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I am half way into my wood working class. My small table slowly comes into shape. I finally caught up with my mistakes and rebuild the two pieces that are too short. I am the fastest student in the class with everything ready to go. Since I am leading the class, the instructor usually uses my pieces and me for demonstration. He inspected all my pieces and I have got one on one teaching time. I bought my camera the class tonight and here is a step by step photo guide on how to a small table.
1. Here is a piece of raw lumber bought from wood suppliers. All the edges are rough and unfinished.
2. Use the radiant saw cut the lumber to rough length plus 1/2″ margin.
3. Use the jointer and joint two flat surface width a 90 degree edge.
4. Use the table saw to cut the piece to rough width plus 1/2″ margin
5. Use the planner to plan the piece to the exact width and height
6. Use the miter saw to cut the piece to the exact length
7. Drill dowel holes
8. Dry fit the pieces
9. Glue the table top together and hold it tight with cramps ps
10. Sand the pieces to remove burn marks, pencil marks and smooth the surface
11. Before and after sanding
I have done 5 classes and there are 3 more to go. I am not too worry about my progress. I have confidence I can finish my table in class. The remaining tasks are assemble the legs with the table top, build the drawers, more sanding and paint the table to give it a finishing touch.
After 200 MC questions, 4 hours exam, I got the PMP credential.
Seeing how my department is run compare to the other department downstairs, I definitely support the value of project management. Everyone can tells the difference between a smooth sailing project apart from a badly ran project. But many people choose to ignore the up front planning and on going monitoring work due to their focus on short term gain. The most common excuse I heard is we don’t have time. Project management is not a waste of time, it’s provide a framework to save time in a long run, although you may have to invest in the extra work up front.
Most of the concepts and knowledge in the PMP exam are just common sense repackaged in fancy language. Passing the PMP exam won’t make you instantly a good project manager, but at least you can speak like one. The exam is more difficult than I expected. The definition and calculation questions are easy, you just have to study and know the exam materials. The long answer questions are tricky. Each question has four answers, two are totally non-sense but the other two are vague. I can only make a 50-50 guess and hope I got the right answer.
I got good marks on all sections except social responsibility and ethics, which I thought should be the easiest section. It is not that I am not ethical, rather I would blame my poor performance on the exam questions. The questions are have no black or white answers and the most intuitive answer that you would normally choose in real life is probably the wrong answer. You have to guess which of other dumb answers meet PMP’s retarded ethical standard. As a philosophy student major in ethics and moral theory, I am pretty sure I always have the most ethical answer, since I cannot be wrong in moral sense. The only conclusion is whoever set the PMP exam questions are not ethical, so he is blinded to picked the immorally answer as the required answer.
My study plan works well. I would say a month of time is more than enough to prepare the PMP exam. I finished reading all materials in first three weeks, didn’t do any study on the forth week and worked on 3 full length practice exams over the last weekend. I pretty much run out of stuff to study on the night before exam so I only flip through chapter 3 quickly as my final revision. My PREP book “The PMP Exam, How to Pass on Your First Try” by Andy Crowe is really good, highly recommended. The structure and layout of the book is easy to follow and the practice questions are relevant. On the other hand, the official PMBOK is totally useless, it is a complete waste of money.
I had my own performance review every year, but it is the first time I give performance review to my team. Just like giving interview, sitting on the other side of the table is a total difference experience. I am still a supervisor in training, so my boss is with me when I am giving the performance reviews. It makes me more nervous than my team member. Performance review is a formal communication between the team and supervisor. The performance rating, any bonus or salary raise should not be the focus. The focus of the performance review is how to make your team perform better in the coming year. I think at the end, it is all about managing expectation. Your team will be motivated if they have the right expectation and their expectation is within their reach.
Over time I will develop my performance review style, just I have developed my interview style. For now, my performance review follows the template I read from some coaching manual I found online. First I start the review with some chit-chat, try to loose up the atmosphere. Ask open end questions how the team member feel about their work in the past evaluation period. Then I will bring out the performance report and go over it together. I will highlight their strength, encourage them to further develop strength. I will highlight their problems and come up with objectives to address the problems. One key question I ask is how we (or the upper management) can help them do their job better. I expect some whining with some useful feedback. Then we set the job objectives for the next evaluation period. Ask them what they would like to work on and try to align their interest with the task on hand. It is important to give them a sense of control over their job. Ask them what area they would like to develop since growth opportunity is also a important motivating factor. I will save the letter for last. Giving them the number too early would only distract the communication.
It is easy to give performance reviewer to an average or above team member. They meet their objectives, I can give them a pad on the back (metaphorically) for the good work they have done and they are pretty much on cruise-mode in self-development. Everyone have some weakness, so they don’t bad at all to be told that they have something to work on. On the other hand, the performance reviewer of below average team member is quite trick. I have to handle it with great care. I need to communicate the facts across and at the same time without hurting his feeling or demoralizing him. I try to phase it positively when giving him challenges to work on, but I suspect his is not too happy about the feedback.
Now, I understand why the management always reluctant to give out the ranking or letter grade rating. The average plus workers has no problem accepting their rating. It is the below average workers that is trick. I feel bad telling him in face that he is below average and probably he also feel bad being told that he is below average as well. Without the letter grade written in black and white, at least I can smooth the feedback and make it sounds less harsh. I guess I will feel differently if I don’t have to care about his motivation. If he is a contractor and I can reject him on any future contract. Maybe I will get some pleasure from making him feel bad by crushing his self image with the below average review. Nay, what the heck, if I am not going to work with him in the future, why should I waste my time and energy giving feedback to him?
It is pretty cool seeing Whistler mapped by Google Street View. The runs looks quite difference in street view than when I am skiing on it. I guess when I am skiing, I was too focus on not falling down. I didn’t take a good look at the scenery on both side of the run.
hevangel 
12th Feb 2010 - 01:19am 
ps
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