Everyday Project Management

Slept.   I would put in a picture of me sleeping, but I was sleeping so it was hard to take a picture.   Well to be totally honest, I did not sleep the entire day.   Being up in Alaska during the shortest day of the year, I have a rule - if the sun is up, so am I.   I am also enforcing this rule on my two college children home on their winter break.   Having once been in college myself, I understand the desire to sleep most of the time when you first show up back at home.   Partly so no one considers you available to do chores, but mostly to recover, from well, college.   Since I know the game, we have competitive napping going on here.   But I figure, we can all sleep for the 19 hours of the day the sun is not up.   I’m not sure if the sun is truly even “up” more than two hours because it only peaks over the mountains to the south for an hour or two - the rest of the time the area is washed in an eerie lightness.

To counter the winter blues, I have taken to making tropical drinks.   My latest “adult” non-alcoholic beverage is a no-hito mo-hito.   Upon my arrival in the land of perpetual o-dark-thirty, I stopped at the Juneau Costco and purchased a twenty pound bag of limes.   And then at the only florist shop in Haines, I found a lovely little lime mint plant.    With these two main ingredients, it was party time at the manor.    After the pucker punch of the first round, I scoured the cabinets and found a stash of agave nectar that makes the no-hito mo-hito a delightful, eye opening beverage.   We are now down to ten pounds of limes.   And no one will suffer from scurvy at the house.

I also purchased a case of pomegranites - besides staining all my clothes in little red splotches that has me even more in the Christmas spirit,  I’m still racking the creative synapses to figure out their mission this holiday season.   Maybe I’ll have to go back and take a nap to let the subconscious work on this task.

In my Project Turnaround class, I have the students map out their money pond - that is how cash flows in and out of their life.  They look at the pond as it is and as they would like it to be.  They look at how the money going out of their pond feeds the money coming back into their pond.   It’s a very eye opening exercise

I was reading how bartering is becoming an even bigger deal these days because cash (as in easy credit) is harder to come by.  And looking at my own situation, I have plenty of ways to use the cash coming into my life, and far more projects in the works than I have cash coming in (which actually is very business as usual for me and I suspect most other people on the planet).    All cash is is a means of transacting trade - yet so much time and effort is spent in the accumulation and disbursement of cash (the “flow” thing).   But when you consider all the ways you could trade for goods and services, you start to realize that “cash” is just one way of achieving your goals.   I’ve realized over the past month, that I have another commodity to trade with people for services - my beef.   I still have to figure out how to trade my beef for goods - service people are so much more accommodating.   But cash still reigns supreme - for right now.

About ten years back, I took a leap and got rid of all my credit cards.   I realized they were a crutch in my life that I just did not want holding me back any longer.  I learned that to really succeed, you needed to create relationships with people - not with faceless financial institutions that dont’ give a rip about you.   And that credit cards created a false sense of prosperity - they actually blocked the flow of money from other sources into my pond.   Time and time again, I have had people in my business push me to get a line of credit for the business.  It just didn’t feel right to me - I run and grow my business on sales generated by creating value for others, not on credit.

What I’m seeing now is more and more business owners learning these hard lessons.  I was in a store yesterday that supplies flooring products to the construction trades.   A carpet installer was in there to pick up the carpet for his latest job.  The manager would not release the product until it was paid for.  The guy wanted “terms.”  She said - no way - the last guy I extended terms to in July, still hasn’t paid me.  It’s becoming a pay as you go world and cash is king.

The parting words Professor Crane from Harvard left us with at that three year Harvard program I went through several years back  was - “don’t run out of cash.”    And he was right - regardless of what project it is I’m pursuing, at the end of the day, really it is the only thing that will keep my projects moving forward.

Cash flow is an everyday thing.  You can’t leave it lying around.  The stock brokers will lose it, the IRS will take it,  some nut job will come along and sue you to get it,  a bank will “hold” it for whatever their crazy reasons are at the time,  you’ll be the unwitting victim of some type of insurance scam that you got into to “protect” the cash.   The forces of nature seem to conspire against leaving cash lying around - it has to flow.

And it’s been like this for all of time - here are five ancient prosperity symbols that stimulate cash flow.  Focusing on these, having them around you, are supposed to stimulate cash flow.  My thoughts on this is that they remind you to pay attention to cash flow and that which you focus on becomes real.   But hey, do whatever works - sit on seaweed, light a green candle, put a prosperity corner in the back left corner of your house, cast a prosperity spell at the waning of the new moon, or do what I do to stimulate cash flow - figure out how to create value for other people providing things that will help them create more value.    While I don’t teach the voodoo of cash flow, I do cover more of this topic in my Project Turnaround class. If you want more cash flowing into your life,  check it out.

The First Place award in our Dare to Share Competition goes to - Sheryl Germann!

We’d like to give a BIG Cheetah thanks to our first-place prizewinner out of 31 contestants who participated in our Dare to Share story contest. She is someone who truly deserves the grand prize of Cheetah’s 60 PDU online Establishing a PMO course. Sheryl has used the riches that PM has brought to her personal and professional life to help others through volunteering.

She is a very busy person. Raising two kids and working full time as a PM for a large telecommunications provider, she still finds time to take on 3 volunteer positions: President of the Community Association, manager of her son’s hockey team, and she’s involved in Parent Council. Sheryl attributes her ability to juggle these responsibilities successfully to her excellent time-management skills, organization, planning, documentation, commitment, and follow through, as well as her most important attribute — PASSION for helping others and bettering herself.

Thank you, Sheryl, for sharing your talents and time to better your community.

Today is “Dare to Share” day at Cheetah Learning. When looking at sharing your time and talents, we contemplated all the reasons that stop us from sharing with others. Sometimes it’s fear of the unknown - like in how much of my time is this going to take, do I have the skills to really help out in this situation, am I opening myself up to liabilities that I am not prepared to cover? When you become conscious of the reasons why you don’t want to share, you can create strategies to reduce your risks so you can share your time and talent with others in a way that helps everyone. Lets look at how you can best share your time and talents with others so it enhances everyone’s life:

1. Your time (well and other people’s time as well). For any project, be it one that is voluntary or one for which you are getting paid, it literally pays to do a project agreement. As part of the Project Agreement you identify how much each party can contribute to doing the project. You can get a free project agreement template on the Cheetah Learning Free PM Tools Download. And committing to how much time you can spend on any one project can be as simple as stating up front how much time you can commit to helping them. For example, I perpetually get asked to “look at someone’s computer.” Now I am NOT a computer tech support person, but yes I do know a lot about computers. When I get asked to look at someone’s computer - I now say - if I can’t get it fixed in 15 minutes, it is most likely beyond my capabilities. I can take a quick look at it, but I might not be able to help you.

2. Your talent (and other people’s talent) - For many professionals who have consumer oriented skills, you are probably used to others asking you for free advice, help on their projects etc. It is a VERY GOOD idea if you have a policy up front on how you are going to share your talent with others in a non-paying way. For example, a friend of my daughters is very good at fixing Subaru’s. So good that now he actually gets paid to do it. However, he gets requests all the time from people who don’t have the money to fix their Subaru’s to fix their cars for free. You can set a friends and family rate and parameters on how you are going to share your talents with folks who might expect you to do the service for free. Sometimes, you’re trying to get experience in a new field so you volunteer your time to learn new skills. Make sure you are upfront with people on your capabilities so you don’t over promise and under deliver.

3. Your risk - this is a look before you leap situation. Helping people by loaning them equipment or loaning them your time and talent does create risk for all parties. I had to create a standard hold harmless contract with my neighbors who were asking me to borrow this or that piece of equipment and the expectation that it was returned to me in good working order. When doing scholarship programs, we have a third party administer them to reduce our risks. Consider the risks that could happen from your sharing efforts and make sure you work to reduce both the chance of those risks occurring and the impact if they do occur.

If by your very nature you are a generous person and would like to stay that way, do some upfront work on the impact of your generosity and you’ll create a much better life for yourself and others. To learn more you can:

A. Listen to my “Dare to Share” podcast.
B. Download our Free Project Agreement template.
C Share a story of how you have helped others and earn a free 5 PDU course on building your Project Management Strengths. Your story will be entered into our competition to win our 60 PDU online Establishing a PMO course.
D. Participate in our survey of how you share with others and get 50% off our most popular 40 PDU online course Project Turnaround.

Cooking school boot camp ended yesterday.   And I’m still in Italy.   I head home on Sunday.   I figured it might be nice to have some unscheduled time after the culinary immersion to just hang out in Italy.   I didn’t leave the room until 1.   Went to a little Tratorria a block from the hotel.   And had a lovely 84 year old gent sing us an Italian love song.   Boy do I like a country where I am treated like one of the treasures from God instead of in the US where I’m treated as if I have some type of self-discipline disorder for not being a perfect size 8. In Ominvore’s Dilemma, Michael Polen says the US has a nationwide eating disorder.  After being here - where these folks eat and eat and eat - all natural, locally raised foods, prepared with no additives,  I completely agree with Mr. Polen.   We aren’t getting fatter and fatter in the US because we don’t have any self-discipline.   We are getting fatter and fatter because we are purchasing crap products with too many preservatives and additives that help the food manufacturers increase the shelf life and shelf stability of their products, but that are literally killing us.   Spending five hours a day in the company of great people, enjoying great food and great conversation is the way to live - not running from one meeting to another gulping down whatever food you can quickly get.   The US doesn’t just have a national eating disorder, they have a national living disorder.

What is odd is in the US I am pretty much invisible - a standard middle age, rotund short woman of average looks.  It’s very strange - I am very well known in my field.   Pictures of me appear in all our publications.  Many people claim they know me.  Yet when they see me in person at meetings, they ignore me - like I don’t exist - until I go up and introduce myself.   Then it’s as if - oh my god, this PM “big wig” is standing here in front of me.   When five minutes earlier, they just blew me off.   Yes we have a problem in the US of what we think “successful” people should look like.

But because of way I look, people actually treat me nicer here.   I am reading the book Heat by Bill Buford.   In his book, he mentions a restaurant in a town just south of here called Zibello and a restaurant there called La Buca.  We had our tour guide Melanie make us a reservation there for tonight.  We were warned the woman who runs the place Mariane was a force of nature sometimes prone to storms, but the food was GREAT.  

Carey practiced her Italian all afternoon making sure she had the basics down so we would do nothing to cause bad weather with Mariane.   However, when we got there, we
were welcomed with open arms.   Mariane, just loved us.   She showed us her “cantina” - with all her salami’s, cheeses, proscuitto’s, and wine barrels.   She had her son-in-law wait on us since he spoke very good English.   We were treated like royalty.   Maybe she doesn’t like the skinny US reporters who visit her?   She was very nice to us.

The big adventure with going to La Buca was just getting there.   We had not ventured out in the car since we got here.  And getting here was a very disorienting experience.   We left for La Buca right as it was getting dark, and it was raining.   We made it there without getting lost - and had an hour to drive around.   So for another adventure we decided to gas up the car.   At the station, we couldn’t figure out if the car took diesel or regular.   After much discussion with the gas station attendant Fabio and his friend Stefano, I decided to google the make and model of the car on my Iphone - both guys looked at each other and said Google - SI, Google and were nodding their heads up and down.   Very funny - yes the answer was on google - it took diesel.

One last day in Italy before we head back to the States.   I think I might find some type of cooking school in residence back here where I can come live for a couple of months.   Who would not want to be where you are just totally loved for who you are - instead of being dismissed by the general population since you don’t live up to some ideal of what others think you should be?    I love the Italians.

This day of cooking school was spent on the bus and not in the kitchen.   However, it was GREAT.   We drove up to a lake region where the cold air from the alps is funneled down into the area along a deep lake creating the perfect climate for grape growing.   It is called the Francicorta region famous for the production of Italian Spumante.   We went to the Bella Vista winery - the crown jewel of the region.   I loved this winery being a systems engineer as everything was so carefully thought out and very artistic.   It was both elegant AND functional.   There were these little surprises every where you looked - and pointed your camera.   One sculpture, while it was interesting, didn’t illustrate the WOW factor until you looked at it through your cameral lens - where it became a christmas tree ornament with the evergreen in the background.

I had read the book Super Crunching last year and remembered reading about a guy who had created a model that analyzed number of weather factors of the main wine growing regions of the world to determine where the best wine would be produced.   He had it down to a science.  I inquired about how they used weather “metrics.”   I was told that they cut apart three onions and after three days, the onions that sweat the most, that is the month they are going to get the most rain.   Personally, I think there is a little more to it than that.   I predict it’s more like they have to cut apart these three onions on the second full moon AFTER Christmas (sometime in mid-february, early march).  Then this tells them when the next six months will have the most rain.  I will test it out later this year and let y’all know.

I just loved the geometric design of the winery.   Since I am still working on my own geometrically designed house in Nevada, I got some fantastic ideas.   The triangular tables in their conference areas where amazing.   I loved the pervasive use of arches, circles, triangles, ovals, squares that were everywhere.  I’ve used the similar design approach in Nevada - just not on this grand a scale.

We left the winery and went to the lake for a lunch on an island that was fish, fish, and more fish.   We were served five different types of fish.  Nice lunch.   THEN we were served four more types of fish.   More nice lunch.   Two hours later, extractating ourselves from that restaurant, we headed for the Olive oil pressing plant.   By now, my pants were getting tight.  HOWEVER, I had three pairs on.  As we were told it would be very cold on the boat to the island restaurant.   Recalling the cold dank day the day before, I was prepared.  I am happy to report, today with only one pair of pants on - they are still loose.  How I can go to cooking school, eat for over five hours per day, sit on a bus most of the day and lose weight is beyond me.   I think my regime of exercising a lot and eating healthy may just not be that healthy for me.

The olive oil pressing plant was very small - they were a neighborhood processor that processed all the olive oil for the surrounding olive growers.   At Academia Barilla we learned about three types of olive oils - Tuscan that is very strong and good in soups and on breads.   Ligonia olive oil - that is very delicate and good on fish.  And Sicilian olive oil that is mild and good on salad.   The olive oil we tested at the plant was an extra virgin (only pressed once) and good for salads and bread.   The version I tasted was unfiltered.   That was pretty darn bitter.   More hazing.

The third day of cooking school did not require any time in the kitchen classroom.   As we learned, the way to serve the ham and cheese of the region requires very little preparation time - you simply break apart the Parmagiano Reggiano cheese into small little chunks and you slice the Proscuitto de Parma into paper thin slices.   What is more important is the origins of these two products as there are many copycats of both this type of ham and cheese throughout the world.   So off we went to see their origins.

These tours reminded me of my childhood where my father’s idea of “seeing” the country meant seeing all the factories throughout the country.   We must’ve toured every factory open to the public as a kid.    Now in that ranking system as a kid of the factory tours - both the tours of the Parmagiano Reggiano and the Proscuitto de Parma factories, got high marks.   Why?   The tours were relatively short and at the end, we had lots of free samples.

I learned at the Parmagiano Reggiano cheese factory that local lore says this cheese increases virality in men.   I think the quantity required is something more than a little blue pill, but something less than the entire round of cheese.   If they lock in on this marketing, the price they can charge for their cheese will soar.   However, it will then likely be banned by the US FDA because of the strength of the pharmaceutical lobby.   So, keep this a secret please.    HOWEVER, you need to get the real deal.  Maybe it’s because of what the cows eat in Parma that create this unique feature.   It’s a variety of herbs in a grass like mixture.  Or it might be the enzymes in the cheese.   Maybe the cheese is like wine in that after a couple pieces whoever you’re with just gets more attractive?   Maybe it’s a pheromone olfactory aphrodiasiac?   That would explain why they love amply endowed woman of short stature who eat a lot of cheese - yes this place is good for my ego.

I also learned that when the cheese maker scores an X on the cheese rind - it does NOT mean X-TRA special.  It means the cheese is somehow defective.   For some reason, lots of these X-rated cheeses end up in the US being sold as the real thing.  Buyer beware.

The stuff that is sold in the little green jars called Parmesaen cheese and the wider distributed small packages of parmesaen cheese are NOT parmagiano reggiano cheese.  The real product is a much moister cheese - it actually won’t grate like the cheeses we purchase in the US unless it’s allowed to get stale over several weeks.   If you want the real stuff - look for the markings on the rind that are in this picture.

Next it was onto the Proscuitto de Parma factory.  Fortunately this was not like a winery in as much as it’s circled by vineyards.  It was nice that this place was not circled by pig pens.   The ONLY thing in the Proscuitto de Parma were pigs legs.  And LOTS of them.

This product was the ultimate in risk management.  To create this ham, it has to be salted and kept in the cold for 90 days.   The cold salt curing technique is a way to keep the meat from spoiling.   I inquired how they did this BEFORE refrigeration as they have been making this type of ham for centuries here.   They were only able to make this ham in the time before refrigeration from November to February - probably the reason for the 90 days in the cold with the salt rub.   It ages another nine months before it’s ready for consumption.   The area around Parma used to be under the sea and there are large deposits of salts.  These are the salts used in the sale rubs.

We learned that these are BIG PIGS.   These pigs weigh in excess of 400 pounds.  There is a copy cat product Made in Canada that got the trademark Proscuitto de Parma BEFORE the real product from Parma secured the trademark.   The pigs used in Canada are smaller pigs, weighing less than 200 pounds.   So when you see a product that says Proscuitta de Parma - if it’s long and skinny, it’s most likely made in Canada, NOT Parma.  The Proscuitto de Parma will have a crown on it that symbolizes it is the real thing.   According to some women in our group, you can actually purchase this several times a year at Costco.  Also, higher end speciality deli’s in larger cities or in specialty deli’s in the Italian districts in cities will carry it.

We left the factory tour to go visit a very old castle that was now the home of the Grappa manufacturing.   Grappa is a product made from the leftover grape skins.   Since I am allergic to alcohol, I did not get to sample this one.   Based on the looks of my classmates, I considered myself lucky.   They reported that it was intense and several had a hard time breathing.   We had lunch at the old castle - it was pretty dank and cold there.   I’m not sure why living in a castle was anything anyone would want to aspire to in the olden days.  Lunch was fun there - lots of pasta and proscuitta de parma.

We got several hours off in the afternoon for good behavior (either that or we had exhausted the staff at Academia Barilla).  At 7:30 PM it was on the bus again and off to one of the oldest restaurants in the area located in a small village for a three hour dinner.   We were served “traditional” food in an elegant atmostphere.   I’m racking my brain to remember what we had - I’m sure it was more ham and cheese.

I didn’t realize just how much I didn’t like truffles until I came to Culinary boot camp in Italy.   Which I guess is a good thing - god knows I don’t need anymore expensive habits.  However, I did have a very good time discovering just how much I did not like truffles.   We started out the second day of cooking school with an adventure to go hunting for truffles with Francesco and his truffle sniffing dog Leah.   This required an hour drive to the countryside.   And a half mile walk to their fenced in tree farm.  Truffles grow around the base of the trees and they can harvest them from September to February.   Only people who have passed a truffle exam can go get truffles and this was Francesco’s family’s private truffle tree farm.

After truffle hunting, was luuuunnnnnccccchhhhh at a local restaurant.  EVERYTHING we were served had truffles in it.  Lunch is no small event here - it lasted over two hours.   I think I learned more how to socialize over long meals in this class than how to cook italian food.

We got back to Academia Barilla in time to start cooking lesson number two - this was at 5 PM.  We proceeded to start preparations for a five course meal - which included, what else - TRUFFLES.   It appeared that some of my classmates were not faring so well from the rich lunch of cream laden truffle trifels.   So, I deviated from their menu and pulled out my ginger root.  YES, I traveled to Italy with my own ginger root.   (See post several down on my recovery kit for the swine flu).    It was a round of ginger root and chamomille tea for all.   Our teacher chef, Nicola, didn’t seem too excited that I had hijacked one of the burners and a pan for my concoction, but when he learned that it would help him get over the latest bug his two year old brought home from nursery school, he appreciated my efforts.   I turned my classmates onto the ultimate cureall of the ancient world - ginger.   Oddly enough, I could not find ginger root at the local grocery store.

Dinner was a very cool pasta ravioli like thing (I can’t for the life of me remember the name) that had an egg dropped in the middle, guinea hen in truffle sauce (we got to use a blow torch on that fowl),  polenta with a truffle cream sauce (yuck), and some almond biscotti for dessert.   I’m sure there were a couple of other courses in there - but they obviously weren’t that memorable or I would’ve remembered them.   I might have remembered if we ate before ten PM.  This dinner was another two hour affair.  By the second day of cooking school, I was getting to know my classmates VERY WELL.   Luckily - I really like these folks.    It was starting to feel like Culinary boot camp - second day - Truffle Hazing.

I made to Italy. Wrote a summary of the journey but cannot get the WIFI to work at the hotel.  So I am TESTING a post from the  IPHONE - irit wants to CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING.

When I got the last of the little birds to fly the nest off to college, I decided to go back to school as well.   Cooking school.   Nothing too extreme - I do after all have a business to run and employees to care for still.   It is part of my overall Mom Emancipation Program.   The “Mom Emancipation Program” involves doing those things that I could not do over the past 20 years and could not do the previous 27 years before that due to being in “real” school.   It will be interesting to see where the “Mom Emancipation Program” leads me as the goals are fairly vague - do those things I could not do the previous 47 years of my life.

I’m off to “Cooking School Lite” with Sur La Table in Italy.  So far the experience has been OUTSTANDING.   They have an event concierge who sends you cooking supplies before you ever get there.  Calls you every other week or so to check in on how you’re doing with your travel plans (her name is Andrea and what an asset she is to Sur La Table).   Yes I was a little anxious to do this - I’m not inclined to fly off to Europe for a ten day cooking school experience.  Plus all my cooking skills have been self taught.   I talked my foodie pal and writing guru Carey, into coming with me.

I like to see how light I can pack.  I managed to get everything I need for the next ten days stuffed into these two little bags.   The question is - will I be able to stuff it all back into those two little bags for the trip home?