Rajnikanth's lessons on Project Management

          Once a Project Manager ,who is also a Rajnikanth fan, goes to Rajni and tells him his plight. He tells him about scope creep, cost overrun, schedule variance, quality issues, regression and all that which is always the state of almost all projects. 

          On this Rajnikanth thinks for a fraction of nanosecond and shares some gyan with this project manager; very similar to what Krishna did to Arjuna in Kurukshetra. This project manager ,being a wise person, records it and publishes a book on it. That book becomes very popular in project management community. People start referring it as a bible of project management practices. Soon professionals start doing certification on that book and that certificate becomes de-facto standard in Project Management expertise. All in all it becomes a 'Holy Grail' of Project Management discipline.

          The said book is popularly known as, "PMBOK Guide". 

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!


By Rudyard Kipling

L'affaire culinaire

      It was just yesterday when I was married. Like any another just married person I had only one thought on top of my mind, how am I going to carry all these gifts to my work town? While thinking about it I was also helping my new wife packing for our honeymoon tour by instructing her from T.V. room. Same time my younger sister was preparing breakfast for me and post which my dear mother would make my special coffee. My father and brother had left for market to fetch me my favorite sweet which is the specialty of our town. All in all, it was pretty hectic morning and any more work would have been injustice to me. 

     It was then when I got a call from my Boss; you can always trust your boss for such a perfect timing. In a mix of commanding and favoring tone he asked me to start preparing for an international assignment. On my arrival from vacation he wanted me to fly to Paris for three months. He concluded the call with this short message as it was a time for him to make another untimely entry. Next moment I broke this news to family and my surrounding filled with reactions. In that chaos of opinions, suggestions & recommendations I understood two important things, one that my wife can not travel with me as her passport is still not ready and two, I can not afford to eat out for whole three months so I must take a crash course in cooking before I depart. 

     Crash course in cooking reminded me of a crash I caused a couple of years back. It wasn't that I didn't know anything about cooking. By then I had tried my hands at making omelets. On one occasion I agreed to demonstrate this skill of mine to my younger brother and sister. We carefully chose the time of my parent’s absence as we were brought up as vegetarians. I indeed did a good job of demonstrating life cycle of chicken from egg to omelet and audience was certainly happy. I was at the last stage of my demo where I flip omelet by tossing it in pan.  Omelet had already left the pan and before it could take back it's earlier position doorbell rang. I knew that my parents are back which made omelet nervous and it directly crash landed on stove. This incident taught me a lesson that one must always plan for failure. Especially when failure means, cleaning whole house and living with GOMUTRA  sent for next ten days.

     Sound of pressure cooker's whistle brought me back from my memories and I found myself standing in kitchen. I realized that my mother is already on the job of training me and lesson was about cooking rice and dal. This was the only lesson she could impart before I dropped out of the course. And of course, this was the only lesson I practiced all through my three months of stay in Paris with omelet as a side dish. During this period I discovered another important thing. I knew that fridge is made to store food for longer period without spoiling it. But in my trip to Paris I discovered that rice and dal survive week long storage and they still smell fresh once you microwave them for just two minutes.  It effectively means I cooked only twelve times in three months period. Isn't that great?

     Eventually I came back from Paris and resumed my family life. I was just settling down when my phone rang again. Again it was my boss and again it was the same request. But this time I was better prepared; I had already invested in 2 months of cooking classes; 1 month of baking classes and few special home recipes.  After doing all these classes my wife was best prepared to join me for my next trip to Paris.