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Hello everyone. Welcome to the 5 Minutes podcast. Today, I'd like to share with you a personal story. This weekend I decided to do a lunch for about, I would say, maybe 20 something, maybe 25, 26 friends to celebrate. One of my greatest friends' birthday, and I decided to do everything by myself. I'm not a chef. I'm not a professional cook. I'm just a curious person. When we talk about home cooking all the time, I decide to do things alone by myself. So I had my assistant helping me just to cut and prepare things and wash the dishes while I prepared. And I don't know if you are aware, but prepare food for 26. It's a challenge. It's a challenge because I decided to do smoked chicken. I decided to do some back ribs, also vegetarian foods, some mushrooms, some eggplants and plus rice, coriander, and something like six, seven different plates. And because I decided to do everything by myself, I had to prepare everything. And this morning, I was talking to my analyst, and I was just telling him about this weekend and how I was managing. I would say this initiative happened yesterday. And he suddenly said, Ricardo, but what you are doing is what you do for a living. It's the control scandal. And then, after my session, I stopped, and I said, Oh my God, you know, I was practicing project management even without knowing that I was practicing.
And, of course, I was not doing a chart. I was not doing the Kanban board. There was no daily scrum, but the mindset was there. I was thinking, okay, for the food to get ready at three. When do I need to start smoking the chicken? Oh, you need to start smoking the chicken at 8 a.m. But then to start smoking the chicken at 8 p.m. when I need to start the marinade. Oh, you need to start the marinade Friday night, and then I need to buy the chicken Thursday. I need to order and pick it up on Friday morning. And the same for the back ribs and the same for every single vegetable. And I remember and say, okay, these eggplant takes 40 minutes to get ready in the oven, but the mushroom takes only 15. So I had to synchronize because I didn't want to serve. Okay, this is ready for one hour. This is already cold. This is very hot. So I had to prepare everything and synchronize everything to get it ready by 3 p.m. for 26 people to eat. And this was the magic. And you know, many people talk to me and say, Ricardo, I want to get experience in project management.
And what do they expect? They expect. Okay, but I was not invited yet to my nuclear power plant or to do an oil refinery, or to build a massive airport. You know, when you work in project management is something that, over time, you just internalize. I didn't realize up to this morning that I was doing project management. For me, it was so automatic. All you need to do in this sequence you need prepare this first, prepare this second and do these all. There is a risk of this burning. I was doing project management. I was putting the logic to help me. If you want to call this project management or basic logic and common sense, call. But many times, this kind of mindset is where you think about the outcome, where you try to identify where the risks are, where the timelines are, and which kind of resources I need. Because imagine if I want, for example, I need to chop garlic instead of chopping two kinds of garlic and then half an hour, three more, then half an hour, two more. I can calculate and do this in one part, and it is much easier and saves me time. You know, I don't need to wash the tray many times. And this is the common sense that project management can bring to you.
So what is my advice to each of you if you have a chance this week about using your knowledge that you're using software development to do anything at home in your personal life, maybe wash your car or maybe, you know, clean your wardrobe or maybe cooking something, or maybe just cleaning your garden or doing whatever. Try to use this mindset. What is the end goal? What is the outcome I want to get? How do I get to that outcome? Because what was my outcome yesterday was to demonstrate how much I care about my friend by cooking because I think that cooking is one of the best demonstrations of love and caring. And then everything started from that. These are and started backward until the day I was in the market. By coriander, for example, you know everything that I step. And then I said, What is the risk? Some people do not eat coriander, so I had to make coriander rice and normal rice. So all of that is to make sure that the experience during the lunch yesterday was the best possible one. And this is all about project management. Think about that. Try to practice this, and see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
