One problem – I am on a tight budget! Yup its the dreaded ‘B’ word.

How to get around it? Potluck?

Last year’s Super Bowl Party, I single handily made (with of course careful planning 2 weeks in advance) the following:

• Rack of Lamb – SouthAfrican Style
• Rack of Lamb – Maple Syrup/Honey Mustard (I guess you could call it French?)
• Chili (from scratch though Sheldon from BBT wouldn’t call it Chili since it had beans)
• Pulled Beef (from scratch)
• 9 Layer Tex Mex Dip
• Coleslaw (to go with the pulled beef)
• Crack Pie (from scratch – that was my unique item to the party)
• Pink Lemonade but color dyed in green to go with the Green Bay Packers
• Chicken Wings – Tandoori style since I was sick of bar style bbq or hot wings
• Home made Guacamole

<pictures below>

Pulled Beef

Chili

Rack of Lamb

Fridge with the food ready for my guests

What I didn’t make but was also included in the menu:

• Cupcakes (since I would take forever doing it on my own) from my neighborhood Safeway in the shape of the end zone
• Salsa – Picante and Verde
• Drinks (Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic – supplied by friends)
• Chips (Tostitos since they are the most favored)

Cupcakes (Chocolate and Vanilla)

Overall Cost : Under $350
My Comment : Not Bad! Too much food that thankfully my guests were warned, the night before when I was prepping, not to eat breakfast and lunch before they got over.
Overall Status: They loved it and want to do it again!

Dilemma: My Budget is now $150 (don’t ask why)

I have this innate desire to learn from my mistakes from a previous project (and there is always something to learn – no such thing as it was perfect) and better myself. One thing I learned was I overcooked because well, I wanted to please my guests. It wasn’t bad since they all had a great time, enjoyed the food, and were very eager to take some of the leftovers home (I love my friends!).

This year I set a challenge to try and produce better results but with a budget of $150. One way I can do this is by Potluck.
What does this mean for me?

• Access the culinary skills of my guests/friends
• Make a guess on what they can handle and what they cannot
• Identify those that require assistance to make certain item PLUS set some time for them to help make it!
• Pray Post-Chinese New Year celebrations does not intervene like last year!
• Most important – Identify who can make it and who cannot

I personally love going to the bar and watching a game but to be honest after hosting my first one at home…its nice to just chill with friends and explain the game/logic/reason behind some of the moves and history. Plus we can have our own games when it comes to watching the Super Bowl Commercial and none of my guests have to worry about vacating the place in a timely fashion.

Oh another great part! No lineup to get into my place and quickly run to get a seat at an awesome location to have an unobstructed view of the TV.

What else do you think I should consider when planning my party?
Any items I should include in my menu?

I’m not Superman. Try as I might, I am no Superman…I’m a Project Manager. And as my Mentor told me repeatedly, Project Manager’s don’t do the work, Project Managers make others do the work.

Second, because I’m not Superman – it’s okay for me to ask for a helping hand to execute your responsibilities, and you shouldn’t see asking for help as a sign of weakness.

I was in a situation that I felt not even David could defeat Goliath. Why? I put myself in that situation not knowing the complexities I could potentially encounter and hence went with the thought that any one person, me, could do the job and I couldn’t ask for any assistance…bad idea!

What should I have done?

1. Define the task explicitly and break it down. Looked at the plan and discussed it with someone (I trust) and clearly define what would be required to get the work done and if one person can execute the task on their own. If I need help, make sure my client/boss is aware of this and clearly define the risk associated with it if I don’t get assistance.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask ‘How would you do this?’, ‘What do you recommend’. I was lead to the assumption that asking questions like this would leave me exposed and make me appear incompetent. If you don’t know something, ask. If you need help to go through your thought process, do that and reaffirm them at the same time.

3. Know your kryptonite. Ask for help with clear definition on what you need help with. Form your request with a clear definition on what you need help with and why. Come up with various solutions and break it down to the pros and cons of each. Share this with a trusted experienced colleague before you present this to leadership. Get their input on what is their favored solutions and solicit feedback and support.

Doing all the above three items mentioned and approaching my client appropriately with my given input  and recommendation could have helped me work through the tasks assigned to me with the required assistance I needed. Recognize that I’m not super human and there is no such thing as super heroes in project management.

My first mentor is God. God helps me maintain a balance between good and bad, right and wrong. He reminds me constantly that I am held accountable for all my actions.
It’s strange to think of God as a mentor, but I consider him my number – him, the books left behind that are to guide us all to be in his good graces,  and the people he brought forward (Prophet’s etc) to show us how to do this.
How I found them: I found God when I was about 16 years old. I didn’t consider him to be my mentor until my mid 20s.

My second mentor is my mother. She is my life coach, imparting wisdom on her experience so I don’t repeat the same. She also helps me maintain a mental balance by teaching me to let go what is outside my control and enjoy what I have in my life without taking it for granted.
I’m sure we all consider our parents to be our mentors in some time of lives. I consider mine to be a permanent fixture because be it trying to understand a situation, sharing my troubles, or need guidance on how to react to a situation – she is there, always ready to listen and give me what I consider good solid advice.
How I found them: Well other than the fact that my mother gave birth to me, I didn’t recognize her value as a mentor until I flew the nest.

My third mentor, whom I met recently and feel truly blessed to have every day, is Rocket. Rocket is in my eyes the perfect mentor you can ever get (outside God and Family). He imparts wisdom, knowledge and good examples to me every time we talk, be it our informal 1-1 session or in a group setting.
Because he knows me, he knows how to encourage to do better everyday and gives me strength when I’m down. A good mentor has made all the mistakes for you so you don’t have to do it again. Rocket helps me avoid mistakes by imparting what he learned from his and how best to avoid them…or mitigate if I’m close to falling in to the trenches. He is honest with me and hence, has my complete trust and faith. He helps me identify my strength and weakness.
How I found them: In an interview. I was being interviewed for my current position and within minutes (less than 5), I knew my interviewer was the perfect mentor!

All my three mentors are important to me. They all have my back (so to speak) and I have theirs. Their primary role is to guide me, their secondary role is to be my friend. They all see me who I am now, but they also see who I can be.

Do you have a mentor? If so, I’d love to read your comments below on your mentor….

A client files a request for a project with a specified budget and timeline (all mentioned in the  PO) and sends this out to all consulting firms. The sales team from the consulting firms receive this PO and handle it in one of two ways:

a) Consulting firms sales team ‘feel’ they have a small window to negotiate the budget and timeline, so they accept the PO as is and  sign a deal lickty split speed and BAM! The engineering team is handed down the project to make miracles happen on budget and time.

b) Consulting firms sales team engage with the engineering team (usually those in leadership roles) to find out if the scope, timeline and budget are realistic, is there sufficient information on what the client is actually wanting to be done (detailed definition/description of scope and requirements) and have the leads check to see if they have the right resources on board that can work on this or hire someone with the technical capability to do this (at the pay rate they can afford). If there are concerns or request of clarity on scope/timeline/budget/etc the sales team communicates this back to the client before anything is signed…

Young and budding consulting firms have been caught to fall in the first trap of signing a deal without fully being aware of how unrealistic the scope, budget  and timeline is or even checking to see if they do have the right people working for them for the job. They end up delivering a project that is okay….not great.

Now before I start, I should mention that some of these young and budding firms have sales team with a technical background that can assess the project without engagement of the team and make a good hypothesis if its feasible. But some…do not.

When you are a young firm, having a good reputation is the key to success. This is what will help you stick around, get better projects and expand your client pool.

What happens when you take approach (a)
Signing a deal fast without assessing the project’s scope, budget and timeline is a dangerous move. Why? Well for starters you could fall into an easy trap of filling change requests (CR) in order to get more funds and time for the project because the person who signed the deal didn’t clearly understand how complex the work is and how much time is required to work on it. And let’s not forget the resource. Budget is tight, so the firm ends up hiring junior level staff members and expect them to ramp up super fast. They don’t  take into account that a project they need to work on may require them to do some research in order to become familiar with the technology they need to use or implement to get the job done (this of course is billed on company time).

Firms fall in the nasty trap of filing multiple CR’s because of this oversight on their part and they take it is being very normal. They also have a high probability of their client coming back to them because of glitches (or bugs) in the system which should have been caught before they handed the project over. This leads to a bad reputation and a lowering the odds of a return client or exciting projects in the future.

This firm is cheap. Mind you, some of the consulting firms do quite alright taking approach (a) and get by working on small projects.

What happens when you take approach (b)
Signing a deal with caution and fully understanding the asks with a realistic timeline and budget limits road bumps that can be encountered during development. The number of CR’s are limited and will be mostly initiated by the clients request to add additional features to the product and hence extending the timeline and budget respectively.  This is normal and  does not affect the firm’s reputation in a negative manner. In fact, it makes the firm look good because they are listening to their customer and being flexible to provide them with what they want. As mentioned, this can enhance the firms reputation in a positive angle and can help open the door to further projects and potentially bigger lucrative deals.

Consulting firms that have a name and reputation in the industry usually go by decision (b) in order to stay in the pool…

I personally have worked with consulting firms that practice with both method (a) and (b). Glad to say, I have had more brush ins with firms that practice method (b) over (a) but it was my encounter with a colleague that worked with a firm practicing the first method that inspired this article.

How does your firm work?

I’ve been through numerous sites and all of them give great advice on how you can market your idea on the internet using social media but it’s TOUGH when you are not in the circle of influence. I don’t have friends who work at TechCrunch, GeekWire, Mashable, BoyGenius, etc nor do I date anyone who works there so getting my idea out in the masses is very tough!

Those who are in that circle because they created that one lucky iPhone application or project idea (e.g. airbnb, Facebook, twitter, twitpic, etc) get instantly put in it and they can watch their project take off fast after launch. But how about the rest of us who don’t know someone influential or not in that circle?

I am in the works of drafting an iPhone application. I’m just in the design stages and I’m going to see with my friends who have built iPhone applications on how I can go about it and try the following steps to hopefully to create some buzz on it…

a) Make sure the application is interesting – This is important. I need to make sure that the application is something good that people will actually take the time to search and download. The only questions is pay or no pay? If no payment, how do I incorporate advertising because hey…I’ll be commissioning this application and I need to pay off the bills!

b) Taking Lisa Bettany’s (designed Camera + and The Heist) advice, I’m going to make sure that the project is launched either on a weekend or a huge holiday.

c) Save the URL – create a portal where users can get more information on the iPhone Application

d) Create a Facebook Fan Page – Having a Facebook fan page is important when it comes to getting your idea across to your friends. I saw a family member create a Facebook fan page on their blog idea and in less than a month, they had +300 people ‘Like’ her page. Slow for some, but fast for me since I know she is outside of that circle of influence.

e) Create a Twitter Account dedicated for your iPhone Application – save up the name asap and use it as a platform to tell about your project, and respond to people who have downloaded or are interested in your application.

f) Tweet to my friends to re-tweet the launch

g) Check if any of my friends are in that circle of influence (or cusp) for assistance.

h) TBD

i) TBD

I’ll keep this blog updated to let you know of my progress on the iPhone design and creation end and as I go through the various stages of the SDLC with the developers.

In the meantime, I’m going to see if I can tap into that circle of influence that could potentially help me launch my iPhone application.  Something tells me I might be surprised with the folks I have following me on twitter or I just might surprise myself on how I can be brought in to that circle.  Stay Tuned and Wish me Luck!

It can be, if you don’t know the approach. Last month I decided that I would try and make at least $500 from the Internet outside my regular 9-5 job and see how long it would take me to make this number in one month alone. I wanted to test out these theories that you can make money on the internet and if there is any truth to those ad’s saying ‘I made $10,000 a month from home, click here to learn how!!!’. So why not try out with just $500….see how long it would take to get me there.

Ever since people started blogging and twitter was created, people have been exploring vast methods to make money. Heck, I know of four advertising firms you can connect your twitter accounts with and tweet ads. I originally did try those out with my main account and gathered a decent flow of cash to donate to a charity. After my donation, I shut down all the ad accounts linked to my account because hey – I hate seeing ads appear in my feed. Especially ones that are not relevant to me.

Plan of action, create a site (blog) on something personal (outside of engineering) and have friends tweet on this site. Next, put some interesting content there to hook users and be specific on who should see a link to your site. Third, create a twitter account associated with that and one on the side and tweet for 1 hour/day total. The objective, get a Klout score of about higher than 60, see how long I can get the title of either ‘specialist’ , ‘pundit’ or ‘broadcaster’ and meet my goal.

Why Klout?

Well klout is the best way for me to get a sense of my true reach and my overall online influence. The score ranged from 1-100 with the higher score of course representing a wider and stronger circle of influence (thank you 7 Habits). To get more information on Klout, check out their website on how they measure your overall true influence online.

Result, I spent an average of 1 hour everyday un-uniformly distributing my attention to all the above items and found in one month I made actually $800 in extra income (yup, I beat my goal by more than $324 to be exact). This comes to about $27.5/hour. So for each hour I spent in either blogging from my various sites that I own, in addition to tweeting and such – I was making $27.5/hour.

Not bad! But can I do better?  Let’s see…

Now I’m in the process of seeing how this month goes if I continue to input 1hr/day in blogging and tweeting. My current goal, to see if I can make the same or beat it and see if I can come up with a mathematical equation that can predict and graph my progression…which sounds kind of fun for me.

Now this is not how I plan on making a living but this is just something I’m currently experimenting to see if I can do this and well….maybe write a pdf book on how I did to share my secrets. In addition, I have some ideas on how I could possible quadruple this but it would require me learning how to make a script. Again, when I figure this out, I will share this in the manual and all those that download it will have access to how I did it….. in the meantime, I’m going to have fun experimenting

PMI defines a project as ‘..a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.’ Obama’s interview revealed his role using many key characteristics of project management. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), is created by the Project Management Institute (PMI), and states the five basic Project Management Process: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Control, and Closing.

To illustrate Barack Obama’s role in the Osama bin Laden mission in tern as a project and his application of Project Management tools, I have selected key quotes from his interview with Steven Kroft that demonstrates these five basic Project Management Processes.

Initiation – Shortly  after Obama got into office, he called the CIA director into his office and said to him, “We need to redouble our efforts in hunting bin Laden down. And I want us to start putting more resources, more focus, and more urgency into that mission.” – This signifies his intent and support to start an operation to track down a man who has eluded justice for so long and give hope to those families affected by his actions.

Planning – When the CIA first came to him with evidence that Bin Laden could probably be in a compound, ‘What I told them when they first came to me with this evidence was: “Even as you guys are building a stronger intelligence case, let’s also start building an action plan to figure out if in fact we make a decision that this is him or we’ve got a good chance that we’ve got him, how are we gonna deal with him? How can we get at that?” This excerpt shows the need for planning on what needs to be done if he is present in the compound.

Did he start planning right away? When did he start planning?

As soon as he received more information from the CIA on the compound, they started planning and exploring their options early this year.

Execution –  To execute this mission successfully, Barack needed to play an active role in the project, and what steps they would take as new information was developed. He explained to Kroft he was “about as active as any project that I’ve been involved with since I’ve been President… I was not involved with designing the initial plan but each iteration they’d bring to me, make a full presentation, we would ask questions. We had multiple meetings in the Situation Room where we actually had a model of the compound and we would discuss how this operation might proceed and what various options there were.”

Control- “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, car they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.” Barack and his team will use work performance information and performance reports to provide resolutions of issues for the nation.

Closing- “America, in the face of our common dangers, in the winter of our hardships, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generation.” The deliverables of Barack’s presidency are stated here as the gift of freedom being delivered to future generation, which will signify the closing of Barack’s completed and fulfilled presidential term.

Barack Obama is undoubtedly a brilliant person, an eloquent speaker, and a charismatic leader. I am hopeful and confident that his Project Management skills are reflective of his many other positive attributes.

I came up with a few ideas in the last four months, some of which I was pretty impressed with, but so far nothing seemed to catch me saying that there is a great need for this and a large market it would support until last night. I will be meeting a fellow entrepreneur this weekend who has co-founded a start-up before and can give me some pointers if the idea is any good because I can certainly see a market for it.

Now it is nothing as big as the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Digg.com but like these ideas it can be beneficial to a particular growing market.

Wish me luck!

I got the idea when putting together the post of what I thought were the all time coolest birthday cakes. The cake that looked like Van Gogh’s Starry Night inspired me to make the same, and so I did.

I started around afternoon to bake the first two layers (8′ pan) in lemon with sweet wet desiccated coconut.  When my friends Alicia, Andrew and Chris came over and Andrew volunteered to stack the two lemon layers together for me, I knew I had to bake two more layers so we could get the right height to paint the Cyprus tree. I quickly baked two layers of the same size (8′) of vanilla cake with small chunks of walnuts and sweet wet desiccated coconut (I love coconut) around 10pm and by midnight it was cool enough to stack and start decorating.

Alicia and Andrew helped me create the butter cream icing (don’t even ask how much butter we used to make but it was worth it and taste soo good!), after which both Alicia and I proceeded with coloring it. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get the same blue as the painting but what we got was pretty darn close and good.

It took us a total of 2.5 hours to decorate this cake (in the middle of watching 30 Rock while doing so). I think we spent a better half just taking the crab fork playing with the icing on the cake to give it the ‘painted’ texture. Yup, little crab fork helped create this texture and it was a lot of fun going around to make the swirls for the star, moon, cyprus tree, everything. End result was amazing and best part…cake tasted AWESOME!

Check it and tell me what you think? Love to hear your comment!

Alicia getting the cake all blue…

The finishing product

Four layers of goodness

The game is fun and not the least bit easy. In the game you have your Rat – called Ratty running in the maze munching on all the cheese you can feed him with while avoiding contact with spider, slimy blobs, spikes, flowers and blades. Kind of like Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle where bugs is running around grabbing all the carrots while avoiding contact with Elmer Fud and other baddies.

The game sounds relatively easy but it is not. Each piece of cheese Ratty munches on gives it energy to get closer to 100% but the energy bar is constantly decreasing as Ratty uses energy to consume that very same energy to navigate through the maze. There are numerous ‘Stop’ signs that require the user to tap what direction they want their Ratty to go, and Ratty will go on until it reaches another ‘Stop’ sign. The only active action you can perform on Ratty is jumping to avoid obstacles and baddies by tapping on the screen. You can pick up a helmet while going through the maze which will help protect Ratty when you run onto any of the obstacles or baddies.

As mentioned earlier, the baddies Ratty encounters are: slimy blobs (dangling and slithering) and dangling spiders. Obstacles Ratty will encounter are retracting spikes, fire traps, and razor blades. Any contact with the baddies or obstacles can result in significant damage so tap on the screen to ‘jump’ in order to avoid contact with them.

There are 3 game modes for Rat on the Run :

• Challenge – Fill Ratty’s growling stomach
• Arcade Play – 8 levels of game play
• Rat on a Scooter  - bonus game

Each of these modes are difficult, addictive, and challenging that it makes it difficult to complete the level. To further challenge yourself, try and complete the game in shorter time.

The Arcade play is a series of mazes (8) that you have to go through with only 5 lives.

The Rat on a Scooter is awesome but tough. Getting the timing correct for jumping from one ledge to another is difficult and challenging as your scooter accelerates periodically. It is by far the most addictive game mode in comparison to the other two modes.

What I love about it: It’s fun, challenging and free!

What I would like it to have: Scoreboards to see how you rank with other players.