Hello Friends..will be coming up with an interesting write-up soon! till them :)

May Fayre 2011

Brentford Toy Library has been hosting the May Fayre, a kid’s fair, for the last couple of years. I got introduced to the Toy Library through a common friend, who is aware of my passion for teaching & interest in supporting children.

Saturday, 21st May, was the date with Brentford May Fayre 2011 and I was a part of the event management group.

My interest in children’s education goes back to my association with an orphanage near Kolkata. However, this event, specifically, had less to do with children’s education and more to do with event management. But for me this was first in London and hence I was really excited, all raring to go.

Like every other event, this one had its share of problems right from the beginning. The sponsors from the previous years were cash strapped and hence we were unable to rope them in. So we appealed to the local groups to make this fair, one of the most popular ones amongst the kids in Brentford, a success. And they responded – The Fayre must go on!!

This year the venue was the idyllic setting of St. Paul’s ground with the St. Paul’s church in the backdrop and lush green all around. The weather was warm and sunny. It was a perfect environment for the future of Brentford to come and soak up the sun.

The start was slow and lethargic with people, mostly volunteers, just trickling in from 10 am onwards. The official fair timings were 12 – 4 PM. Mostly we were trying to allocate spaces to the stall owners and set the stage up. A major contention was the usage of the additional ground (which was for a variety of events) reserved most importantly, for the Fair ( live animals show – the Show Stoppers AND the most Expensive stall). An unplanned football pitch created a situation for Sally, the event manager, to allocate the ground thriftily.

The scene, however, changed quite a bit post 2 PM when the kids came in droves. We got really busy with the kids getting hurt, stalls running out of fuel  and all sort of issues. For the parents there was Live music by the Jetsonics and some great food by the Lions club of Whitton. But for the children, the greatest attraction was the FARM, which had quite a few animal the children could touch.

Soon it was time for all the great fun to come to a close. With tired legs and aching shoulders we wrapped things up by early afternoon.

Overall, it was a great day for me. Firstly, due to the success of the event. We achieved what we set out to achieve – for the children of the neighbourhood to have a great day. Personally, I had met some amazing people and hope of continue supporting the Toy Library events in future with them. It was a memorable day for me.

Cracking the Prince2 Foundation - Self Study

This is my experience & lessons learned while writing the Prince2 2009 foundation.
The reason I am writing this is because when I started my prep, I did not find any articles which described what needs to be done when & how.
I prepared as specified below & got a score of ~70% (not great but serves the purpose).
I believe, that there is NO need to go for a professional course for passing this test. 


My approach was to treat the test as a mini project. Hence the Mandate is as follows:


Objective: Pass Prince2 Foundation (score at least 50%, i.e. a minimum of 35)
Effort (Cost): ~ 28 hrs (2 hrs on weekdays + 4 hrs on weekends)

Duration: ~ 2 week


0. Book the Test @ Prince2 Booking (UK)
1. Plan - activities to be performed
2. Estimate the activities (I have estimated these for your benefit)
3. Finalize the plan

It is advisable to read through the managing-successful-projects-with-prince2-2009 version by OGC at least once. 

The plan was:
- Read through the OGC guide at least once. It is quite a voluminous book & hence you will need to just breeze through this. That is all that is required for the Foundation, really. (~ 10 hrs)
- Take a couple of Sample tests to assess your weak areas.
- Work on these areas & re-assess yourself.
- Take a couple of full length tests. This will give you the confidence required.


Schedule:
I started my prep on a weekend. The most challenging thing for me was to keep awake while reading through the manual :). But this is the most important one & takes the longest time. Hence my suggestion to start on a weekend.


1. Day 1,2 & 3 (Sat/ Sun/ Mon): Read though the manual. Make sure that you are highlighting the important sections in the manual, so that when you are reading through subsequently, you will just go through the highlighted sections. Plan & pace your reading. Do not spend a lot of time in reading the finer details. If you have a couple of years experience in Project Management, it should be standard stuff.


2. Day 4 (Tue): Now that you have a decent understanding of the Principles, Themes & Processes, go through the following flow-chart. This will provide you a very good summary of the interactions of the Processes. Memorise this chart by reproducing this on a blank sheet. This is very helpful during your test. Practice reproducing this chart everyday, henceforth, till the test date.


3. Day 5 - 7 (Wed - Fri): Each day write a short test & assess the areas of improvements. You can use the following sites for free test materials with answers. I could not find many for 2009 & hence had to be content with practising with the previous versions.
Take a moment to read about the test: About Prince2 Foundation
Links to Tests: 
1. You get 2 practice tests with answers from the ILX site. Keep this for the end. Though I found the real test to be far easier than the practice test.
2. http://www.davelitten.com/blog/free-downloadable-sample-prince2-practitioner-exam-answers
3. http://www.projectinabox.org.uk/prince2_free.asp
4. http://it.toolbox.com/Error500.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/blogs/entry.aspx

4. Day 8 & 9 (Sat/ Sun): Take a full length test each day & assess your progress. This will give you a proper mock of the actual test. Use the full length practice papers published by ILX. 


5. Day 10 - 12 (Mon -Wed): Since the process map gives you a firm grip on the processes, I did not feel the need for going though the process in the book a second time. But do not neglect the Principle & Themes, especially the Themes. You can expect quite a few questions based on/ linked to the Themes. Practice short tests.


6. Day 13 (Thur): TAKE TIME OFF. RELAX. You are ready for the test. Ensure the following for the text on the following day:

      - Take a printout of the confirmation e-mail from APMG.

      - Carry your ID (Passport / Drivers License)

      - Carry 2 pencils & an eraser (if its a PBT, mine was)
      - Carry a pen (though this is not specified)


7. Day 14 (Fri): Test Day: Plan your journey with at least 30 mins buffer, so that you have enough time to be relaxed once you reach the test centre.
- Once you get your test paper. Spend the first 5 mins in writing the Process chart which you had memorised, onto a blank sheet on the Question paper. This will save you a lot of time in answering questions during the test.
- Pace your test. In the first 30 mins you should cover at least 37 questions.
- When in doubt, take an educated guess, mark the question for review later & move on.


In a week you should have the results mailed to your inbox. Congratulations!!
In a couple of weeks' time you should receive your certificate. (I am still awaiting mine).

WE, the unconscious Voters

• Janaagraha, a link forever

I had set out to get my voters' id done. And in this process, trying to find the most optimised way out, I came across the Jaago Re!! campaign by Janaagraha.The Jaago Re! campaign had already created quite a stir amongst Indian voters. I was not immune to this either. So in search of the most optimised way of registering with the voters roll, I found that filling the form online with Janaagraha & submitting it was definitely the easiest way. This is how my association with Janaagraha started.

 

• Political angle

My interest in politics has its origins in my family and childhood. Hailing from Calcutta, the hotbed of communism in India, I have been exposed to the communism versus capitalism debate from an early age. With different individuals in my family having different idealisms, this was a hotly debated topic in almost all family gatherings. So my interest in politics is literally hereditary.

 

• Why Voters of all things?

Filing for the electoral registration was definitely not as painless as I had anticipated. While I had submitted the forms multiple times, both through Janaagraha and going physically to submit at the "Citizens' Centre", the result was 'nought'. My name never appeared in the rolls. Quite disappointed with the outcome and being the subject of numerous jokes because of my persistence with this consistently failing cause, I set out to understand WHY?

A few facts here regarding my status. I was living at Bangalore, the IT capital of India, where a large % of the urban population is migrant. I figured that all these people would be facing the same challenges as I am in trying to vote, a constitutional right and duty of every citizen, over 18 years of age.

I started talking to my friends and colleagues regarding this. What I found out was pure frustration at the system and their apparent helplessness in being able to vote. It was not that they did not want to vote. They definitely wanted to!! I found that the major reasons, as specified by them, were the following:

• Lack of awareness of the process. How to go about moving their names from their home-town electoral rolls to those in Bangalore. Since in most cases, this involved multiple states, it became more complicated.
• Frustration at the political situation. Everyone had their opinion on the system and more often than not, it was "Indian politics was a totally corrupt area, beyond salvation". So they just did not care about it with the feeling "my vote will not make any difference".
• The ease of application. For those willing & aware of the process, it was a hurdle to submit the applications. Since one had to submit this on a weekday, in office hours.
• Lack of adequate advertising by the Election Commission of India, on a consistent basis, encouraging citizens to register.

I was searching for a platform to address these concerns. At this time, Janaagraha was doing a campaign, Jaagte Raho!, to mobilise the urban voters. This was the perfect platform I had been waiting for. This resulted in the formation of the Jaagte Raho! Club at Subex, the organisation I was working for at that time (late 2009).

 

• Jaagte Raho! @ Subex

This endeavour would not have been possible without the amazing amount of help and support received from Subex & Subexians, My interface with Janaagraha was a fantastic, energetic person, Prashant Nanaware (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/prashant-nanaware/20/563/67a).

• Launch Presentation: as the ambassador of Janaagraha, Prashant gave a brief overview of the organisation, its motto and their past and current campaigns. Since I had initiated the whole thi`ng at Subex, I got some publicity as well. We announced the plan to launch the Jaagte Raho! Club at Subex, urging employees to volunteer for the cause.
• Club Launch: as the founder of the club, I got quite a few applications for enrolment. Our core committee was formed with 5 enthusiants - Dyutimoy Sarkar, Syed Afroz, Rakesh, Hari, Srinidhi Achar & me, of course. The Jaagte Raho! Club was launched at Subex on 15-Jan-2010.
• Assessment: our first task was number crunching. The idea was to gather enough statistics to understand where Subexians stand in terms of electorate. We floated an online campaign, urging the employees to fill in details regarding their electoral registration. The data was sent across to Janaagraha to feed their stats campaign. The results were not surprising. Almost 50% Subexians were migrants from other states and very few of them had their names in the local electoral register
• Awareness: with the above data in hand, we set out to correct this. In the meantime we also spoke to different people to understand the challenges they had faced while trying to register. The result was the 4 points listed above.

The first step was to create awareness amongst everyone.

Signature Campaign: On 5-Feb-2010, we set up a massive poster at our canteen with the words "I WILL VOTE!" and urged everyone to sign it, as a pledge to vote in the forthcoming elections.

One-Stop shop: our team became the enquiry counters for all questions related to election.

• Enabling: We set up kiosks to distribute the forms required to register. This also served as an advisory centre for people's doubts.
• Impact: our activities had created quite a stir amongst the employees in the organisation.
  • Awareness: A lot of people showed genuine interest in understanding the process and working with us to enable more people go ahead and register to vote. The important part was that our campaign generated enthusiasm amongst our colleagues to vote.
  • Connecting: a section of our colleagues had been pondering on similar lines, waiting to join such a cause. Our campaign provided the platform for such like-minded people to get together and create an impact on the society.
  • Food for Thought: the campaign created a sense of social responsibility, however small, amongst us.
  • Personal impact: apart from the impacts listed above, there were quite a few impacts on me, personally.
    • Encouragement: In this endeavour, I received a lot of support from my family, specifically, my wife. She was a constant source of encouragement for me. We received an amazing amount of support from Subex and Subexians. Their support added fuel to our fledgling ideas.
    • Satisfaction at Contributing to society: there was a sense of satisfaction on being able to serve my colleagues, in turn our society. I believe, low electoral turnout is one of the reasons of choosing poor leaders in India. I am sure that our campaign will reduce the probability of this in future.
    • Joy: The most satisfying part was feedback we received from one and all. I received a lot of "pat on the back" mails from my colleagues, congratulating me on my initiatives. I was receiving several mails of solidarity & support from people I didn’t even know. But the best was when our COO, Mr Sudeesh Yezhuvath, sent me a note commending my initiatives.

It was a great experience and I would have loved to extend the run. But that was not to be. Soon I moved out of Bangalore and moved to London. But I am confident that our endeavours will bear fruit.

Keep watching this space for more of such blogs.