Sunday, July 27, 2008

Leaving for Thailand

I am going to Thailand today to spend a week again in NongKhae. This is the final audit before going live. I am not happy with the way I worked on this project and hope to do better in the next factory deployment. I have been too distracted lately to focus on the essential tasks. I feel I am always new to a project and I have to reinvent the wheel. The situation is compounded by the new project management process as well as the reorganization. So instead of being an experienced manager, I feel like I a newbie out to learn new things again. The field has been levelled with the advantage on the young rather than the old.

I have recently finished reading Daniel Pink's 'A Whole New Mind.' It is an interesting book and I will read or study more on the books and sites recommended in the book. I feel that the insights are correct and that I could profit from following them. In fact I read the article written by the Ideo company president on design thinking. It has great relevance on the software development and deployment process. It is only now that it is talked about in the press but a fact of life in software development. The framework is applied in other non-software related fields. It likes we were a pioneer in the new age as well especially with agile development methods.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Back from Saraburi, Thailand

I was in Thailand last week for the project that I am doing and will go live soon. In the past few months I was not too confident about the project due to the many issues. But most have been solved and things are looking good. The team is a bit more confident and the project seems to be in good form. Of course, there were a lot of 'potholes' during the course of work and a delay of about 3 months. I got a lot of flak because of the delays and problems but were able to overcome them and I soon would need to make a lessons learned document.

I was in Saraburi province which was about 2 hours away from Bangkok. The factory is located in a very quiet town which had basically no night life. We had a lot of good times with the project team and had dinner with them in some modest places often beside the main road. But the food was excellent. I spent a night in Bangkok and was finally able to see the famous cabaret. It was fun and I did not venture much in Bangkok except for a good dinner in the usual place near the hotel plus the cabaret. I was actually a day well spent without much indulgence as in the past and had a chance to go swimming in the hotel pool.

Working in the factory was fun and it was a slow and quiet period with lots of calls to the team in Europe to help out on the issues. Overall, it was a good week and I feel more confident. I am glad that I was able to go there to prepare for go live. I have some mixed feelings and I read about the passage about Lincoln who felt humbled despite knowing that the Union will succeed in the American civil war. Similarly, I feel that we will succeed with the project going live but feel immense humility on the prospect of success because I have learned a lot and took a lot of effort and luck to get where we are right now with help from many contributors.

There was a lot of slow nights in Saraburi and I had a chance to finish the audio book of John Le Carre's latest book 'The Mission Song.' I also had a chance to see good movies again such as 'The Beach', 'The 300' and a scary Thai horror movie. I got also a chance to see how the people live in the province. I plan to return there next week for the final preparations. Hope things will turn out well. I just kept too much thing to myself although I see that the project team are very supportive of me and the project. I feel that they would like to go live soon and have a project success.

I arrived back home last Friday afternoon, went jogging and watched a great Indian movie 'Mr. & Mrs. Iyer' by Aparna Sen. During the weekend, I attended an officers training for Toastmasters, watched a movie and read books. I went swimming on Sunday and borrowed interesting books. It was a great weekend with anticipation of more work and excitement in the coming weeks.

Friday, July 4, 2008

A Different Mind

I am getting a bit anxious reading about all these books preparing you for the future. I am now reading a book called 'Practical Intelligence.' There is another book that I hope to read soon called 'A Whole New Mind'. Seems that our mind is not ready for the future and need to change our mindsets to be able to adapt to the new world and succeed. I am presently ready a book by both Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki called 'Why We Want You to be Rich'?. It is a a good book to increase one's financial literacy.

Are these book's really helpful or do they increase your anxiety and neuroses? Furthermore, reading all these books puts you in a constant state of agitation.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Back in the Game

I will be meeting the boss man again in a formal meeting tomorrow. I will essentially be doing the same thing as in the past - reporting on the status of change request and maintenance. I will be with the project office and the new auditor in the meeting. But it will also be without our usual contact in the company. So the rules and actors have changed except me. What comes around, goes around I think the saying goes.

The project I am working on for a factory in Thailand is delayed for 3 weeks. What bad luck I have this year? Project was delayed because the testing server was done for more than a week, pushing back all activities. We had a lot of problems and I had to request a technical resource from the head office to come over and help. He came and helped us but came into conflict with the local team especially my good friend from India. It was an awkward time and I had to explain a lot of things to my boss, project team, stake holder, support team in head office as well as the contributors in Philippines and India.

We are also going through a transition period were all outsource activities will be transferred to a single company in the coming months. The support office has been sold and all contributors will move their work to the new support company based in Bagalore, India. The hardware and infrastructure support has also been outsourced to another well-known company. So work will be a bit messy and confusing in the coming months. A few of the internal staff will be transferring to the outsource as well. So times are really a-changing. What an environment to work in while delivering projects and solutions!

I am really working on multiple roles - a point that was driven to me during a recent seminar I attended in project management. I have often blamed myself for not living up to the standards of other project managers in the company but I suddenly realized that I am overworked not unskilled. In fact I am doing all the roles of project manager, systems analyst and business analyst all at the same time. Also, most of the time I have spent coordinating with multiple contributors and parties in Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, India and France. So it's quite a struggle and I should not be too hard on myself.

I guess the pressure is coming from my friend who is also working on this project. I got into an argument with him but we still managed to go out having fun and drinking a few beers. But I realized my personal relationship with him may have caused some problems as well. But the difficult environment we are in have contributed to the stress and pressure as well. All these difficulties has made me look into myself and I have tried to find out my strengths. To move forward in a strength based framework. I admit it's a new way of looking at things which keeps my perspective fresh.

I have also been listening to audio books about writing from Stephen King and Ayn Rand as well as investing books from Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump as well as Charles Schwab. I love the audio books revolution because it helps me learn about these diverse topics without reading. It has lessened the time for me to learn and absorb new things. I guess listening involves a different set of mental muscles as compared to reading. Understanding and synthesizing all these topics will still be the challenge which I can work on by journal writing here.