MCTS 70-178 Microsoft Project 2010, Managing Projects

Suddenly I became nostalgic.

You know, Microsoft Project is one of some early batch of software that I used during tertiary education time besides the obvious DOS, Windows operating system, VB (Not .NET you young people!) and et cetera.

I remembered times when being instructed to present my project schedules which ended up with printing of few ten pages of "partial" gantt charts and stitched them together using double sided tapes or glues. Guess not easy to be a project manager during those times. :D

Anyway, transition from the yawning old version of Microsoft Project to the state of the art version of 2010 (2013 on its way) is phenomenal. Number of users grow into millions and with some quarter of them with a chartered PMP qualification. Still, more projects failed in this decade than the total of few previous decades added up. Microsoft Project is just a tool, and it really can't help if you don't understand the essential of managing a project.

Anyway, back to the story of 70-178.

You see, to me, this examination is nothing but just a milestome to tell people that I'm more proficient in using this tool than others. Technically, it's not a tough one either. I have passed various other exams, which I personally think at a different playing field than this exam.

So, don't worry too much if you are taking this exam anytime soon.

What you really need to prepare are:

• Download the trial version/buy the licensed copy of Microsoft Project 2010
• Use the software alot, and explore various of its features
• Understand the basics of project management (If you are a PMP, congrats that you are on a faster track to pass this)
• Read one or more books on Microsoft Project 2010. I scanned through most of them and I think "Microsoft Project" title from Sybex is short and concise (about 400 pages) whereby "Microsoft Project In Depth" from QuantumPM is indeed, in depth (about 1000 pages).

Well, my passing rate of 962/1000 should indicate to you that the preparation materials above are sufficient. Right?

Can't get the damned "Gangnam style" out from my head. Geez.

Atychiphobia

Suddenly I had this urge to write an entry after months of unintentional abandonment of this blog. "Unintentional" emphasized. C'mon, where got time taking care a pitiful blog which is not generating enough "ka-ching" to sustain my hunger for curiosity. Buy books, travels, being nerd, all need monies, agree?

Anyway, my part philosophical part empirical method of promoting the science of Failure generated few interesting insights.

Obviously, the idea of failure is wrongly understood by common mass. How say? People tend to shun potential failure unreasonably and without solid ground. Smart readers will notice I use the phrase "potential failure" instead of "absolute failure", this is because failure with likelihood of not failing could in turn mean likelihood for success. As usual, we want to avoid failure that could cause lives, significant financial impacts, bad ROI and all sort of outcomes where the actual/perceived cost outweigh actual/perceived benefit. If you're in the game, "High Risk High Return" should ring some bells, LOL.

It's all about risk management, like I always chanting to my co-workers.

Portfolio and Project Management -> Risk Management
Software R&D -> Risk Management
Financial Derivatives and Investment -> Risk Management
Career Planning -> Risk Management
Buy Life/Health/etc Insurance -> Risk Management

And the list grows longer and longer until you would have a reflex action closing the browser currently viewing this site.

The latest "sales" pitch of mine -> "Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Fail Safe" managed to grab attention of the listeners whenever I used them in customer training sessions, motivational talks, project management meeting, coaching team members and even in interviews

:D Not bad as a way to get people to put their eyes and ears to you.

But I can't say the copyright of the phrase belongs to me as it relates to the works of many scientists, leaders, philosophers, mathematicians and all these successful people who contributely significantly to the society and nation. In the extreme case, they heroically "Fail Slow, Fail Pricey, Fail Deadly" to prove some hypothesises and perhaps to the betterment of mankind. Well, these cases were the end of the long tail if you know what I mean.

Anyway, to common man like us, probably more important is how the skill of failure affects our ability to reach optimal (even a local optima) state of our goals. If life is a constant deviation of any plan, then any plan should plan for deviation and if by definition any deviation is a failure, life is full with failures. It sucks right? Not really. Solution to any problem is the continous improvement of the sub-optimal/failed solution to the problem, monotonically. Well, biting my own tongue, to be precise, not always monotically, especially if you stucked in local optima and need to break out to find the global one.

With all due respects, always have the bigger and larger picture in your mind when failure is imminent or even planned. You will realize that you are moving one step further to success, just by failing.

Remember "Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Fail Safe" Fail Fast -> Continous and Often Improvement
Fail Cheap -> Well, preserve the budget and $$$ for more trials
Fail Safe -> Don't screw up anything significant like your career, corporate reputation, life and so on.