The Project Dashboard

The Project Dashboard is a business metric that is sorely lacking in many organisations. Even if it exists, it might not be updated in a timely manner. However, credit should be given to the people in the PMO who valiantly try to get the PMs to update the Project Dashboard in an accurate and timely fashion.

In one of the places where I worked, the management tried to introduce a Project Dashboard through the use of a Knowledge Management tool. I must say that it was a very good effort as it immediately gave the HoD an idea of a project’s status via the green, amber and red indicators. Buy-in was an entirely different story as the people running the projects were already overloaded and could barely contend with their daily tasks and project tasks…

SBC dramas

Back when I was a wee laddie, I was staying at my grandma’s home for the weekdays as it was closer to school. What I can vividly remember was staying up to catch every episode of those SBC dramas that were broadcasting at Channel 8 at 9.30pm on weekday nights.

Well, it turns out that watching Chinese dramas does not improve your Chinese language skills as I can bear testament to that. Perhaps the learning benefits of the drama could not overpower the TV’s power of turning brains to mush…

Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve

So far, I’ve only been to the Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve once, and that was during a field trip for one of the Cross-Faculty modules in University!

I wasn’t particularly impressed because I don’t really think I’m really a nature outdoorsy kind of guy, or maybe it’s just because I’ve had more than my fair share of flora and fauna during my army days…

The Project Charter

How important is this document called the Project Charter? I must admit that I have not seen such a document nor have I written one so far in all the organisations that I have worked for. Conventionally, it is supposed to contain quite a few bits of information, but I feel that the most important sections that should be shared with all members of the project team are the Statement of Work and the Business Case

The Statement of Work describes the expected deliverables of the project while the Business Case illustrates whether the project is viable from a business perspective. With these two documents, the members of the project team will know what they are striving to achieve and should get the bigger picture of what their “small” individual tasks are contributing towards.

Bridge over troubled waters

During my time as a recruit, getting called up for BMT in December during the rainy season is a great way to pass your time easily. More often than not, training will be cancelled or postponed to a later time due to the bad weather.

More often than not, a bunch of us would gather in the bunk to keep our brains healthy by indulging in games of Bridge.