UMBC Mic'd Up
UMBC Mic'd Up
Navigating Careers in Project and Program Management with Google’s Karanveer Anand
In this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up, host Dennise Cardona sits down with Karanveer Anand, a Technical Program Manager at Google, to explore the dynamic fields of project and program management. Karanveer shares his journey from engineering to management, offering insights into the key differences between project, program, and product management. They discuss the challenges and rewards of managing cross-functional teams, the impact of AI on the industry, and essential skills for those looking to break into the field. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable advice and actionable takeaways.
Interested in Project Management?
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https://professionalprograms.umbc.edu/project-management/
Dennise Cardona 0:00
Hey, welcome to this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up Podcast. My name is Dennise Cardona from the Office of Professional Programs here at UMBC. And today we have a very special guest who currently works at Google, Karanveer. We are going to chat about the fields of project management, program management and wherever else the conversation takes us. So I want to welcome you. Thanks so much for being on here with us.
Karanveer 0:27
Thank you, Dennise, for introducing me and having you in your podcast. This is a really good opportunity for me to be part of this podcast. So thank you very much.
Dennise Cardona 0:37
Hey, you're welcome. We love to talk about things like project management, program management, product management, whatever the catch phrase is. We love to talk about things like that.
Karanveer 0:49
So I'll go introduce myself. So my name is karanveer. I'm a karanveer Anand. I'm a technical program manager with Google from last three years before Google, I was with Nutanix, and I was doing something similar. So basically, my specialization lies in software reliability, technical program manager. Apart from work, I authored a course for job seekers on how to crack the interviews for program managers. I authored few white papers and serving as a board of advisor on San Jose State University and University of California. Right out of my professional journey, just to keep helping professional outside of professional people as well. That's all pretty much, but I'm excited to see what's here.
Dennise Cardona 1:28
Yeah. But before we get started, I love asking this question, what excites you most about what you do in the world in your current role? What is it that gets you up in the morning and says, I can't wait to get there and do something.
Karanveer 1:41
I guess lot of people trust Google services so much like a lot of people rely on Google services, like, Hey, is it my internet working? Let's try. Is my internet working? How do people check? People check by pinging google.com people check, is Google working? Okay, internet is working. That's a 50% of population check the internet with this philosophy. So my I do a lot of technical projects, technical programs to make Google services more reliable so that people keep trusting billions of you have a billions of users who rely on Google services for their day to day jobs, for health care, for airlines, education industry, lot of critical lives that depend on the Google services. So I run a lot of projects and programs here, across my organization, different projects to keep the Google services more reliable for our user, to keep the Google services more trustworthy for billions of users, so that these services never go down. That's my coffee.
Dennise Cardona 2:42
Thank you for what you do, because I can't imagine a world without Google. Honestly. I'm sure everybody can say the same thing. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the project management field. What would you say is the difference between project management and program or product management?
Karanveer 3:04
Yeah, let's take a step back. It's easy to explain the difference between the product versus project. Project and program are quite related, but product managers are different vertical in almost every organization of the world, so Product Manager make sure the right product is getting built. Like the go to market is, are we building the right products, the features, but this product will offer to the customer. So all these things are product manager responsibility, while the project manager responsibility is, make sure the work is being built efficient, efficiently. Basically, the work is getting done. Product Manager comes to the requirements. Hey, we need to build a Google search engine with this blah features, and the project manager makes that thing happen by working with engineers, bringing the different leaders. So that's the job of a project manager to get things done. Yeah. Then we have a then we have a program manager, project and manager and program manager quite related. Program Manager basically oversees many projects which are themed by a common goal. Let's say I run many projects which are mapped to a software reliability. So that's why I'm a program manager. So program manager runs many projects with a common theme. So the goal of the all these projects mapped with some OKR or some high level OKR, make Google services more reliable, is a big theme in which I run many projects, making them compliant, making them secure, making them there's like different ways in which you can make the Google service more reliable. So that's a program manager.
Dennise Cardona 4:51
Let me ask you, just curious, because a lot of the people who are viewing or listening to this will may have the same question if they are not sure about the field they want to go into, and maybe they're considering project management with a goal of maybe getting to program management one day. How, what was your pathway to get to be a program manager? Did you were you first a project manager, and then you understood that whole realm, and then it grew into this role where you now have your hands of umbrella over the project management field.
Karanveer 5:26
That's a really good question. And I get this question a lot, how to start the journey, how to get into the world? It's a pretty common question and a very interesting question. And everyone has a different journey. It's you can't We can't copy paste someone's journey to their own lives, but it can be a template. I mean, we can try to see how much we can replicate, because everyone's has their own journey. So the there are a couple of ways to become program start with a project manager or program manager. Either you do a some degree in Management, degree engineering management, project management, a lot of management courses available, and bachelors for and master's degree. If you have you don't have a time for bachelor's and master's, you can do some courses. You can do some certificate program. There are lot of ample of things in the market. Like Google has one project management PMP offers one like project management institute PMI, which is the biggest project management institute, they offers a PMP certification. So there are a couple of things for a Kickstarter to get into this field. Yeah, and for me, I have a I'm accidental project manager. I haven't done any of them.
Dennise Cardona 6:35
I love it accidental. Yes, I love that term.
Karanveer 6:39
So I became by chance, but I love it. That's why I became it. I started my journey as an engineer, and so I was, I'm a technical heavy program manager, so I started my journey as an engineer. Then I said, Okay, when I'm engineer, I'm focusing on one small problem. When I'm a project manager, my influence can be white. It can be like my horizon will widen, my impact will across organization. So why don't I go into this type of field? So I moved internally in my previous community of Nutanix, from an engineer to project management role, and then slowly transitioned it. Then I found that's my strengths, technically, is what I studied in my colleges. In my schools, I have adequate technical, sharp knowledge, but management is my strength, so why not build over top of it? So I love management, so I just like combining the technical and management. That's the right position.
Dennise Cardona 7:37
Yeah, that sounds like it sounds like it's a perfect blend of really speaking to your strengths. And it sounds like a very strategic type of role, am I correct in that where a project management and a program manager really has to be very strategic, almost like they're playing a game of chess and seeing and thinking through what pieces need to move in order for other pieces to move down the line and things like that.
Karanveer 8:02
Because you are like a CEO or owner of a project, you need to get things done. You need to the end goal, and you are the architect on how to get this from here to there. You need to put a path. And path is the most important thing for any journey, right?
Dennise Cardona 8:18
That is correct, absolutely.
Karanveer 8:20
Which path you take, it can take you a long time. It can take you a short time. So you need to take the most critical, most efficient path to have a success of your business and a project.
Dennise Cardona 8:33
Well-stated, absolutely. Can you describe for people listening in what a typical workday for a project manager or program manager at a company like Google, looks like.
Karanveer 8:46
Definitely project manager, Program Manager have a lot of meetings because you have a good amount of stakeholders. So you're going to meet with your stakeholders to understand their needs on day to day basis, and then you're going to have a project status meeting to check if I have that path. Are we going right on this path? Do we have any obstacles which I need to clear on that path? So it's all about the journey, and you have a regular meetings, regular sync up to make sure things are on track. What are the next steps? And the good trait about a good project manager is to anticipate the risk in advance, so you get that anticipation after talking with your set of stakeholders. So like I have a set of stakeholders, I regularly meet them and understand where they are coming from, what they want from the project, and try to make everyone happy. That's another job for Project Manager, which is very hard.
Dennise Cardona 9:41
Yes, I would imagine. So there's a lot of communication skill. I am pretty sure that you have to be able to you have to be able to be an active listener, ask the right questions, listen to what they're saying, reaffirm what they're saying, make sure that they you're all on the same page, that things aren't miscommunicated or misconstrued/misunderstood. And I would imagine the I think I would seek pleasure from something like that, kind of a role in that you're able to add a lot of value to those people who you are working with and working for on these projects. Because what a great feeling of satisfaction that must be when you have completed something and like you have a happy client.
Karanveer 10:25
Then you have to celebrate the success.
Dennise Cardona 10:27
There's always something, yeah,
Karanveer 10:31
But it's always hard to keep everyone happy. I was reading one one statement on internet Few days back. Only ice cream man can keep everyone happy.
Dennise Cardona 10:40
Exactly, but there's something that is really fun and inspiring to be able to challenge yourself in a role like that, to work your hardest to make people happy, to really get to that win, win situation where both parties or multiple parties, seem satisfied, and even though I'm sure many, there are many constellations along the way, many compromises, getting to that point where it's like, everybody agrees, okay, this is the best we this is the best of the situation here.
Karanveer 11:13
You get your stakeholders, get them aligned on a mission, what you're going to do, and everyone signs it off. Yes, you're right. That's the best feeling.
Dennise Cardona 11:21
Now, on the flip side of that the challenges, let's talk a little bit about challenges. And what challenges do project managers, program managers face when leading these cross functional type of teams, and how can someone how do you overcome them?
Karanveer 11:37
I guess it's important to know you can't do everything, so you need to know when to delegate. Ability to delegate is the important thing, because you can't do everything. You can't because you need to delegate some components of your project to engineer a, engineer B, engineer C, to get the things done. And when you fornicate. It's all about how you get authority over them without a direct response. Like you need to get the work done without direct authority. So that's one of the most important another step the challenge, which we see, is a lack of accountability. Lot of people have lack of accountability, so we need to build that who is responsible for which item? Because if the things are not accountable are not owned by someone that they never get.
Dennise Cardona 12:28
Boy, that's powerful. I totally agree. I love the delegation aspect as well, because I think that's a skill that needs to be learned. It's not something that is a very comfortable thing for some people, myself included, it took me a long time professionally to learn to let go of certain things, because I guess I'm like, type A personality where I want to keep my hands on everything, the finger on the pulse, because if I don't, I feel like I lose control over it, and that's not A very efficient or effective way of leading any kind of a project or anything like that, you're never going to get the best results that way, keeping that strict and tight hold on things. So that's a skill that takes some time to learn. Did you do you feel the same way? Have you had that come across maybe people on your team who are having a hard time letting go of certain things and delegating.
Karanveer 13:22
Oh yeah, definitely. It's an art, and people learn over the time. It's a skill which you learn over the time. I meet lot of new grads who came out of the fresh out of the college, and they usually have this problem of delegating. It takes many years to learn the skill. It's very hard to learn the skill, at least in a beginning, beginning of your career and trajectory. I guess it's art. I call it art, which you learn over the time how to do this, how to do it better way, and you keep optimizing, and you're going in your career trajectory, because there's no perfect blend solution you learn over the time.
Dennise Cardona 13:59
Yeah, and something that I learned that helped me with that was realizing that the people that I'm working with, who I'm delegating to, they desire to learn that aspect, and if I keep a tight rein on that, they're never going to be able to, so to speak, flap their wings and fly on their own. And so there that really helped me to see it that way, to see it as this is a way to help other people grow. And when you help other people grow, you grow yourself.
Karanveer 14:27
Yeah, that's a leadership ability of when you, like you said, when other people grow, you automatically grow. These things come over the time, because when you are beginning of your career, you think you need to do everything. I'm gonna do everything so that my performance is better. But once you go into the management path, the leadership path, then you start understanding how to empower other people, how to grow other people. That's your growth, right? If someone is empowered to take decisions, someone is doing my work or like the company's work, it's my growth as well. It. Time to digest that.
Dennise Cardona 15:02
It certainly does. But essentially, that's a great way that you just put it. I love that. Now, how important would you say is like technical background, if you're going into something like project management, program management, in, say, a tech industry, a tech field.,
Karanveer 15:18
It depends on, to be honest, company to company, the organization to organization. There is no one fits size solution all. But since the beginning of my career, my mentors and my manager always taught me, devil is in the details. So that's what still it's my head. I learned this line around 10 years back, and I still follow this, but it's always good to keep a balance. Devil is in the details, but you need to know enough to survive here. If you go deeper, then you I can't go breath. So you need to have a balance on how to be have enough depth that you can cover the breadth as well as a program manager, because I'm coming 10 projects, I can't go in depth of each project, right? So I need enough details to know how to talk with engineers, what to talk with engineers who are actually doing the stuff, and when to talk with engineers. So these are the key things. Like, when you are talking you need to know that, at least at the surface level, what they are doing, why they are doing, and how they are doing.
Dennise Cardona 16:27
That's good. That's great feedback. Because I think a lot of people listening in who aren't sure about this field, maybe they don't have a very extensive technical background, but they have some knowledge of it, and they would be exceptional in this field.
Karanveer 16:41
Project management, program management, is not just for technical people, it's for everyone. I would like to make that emphasize here, because everyone has something to do here. There are a lot of people who have studied law, who have studied psychology, who have studied arts in their school, and they're doing well in the project management field as well.
Dennise Cardona 17:02
Excellent, thank you for making that point. Because, again, I think people like myself, I don't have a technical background, but if I had desired to go into project management, I wouldn't want that to, like, stop me or be an obstacle if, in fact, it might be something I want to explore. It's just important for people to realize that you don't have to have a technical, necessarily, a technical background, to succeed in this field.
Karanveer 17:25
Yep, because everyone brings something else on the table, it's all about what you how you add the value, the way of adding the value could be different by how you're doing versus I'm doing, right?
Dennise Cardona 17:36
Yeah, absolutely. What would you say? I love talking a little bit about AI, because it's really it's right here, it's present. It's what we are all affected by at this point. What do you feel is the impact of emerging technologies like AI, maybe machine learning on this field of project management?
Karanveer 17:57
Definitely. It's a big talk topic, but I can cover a good summary here. AI has been here in this in the computer science field, from a long time, machine learning has been here. It's nothing new, but why it's making a groundbreaking why it's a talk of the town now, why everyone is talking about the AI. It's good to understand first, that part, because these llms, the large language models, the chat GPT release after then AI became everyone wants to talk about AI right then, because AI is getting so easy to use over the last few years that everyone is wants to explore the benefits of AI. But in terms of project management and program management, I believe AI can help a lot in lot of administrative tasks, like collecting the meeting notes, scheduling the meetings, so a lot of administrative task which human being were doing can get done by AI. But there's a lot of uncertainty in the industry, will AI replace the project management? No, AI can't replace project management. That's a clear AI will make us more efficient, more productive, but it will not replace it. On the other side of vertical AI will open lot of project management opportunities, as well as lot of industries invest in AI to see the AI applications in different field, be it healthcare, be it airlines, be it in financial industry, using the AI in financial industry, or technology industry, consumer sector, all these different sectors will invest in are already, are investing in the AI at the moment. So it's opening up more opportunities for project managers as well.
Dennise Cardona 19:40
Yeah, that's great. I love AI. I'm embracing it. I've been asked to embrace it, and I agree it helps to take over those kinds of tasks that actually set us back when we have to get bogged down in those administrative type things, that a robot or AI can actually do those things and. Free us up to be able to then work more creatively in ways that AI is not able to at this point.
Karanveer 20:07
Definitely, it's all it's increasing our productivity. It has applications in different field, something like, if I have assigned a task 200 engineers, I wanted to follow up who's who is behind, who is ahead? In a traditional way, we have to open each ticket and see. But with AI, it can be done very easily. In a few minutes. I don't have to open each ticket. I can tell AI, hey, which is the fastest? Where do I need to follow up? Can you follow up for me? I can do follow ups with you, for you as well. So yeah, things are like, it's gonna make you more efficient, the things which were taking one day for me now will be done in a 30 minutes or one hour.
Dennise Cardona 20:48
Now, let's speak a little bit about efficiencies and things of that. How do you manage work, life balance in a demanding field, like project management, with what you do?
Karanveer 20:59
Definitely, I'll cover two points on this. One is both are related. It's first is it's all about the prioritization in this life, in the life in the world, in the work everything right? It's all about the prioritization. We always have to prioritize something over the other thing. So the art of prioritization, I guess it's an important skill to learn if you wanted, if everything is critical, like in a project management space, if everything is P zero or critical, then it means nothing is critical. That's how I see it. You always need to have few critical things, few little critical, few non critical. Similarly life as well. I guess the same phenomena applies in your life, everyone's life as well. If I say I want to do everything today, then nothing will happen today.
Dennise Cardona 21:50
I do that to myself all the time, and I'm learning each day I can't do everything. Denise, you can't do everything. Yeah.
Karanveer 21:59
The next point I would like to make, how to make a work life balance is all about the time management. How you keep your calendar, it's important. How you keep everything in your calendar is important too, because sometimes you may miss because there are a lot of balls which come over over a project manager. You need to do this. You need to do this. You need to talk with that person. You need to follow up with that person. It's easy to slip through a human mind. But if you keep track of things, whatever ways I do, through my Google Calendar, you can do there are a lot of tools for task management in the industry. That's one of the powerful way so that you met, you have a good mental piece, and everything is there on a calendar or somewhere task management tool, because we need to keep our mind free from all these things.
Dennise Cardona 22:46
Yeah, it's the old adage, like, when you're in the middle of the night, when all of these ideas come to you, instead of ruminating over them and not sleeping anymore because you're afraid you're going to forget what you're thinking about, write it down on a notepad by your bedside, and then this way you can free up your mind to be able to rest. Yeah. Do you have any favorite app for prioritizing your tasks? You mentioned Google calendar. Is there anything else you like Google calendar?
Karanveer 23:13
Before Google when my previous company, I used to use Trello. Trello from Atlassian. Yes, I use that in the past. It has been good. It has been very helpful to keep things there and know what is prioritization. I guess that is very important. It makes my life easy. It's not just work. It makes my life easy to go for haircut on the weekend. Just put there haircut on the weekend.
Dennise Cardona 23:38
That's right. Yes. So you won't forget the haircut on the weekend. One of the things that I think is challenging for working professionals is when you assign yourself a certain priority level to task projects within a pro or project management management system, and then maybe other people on your team think that there are different priorities. How do you balance that? When you have competing priorities and people assign higher levels of priority to certain items that you deem maybe aren't as prioritized, they shouldn't be given that high priority? What would you say? What would you what would you suggest someone do in a situation like that? Because I think that happens a lot. I know it happens for me.
Karanveer 24:21
It happens a lot. It's very interesting question. It happens a lot in all corporate worlds when the competing priority comes. So the only thing when you do is note down the business impact of each priority. That's the first step. Then talk with your manager. What I will do this is what business impact. I think this is what business impact, I think. And don't go with the problem with your manager, go with a solution. Oh, that's how I do. Go with the solution and then say, What do you think? I think this. Do you align audio, something else? That's how the management likes it. Come up with a solution, instead of coming with to me. Me and ask us all a problem.
Dennise Cardona 25:01
Gosh, I love that I do because I learned that one of my wonderful directors, she said she's such a great director, that was one of the lessons I learned from her, and I'm so grateful I did, is bring the solution, if it may not be the best solution, but bring some idea with you, so that it's not just a problem that I'm dumping on your I'm dumping on your desk, because that's not going to, first of all, it's not going to put you in the best light as somebody, because it doesn't show your creativity, your solution oriented professional persona, so to speak, and or your leadership ability. So that is a huge, huge thing. I love that you said that, because it's, I think that's really important for folks who are listening in, who may never have heard that it's an important thing to remind yourself that.
Karanveer 25:52
Because a lot of people go to their management and say, Hey, what should I you? Because then you are putting your other person on the spot, right? And it's you. We need to be a win win. If you go, we go with the solution. It opens your leadership abilities, your mindset, your creative, innovative solution, so that you can be a management in the future. You need to put other person in your shoes, and then go with the solution and then ask for their engineer.
Dennise Cardona 26:19
Absolutely. So my last question, because we while we're already at 30 minutes, this is such a great conversation. My last question is, what advice do you have for those who are seeking to get into project management? What are some steps that they can take to help them get into this field and be effective and efficient at it?
Karanveer 26:41
Know your strengths. That's a one thing I will tell not for project management, for all the fields it's important to know to self introspection and know where your strengths are, so that you can double down on your strengths. Then, if someone just wanted to go into project management, it's all about the storytelling, how your past experience has been convert that into a project, even if you are in take a example is not related to project management. Let's say someone is a nurse in a hospital. You need to convert some story into project and map it to project management terminology and just put it in your resume. It's all about how you present, how you storytelling into the leadership.
Dennise Cardona 27:29
Yeah, that's wise advice. Thank you so much for that, and thanks so much for sharing the insights that you did with us today. It's really been a great conversation, and I learned some things, and I know other people are going to learn some things from this conversation, so thank you so much for highlighting that.
Karanveer 27:46
Thank you for inviting me. This was a really great conversation with you.
Dennise Cardona 27:49
And thanks everyone else for listening in to this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up podcast. We hope that you enjoyed the conversation, and if you'd like to learn more about our offerings, do a search for project management at UMBC, or simply click the link in the description.