Archive for November, 2010

That is totally annoying..but why?

A lot of the time, I’ve seen people (including myself) get very annoyed at other people for being non-receptive to the things you believe are obvious.

You know what I’m referring to don’t you? You may relate to some of these for example:

  • The missing remote control, I mean…it is meant to be on the coffee table/couch right? How can it possibly just go missing…
  • Someone telling you to do something without having asked whether you’d like to first…or be in agreement?
  • People barging into an intimate conversation you’re having with someone else during lunch…
  • Your partner being a friggin hypocrite!

The list goes on, and I do not know how many you would experience yourself on a day to day basis however know:

  • That it ain’t healthy to hold on to it,
  • It’s not healthy to remain opinionated and whinging to other people as to how it should be
  • It’s not healthy to blame another individual, create a ruckus and feel the tension develop in your forehead.

Because you have been gifted with a form of perception that another may not, it must be equally matched with a degree of self-control and committment to staying non-judgemental. Compassion is key, because if we lose that for another, we start to More >

Project Management is About Visualisation

Task: Manage a project from start to finish, and bring it to a bottom line of at least 15% profit

Method:

1. Comic book method. Used Microsoft powerpoint to develop a mind-map of the likely path the project would take including:

  • Client objectives
  • Design
  • Authority approvals
  • Arup objectives

2. Once the picture above was painted, I submitted to my brain for digestion.

3. As the project progressed, I produced a powerpoint slide encompassing the finer details of the road I had to travel. For example, if it involved a calculation, I used powerpoint slides to list out every step I’d have to carry out in order to complete the analysis. This could include:

  • Technical references
  • Software/tools
  • People whom I needed to speak to
  • Diagrams/illustrations
  • Information I needed etc..

4. If things did not go as planned, I would go back to the big-picture to find clarity. What needed to change? What action could I use to steer it back to the main road? This was normally something I would then propose to the director to gain input as to how it should be dealt.

  • Using it like a design tree!

5. At the end, I had a powerpoint presentation 30 slides in length. I used the content to write my report (the formality really).

6. Finito

Benefits:

  1. Tracks “thinking More >