AIDS Walk - San Diego

Getting up 5:45 AM on a Sunday morning, getting all your muscles warmed up on a cold September day and driving out with Payal and a friend to Balboa Park and be greeted by a crowd of over 300 people present to walk/run/volunteer for a noble cause - that's one of a kind experience for me (definitely the first). Anyone who would look at me first will realise that this is not something I do but then this became something I like to do. Never ever looked athletic for a single day in my life but not many know that I was a regular basketball junkie who played full games without a break!!
Anyways, coming back to the AIDS walk - it was fun. There were folks from the gay and lesbian community, some of whom had nice costumes (wondered what energy they had to to get into those and come that early in the morning); old people, people who lost dear ones to AIDS, young children who had come to enjoy the fun and school/college kids along with professionals (part of companies who contributed to the foundation) and sports clubs. The walk itself was fun - people all around, volunteers prodding on the walkers/runners while supplying them with water, Gatorade, music and lot of cheering, wonderful weather and of course quiet personal competitions going on among the groups. For my part, I was in competing with a couple of gymnasts from UCSD and a lady from Starbucks, whom I managed to pass in the last 5 mins before reaching the finish. =))
And of course, this being the first time, at the end of the walk was all the after-effects: legs were almost as good as wooden and were totally numb. I managed a recovery in 3 hours. Also Payal, who was a little more tired (as, I must add, she cheated by running during the 5 Km walk) had the same after effects!! And like every other physical activity, lot of sleeping in the afternoon.
However, I must thank the organisers, not only for putting together this event to raise money for the foundation and providing us all a wonderful opportunity to have fun and participate, but also for getting me hooked into participating in more of such events. Need to find out more on such events in India, but as long as I'm here, I'll continue to participate at every opportunity possible.

Funding V/S Work

As a project manager, I am constantly faced with the dilema of getting the project completed (mainly getting the change requests or CRs incorporated) in the face of getting customer satisfaction to being able to ask for the funding of these unanticipated changes. These are more complicated while operating in a pseudo-T&M scenarios with an offsite component. The customer always wants that one more change that is 'critical' to the success of the project while the offsite team is bothered about the funding needed to secure the resources. The challenege for me here is to maintain the relations with the customer while balancing the work so that the offsite team is still able to continue working.
The principle I use is being open to the customer in terms the amount of work involved and the cost. Also, added to this, is thinking of a solution that is suitable to the customer while not hurting us in anyway. Be sensitive to the budgets from the customer while helping them to chalk out what they really need. And provide alternates to completing everything on their wish-list. Worked for me today!!

Turn Over a new leaf

I would now like to blog on more responsible, educative topics rather than my thoughts. There are lots of reasons for this, the most prominent being that I am taking up my PMP certification ASAP. Also, I have been a witness to ardent mis-use of blogging that is equi-valent of hate mails/notes. So I no longer wish to be in any way a contibuter, even in a directional sense to any of it. So hence forth, all will see my experiences, practices and 'pravachans' on management topics.

- Gyan Guru =))

Tensions - 1

Life goes on and throws it's colourful antics every moment as it passes. Currently, married to a project that puts me in a peculiar situation. It does not allow me time for anything else. If I do take a time out, then it goes into a hyper-active mode, else I'm shown bad on all other projects. Role play in theory as a PM, unskilled worker activity in actual!! Stagnant in the actual role play and it's frustrating that I'm stuck in a place that drains my energy and still makes me look bad!! Do I enjoy what I'm doing?? Well to be honest I like being in the stress and fighting it out, else I'm bored. From everyone else's point-of-view, I'm not not achieveing anything - pressure from the family at this point!! Everyone else is moving higher and I'm stuck at in a place with no actual growth :(

What am I currently doing you ask? Well enjoying what I'm doing for now and there are no other pressing issues that need to worry me. But tensions, well I sort of am loving them - kind of have to have them but cannot bear them!!

Schumi wins, me thrilled!!

Finally....finally....the long awaited win for Schumi after I last saw his win in 2004 (technically I do not count the race in which all Michellin cars with-drew)....and the best part, it was not because Alonso or Kimi or Montoya or Button or Rubens crashed, but he led it from pole to finish.... missed it live, but re-lived the entire race through most entries made on the net and every picture I could find on the same....the car is slowly improving, Schumi was always great and now he's neatly into the second place.....Alonso - watch out.....once victory is tasted, there is no stopping.....had I a chance of watching the F1, surely it would be a Schumi season!!

2006 Formula 1

The whole of last year I was in the US and missed the entire formula 1 season of 2005. Being a core Ferrari fan for Schumi, I can say my absence cost him the title. And Ferrari ran into so much troubled waters that his partner Bari quit Ferrari to join Honda. I wonder how that team will do - Button and Bari. Felipe Massa is the new partner for Schumi, but I always doubt if he can replace Bari's position that earned this team such a huge repute. And now the 2006 formula 1 season has started with Alonso beating Schumi by 1.2 seconds!! What an exciting match and I could feel it when I just browsed through the timings and articles from the race. And hey its not Australia, its Bahrain.....I'm sure trying to build the interest there.
Well Schumi lost, but then the whole season's ahead. Best of Luck Schumi and Best of Luck Ferrari!!

Harishonomics!!

If I said that my blogging has taken a back seat since I've got extremely busy at work, then I would be treading the thin line between lie and wishful fantasy.....but, the more dicey situation would be telling P the truth as to why I'm not going to the gym.
Last evening was the best I had in a lot of days....no tensions, television and vodka with P obliging to sit with me the whole time...a whole lot peace without having to bother about work, weight, socializing and going to the list of "you have not done.........". I also managed to catch up on the Indian budget, including a quick refresher on fiscal deficit, revenue deficit - in short a macro economics revision of sorts!! This really ignited my angel-demon debate on whether I'm adding any value to anything keeping so much knowledge/ideas lying useless (I would like to point out that I'm not claiming that these could help in anyway, but who knows?) or should I actually get into the teaching profession....why? Well, for starters, I'm pre-qualified as I share my birthday with all the teachers in India!!
At work, I'm in a spot right know - transition between roles....not totally into the new role and trying to complete my tasks in the previous role.....and sometimes it gets really boring....like being a wire connecting the battery to the light bulb....everything that happens is with the light and the battery.....and had both been together, it would still be the same....and the wire hardly ever adds value!!
Anyways, the current joys in my life - the issues 28, 29, 30 and 31 of Asterix that I've not read and the PMP preparation guide that reminds me of everything I've learnt and (more importantly) had put into practice without having connected the two!! Who ever thought that I actually could use what I learnt.....can award full points to my professors at IBS Bangalore, who were the objects of my affectionate jokes on practicality of many models and plans taught at school......I know P would be hating me for focusing on everything but her, though the truth remain (as I've always maintained and told her) - she's the 'cocaine' for my everyday existence, don't know whether the addiction is good or bad, but definitely vital to survive!!

Why do we do what we do?

What makes a task more complicated is it's direct dependency on the complexity of coordination that is involved. The higher the complexity, the higher the higher the chances of failure and higher the joy of success. How often do we feel the immense joy of snatching the victory from the mouth of failure, however insignificant it might be!!
Also, how many of us enjoy being in this situation? And to add more, how often do we want to be in this situation? Sure, these are the kind of things that act as steroids to stress level, so whats the attaction? These are the questions I've been asking and there are never ever any answers. I've been observing a small group that day-in and out face these situations, do not make any materialistic gain but go on for days and days as though they are never tired? Will someone ever recognize the work? Maybe not!! So whats the trigger?? My guess is that equilibrium has to be attained and the entropy in the situation has to definitely minimize as the equilibrium approaches as in the third law of themodynamics. So we reach the magical question that is perched on the Mt. Everest of all questions - when will it happen?
Maybe we all are waiting for a lot of when's in our lives and probably thats the juice that flows and keeps us moving on!!

Dilema

The uncertainity of time is very evident to me - there are things I want to do and there are things that are bound to happen. In the matrix of these two, a variety of combinations are possible and the favourable ones are least expected to happen but most wanted. To choose one among the two as a priority is a difficult choice - if you keep doing things you want to do and not care for anything else, you are branded arrogant, aggressive, head-strong and what not; while if you choose to resign to time, then you are weak-hearted, unambitious, etc. In Indian culture both have their acceptance levels and generally a mix is considered to be good, but then should one be an average person or try to be an achiever even in the face of repeated failure or a failure who with luck can be a sort of achiever. Right now I'm facing this dilema and am afraid that I might choose something at the cost of the other and I'm very much a function to that cost at the moment. One thing I hate is not being where I want to go and career too is not an exception to this rule. So, as you might have already guessed, there are somethings I want to do, but am not sure whether I might get the opportunity to do it. Ideally I would look for the suitable opportunity at almost any cost till I get to do what I want to do. I hope I'll be doing the write things.

New Year 2006

For the first time I partied on a New Year's night in a place that was not paid-organised but more like a get-together that had all the fun of a party (to be understood as booze, games, food, music and dance). New Year is pretty fun all the time, except that I've noticed that if I sleep through it, the year goes by pretty well. The only time I remember actually blasting it out was on the advent of this century (20th to 21st) and that time the year was really good - infact lot of things that happened then, laid foundations to what I'm now. Lets check what this year has in store!! Lot of unknowns and hope pieces fall in place as the year moves on!!

Hapyy New Year to All!!