Key Takeaways
- Sometimes in life you need to lie in order to influence things for the greater good
- The origin of the term Marathon is based on the victory of the Athenians over the Persians in the city of Marathon
- Timing of Attack is the Key in Military Strategy and in Life
- Choosing the Terrain is also a Key in Military Strategy and in Life
Sometimes in life you need to lie in order to influence things for the greater good

BodyBreak Elliptical Machine

I haven’t blogged in a while.  This is mainly because I have been busy with finishing up last term’s final exams, course selections and starting this term’s courses.  Well, over the holidays I purchased an elliptical machine.  Its a good one from BodyBreak with Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod.  I bought it at Walmart for a great deal.  Here is a picture of it. 

The first few days I used the machines were great.  It was new.  I worked out for about 10 to 15 minutes each session. 

After a few weeks, something changed.  I situated the machine in my unfishinished basement.  Although I was quite excited about working out each time I found that I soon ran out of the willpower to go down there and do my workouts. 

There’s a secret trick.  I learned about it from pure experience. 

During my workouts, there was very little to entertain me.  As soon as I started working out I set the timer for 15 minutes and started my workout.  Even though its not a really strenuous excerice I found myself quickly getting BORED with the workout.  I didn’t have a TV downstairs to watch TV while I worked out.  Nor did I have an IPOD to listen to music as I worked out on the machine.  I didn’t really have a problem keeping up with the pace of the workout.  I just realized I started getting really bored after I started the workout and could not wait to go back upstairs.

Just when I thought I had wasted a few hundred bucks on yet another piece of excercise equipment, I decided to try something new.  I decided to bring my laptop down to the basement to watch TED videos as I worked out.

For those of you who have not watched TED (http://www.ted.com) videos you will definitely want to check it out.  Its a really inspirational source of really great videos from the best speakers in the world.  Each video on the site ranges from about 10 minutes to 30 minutes.  This coincides perfectly with my workout requirements.  Working out approximately 30 minutes is perfect. 

If you find yourself lacking the interest in working out in your own home gym, try bringing your laptop with you so you can watch TED videos while you are working out.   I assure you it will keep you on your elliptical or treadmill or stationary bike working out form much longer than if you were to just rely on your willpower to workout for the duration of your desired objective.  Do yourself a favour.   Bring something like your computer with you to distract your mind during your workout.  I guarantee you will find yourself working out for far longer.

Key Takeaway
The bottom line is this.  Position yourself for success when you workout at home.  Create a conducive environmment for yourself to workout (just like at the gym).  Bring your computer laptop with you to your treadmill, elliptical or stationary bike so you can watch really inspirational videos from www.ted.com or www.youtube.com 

I am sure if you try this you will find yourself working out longer than if you had just relied on your willpower for each of your workouts. 

So what happened to me?  Well, prior to watching TED videos at ted.com, my workouts typically lasted between 10 to 15 minutes.  Now, after I introduced the TED.com viewing while I work out I find myself working out for at least 45 minutes on average.  This is a noticable improvement.   Hopefully it will work for you too!

After some research I finally discovered a great tutorial on how to fold a hankerchief by Hazely Lopez of the Hazely Academy of Refinement and Modeling.  If you don’t actually know how to fold a hankerchief you might find this useful.  I prefer the second approach (the Puff Fold) which is the simplest. 

Key Takeaways:
1. Don’t confuse Technical Requirements vs. Deliverables
2. Do WBS starting from Deliverable and then go down to the Subdeliverables and Tasks
3.  Choose the communication plan carefully to keep your stakeholders informed of the project 

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1. Don’t confuse Technical Requirements vs. Deliveables
Deliverables are the major components not the minute specs. Rookie Project Managers typically make the mistake of treating the intricate details and specifications of the projects as deliverables. This is problematic because it makes the rest of the planning process more difficult and confusing because it gets too granular up front especially when you do the WBS (see bleow).  Technical Requirements are the low level detailed requirements and should not be confused with the overall deliverables of the project.  Otherwise, you’ll have a bunch of detailed requirements and no clear concept of the deliverables which makes talking to the client difficult as well as planning the work required.

2. Do WBS starting from Deliverable and then go down to the Subdeliverables and Tasks
When you do a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), make sure to do it from Deliverables (a noun) and go down to the Subdeliverables and then further down until you reach the Tasks (a verb). Don’t jump into tasks when you are trying to identify the work. Its crucial to start with Deliverables and Subdeliverables and tasks (eg. Venue, People, Activities). Everything will eventually lead to a task at the bottom.

3.  Use a Dependency Map to keep key parties informed throughout project via Communication Plan
Project Managers need to carefully choose what is the communication plan with key stakeholders in the Project.
What is to be communicated – need to cater what you want to communicate to each group of stakeholders.
When it is communicated – need to determine an optimal frequency of communication for each group
How will the communication be sent - Will it be email?  A Report?  Hardcopy?  Need to define this.
Who will receive the communication (this is derived through the Project Dependency Map) .  As well, you need to determine who will execute the communication on the agreed upon schedule.

Overall, these are some of the key best practices when engaging in the planning process of a project.

Photo by vonTom

Key Takeaways:
- Real Estate is not like Stocks. Each property is unique, does not trade often, is not liquid and info not always available
- Market Value = Value attached to a typical investor
- Investment Value = Value attached to a property to a Specific Individual (includes Tax advantages etc)
- 3 approaches to appraisal: 1) Cost Approach 2) Sales Approach 3) Income Approach
- All 3 approaches may be applicable depending on availability of info
- In real estate there is never a definitive value. Everything is based on people’s opinions.
- You should use all 3 approaches to value properties if info is available.
- If you are doing a Discounted Cash Flow analysis, do it for a 10 year time horizon
- Cap rates are derived from companies that primarily do surveys on real estate related companies / organizations
- When you make assumptions in the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis, make unbiased assumptions – don’t be overly conservative or overly optimistic.

Photo by fabiuzzo777

- Initiate contact with the key players on a regular basis by walking around to visit people.  It works because its supposed to build trust with the people.
- Spend most of your time wandering around to establish face-to-face interactions
- Maintain familiarity to understand others and to sustain relations
- Reduce tension because not all encounters are prompted by problems

I think  I will try this technique at work on a scheduled basis.  I setup appointments to myself in MS Outlook (my planning tool) to ensure that I will get to walk by each key area on a scheduled basis.  (The reason I keep this list is so that I don’t forget anyone important).  If everyday i go from person to person to say go for a coffee or have a lunch with, it will to build trust with these people.  My prof emphasized this in order to build the loyalty with the team.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Photo by ibumohd

When it comes to project management, I am surprised that one of the most fundamental things that I did not learn when working with PMs at work is the importance of building alliances with resources that you have no authority over. 

Key Takeaway:
- When a Project Manager has no authority over resources in a project (which is often the case on most projects), the Project Manager must cultivate the relationships with the resources in an informal manner.  This includes chatting with the individual resources and potentially even “befriending” the resources in order to gain the trust and committment from resources to work on the project. 

Its amazing.  During the class tonight we were asked to read through a case study.  It described the activity of a Project Manager in what seemed to be a typical day.  The key points I got out of the 2 page case study was that there was this PM that would go from person to person chit chatting about the latest gossip and what people were doing on the weekend.  Granted, the PM did do other things as well like meet with the clients to talk about scope creep etc and managed those quite well.   At the end of the case study we were asked whether or not the PM was doing a good job.  To me, I felt that the PM was doing a lousy job because all she was doing was going from person to person chit chatting about what was happening in the person’s personal life.  During the day, the PM had the audacity of turning on the music in her office and resting.  This gave me a very bad impression of her as a PM.  So naturally I responded that way.

Little did I know that that was exactly what a good PM ought to be doing.  IE building alliances with people that she did not have authority over.  Professor Bedour Osman did a great job in explaining why it was so important for the a PM that gets a job at a new company to get to know the staff and to befriend them.  This was a major epiphany for me because I turned around to my experience at work with all of the PMs that I’ve worked with over the years.  I always seemed to have the impression that the BEST PMs were always the ones I got along with best.  The absentee PMs were ineffective in my mind.  The ones that were authoritarian never got their way since they did NOT have authority over the resources in the project.  As such, it was a huge lesson learned that a successful PM is one that gets work done through others that the PM has no authority over.  How?  Through building alliances and building friendships with the resources on the team.  Because of this, I like this course because I’m actually learning something useful at work.  As an Architect, I think I need to do more of that.

The rest of the class discussed the project selection process.  This was the usual info I expected:  eg. doing an  assessment of different projects based on criteria that is weighted and with each option scored.  Refer to my other post for more info on this.

All in all, it was a good class.

Photo by icebirdy

Key Takeaways
1. Real Estate Investment and Finance is all about Math
2. In Real Estate you need to make a lot of assumptions.  There are always unknowns.  Analysts need to make assumptions on things to figure out how feasible it is to invest in the property.
3. There are lots of risks to a deal and you also get compensated for taking risks
4. Cap Rate is a metric used in the industry to tell how much a property is worth.  It enables us to compare and estimate property values by expressing it as a function of forward annual net operating income
Cap Rate = NOI / Value

This class was insightful because it prompts students to make assumptions when there is uncertainty.  This applies to many things in general.  The interesting thing with the real estate industry is that each asset is unique.  Its original.  Its one of a kind based on the fact that each property occupies a unique location.  This is good because it creates room for opportunity.  Someone may view a property in a certain way.  Another investor may have a completely different view of the same property.  For example, if you are looking at a property that looks like it may be a good rental prospect you may be drawn to it.  If you have never rented out a property before and gone through the trouble of finding tenants, drawing up lease agreements and collecting rent each month, you may be willing to pay say $100,000 for it.  However, someone who sees the same property that DOES have experience renting out properties may be willing to pay $130,000 for since to him its easy money.  This is the unique thing about the real estate industry.  Its different from the Stock Market because in the stock market the value of a property is clearly known based on the current stock price.

Photo by 3dpragmatik

Key Takeaways
1. Projects – have a beginning and an end
2. Project Success Criteria: Project was completed as per Scope, On Time and On Budget
3. 3 Triangle Contraints – Schedule, Scope, Budget. If one task takes longer than expected, it may impact Schedule, Budget or scope or a combination of all 3.
4. When faced with doing something that has never been done before, make sure to have the resources needed.  That includes people, tools, materials, etc.  An example used was what would you do if you had to build a pyramid and it had never been done before? 

During the class we watched a video by National Geographic that described the process of constructing the Dubai Palm Tree islands, one of the megastructures of the world.  It was really interesting to find out that about all the challenges and obstacles this project ran into and what was done to get around each problem.

Things like:
1.  Figuring out how to create an island out in the water – seeking the right resources (world reknowned)  engineers who had performed land reclamation projects
2.  Locating the right source of materials to form the base of the island - eg. rocks from nearby mountains had to be detonated with explosives.Â
3.  Locating the right type of sand – from dredging up the sand from under water and using the “rainbow” technique of having the sand dredged up from underwater and literally sprayed on top of the rocks.
4 . Leveraging technology – the project required the use of GPS which was still fairly new to guide the team on how to pour the rocks/sand so that it made the shape of the palm tree
5.  Doing continuous tests – to make sure the construction was going as planned.   The project required the use of divers to constantly check that the rocks that were forming as part of the foundation had no weaknesses
6.  Doing continuous tests for the water circulation and redesigning as required – At a certain point, the project team found out that the water circulation for the islands were not sufficient and would cause the water to stagnate.  To mitigate this problem the team had to adjust a do a slight redesign which essentially opened up some sections of the island to let sufficient water to flow through to make sure the water would not stagnate.