
2. Come back and check the status of the work that was assigned to him/her
3. Check who would be the best fit for the person who has left
4. Closely monitor the unfinished task and the assigned resource to ensure that the tasks are completed on time

You get a call from your project’s sponsor. You've been working on the project for a year and the two of you have a good business relationship. You're 2 months away from the project deadline and she wants the deadline bumped up by 3 weeks and indicates that this is a critical need. What do you do?

Since I would have executed this project in an agile for the last two years, I would have delivered all business critical features in the previous iterations. Looking at the situation I would however:

1. Introspect on the critical need, if it is a new regulatory or legal condition we may need to take it up
2. Check with the product owner and see if we can prioritize the items critical for business for the current delivery and check if the rest can be taken in the next phase
3. Check if any tool usage / automation can help in meeting the schedule deadline
4. Check if the project can be fast tracked
5. Evaluate risks associated with point 4
6. Calculate trade off and the business value
7. Communicate the above to all stakeholders, sponsors and project team

Please introduce yourself to Priya in the comments below and take some time to add her to your network! 

Is there a community member who you think deserves some recognition for their contributions to the community? Let us know! Email the member’s name and a brief explanation as to why you think he/she should be featured in our Member of the Month to [email protected].