Retrospective of my blogging journey in 2019

My first blog is about retrospectives and its only befitting that I end 2019 with a retrospective!

When I started blogging in mid-2018, I wasn’t sure what to write about. I wrote about a few random topics in June 2018 and then did not get back to it until 2019. I made a decision in March 2019 to publish at least blog one per month. I wrote 8 blogs in 2019 (including this one) and a guest blog for TechWomen. So one blog short of meeting my goal. While I am grateful for the progress that I made, there is definitely room for improvement.

As I reflect on my original intent of starting this blog, I wanted it to be on the subject of “Technical Program Management”, however all of my posts are generic Program Management related and nothing “Technical” per se. I hope to change that in 2020. While every blog required effort and time, some took much longer than the others.  Here are my 3 blogs that required the most time and effort:

1. Compassion in Program Management – Compassion is a topic close to my heart and I put my heart into this.
2. Scaling yourself as a TPM – This is a research blog and I really enjoyed talking to some of my colleagues about this topic and summarizing it. It was very time consuming but totally worth it. I plan to write more research blogs in 2020.
3. Lessons learnt implementing process change – This one is very personal and wrote it after a lot of introspection. It was tough to openly admit my mistakes.

If I were to summarize my experience in one word about blogging, it is “hard”. I now understand what a “writer’s block” means. There are some days where I just can’t get any ideas on what to write about even if I sit at my computer for hours together. There are days where I get lots of ideas but fail to act on them due to work or family commitments or sheer lack of motivation. The key thing is to be persistent and keep at it.

If you have been thinking about blogging but have been holding back, here is my advice:

1. Figure out your target audience. Ex: certification goers or for people that are early in their career? I started blogging for my own self and then started shared with a few of my colleagues. I still have not widely publicized any of my blogs.
2. Don’t be demotivated that there are a lot of blogs out there already. What makes your blog unique is adding your own personal experience to it.
3. It will be hard but be persistent.  It pays off in the long run. You will get better as you write more blogs.
4. Write about topics you are passionate about. Initially I wanted to write about topics related to obtaining certifications as that might get better viewership, but I was not passionate about it. I wrote a couple and never published those blogs.
5. Set realistic goals of what you can achieve in terms of blogging considering your personal and professional commitments.
6. Pick a domain name that is easy to remember and short. Mine is too long.
7. I sometimes want to write about topics not related to TPM however, I don’t want to dilute the blog and so I don’t write about those. If you are not sure if you would stick to just one topic, I recommend picking a domain name that is not too restrictive.

My goals for 2020:

1. Continue writing one blog per month.
2. Write 6 “Technical” blogs.
3. Write atleast a couple of research blogs.
4. Publicize my blogs to wider audience.

I am going to end my 2019 with heartfelt thanks to everyone that provided inputs/feedback and to everyone that read my blogs. Wishing you all a blessed 2020!