It was a lovely Saturday Morning and I was very much excited to attend this conclave organized my PMI Mumbai for the practicing and aspiring Project Managers. TCS sponsored couple of its project managers for this event.
PM Conclave 2012, in Hyatt Regency, started with a bang when
one of the most admired industry leaders and father of software industry in
India, Mr. F. C. Kohli delivered his Key Note Speech. One would never imagine
how a short-heighted, ordinary looking man pioneered the Indian IT when he took
the helm of TCE (Tata Consulting Engineers; now known as TCS). He spoke about
how he brought Burrough Computers in India and his team did the reverse
engineering to make first indigenous computer in India. I got the chance to ask
him first audience question about how he switched his career from a well-settled
TISCO job to a new venture of computing.
Later, in the day, case studies from Aeronautics, Solar
Power and other fields highlighted the importance of Project Management at micro
level while keeping macro picture alive.
The focus of the conference was Agile Methodologies in and
beyond IT Project Management. There were few very good speakers who spoke about
how their own industries are trying to use Agile for business sustainability
and how Agile is not only about Scrum but a mind-set. One may or may not know
about specific methodologies of Agile Project Management but one would always
be able to appreciate its core values of delivering to the business in most
effective and efficient manner.
Second day ended with a panel discussion when I found myself
little misplaced I could not agree with opinion of few of the panelist on
importance of ethics in business. I couldn't resist myself from catching a
point of a panelist, and asking him question on that. Later, in a private
conversation, I found it very ironical (as he was a professor of ethics in a elite
business school in Mumbai) when he tried to portray ethical misdoings of a
well-known Indian company as valid practices for market survival.
Nevertheless, it was a good experience to be a part of
Project Management Conclave and anyway you don't get chance to feast in a five
star hotel everyday :-)
