Going into the final turn of 2009

We just returned home from our long weekend. Four days of relaxation, with time to think through my strategies for the rest of 2009, make preliminary plans for 2010 and enjoy my family.

Here is what you should be thinking about now.
1. We are going into the final quarter for 2009. What are your goals for these three months?
2. What obligations have crept into all areas of your life? Are you supporting charitable causes that are taking more and more of your time?
3. What are you tolerating in your life? What should you take action on to clean out some of the clutter in your life? Is it time for a "Fall cleaning" of your office? (My office is overdue for another cleaning).
4. What are your self-development plans for the rest of 2009, and 2010? (You do have plans to develop yourself during the coming 12 months, don't you?)
5. Where do you want to be on Dec 31, 2010? What are you doing now, to get there?

My plans are in place and I have renewed energy to put them into practise. What about you?

Sept 2009 Long Weekend - Day 3

Burgers and fries last night from Bongo's in Granville, NY. The server took pains to explain that the meat is fresh, and thus takes a little longer to prepare the burgers. The burgers were burgers and I didn't taste any difference.

We had antics with the wood stove last night. I lit a slow fire, just to take the chill off the air. Then mother nature turned up the temperature and shut off the wind. You can't instantly turn off wood fire, which resulted in in us enjoying open windows and doors while wishing that the fire would die.

Rained overnight and looks like today will be an indoor day of relaxation.

Sept 2009 Long Weekend - Day 2

Photos of the view from the deck of the lakehouse. Warmer weather than yesterday. Wood burning stove kept the lakehouse warm overnight, despite the chilly wind.

Enjoying the down time to be with family and my most important task for the day is to update my blog. Everything else is just happening without goals or priority.

Sept 2009 Long Weekend

We just drove four hours to a lakeside cottage for a relaxing long weekend getaway. From Connecticut, through Mass, Vermont and into New York state. I believe we are now in the middle of nowhere, as we have driven for the past two hours on country roads at 25 MPH.

There is a hint of fall colors along the drive, but not yet worthy of photos. The crisp Vermont air reminds everyone that winter is just around the corner.

The directions to this lake house include a section of "... drive through a beautiful valley...". The directions did not mention the dairy farms which has turned it into "... the valley of the cow smell...". One could believe that the beauty comes from unforgettably powerful manure.

Freddy (our family cocker-poo) came along for the weekend. It is become important for our family to seek out pet friendly travel destinations so that we don't have to deal with boarding kennels if we can help it.

The priorities for this weekend are:
1. Catch up on some writing (including a new case study on project management in action for volunteer projects, based on my work for Project SPUD).
2. Rest.
3. Hang out with the family.
4. Enjoy some serious thinking and strategy work to maximize the rest of 2009, and prepare for a prosperous 2010.

Only one more month until

Only one more month until we go to visit our family in South Africa.

Photos from King Richards Faire

Photos and video from King Richard's Fair in Carver, Mass.

Crossing the line. Going camping

Crossing the line. Going camping thid weekend with boy scouts over the line, in Mass.

enjoying gr8 evening at SNEC-PMI

enjoying gr8 evening at SNEC-PMI monthly event

Entertainment at the Wapping Fair includes a bag piper

Although bag pipe music is an acquired pleasure, I have learned to enjoy it. I admire the dedication it takes to master this instrument as I have heard that it is a very difficult instrument to learn to play.

Yes! We won first place

Yes! We won first place in concessions at the Wapping fair. Customers say these are the best baked potatoes ever.

Developing yourself

The difference between training and development is that training helps you to be better at your current job. Development prepares you for future jobs.

Therefore, you must not discount training courses. However, your focus should be on development. Make the time and set development objectives for yourself if you want to earn more money and have a higher standard of living in the future. Don't be content to only focus on training courses.

In these tough economic times, you need to take your professional development into your own hands more than every before. Your manager is not likely to go and grovel for education funds to develop your career - he is also paying attention and realizes that asking for funds at this time is not a pleasant task.

I studied at the University of Phoenix. Many other people have also improved their careers by completing online development courses. When people ask me why I chose to study online, my answer is always the same: it allowed me flexibility. I was able to fast-track my MBA and take classes in parallel on a schedule that suited me at the time.

You have two options. You get to make this choice, every day. Which choice works for you?
1. Be content with your current position in life, and wait for someone to provide training courses for you.
2. Go out and find development courses so that you are ready to take a better position in the future, with the commensurate rewards.

good lunch with friends today.

good lunch with friends today. hope rain clears before we sell at potato booth tonight.

Update live from the Wapping

Update live from the Wapping fair. Spuds are selling better than expected.

"I love it when a plan comes together"

This is the final week of Project SPUD. The lead team has worked diligently for the past six weeks, with a flurry of activity over the past three days. The booth will be erected in the next 12 hours and we will be open for business.

If you attend the Wapping fair, then please stop by our booth and purchase a potato. You will be glad that you did.

It has been a fabulous journey and I am thrilled to have been involved with such a positive group of volunteers from Wapping Community Church.

As a quick snapshot of this project's activities:
1. We have designed and printed custom order forms for customers.
2. Designed and printed signs for the booth, to display our name and prices.
3. Resolved 46 issues that made it onto the issue log.
4. Scheduled workers in 3 hours slots for the entire four day event.
5. Estimated, and procured supplies to sell 1,000 potatoes
6. Scheduled four days of oven baking for potatoes
7. Coordinated transporters to convey hot potatoes to booth.

This promises to be an exciting and fun-filled weekend. Project SPUD team rocks!!

Body sized coolers

We need body-sized coolers for the booth at Wapping Community Church.

Every person laughs when I say that we need a "body - sized" cooler. This accurate description is the perfect example of a complete description in project managment. Nobody has said "how many cubic feet would that be?" or "What color should it be".

Instantly, every person on the team knows what I say when I talk of a "body sized cooler".

What adjectives are you using on your projects to perfectly and accurately describe your project requirements? What is a "body sized cooler" in your world?

Project SPUD Week 5

We are into week five now, and only two weeks to go before the big event. Our plans are falling into place and as a member of the lead team commented last week "The volume of open issues is decreasing while the volume of closed issues is increasing". This is one measure of our progress.

We have a draft project budget drawn up, we have schedules for the kitchen crew and the worker crew at the booth of Wapping Community Fair. We also have people assigned to the various roles, such as SPUD transporter a communication system in the works for people to contact each other. Our escalation plan is in place for emergencies during the event.

Honestly, I must say that I see this as the phase of the project where we are completely comfortable with the progress of the project and are getting to the point where we want it done now. So much talk has been necessary to get to this point, but now I am looking forward to putting our plans into action and holding the event. I think if the project was a few weeks longer, we would start to lose momentum and people would start to lose interest.

From this, I learn that projects of this nature should be long enough to plan appropriately, but not so long that people become content to attend planning meetings and waffle on, merely to attend the meetings. A volunteer project such as Project SPUD only needs enough planning to plan appropriately, and then we must move. Volunteer projects can be over-planned and it is up to the Project Manager to keep things on track.

This week we are finalizing arrangements and next week the confirmations will be made with volunteers to fill their scheduled slots. My gut feel is that we are about five days ahead of schedule at this time. If we were to lose a few days right now, it would not have any impact to the project.

However, this is state was reached through the outstanding work of many volunteers. I can't say enough good things about the people who are working on Project SPUD and supporting the effort.

The softer skills that determine your project management style

When you attend training courses in project management, you learn the "hard" technical skills, such as network diagrams and the end-user functions of your project management software.

These are the same skills that other students learn. However, the skills that allow you to distinguish yourself from the crowd are softer skills, such as having passion for your project.

Read about the skills that distinguish you as a project manager, and help you to stand out from the crowd when bonuses are determined, in my September 2009 Newsletter.