E.Sreedharan - the undisputed guru of Project Management

Dr. E.Sreedharan – MD –Delhi Metro

-    Railway Minister's Award (1963)

-    Padma Shri by the Government of India (2001)

-    Man of the Year by The Times of India (2002)

-    Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Award for professional excellence in engineering (2002)

-    CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) Juror's Award for leadership in infrastructure development (2002-03)

-    One of Asia's Heroes by TIME (2003)

-    AIMA (All India Management Association) award for Public Service Excellence (2003)

-    Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris causa) from IIT Delhi.

-    Bharat Shiromani award from the Shiromani Institute, Chandigarh (2005)

-    Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the government of France (2005)

-    CNN-IBN Indian Of the Year 2007: Public Service (2008)

-    Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India (2008)

-    Champion of Project Management in India - The Project Management Institute, Inc (PMI) (2008)

It was more than a year back, a beautiful cottage in the back drop of Chamundi hills in Mysore was witnessing serious discussions on various Project Management topics. ‘PRS Calm’ , a common conferencing resort for my previous company was the venue for ‘Advanced Project Management Training’ by a PMI REP from Delhi – PMAC. We were lucky to have Mr.Chaudhary , Director of PMAC, itself as the trainer. He used to introduce funny stories and snippets from his past experiences in the so called ‘Boring’ PMBOK elaboration!

Among one of such elevated moments he made a pause, came out from the podium and stood very near to the front row, holding the table.

“If I touch anyone’s feet in respect of PM expertise, that would be none other than Mr. E.Sreedharan!” – was Mr.Chaudhary emotional?

Hey! Hold on , I know this man. I have heard a lot about him from the media. Only that much? Come on, you know him better. He is from your native village. Your family knows his family very well. He gave scholarship to you when you stood top in the school. He wrote a letter to you congratulating your achievement… and you replied to that…. He surprised you by promptly replying to your letter, a letter written by ‘Malayalam medium – Sarkaari School going’ student. He circled the spelling mistakes in my letter by red pen and wrote comments above. He took time to write a beautiful inspiring reply to me. It was then I have placed him in my mind as my hero, my mentor, my icon! (But, sorry sir, I still make spelling mistakes , but thanks to MS Word spell checker! - I am managing somehow !)

I have kept those letters among my best treasures. When I look at them even now, I feel proud. He asked me to keep in touch and let him know about the progress of my education and career. No pardon for me – I didn’t keep that promise and I am sorry for that!

This happened 12 years ago and I really don’t know whether he remember me or this incident! After so many years I had a chat with Mr.Adigal who is a friend of my dad and a close associate of Mr.Sreedharan. I told him about this and he asked me to come over and meet him so that he can arrange a meeting with Mr.Sreedharan. How ever I couldn’t visit Delhi after that.

Now my next Delhi visit will have surely this item on top of my agenda and I hope I can meet him then!

This space is not enough to discuss about his achievements in the field of Project Management. But I would say that he has realised certain dreams which any project manager in this world might have dreamt of ! – and yes, he did that many times !

Completing multi billion public sector projects in the most challenging environments (Which every one wrote off as impossible!) several months ahead of schedule with in budget and with out compromising quality or performance. Any one who travel through the western coastal area of India will see the magnificent project – Konkan Railway , constructed successfully by tackling all challenges brought in by nature. Any project manager would have backed off, dishearten seeing the obstacles placed by nature all the way. Is anybody in India capable doing what he did in Delhi? How many Delhi-ites knew what was happening under the foot path or city roads of busy Delhi?   One of the most magnificent projects of India was progressing silently under the neatly covered areas beside busy roads.

A google search on his name resulted about 150,000 pages! Just look at some of the interesting links:

(The contents may get altered by the respective web administrators or bloggers. PM Karma is not responsible for contents of external websites)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDHxtyU93Ao

http://www.pmi.org/AboutUs/Pages/3-31-2008.aspx

http://www.pmforum.org/blogs/news/2008/04/pmi-honors-dr-e-sreedharan-as-champion.html

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_12/b4026009.htm

http://www.muraleedharan.com/legends_sreedharan.html

http://mlost.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/bombay-needs-e-sreedharan/

You are the inspiration for young PM professionals and gift to the Indians who would like to see some hope in the allegedly corrupted and severely mismanaged Public sector projects!

Hats off to the real hero of project management!