Tuesday, May 25, 2010

An Ode to an Unknown Mentor

I read through a newsletter today that Rita Mulcahy, PMP has passed away. For anyone who has written the PMP exam knows that Rita Mulcahy's books were almost the bible for us - and a benchmark of how well we might fare in the exam.

I didnt know Rita. I have no clue of how she looked, how she thought and how she worked. But at the same time, her works has brought about another achievement for me, another ceritification for me. It must be amazing to know that what you produce is affecting 100's of; nay; 10,000s of people who wrote this exam.

I wonder if all those of us who have used her knowledge and the result of her hard work - would know, or even care enough to say - oops! Here was a person who had directed me, who had taught me quite a few valuable lessons - and that person, is no more!!

May her soul Rest in Peace.

Announcement about her death from the RMC site:

"Rita Mulcahy, Founder of RMC Project Management and the best-selling project management author of all-time, passed away on Saturday, May 15th 2010, from complications related to a five-year battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)"

Friday, May 21, 2010

What motivates People?

Through the tweet of someone whom i follow - i read ( actually heard ) a very interesting piece about "what motivates people to work better". ( You can hear it too at http://blogs.psychcentral.com/channeln/2010/05/what-motivates-people-to-work-better.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChannelN-PodcastsPoweredByOdiogo+%28Channel+N+%2B%29 ) Even if you didnt like the actual message - you would love the way it is rendered through animation. Awesome!

Anyways - one of the key points mentioned was that in cognitive task ( for those of us lay men - it means that includes thinking, creativity and not mechanical repeatable tasks ) money is not a motivator. But to me, the most important point in the whole story was - "Pay People Enough to take the issue of money off the table" _Once you do that, then money is no more a motivator.

That to me is a brilliant thought. And a very subtle fact. And i guess it applies to all levels, all areas. If there aer things weighing down in you mind - your aim isonly to somehow make it happen. Once that is achieved, then you can chase your mind and your will.

I am sure a lot of my friends would say - waht's so big about this thought and tease me that i make a big point of it. But to me, i think this is a very important point that we can all use in our day to day work life as an important way to motivate our team.

Know what material desire is weighing down each of your team member. Use a solution to those problems as a incentive. Once that is achieved, do another search to identify what can really satisfy the sould of the team member. change your incentive plan to the new carrot.

Motivating your team is never a point of time exercise - It is an evolving activity and needs you to be always connected to your team!!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

"I did something wierd today!"

And that would be wierder than taking up the mobile phone and sending a tweet mentioning this to half the world? :)

I was reading Dracula ( again! :) ). The whole book is written as a collection of diary notes - some by Jonathan Harker, some by Mina HArker and some by other characters. Stoker is able to simply pull the whole narrative together through these posts!

I was wondering how the book would have been written had it been Dracula 2.0...

As the train goes chug chugging to the carpathian mountains, Jonatahn would open up his laptop and start typing his blog - The Journey to the Carpathian, part 1. His fears, the wierd happening would all be noted in the blog. HIs lover, wife to be Mina would get a minute to minute update on his travel ( She would probably even comment - JOnathan, pull down the window of the train, you would catch cold! )

And then Jonathan would open up google maps and drop a pin on the current location where he is- Just so, that he can tell others that "oh, well, you know, i have been to all corners of the world, blimey!"

As he gets down and the localites give him the cross, the garlic and the other things to ward off evil spirits, he would take a video of the same using flip and directly upload that to youtube ( Fetching a comment from musiclova2145: "awesome video , dude!! Can i add some background songs to this?" )

And as they mention their wishes in the native tongue, Jonathan would open the translator app in iPhone or Droid and convert what they say to English. Now he is definitely a more informed man!!!

And i am sure he woul have been more informed about Castle Dracula, as he would have read about it in Wikipedia ( where else :) )

The Dracula Bite Video has a million hits in the last one month and has gone viral!
eBay suddenly has a lot more Garlic sellers..
Craigslist has seen a spurt in a lot of classified ads for night life lovers...

Would have beena pretty some novel - Dracula 2.0 :)