The 4PM Podcast

Introduction to the 4PM Podcast

• Mounir Ajam • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Embark on a voyage from the heart of Houston to the ancient streets of Mesopotamia with your guide, a seasoned project management maven with three decades of experience. As we traverse time and space, I'll reveal how the innovative spirit of the Sumerians influences our contemporary quests for value delivery in project management. Houston's energy, medical, and space sectors serve as a modern-day Uruk, propelling us to foster growth and innovation. By unveiling SOOG Project Portfolio Management, the force behind our business moniker, Uruk Project Management, I set the stage for a series of enlightening conversations that marry the past with the present.

Imagine a place where continuous learning shapes the very fabric of project leadership. That's the world we'll explore together, touching on the 4pm framework that's at the core of our discussions—project, program, product, and portfolio management. As an advisor and executive consultant, my passion for education has been the compass guiding me from my engineering days in Houston to my consultancy in Dubai. Every episode promises insights, with guest speakers, case studies, and answers to those questions that keep you up at night. So, are you ready to question the status quo of project management and uncover strategies for success? Tune in and let's embark on this knowledge-rich journey together.

Explore more project management insights at www.urukpm.com

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Speaker 1:

Good day, howdy, and welcome to the 4pm podcast.

Speaker 1:

Who we are, who I am, where do we come from and what will be the purpose of this podcast is all about. What are we trying to do with this podcast? First, where do we come from? What do you think? How are we doing as a project management domain? Is the project management domain in good health or something else? And welcome to the 4pm podcast. In this first episode we will be talking about money topics and, just to make an introduction, so at least we introduced you to who we are, who I am, where do we come from and what will be the purpose of this podcast is all about. You must take some notes because, who knows, we might be quizzing you on this later. Anyway, let's get going and talk about what are we trying to do with this podcast. First, where do we come from? We are recording this from the city of Houston, in the state of Texas and the United States of America. Now I want to introduce Houston as a city and why Houston? Maybe was the choice for us to be here.

Speaker 1:

Houston is globally famous, probably for three sectors and one. By the term sectors we mean industries domain everybody might use different terminology for this. So Houston is one of the things known for is like what I like to call EMS, which means energy, medical and space. In the energy sector, houston is famous for many of the major oil and gas operating companies, such as my ex-employers Exxon Chemical, exxon. Houston is quite famous for the energy industry, primarily in the petroleum industry. However, nowadays it's starting to see a lot of what they call the characterization of renewable energy, and a lot of that is happening. Recently, houston was engaged in the hiccups and the expansion of 2011 to 2011, a harvest plus. That's the first area that Houston is famous for. The second area that Houston is famous for is medical, and I think it's a well-known fact that the Houston Medical Center, if not the largest, is one of the largest medical centers in the world, where's a lot of university teaching, university medical school research centers, cancer research and a lot of leading hospital that attract people from all over the world. So basically, obviously you send it also famous for its medical center. The third one, and I think a lot of people might know this space, nasa and clear, like they have one of their I'm not sure if it is their core headquarter, but is one of the major center, where it used to be, that include the control system and the control Room that handles all the different space program. Obviously it's Houston is not the only center for nasa, but it's well known for this industry. Now, in the coming days and feet in the month and years and future, there's a lot of tech start up happening in all these industries. So health tech, space tech, energy technology and technology in general with a lot of tech start up, and this is one reason we at the company are based in Houston. So this is part one of my introduction today.

Speaker 1:

Let me zoom into part two. So we started to talk about Houston, which mean where we are in history. Today we are here. In 2023 we are in Houston.

Speaker 1:

I want to jump back only a few thousand years ago, about 4500 years before a common era, and to go back to Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. Now, why do I want to go back? Well, I'll tell you in a second, but first I need to tell you what's so important about the Sumerian civilization and it's role and impact on history. There is an interesting book that I like at called history begins at Sumer, and this is a book written by Professor Sam. You will know grammar and a Kramer and in that book he talked about 39 first. That started. That we know about, we still practice today that actually originated in Sumerian civilization. For example, systems of laws, system of education first, love songs, I believe, beer, the first wheel, and there are many, many other things that there were. We have documentation Through the language they were writing, through the uniform that was written thousands of years ago and actually being carried over to today.

Speaker 1:

Now what's important about the Sumerian civilization is that one of the cities that became it was considered probably the most prominent city in that era, which is called Orook, and obviously Orook is the name of our company. Now, orook was famous in history because in civilization as well, for many reasons it was considered quite innovative in terms of architecture. You know there's one famous for Ziggurat. There today we find a lot of actually institution and company carries that name, potentially because of that, the history of innovation that Orook has. But probably some who into literature, they might know Orook for something else which is called the epic of Gilgamesh At the famous epic.

Speaker 1:

Obviously I'm not an expert on this topic so I'm not going to go into it but, however, just to give you an introduction about Orook as a major center of innovation and advancement, 4500 before BC, so basically before common air. Was that in mind? And then, basically, obviously, we at the company and my late partner never got held. He actually chose this name for our platform that we are building and, as a result of that, we end up basically adopting that name as the doing business. As for our company, our company name is actually so bad project portfolio management Whereas a root PM or a root project management is the name of doing business as so in the state of Texas. But you know, legally our name is so good project portfolio management. However, we are doing business as a root project management. So here what we're trying to do to link history with, basically, the name of our company.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you've noticed, and maybe you didn't notice, I haven't introduced myself and I wanted to leave it in this moment. I wanted to start talking about the Houston and history a little bit before I introduce myself. I'll try to keep the introduction, my personal introduction, short. I'm sure you know on our website and if you Google me in my name, you probably find quite a bit of information about me. Well, as, keep it short and keep it a bit fun or light.

Speaker 1:

I have been known or I have some nicknames that over the years some of my professional students or others have labeled me or called me, or they prefer to call me, including the Iceman. I don't know why, because I'm not typically a cold person, but that's sure what the reason behind that may be somebody, if that person or the group of people who actually labeled me like this, if they are hearing this podcast, we would welcome their comment to say why I was called the Iceman. If you see me with a full beard, a lot of people call me Santa Claus and sometimes they start asking, said I, if I'm nice, what kind of gift will I get? Well, unfortunately I'm not Santa Claus, but I would be happy to accommodate whenever I can. I've also been called PM coach because I do a lot of coaching and mentoring over the years through our training program and through informal training or informal coaching and mentoring, and recently, probably the most common nickname I've used as the Aruq coach, and obviously that's 10 because I'm the one who designed and came up with an idea for the Aruq platform and the one who are designing the primary functionalities and module within the Aruq platform, and I'm the one who's guiding our newcomers through how to use the Aruq platform. So Aruq coach, probably the most current and most appropriate.

Speaker 1:

Now, what's my name? My name is Munir Azham. I am a Lebanese immigrant. I came to the US after high school to study in the US. While I was growing up, my country suffered through a civil war. I became a refugee for a while with my family. I've lost a lot of friends and family. There's the closest person from my family that we lost as a brother-in-law, so that's close enough.

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately, we were again. We were refugees for a while. The house I grew up in was burned down. The villa we were building was demolished, so that part of the horror of war that I grew up with is, in a way, when I reflect back on those years. I look back with a positive, optimistic attitude. That probably is that period. At 14 years of age I became an adult very quickly and I start to understand life maybe better at a younger age and I'm very sure a lot of what's happening in that period is what formed the person who I am today and my eagerness to share knowledge and to mentor and coach all ages and groups and be there and to try to do something and create a legacy where we can help organization transform the way they manage project to a higher level. Future topic we will talk about these topics, for today I'm not going to go there. However, I want to emphasize that probably growing up in a civil war, seeing a lot of destruction around me, becoming a refugee for a while, seeing people I care about lost, it helped me shape the way I think and the way I have become. Obviously, there are a lot of other factors and you know that things does not a single event will shape a person. However, it's definitely was a major part of my life and who I am today.

Speaker 1:

Now, moving from serious to a bit of joke, if I look at what animal represent manure, well, I could be a sheep, I am a tiger, I'm a cougar or I'm a bear. What does that mean? Obviously, if some of those who, like you, know the zodiac sign, I'm an aries. If you like the Chinese zodiacs, I'm a tiger. If you look at my first university, university of Houston, I'm a cougar. And if you look at where I did my master's, university of California at Berkeley, I'm a bear. So each one of these animals actually have interesting characteristics. So which one have adopted. Well, depend on the day I could be, my character or my reaction to things could be different, obviously, often enough that, basically, how can I say that I'm mostly in aries? But if you think about an aries, you know aries could be very calm and good. But don't mess with us, I guess, right. Anyway, I'm not an expert on this, what animals mean, but I just wanted to have some some fun and a little bit of a lighter mood and, you know, moving out from some sad part of my life.

Speaker 1:

Now, who am I today? I'm a project management learner. I like to always learn. I continue to learn. Although I am more than 60 years old, I believe learning never stopped and I'll probably never, never stop learning learning about life, learning about leadership, about business, and obviously my core passion is project management in community. So I'm a learner by default, first and foremost as a result of being a learner, obviously I have quite a bit of skills where I can be an advisor and an effective advisor, executive advisor. I can help executive and senior management and even board of director. When it comes to my area of passion, project management, I do have a lot of expertise that I can share in a very open, honest and transparent way and obviously in my career I had for many, many years I led a consultancy and training company, so I've done a lot of consultancy and training in project management.

Speaker 1:

As a result of that history and that work, I am basically also a writer. I have about 17 ebooks published with bookbunecom. If you go to bookbunecom and you can search on my name, you will find many of my ebooks and they are relatively cheap to download if you want to learn about some of the work I've done. In addition to this, I've published many books. Initially I self-published three books and then CRC Press, which is part of the Taylor and Francis group, accepted some of my work and then they published two books for me, one of them called Project Management Beyond Waterfall and Agile, and the other one is Leading Mega Project, a Tailored Approach. Both of them are related to the methodology and the project management work I have done since 2007 and you know they are actually the project management beyond waterfall and agile has become the knowledge foundation for the project management piece of our Arup platform and I'm sure in the future we might touch on that. I don't want to make it into a commercial today, so I'll stop there.

Speaker 1:

History, my experience. I've worked for oil and gas for about 15 years after my master's degree Exxon Chemical, basf, saudi Aramco. Then I decided to launch my own business in Dubai, united Arab Emirates, where I've launched a project management consultants in training business under the name of Sukad and that company started in 2004. I led it from 2005 to 2019 and then in 2019 we took a few friends and I have took the work that I've done while I was with Sukad at that period of time said we need to convert that into a digital solution to help organization transform the way they manage project. And that was when we shifted to the US and started Sukad in the US and now doing business as a Rook project management, as I mentioned earlier. So basically I come to you with at least close to 35 years, 36 years of experience. I started working in 1984 while I was studying at University of Houston, working in engineering environment, and then I graduated in 87 where I did two, three years of work in the environmental, geotechnical consultancy engineering world before I went back to University of California at Berkeley and I did a master's in engineering and construction management and that was 1990 and with that since 1990, 33 years now, plus as 100%, into project management, initially working for corporation, as I mentioned Exxon Chemical, basf, saudi Aramco and then leading my own business in Sukad, and which is continuing into today.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to close very quickly with a few things about. What is this 4pm podcast? Well, obviously, the idea of 4pm that's not necessarily 4 in the afternoon, because you might be watching this at night or anytime. 4pm's tent in this case it's shortened for us for what we call value delivery, which is translated into the 4pm, which means project program, product and portfolios. So our focus in these podcasts in the future to talk about project program, product, portfolio management, how we deliver value to organization. Why do we need to transform, how do we transform project management, what do we offer that is different than everybody else and what is our mission and purpose in these areas.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of our topics will be around these 4pm. We might sideline sometime, get into project leadership, technology, ai, startup, entrepreneurship. However, the core focus of these podcasts will be about the 4pm and value delivery. With that, the topic we will discuss will include a general, open topic, like I'm talking today. It could include some having some guests and interviews, include discussion, some case studies and anything else that we believe will add value to you. Of course, we are always open to hear your feedback and opinion and asking questions, and maybe your question could become the topic of a podcast in the future.

Speaker 1:

I want to close here by mentioning what we talked about today. I introduced you that talked a little bit about Houston, about Rook and history. We talk about the company, who I am and what is this 4pm podcast is all about. Now, don't take these podcasts in isolation. In the future, some of these podcasts would be helpful if you see some graphics associated with the topic we talk about. So we advise you to visit our website. We have a tab called knowledge where we include there all the knowledge resources, including maybe some paper. We will publish our podcast, a link, video links, blog, article. So sometime when the topic that might require some you know heavy visualization, maybe a video. If you go to that section, you will be able to find a video or an article with some graphics that can help you better understand our view on the topic.

Speaker 1:

Before I close, I want to leave you with a thought, something to think about, point to ponder, to consider and to let me meet again, and this will be the topic for the next episode, which is the question is I pose for you today. Is the project management domain in good health? We, as people who work in this domain, do we think we have a healthy environment? Our work environment is good. The field, the domain by itself is healthy, or what else is it not? Is it in a great shape? Is it in a bad shape? Is it in a good shape but can take improvement? Whatever, feel free to to chat with us online, to post on our link in or on these podcasts your view on the topic, and with this I close by saying we wish you success today, tomorrow and always.