Tag Archives: collaboration

Katheryn Baker: Bridging Business and Technical People

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Katheryn Baker is Vice President at Artic Consulting, a consulting firm that provides technology solutions for business and data management.  Katheryn is passionate about both technology and business and is skilled in Enterprise Software, Business Strategy, Productivity, Data, and Program Management.  She’s joining us today from Anaheim, CA.

Highlights:

Q: You have a background in both business and technology, and you have been a consultant for essentially your entire career.  Tell us your story of how you got to where you are now.

Katheryn has a degree in Art History but quickly found she was interested in program management.  She became good friends with the dev teams and moved into leading them.  She had to learn as she went.  She has grown dev consulting teams for many years, including at Artic.

Q: Did you have to learn how to program to lead dev teams?

Katheryn learned what she called “enough to be dangerous,” both in programming and database management.  She said her sweet spot was understanding how things work together and working with the technical and leadership teams and translating between them.

Q: You work with a wide range of clients, from small companies to giants across different industries.  Is it pretty much the same to communicate with them or do you have to use different methods?

She said Agility has been important in all industries, but it’s critical to her as a leader and a consultant to a wide range of clients.

There are some similarities, but jargon changes across organizations and industries.  Whether people are remote or on site is another consideration.  It is extremely helpful for her team to be able to go on site and actually see what is going on.  She has to use different forms of communication to work with different clients—email, chat, in-person, and so on.

Listen to the podcast to hear Katheryn’s tips on being flexible with different clients and as a leader working with different team members, how she has handled the talent shortage, and tips on working remotely and what challenges they have overcome at Artic.

Words of Wisdom:

There isn’t a one size fits all to a specific issue or goal.

If you understand what motivates people, you can help them have a sense of pride in their work.

As a manager, it’s important to recognize that people have different scenarios in their lives at different times.

It’s a great time for women in the tech industry.

Contact Katheryn Baker:

Website: https://www.articconsulting.com/

Email: katheryn.baker@articconsulting.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katheryn-baker-34bb485/

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Manish Bhardia: Habits for Healthy Teams

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Joanie has a conversation with Manish Bhardia.  Manish is a principal at Think AI, a software development and consulting firm, author of the book Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team, and co-host of True Stories in Tech podcast. Manish specializes in AI and cloud consulting and has more than 17 years of experience leading complex technical projects.

Highlights:

Q: How did you move from being an engineer to a project manager?

Manish was told he was good at communicating with the clients and business users and that got him thinking about becoming a business analyst or project manager.  Also learning about the bad things that project managers do, such as working their teams too hard, made him want to do better with his team.

Q: How did you come to start your company, Think AI?

Because he worked well with clients, Manish decided he wanted to work with multiple clients as a cloud consultant and business owner.  He tells us how he learned how to build his sales skills too.

Q: How did you come to write your book, Teamwork and Collaboration?

A lot of Manish’s work at Think AI has been focused on teamwork.  They conducted a user-group survey to find out what their challenges were, and he wrote the book on the top ten items that centered on teamwork and collaboration.

Q: What are some of the unhealthy habits that remote workers have adopted and how can they get back to or start new healthier ones?

Manish said there are easy answers, but they are hard to implement.  He gives many tips both in his book and on the episode.  He also talks about how to add fun to a remote work environment, how to add clarity as a leader.  He also talks about how people adapting to interacting with AI.

Words of Wisdom, especially for Remote Work:

Keep your body active.

Keep calendar slots open for fun.

Create your ideal calendar and try to fit your schedule to that.

Be clear to your team on what to ignore.

Shout Out:

IAMCP, the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners.

Contact Manish Bhardia:

Website: Think AI

Book: Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team

Podcast: True Stories in Tech

 

 

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