Having recently had the privilege to be able to volunteer for the whole period of the George Town Festival for the first time, I had the opportunity to get a new perspective on the event.   One insight was on communications. In particular for the event locations. It should never be assumed that the event location is sufficient for the event attendees to find the location. This was particularly true for one location which is in a prominent landmark in Penang.  There were 3 distinct routes to get to the auditorium, where the event was going to be taking place. However, some of the options were time sensitive, so depending on what time the show was taking place, the route options may not be available at that time. Normal signage was lacking, so we had to supplement the signage with our posters, which were on the small side. These needed additional creative additions and combinations to be visible. Signage by themselves were still not enough, as the team found during t...

  Video from LiveNOW from FOX YouTube Channel Follow up on my earlier post on the PM perspective of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, today we will review my PM perspective compared that which has been generated by AI. Using Recall to extract the summary of the video above, and pasting the summary to chatGPT , we got the following version, when asking AI to translate it to more familiar Project Management IT terminology: Risk Identification and Monitoring : Loss of visibility on a critical risk after initial identification. Ineffective real-time risk assessment. Project Planning and Execution : Potential shortcuts in project planning and stakeholder coordination. Failure to secure critical components or areas of the project environment. Inadequate adjustments to project plans based on stakeholder feedback. Governance and Communication : Unclear roles and responsibilities during the project. Insufficient training and coordination with external stakeholders. Incident R...

Video from Youtube LiveNOW from FOX channel Been viewing with interest over the last few days, on the shocking assassination attempt on the previous President, and upcoming Presidential nominee, Donald Trump. As with all such events, there has been a lot of discussions on the postmortem from many sources on where the gaps were. These are a few lessons and take aways, from a project management perspective, and my personal experience. You are only as good as your current project. No really cares on the 100's of events that went smoothly previously without any issues, when something breaks and processes fail. No matter how well you plan, once the event starts, expect the unexpected, as anything can happen. No planning will be perfectly executed. Interlocks and communications are critical to project success. Communications with resources outside your direct control, has to be more precise, and confirmation that the correct message and assignments need to be acknowledged and confirmed. ...

Recently my car door latch broke, and I discovered how much leverage it actually provides.  After several attempts trying to open the door from within the car... I reached an inspiration to wind down my window and just open the door using the outside latch.  So, a few similarities to handling this situation and with project management. When something breaks, our first reaction is to try and resolve the problem from the same side of the situation. The thing that breaks, will most likely provide great leverage to the process. The solution may need us to look outside of the "normal" process flow, and look for a solution from a different angle. The immediate solution may not be pretty, but if the immediate problem is solved, which is to get out of the car in this example, then it does the job. What do you think? #pmandre Contact and PM me  

I remember when I was studying in the UK, how "Are you mental?!" was a phrase used to inquire about a person's sanity, when they said or did something ridiculous, outlandish or totally out of the ordinary. Over the years I noted that there was greater emphasis on physical fitness, but not so much on mental fitness or training. This is a sorely neglected area, and it is so crucial not to be neglected. In my viewpoint, everything we do is more mental than physical. As a project manager, planning starts with a thought. Before anything is typed on your computer, your brain is already processing, tasks, resources, contingencies and so on.  The need to train your mental side to be strong, and able to process all the tasks that you need to keep track of, will definitely contribute to be able to handle the role better. This is true for all roles in general. Few suggestions on things that have helped me that may work for you: Put all events you need to track including personal one...

  Having been in a project management role for some time, focusing on release planning and execution, I seem to automatically analyze the planning behind every event I attend. You could call it an occupational hazard. Last weekend, while attending a Dance Day event at a local mall, I found it peculiar that the event was situated in the middle of the main ground floor corridor. Although this provided a good, layered viewing deck for the upper floors, it seemed counterproductive to block the flow of people entering the mall. Considering the heavy downpour the night before, I suspected that this was their contingency plan to host the event indoors, due to the risk of further rain. Typically, their events are held in two main spaces: one outside and another in the main atrium. It was curious that they didn't hold it in the main atrium, which seemed like the most logical location. Even if another event was scheduled for that space, the layout suggested that it wouldn't have been too...

The new reboot  Fantastic Four  movie is just out, and running parallel to the release is the controversy with Josh Trank, the director stepping back from the final product due to issues with Fox studios interference in the project. As a director of the movie, Josh Trank plays the same role a any project manager. He is responsible for the final product and steers the project in the right direction. A movie is a major project that has all the moving parts that needs a firm leadership to ensure it's final product is a major success. Some interesting point can be gleaned from this as a guidance for any project success. 1. Agree upfront on the requirements and scope of the project Each project should start with the list of requirements that all the stakeholders want to be present in the final product. These should be agreed upon upfront and be specifically called out. In this case, for example, 3 major action scenes were specified. 2. Key stakeholders should have ...