What is a Mindcast?
Have you ever had an idea stuck in your head that you just can't get out the way you want to?
You try explaining it. Words don't capture it. You write it down and it feels flat. You draw a diagram. Still missing something. The thing in your head is alive, it moves, it has layers, but everything you produce feels like a photocopy of a photocopy.
It's like trying to describe a dream to someone. You know exactly how it felt, but the moment you start talking, it slips away. "You had to be there," you say. And they nod politely. But they weren't there. And now they never will be.
What if you could actually take them there? Let them step inside that dream and experience it with you?
What if you could build what's in your head, visually, and turn it into something people can step through? Something interactive. Dynamic. Story-driven. Not just content they consume, but an experience they live.
That's what I've been working on. A new medium. I'm calling it Mindcast.
I created Mindcast in November 2025 as a new medium for turning lived project experience into interactive, judgment-building journeys.
“Mindcast is the medium. It’s a way to turn the way you think into an interactive, story‑driven experience that people can step through, make decisions inside, and feel the consequences with you”.
Instead of just hearing your ideas, people are effectively walking around inside them.
You can keep reading to learn more. Or let the medium explain itself.
👉Step into a Mindcast and see what I mean
Why I Created This
I've been delivering complex projects since 2013. Over a decade across some of the UK's most challenging, safety-critical engineering and infrastructure programmes.
The gap between theory and practice is massive. Organisations pour money into training, yet research estimates that only 10–15% of what's taught actually transfers to the job. Think about that. The vast majority of what people learn in courses, certifications, and workshops never gets applied when it matters.
I lived this. I got the qualifications. MSc, APMP, the lot. But when a client changes their mind and gives you two hours to replan everything? When the politics get messy and no framework has an answer?
You freeze. That's normal. Because the gap isn't knowledge. It's judgment. And judgment only comes from reps.
Think about the gym. You can read about fitness all day. Watch videos on form. Study nutrition. None of that builds muscle. Only reps do. Consistent effort over time. No shortcut.
Project management works the same way. Judgment comes from doing. From decisions and consequences. From getting it wrong and figuring out why.
But in real projects, those reps come with real stakes. Real budgets. Real pressure.
I started with a blog to share my lessons. But writing about experience only gets you so far. Then I discovered that getting my ideas out of my head visually and interactively gave me a powerful way to reflect and share what I'd learned. In a way that's not possible through any other medium.
That's what led me here.
How a Mindcast Works
Every medium has a structure. Radio gave us live audio. Podcasts democratised it with a microphone and a voice. YouTube did the same for video with a camera and an idea. Each one lowered the barrier. Each one let more people share what they know.
Mindcast does the same for interactive learning. The tools to build one are widely available. You don’t need a technical background. If you can think in stories and decisions, you can build a Mindcast.
Think of Mindcast like podcasting for interactive content: Mindcast is the medium, and the shows that live inside it can be about anything, projects, careers, creativity, whatever you build into it. A podcast has a show name, episodes, and segments. So does a mindcast. Mine is called PM Labs, a Mindcast show for project managers, where each episode drops you into a real situation and gives you reps in judgment without risking a live project. Each one has a beginning, middle, and end. But instead of listening through, you're stepping through.
Beginning: I drop you into the situation. The pressure. The context.
Middle: You get your reps. Scenarios, choices, sliders. You make decisions and see consequences. I'm beside you the whole way.
End: Reflection. What clicked? What will you do differently? You're not being lectured. You're discovering.
Every mindcast is different. The structure stays the same, but what happens inside adapts. No two look alike.
How This Became Possible
I procrastinated on this for 9 years. Not because I was lazy. Because I kept thinking about the first step. Planning. Waiting. Overthinking. Ironic, really. I help organisations deliver complex projects for a living, but giving my own goals the light of day? That's a different story.
Then in 2025, I changed my approach. I call it running before you walk. Instead of mapping everything out, I let my creative vision drive me forward. Build something. Stop occasionally. Look back at where I've landed. Adjust. Keep going. Apparently there's a formal term for this: vision-based prototyping. I just knew it felt right.
I’m not a tech founder. I built this whilst working full‑time, juggling family, and trying to have a life. What changed in 2025 was that the right tools finally existed for someone like me to turn this idea into something real.
The biggest takeaway? Build quickly and ship your vision. Mindcast exists because I stopped waiting for perfect and started turning what was in my head into something people could step through.
I'm excited to see where this medium develops and evolves over the coming years.
Bridging the Gap
Remember that 10-15% transfer rate? Mindcast is my first step towards changing that. Here's why I think it works.
When I learn something the hard way, it doesn't sit in my head as words. It's visual. It's structured. It's connected to feelings, consequences, moments I can replay. The lesson lives in my mind as something I can walk through, not something I can recite.
The problem with traditional learning is that most of it happens passively. You read, watch, listen. You absorb what someone else concluded. But you don't experience how they got there. The idea stays flat. Abstract. Easy to forget.
Mindcast allows me to externalise my ideas and how I think. In my case, that's reflective learning in project management. The messy reality of it. The politics no framework prepares you for. The moments where theory meets reality and reality wins. Over a decade of lessons, structured the way they actually live in my head, turned into something you can step through.
Right now, Mindcast lives in project management, because that’s where I’ve spent the last decade. But the medium itself isn’t limited to PM. Anywhere people learn from messy, real decisions, a Mindcast could exist.
And once you can do that, something clicks.
Active beats passive. You're not reading my conclusions. You're walking through my reasoning. Inside the scenario, making choices, seeing consequences. Your brain engages differently when you're doing, not just consuming. And doing is how judgment forms.
Consequences create memory. When you pick an approach and watch it fail, it sticks. There's emotional weight. You're rehearsing without the stakes. Building pathways before you need them.
Reflection locks it in. What clicked? What will you do differently? Without that pause to process, experience just washes over you. With it, learning moves from short-term to long-term.
Context builds nuance. Seeing the same tool work in one situation and fail in another teaches you something rules never can. You start to feel when an approach fits.
Now imagine this at scale.
What if every practitioner could share their hard-won lessons this way? The senior engineer who's navigated impossible stakeholder situations. The programme manager who's seen a hundred ways a project can derail. The team lead who's turned conflict into collaboration.
Not locked behind corporate training. Not flattened into slides. Lived experience, structured and shareable. A community of practitioners building judgment together, one mindcast at a time.
That's the bridge. My lived experience becomes something you interact with. My lessons transfer through your hands, not just your eyes. And by the end, you've built a little bit of judgment you didn't have before.
Beyond Project Management
I built this for project management because that's my world. But the medium isn't limited to PM.
Think about what Mindcast actually enables. A way to take the ideas, reflections, and scenarios in your head and turn them into something others can step through. Not just read about. Experience. That's a new way to communicate.
It's for reflection. For brainstorming. For future thinking. For taking what you know and uncovering insights that weren't visible until you structured them. And once those ideas are out of your head, something else happens. You can share them. Have conversations. Let others shape and refine what you've started.
This won't be for everyone. But if you think visually and learn by doing, this will click. If you've ever struggled to get what's in your head out into the world in a way that actually lands, this is for you.
For those people, imagine the possibilities. Reflect on your own experiences and see patterns you missed. Brainstorm ideas by building scenarios you can walk through. Think through future decisions before you have to make them. Share what you've learned in a format others can actually feel.
For businesses and organisations, the applications multiply. Explore strategic options by letting leadership experience different paths. Align teams by walking them through the same scenario so everyone sees it the same way. Onboard new hires by letting them feel the decisions that matter. Capture institutional knowledge before it walks out the door. Turn lessons learned into something people interact with instead of file away and forget.
We're at the tip of the iceberg. I can't see the edges yet. And that's what makes this exciting.
Building Together
I can create mindcasts from my own experience. Over a decade of lessons to draw from. That's my starting point. But this is bigger than just my lessons.
My passion is helping the next generation of project managers. Making the discipline more accessible. Helping new PMs get reps in faster than I did, without the years of painful trial and error. That's what drives me.
And I can't do that alone. I'll be collaborating with others, practitioners who've got lessons worth sharing, people who see the potential of this medium. We'll experiment. Try things. See what works. Push the boundaries of what's possible when you can turn lived experience into something interactive.
That's the community I'm building. Practitioners helping practitioners. Experience passing forward. Anyone who wants to explore this with me is welcome.
👉 Subscribe to The PM Notebook to follow along with the latest developments, experiments, and new mindcasts as they launch.
The Bigger Picture
This isn't just about a new format. There's a reason I'm building this now.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about where the world is heading. How AI is changing everything. How content is everywhere but judgment is rare. How the human side of work, the thinking, deciding, leading, is quietly being eroded.
I see challenges coming. But inside every challenge, there's an opportunity. And the people who build judgment, who think critically, who can do what machines can't, they'll be the ones who stand out.
That's the space I'm working in. Mindcast is my starting point. But there's a bigger picture behind it.
👉 Read My World View to understand why I believe this work matters.
Try One. Build One. Come Along.
👉 Experience a Mindcast: Try PM Labs
👉 Stay connected: Subscribe to The PM Notebook
👉 Get in touch: If you've got lessons worth sharing, let's talk.
"Bilal Jamil" - November 2025