project management The process of planning, organising, staffing,
directing and controlling the production of a system.
Of all things to remind you of your childhood, project management should not be it. I was however, sitting in my System's Design lecture today and became supremely concious of how much of what was being talked about I had actually done before - but when I was about 10yrs.
If you haven't guessed it by now, maybe I've changed a little bit. I was an extremely bossy little girl with my fingers in every pie and running absoutely everything (which means of course: delegation, unless I could do it better, in which case I'd let them do it and then would proceed to fix it up how I wanted it to be, often upsetting the person in question.) I'm sure my parents and sisters can testify to this. I was probably fairly horrible a lot of the time and royal pain.
I was organised, the 'pack leader' (not hard when you're the oldest girl and your 'peers' are mostly a few years younger) and forever going about 'doing new things' or expanding on what was.
Being rather imaginative/creative and quite apt at drawing people into my ideas or coercing them, I on several ocassions took Laura on the massive expeditions into what I now know as: systems/project development! She might claim that she had as much of a role in launching these - but I somehow don't think it would've gone to quite the extent it did had I not been involved.
I became aquainted and then very good friends with Microsoft Works (Excel equivalent of the time) and as I explored the various limitations posibilities of technology, the world expanded beautifully.
Laura and I, with the aid of a Readers Digest Home/Farm running book "Back to Basics", a spreadsheet, hours and weeks, my facination with horses (at the time - how lame), created a full blown ranch/farm. Planning and budgeting. Staffing and Managing. We were quite aware that it would never 'come to be' but it hardly stopped us.
That's not to mention, the scout clubs for our Sylvanians (which we still have somewhere). The running of mud towns (NB. Bec in position of power - always), newspapers, mock restuarants, clubs, small businesses that actually operated etc...
And now I find myself with the daunting task of doing it all again - a little differently, a lot more realistically. I have a semester to produce a System design, unfortunately with a lot more constraints then just that. The true budgeting thing freaks me out, but I think the overarching concepts have reignited that long dormant thrill....
Which is really the only thing I can think of that produced that feeling of supressed and curious excitement during a fairly boring 10am lecture.
Now I just have to decide what to actually do it on.
project management 
3 Comments:
Haha good to see that the assignments never change.
Of course, eventually one learns that there is no way the assessor is ever going to look too hard at the details, so you just need to tailor your end result such that it has all of the things that they'll look for on the superficial level.
What's even better is if you're assessed based on a presentation. That allows you to stand up and act as though you've thought long and hard about your subject, even if you haven't. Presentations are great because lazy tutors can be directed towards the parts of the plan that you want them to look at. If they want to be annoying and ask you a question about something else, just use a few big words in your explanation and you'll do fine. :P
As for true childhood confessions, my business idea was a carwash that would run out of my parents' driveway. I even went to the trouble of tying the garden hose to the top of the gates for hands-free squirting. My sister and a number of the kids in the street all had allocated jobs and salaries on my Word-for-DOS generated business plan in terms of which part of the car they would wash... with the predictable allocation of the easiest job to myself, as well as about 50% of the profits.
Childs play really.
Bec-you are driving me crazy! could you please spell fascination correctly. It has an "s" before the "c". To think of all those years I taught you spelling, and you were my good speller!! (unlike Laura-who still has trouble- sorry Lau)
Yes, you were a bit of a mini tyrant back then-you organised everyone,but now that you are grown up you can call that aspect of your personality "leadership skills" or something.
wow I came to do a little of my own bossing and tell you to put the s in fascination but Mum had got here before me.
I remember the sylvanian plans that you had. Needless to say I was wowed by the whole thing...and do you remember the time you girls tied me to the pole at the top of the stairs?
Things will be peachy for the assignment, you're good at this remember!
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