For imprinting project management expertise on the Indian aerospace industry

Project Lead at Collins Aerospace ǀ Bengaluru, India

What makes aerospace engineering project manager Ananta Metange’s eyes light up? Chasing excellence. Which explains why he is just as motivated by his work on integrated product teams as he is by watching superstar Indian cricketer Virat Kohli at bat. “I look up to him as a role model because of his positive attitude,” Ananta says with a smile.

Positivity is central to Ananta’s work at the Global Engineering and Technology Center at Collins Aerospace in the steamy, southern Indian city of Bengaluru, known as the country’s Silicon Valley. Of the array of skills he learned during his Project Management Professional (PMP)^® certification training, Ananta says that knowing how to seek and capture insights from past project successes and challenges is key. He keeps an all-important log noting that maintaining and implementing lessons learned and best practices is a “key for project success.”

Beyond tracking lessons learned, Ananta is a strong adherent to the power of the RACI matrix, which he has utilized not only within his company, but also to organize stakeholders on complex projects. He finds that when working with stakeholders, it’s often a question of knowing when to involve the correct stakeholder at the right time – which relates to his expertise in scheduling strategy.

Project success for Ananta is not simply the three tenets of time, scope, and budget. Central to his project management is ensuring that all objectives set out early in the project are fulfilled, and perhaps most importantly, lead to customer satisfaction.