Not so good thing to do!

Of course, I was a student. Each one of us is sometime, someday, somewhere a student! You will agree to it, wouldn’t you? Remember how when we are in student life, everything seems so different than what it is actually.

The same lab which we used to be pain in (you know what) appears rosy and geeky with all of those new equipments; the same couch which sometimes we slept on during exam days now appear dusty, old and rotten. And the list continues… for each one of us with difference in what and where we looked upon and now looks down on.

I and my friend from Croatia, Sue, went to school together. I met her at one of my project management graduate classes and we have become friends ever since. Even though we both were from different countries and different age groups, we became good friends. Yay! So sue got a coop in a company near our school and she had to travel everyday! We lived on-campus housing and we never had to use a car. So, we now had to buy a car. Since we were international students, every dollar counts!

Story in backdrop --- After a month long exhaustive and time killing search we got a car, an old car. It was a 2004 Honda accord for $8000 and we wanted to make the best of what we got. So we did. After a while of driving, the car had it’s first set of repairs – brake pads, then oil change and then something else. So, it was just the beginning of many more to come. Now you are thinking that we didn’t inspect it properly that is why this happened, but we did to your surprise. I knew this guy from Pepboys and I took him to see the car with me paying him with a free coffee :)and he confirmed “everything looks fine”

So, now in present – we have to sell the car because it is a mess to keep this car. You have to run to the mechanic every now and then which is obviously we don’t want to do that. The car has a problem with it and we don’t have enough money to spend on it to get it done. So we are planning to sell it off. But my contention is that it is not right to sell a car with that defect and keep it virtually hidden but at the same time not telling it to the buyers, is completely wrong.

Mahatma Gandhi once said –

Half truth is no truth at all!

With this, I think I will end my this blog post and we will see what happens! Chao!

PMP Exam experience - Aftermath & Before it !

For the readers who are relatively new to PMP or Project Management field in general, PMP is a world wide acclaimed certification for professionals in Project Management field. For more information, visit www.pmi.org
I wrote my credential examination today at the Glastonbury Center, Connecticut. For most part of it, the center was not what you would expect from a Prometric Center. The executives ( read as "ladies") were as rude as they could be. It appeared to me as if they were from some other country or rather planet all together, where courtesy was a less known term or distinctively instinct. I landed a little bit earlier--> I am phobic to see an entirely new area for the first time for one of the major examination of my professional voyage. I started a little bit earlier since some guy had not made it to his test in time.
Moving from from there, Exam was pretty tough. ( Equivalent to the first read of PMBOK for a naive--> ha ha ) the exam really tests your experience and your skills that you might have learnt mostly from the Experience at work and concepts from texts ( be it PMBOK or any other you might prefer to use). For last 5 months I have been preparing for the exam, quite intermittently sometimes and sometimes regulare. As you might be able to make it out that I struggled to be a regular at the preparation. Partly because it is summer ( travel time :D) and some because I have been traveling for work as well. Apart from this, my newly found fitness routine that keeps me busy for one & half hour at the gym, nearly everyday! Coming back to the point that I took nearly 5 months to prepare for this exam. While doing the exam, several times I doubted that was doing things right or wrong, like everyone else! PMP exam proved not to be that tough nut afterall. I aced the test.
Below is the strategy for all of the people who would like to know

Strategy:
My preparation solely revolved around PMBOK for the getting familiar phase! Once I read the whole PMBOK twice word-to-word then I used another text "Success project management" by Jack and Gido. You might have not heard about it. I used this book earlier as text for my PM class and I found it easy and helpful to understand Cost, Time and Scope problems ( number problems) and the whole concept of project management. You may want to consider one of the regular help books for yourself. I opted out for this book since I was familiar and adapted to this book' langauge and structure.
Give a test every two days to guage where you lack and what you need to polish more.

Preparation tips:
1. A word from the wise men( not me) --> Read PMBOK atleast 3 times word-to-word before the exam.
2. Test yourself as much as you can. May be 1K questions or more, should not stop you to try another 1K
3. Use free websites for test sample questions & try Rita Mulcahy book for tests
4. Read Vikram Gupta's book for delegation in project management from PMI.org, since it is not covered in pmbok and is asked several times ( 4 questions I myself answered in the test)!
5. Don't take PMBOK lightly. Read ITTO ( Inputs, Tools, Techniques, outputs) very carefully.
6. There is a significant amount of brain dump you might have to do ( I did), to remember all the sub-processes and their ITTOs.
7. Give fair time for cost questions. I encountered atleast 15 questions ( ya! thats' right) for Schedule Variance, Cost variance, CPI, SPI, Actual Cost, Planned Value, Earned Value, Estimate at Completion, Budget at completion, etc. You got the fair idea about what it is!

You may find these websites helpful
http://pmzilla.com/pmzilla-free-pmp-tests
http://www.pmstudy.com/practicetestsindex.asp
http://www.oliverlehmann-training.com/
http://www.pmhub.net/index.php
The last link is cool! check is out!

In last, folks you are best judge about your preparation. Please take time to prepare enough and then knock it down!

Gandhi is Fictional

LONDON: Mahatma Gandhi never existed while Britain's wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was a fictional character. Don't fret. This is only what most Britons think about the great leaders.

According to a survey carried out in Britain, many believe that Mahatma Gandhi and Churchill are just mythical figures like Florence Nightingale, popularly known as the 'Lady with the Lamp'.

In fact, almost a quarter of the population have the popular notion that Churchill, "the greatest Briton of all time", was made up.

Moreover, despite his celebrated military reputation, 47 per cent of respondents feel the 12th-century English King Richard the Lionheart is fictional, according to the survey of 3,000 British teens.

In contrast, a number of fictitious characters like Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and Eleanor Rigby were given real life status.

While almost 65 per cent of respondents believe that mythical figure King Arthur existed and led a round table of knights at Camelot, 58 per cent of teens think that Holmes really lived at 221B Baker Street.

Fifty-one per cent of respondents believed that Robin Hood lived in Sherwood Forest, robbing the rich to give to the poor, while 47 per cent believed Eleanor Rigby was a real person rather than a creation of The Beatles.

The poll also revealed that nearly three quarters of those surveyed did not read history books while and 61 per cent admitted that they changed channels rather than watching historical programmes on television.

"While there's no excuse for demoting real historical figures such as Churchill, the elevation of mythical figures to real life showed the impact good films could have in shaping the public consciousness.

"Stories like Robin Hood are so inspiring that it's not surprising people like to believe these characters truly existed," the British media quoted Paul Moreton, the Head of UKTV Gold channel, which commissioned the poll, as saying.