Shyam's Blog

Recently, I was driving on the NICE road in Bangalore. It is a tolled highway and speed of vehicles is as high as 120 Kms/hr. While I was driving at 80 on a curve, a car came from opposite direction! Because the guy at the toll-gate broke the rule and allowed this wrong side driver, this happened. Blame both involved in committing the mistake. There are so many offences I notice on road that I pity the ministry for losing money for not collecting penalties. Talking about NICE road, here are some of the offences: 1. Drivers change tracks without blinkers. Strictly speaking, it is an offence as per books we read before getting a driver's license. I see this offence with EVERY driver. 2. Trucks move at 30 Kms/hr on the fastest lane. It is clearly written that slower vehicles are supposed to keep left. Truck driver don't bother to read the sign boards. 3. Stopping on the freeway - It is written everywhere - Still, people stop for taking photo, or to pee! What a bad place for ...

My music guru called me and invited me for a concert of a 12-year old student. Nishanth made his debut on stage today. Son of Dr. Subha Madhusudan and Dr. Madhusudan, the boy has good talent and showed it to maximum extent. Music guru, Vid. D V Nagarajan has trained him really well and gave a go ahead to perform today. I am sure the guru was confident that his student would perform well. Nishanth was supported on the violin by his elder brother, Tejasvi. On the mridangam, it was Vinod (son of Vid. Anoor Shivu) and Sunaad (son of Vid. Anoor Datta) was on kanjira. With three elder supporting artists, it was like a small deer in between 3 tigers. If that was not enough, there were so many musicians and experts in the audience. Hope the kid didn't feel the pressure to perform in front of such audience. The program was started off with Bharavi varna, Veeriboni in atta taala - a good one to prove Nishanth's maturity. He sang his favorite raaga, Shubhapantuvarali. The song was ...

As a Project Manager and having experience in performing Carnatic concert on stage, I find a connection between the two - both need good planning, have requirement of good delivery and are delivered to customers. Planning: Carnatic concert is neatly planned. It has a structure and rules to follow, same as project management. A project or a concert, both have historical data to refer to. Concert might have a specific theme. So does PM with a specific intent or objective. Delivery: A project is delivered as per requirements. It has specific timelines and stakeholders expectations. In performing art, there is delivery in real time. The audience is the customer. While performing, it is mandatory to maintain good quality.If this is not met, an artist will fail to satisfy the audience similar to how project manager fails in project. Risks and uncertainties: There is no better place to find risks and uncertainties than in a live concert. Right from artists not arriving on time to micro...

Day 2 of the conference was an eventful one. Dr. Harish Hande's speech on poverty alleviation with sustainable energy was great. Winner of many awards, Dr. Hande focussed on creating opportunities to the poor. Mr. Satish Grampurohit of Infosys gave a presentation on eGovernance. It gave an idea of how an IT company can create and implement a project to reduce power loss in electricity distribution. He gave examples of challenges faced by Govt. and other organizations while working on such projects. Mr. Elango R, Chief HR Officer at MphasiS, gave a motivating speech. One thing I noticed from the conference is that not all have the ability to stand in front of a crowd to convey something. Few speeches, though by eminent people, were not satisfying the audience. Such people must learn how to present a presentation. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Today was Day 1 of Project Management Practitioners' Conference 2012 here in Bangalore. It was held at Nimhans Convention Center. More than 750 attended today's event. Dr. Trivedi, Secretary, Govt. of India, Cabinet Secretariat, gave an introduction to Results Framework Document (RFD) - their website is here .This is the framework that is used to measure performance of Govt. ministries. Bhaskar Bhat, MD of TITAN, gave a speech on Industry perspective of Project Management. He gave example of TATA projects - Tanish (jewelry) that failed initially and then picked up after understanding the market requirements. He emphasized that we learn more from failed projects than successful projects. Dr. Mohan Sundara Rajan, Science Writer ended the day's proceedings with his talk on Nano technology. With lot of humor and interesting words, his speech was very entertaining (I should say, infotainment). Few quotes from the day: One person asked, "Why have train time table...

I think my wife will pass the exam next week. She has taken all the pain and spent lot of effort in teaching my son. Result: Son is in a condition where he(we) can attend the exam confidently. Our son is in LKG and he is facing his first exam in life! Syllabus: Written - A to O; a to o Written - 1 to 20 Oral - Rhymes, 1 to 60. Story telling - A thirsty crow. Drawing - coloring. His mom has meticulously taught him alphabet writing. I was happy that he can write A to Z in plain paper. But, my wife is specific on neatness - she says, "he has to write the alphabets within a given frame/lines." Initially, it was hard for her to make him follow the instructions. Slowly, she learnt his language, cars language. In order to write B, she narrates the instructions, "go straight, stop ahead; start from up, go straight, U-turn, reverse gear, U-turn." If someone had listened to her loud instructions coming out from the bedroom, I don't know what they would have tho...