Its been almost 3 years now that I am out of Cranfield but never a day goes by when I think to myself and say... YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE... i think his is one of the learnings from Cranfield which I keep close to my heart and when things get tough I say to myself the magic words and things are so easy after that!!! It also helps me to recognize what is stopping me -- it is myself!!!
Confession: Sometimes out of lazyness I stay back in the comfort zone and let the things go by :(
Showing posts with label Cranfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cranfield. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
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.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
MBA Band
First practice session was somewhere in October or November. It was a horrible session, where everyone was trying to remember what they have been playing 3-4-5-7 years back. It was fun as well, we started to jam a bit and relaxed when we realized that no-one is an expert. Then also we were determined to go ahead with it. Second time people did improve a bit. and then Third time it was fun. From then on, there was no looking back, we improved on each session and practiced few songs for the Christmas Party. I played drums with Sean Rickard, MBA course director, as well in the party without any practice. He is an excellent guitarist! It was a good experience and moreover.. it was fun!
We did not have drum-sticks for most of the time. I was beating the skin with spatula (wooden spoons). Once it happened that, I was not able to play with spatula and had to call it off for that session :(. Instruments do play an important role. Next session, drum-sticks were deilvered and we played for 3 and hours hours that day and the next session lasted for 4 hours.
We never played in public and our first perfromance was in front of the CRanfield University crowd in CSA CLub. Being nervous, was natural however we managed to pull out a couple of numbers with crowd's appreciation. Did a lot with our confidence levels!
Seems monotonic but facing the crowd, when they expect to be entertained is difficult and live upto their expectations is winning a challenge!
Murphy's Law
WACing the WAC is not a tough job. Few of us might say that but it is not so for others.
Let me take you through with WAC - Written Assessment of a Case-study. You are given a Case-Study on a lovely afternoon and have to submit a 1,500 page report on the Case-study or the issues related to the Case-study by another lovely afternoon which is exactly 26 hours after the hand-over of case-study.
It comes to the team-work, stream-work and then personal work! So it all goes well and you sit in a comfortable place, writing your report and at midnight, your laptop shuts down automatically! - Murphy's Law - it never happened in last 2 months and now when I have written most of my report this is what happens! Best part is that you cannot get any technical support at this hour and the next day as well, being a Saturday!
Another wonderful scenario - you are ready with your report and about to shoot a print out. Imagine your screen goes off and you cannot see anything on the screen!!!
Imagine these 2 situations. How do u deal with it? How can you keep your cool when your 50% of marks depends on the report on which somehow you cannot do anything? Dont worry! you have friends out here. They are ready to help others in any circumstances. It is just you have to shout and you get help from unknown corners. It was just because of this trust and the atmosphere of team-work rather than Competition inculcated in most of us, I was able to afford a cool head and avoid a panic situation! In the end, I was able to retrieve my document and take a print-out of the report and submit it before the dead-line. Believe you me, these two incidents happened for two different reports.
Let me take you through with WAC - Written Assessment of a Case-study. You are given a Case-Study on a lovely afternoon and have to submit a 1,500 page report on the Case-study or the issues related to the Case-study by another lovely afternoon which is exactly 26 hours after the hand-over of case-study.
It comes to the team-work, stream-work and then personal work! So it all goes well and you sit in a comfortable place, writing your report and at midnight, your laptop shuts down automatically! - Murphy's Law - it never happened in last 2 months and now when I have written most of my report this is what happens! Best part is that you cannot get any technical support at this hour and the next day as well, being a Saturday!
Another wonderful scenario - you are ready with your report and about to shoot a print out. Imagine your screen goes off and you cannot see anything on the screen!!!
Imagine these 2 situations. How do u deal with it? How can you keep your cool when your 50% of marks depends on the report on which somehow you cannot do anything? Dont worry! you have friends out here. They are ready to help others in any circumstances. It is just you have to shout and you get help from unknown corners. It was just because of this trust and the atmosphere of team-work rather than Competition inculcated in most of us, I was able to afford a cool head and avoid a panic situation! In the end, I was able to retrieve my document and take a print-out of the report and submit it before the dead-line. Believe you me, these two incidents happened for two different reports.
Welcome to Cranfield!
Some of the interesting quotes which I learnt from Cranfield:
- It's Your MBA... Make most out of it
- It is a Risk-Free Environment
- Get out of your comfort Zone
It all sums up to Aglie Philosophy where everyone is encouraged to take decisions. In Cranfield, everyone has some kind of professional experience or other. At some stage or other each one of us might have considered to not to take a particular step, wondering how will it be pursued by others. With the quotations above they eliminate the feeling of being off-track. You can try whatever you want, should be legitimate.
In past few months, I did few things which I wanted to do and learn or improve. One of them being Presentation skills. We formed a group who share similar feelings about improving Presentations Skills and practice at least once every week. It gave me a confidence and few tips, how to move around and body language. These are things which I know but did not practice because I was not able to find an opportunity to do so in professional career. As well, I ignored a few things which I considered as minor corrections. But when I actually did it on-stage, these small things needs a lot of tuning. Anyways, on a particular day I gave 3 presentations in class and tried a lot of things during those small ones!
Another Comfort Zone was regular studies! during my graduation years, I never used to study regularly, it was a matter of last few days which got me scores in the exams. However, if you are a team-member then you have to teach your team a topic everyday and each day it will be a different subject and topic! I did not want to annoy my team, so not because of self-development but for the sake of the team I did so... studied regularly.
Third one is my favorite, I used to play drums with my friends in my under-graduation and it was just in a small music room! In Cranfield, we formed a music band - MBA Band - and most of us were perfroming live for the first time on 20th Dec during Christmas Party. Wow!!! It was fun and I think audience did enjoy it. But it was again getting out of Comfort Zone and that too in front of the entire batch!
- It's Your MBA... Make most out of it
- It is a Risk-Free Environment
- Get out of your comfort Zone
It all sums up to Aglie Philosophy where everyone is encouraged to take decisions. In Cranfield, everyone has some kind of professional experience or other. At some stage or other each one of us might have considered to not to take a particular step, wondering how will it be pursued by others. With the quotations above they eliminate the feeling of being off-track. You can try whatever you want, should be legitimate.
In past few months, I did few things which I wanted to do and learn or improve. One of them being Presentation skills. We formed a group who share similar feelings about improving Presentations Skills and practice at least once every week. It gave me a confidence and few tips, how to move around and body language. These are things which I know but did not practice because I was not able to find an opportunity to do so in professional career. As well, I ignored a few things which I considered as minor corrections. But when I actually did it on-stage, these small things needs a lot of tuning. Anyways, on a particular day I gave 3 presentations in class and tried a lot of things during those small ones!
Another Comfort Zone was regular studies! during my graduation years, I never used to study regularly, it was a matter of last few days which got me scores in the exams. However, if you are a team-member then you have to teach your team a topic everyday and each day it will be a different subject and topic! I did not want to annoy my team, so not because of self-development but for the sake of the team I did so... studied regularly.
Third one is my favorite, I used to play drums with my friends in my under-graduation and it was just in a small music room! In Cranfield, we formed a music band - MBA Band - and most of us were perfroming live for the first time on 20th Dec during Christmas Party. Wow!!! It was fun and I think audience did enjoy it. But it was again getting out of Comfort Zone and that too in front of the entire batch!
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