Is it fun or enjoying the learning curve?

My team was the highest profit makers during PMI (Project Management) Simulation exercise. It was scheduled for Wednesday (20 Feb 08). A simulation which was to be run for about 8 hours. To start with when we had a look at the case pack, we thought it should not be a difficult one to plan and should be thru within 3-4 hours of group preparations.

However, when we met on Monday, after lectures, we realized after 4 hours that we are going no where. Every member of the team has something or other important issue to say which others have not considered while reading. So we compiled all the data and distributed the decision making process. This was the first step towards a successful team - divide the work and utilize the time efficiently. Notice, a Greek, and I worked on the spread-sheet for cost calculations. Marina (Russian) and Taurai (zimbabwian) worked on risk management and Tim (Scot) and Rajesh (Indian) worked on the operations. Work was divided on the basis of interest and some sort of expertize as well.

When we met on Tuesday, everyone updated the rest of the team of what they did, so that anyone can comment on any improvements. Thus, we arrived to a strategy to execute the project in 6 hours. So 3-4 hours of estimated time was stretched to 10 hours already. The bug doesn't stop here, we did a trial run and then we were hit by a major loss, which was identified during practice run and this a mitigation plan was discussed. Everything was supposed to be visual so that we do not depend on the spread sheets for decision making.

The day of simulation, everyone was relaxed, as we were confident on our 14 hours of preparations and we had a trust on our team as well as the Project Manager - Notis. Finally, we made it within the cost predicted, rather more than what we predicted and pretty much on time.

One of the lessons learnt from this exercise was that evern if a project looks like a simple one, do not take it lightly. A good plan with contingency in-build will take the project in different dimension. Team-work, we did work as team and we had a trust on what others were doing. Not only that, we did updated on the activities to other teams to get their comments and have a proper communication flow. I think TRUST is the key word here.

Finally we came out with flying colors and just short of highest profits ever recorded in this simulation (just short of 9,000 dollars). This was because we became a bit risk averse and avoided the additional planning for procurement activities.

Last but not least, everyone enjoyed the exercise. It was an icing on the cake that we were the highest profit makers, but we had fun during the simulation.