Phew! Just completed a PM Course on another batch of 24 professionals !
Thanks Allah swt that we did quite well from the response that we had. However, we must continue to listen and learn from my customers.Then only we will LEAD.

My retired friend just sent me an email. He said he is going to hold a wedding for his daughter by end of this year,and he also registered to go for Haj and start a business. That is three projects in ojne year!!!

I will try to assist him.

Yesterday, I passed through a road in Pahang. I was shocked to see the level of PM by the contractors in doing million ringgit projects.

Looking back to the number of projects given out by the government, Malaysian contractors who keep on getting jobs should have improved by now. Now I believed what my guru said that no matter how much works they do , they will never learn and will keep making mistakes all the time.

Why?

Just came from a wedding function. We had to wait for 30 minutes due to shortage of foods. In Malaysia, it is almost impossible to estimate how many people will come to your family wedding. My cousin invited one thousand ,but he anticipated two thousand people will come but the two thousand also come with additional kids.

The only way is to get extra foods on stand by with with the cooks .

This is the most difficult part in scope management if we treat wedding as a project;-0

A contractor friend told me about his business philosophy-sub all work to ensure you lock in your profit. When I asked why he did not do thw weork himself and make extra profit, he told me his people will cheat him and he has lost money.

In Malaysia,many main contractors are just project managers.

To-day,I received an email from a friend who attended a course my partners have conducted for the past 8days. He valued it 10 times than what is being paid! That makes another day for me:-))

It reconfirmed my aspiration to be a teacher. But I must be warned:

WHO DARES TO TEACH MUST NEVER CEASE TO LEARN....

How do I go about translating ideas into reality? One management consultant who turned himself into a writer has this to say:
Concentrate on the process of becoming a writer. and less on dreaming to be a writer. Personally, I love to write;in fact I write everyday in my blogs and in my special interests mailinglist with the hope one day day I could work on a book( any genre) and become a writer.
I think project management methodology is quite applicable in turning myself into a management consultant and later to be a writer;-)

When we talk about ideas, we must be able to articulate and to validate before we create a project. My friend Peter is helping me on this aspect. Thanks Peter.

Now, I began to understand why teachers remain as teachers despite their low income and degrading respect by materialistic society. When we finished our second module to train JKR professionals , a few of them thanked us for opening their eyes to elevate them to the next level of knowledge,undertanding and competence in managing their projects. We even provoked them to re-examine their axioms, premises and assumptions to the brink of ridicules.

I feel grateful and proud( in all humility) to be part of a team that taught the elephants on how to dance. The earth is vibrating when the elephant starts to dance.The rest in ther 'animal' kingdom will follow soon.This is a joy that one gets for being a member of a team that makes a difference. Let's get M.A.D

Only crazy people creates the change. Normal people remains complacent in status quo forever.

Let me share with you what happened yesterday at the Project Management course for a govt. department.

One engineer confided in me that he now realised the importance of having the knowledge and tools to manage his projects.He was cynical all the way until yesterday.When his department wanted to make changes and comes with new format of reporting,he told a friend that he won't do it. But now, when he gets some knowledge and realised his folly, he is all the way to support our efforts to use proper project management knowledge! He also told me this is one course that he did not sleep;-)

I thought it was people ego's or arrogance that they belittle our efforts to do proper project management. Now, I also learned and realised that these people are just ignorant.

I think he is not the only one who has converted. I was so happy yesterday that I rewarded myself with a cafe latte at Gloria Jeans at KLCC-sitting alone surfing the Internet using wi-fi and smiling from ear to ear....It makes my day.

Sam told me that he managed to conclude the objective of his IT project with a client. Thank God that he did it.Now, he can concentrate of WHAT the is going to do i.e scope planning!

I am glad to hear about it.

This week, my team went to Terengganu to give a talk on JKR new progress reports and its rational. About 100 persons attended the two days course-50% from JKR and the others from contractors and consultants. My observation indicated that only a few know PMBOK and also a few only who are really interested to learn. The majority is just being to learn to comply with JKR new requirement. It is their ignorance that failed to motivate them to learn to upgrade themselves to the next level of competence.