week 9

From this month, our PR person proposes a project.

The purpose is to increase the interaction between the readers, customer and the newspaper.

We will organize an activity every month and open to the readers to participate.

This way, our customer will have chance to promote their business directly to the reader, and the reader will have direct information from our customer.

I think it is a good idea to promote our newspaper and our customer's business as well. Really impressive work!!

Week 8

Our newspaper has being published for about one and a half year, and we are going to remodel our website. Today our IT person came to the office and we had a talk.

I will be the one design the website layout and he will take care of the coding part.

I am really excited because this website is going to be popular if we well promote it through our newspaper.

For inspiration, I visit many websites. TW Yahoo is my favorite because it is full of information, however it is not complicated and messy. User friendly and clear navigation is the key.

Week 6 & 7

After newspaper has been released to the public, I am usually the least busy person in the group.

What I usually do at this time is looking for inspiration for the next layout design.

Because we are free newspaper, our income mostly comes from advertising.

So besides art editor, I am also sales.

My boss was working for World Journal for 26 years and is very experienced.

He shows me how to deal with customer and how to communicate with them.

We have to treat ourselves as helper who tries to help customer's business.

Also, we are business consultant who is able to give customer advice how to run their business.

We are looking for win-win relationship.

By doing sales, I have chance to know different kind of business including restaurant, dentist, real estate, insurance...etc. It is good for me because the experience help me on communication and skill of dealing different people and situation.

At the beginning, it is hard for me to talk to a stranger and convince him to put advertise on our newspaper. Practice really helps me on build up confidence. The trick is that the better I know our product, the better the presentation will perform.

Week 5

Since we are bi-weekly newspaper, the newspaper is printed every other week.

This week is the printing week, which means I will be crazy busy.

I have to do the final editing and make sure that everything goes right.

Even a picture is not light enough, or a word spelling wrong will not be acceptable.

Sometimes layout design is ready to print, a update news just suddenly comes out and the whole layout design has to be re-adjusted.

One thing I like in this critical time is that I get a chance to talk to the person who works at printing place. Usually printing a proven newspaper takes 40 minutes and I have nothing to do but wait until it is done. While waiting, I talk to Louise who is the one taking care of our newspaper every time. He is experienced at printing industry, and I usually learn something from him.

He told me how they put different page in printing order, and how they bind the pages all together which is based on the even or odd number.

This is like a break time during this busy period, and I enjoy it.

Chapter 10 & 11 ideas

Chapter 10: High-Performance project team

To build a high-performance project team, a positive team environment is required.

Ground rules that describe the work patterns and values of the team.

• This is important to the team members what to do and how to work in the group.

A team identity built on commitment to a shared goal.

• It is tough to unit each individual's mind together. So communicate the goal with group members and have them involved in defining and planning the project will stronger their sense of ownership for the project.
• Always have goals appeared in any time will enhance the memory and keep the goals in mind.
• Get to know group members and show respect and trust to them will tighten the relationship of each member.

The ability to listen.

• Listen to others opinion is a way to show respect. Meanwhile, you watch and learn from someone else' idea or experience.
  

The ability to effectively manage meetings.

• A meeting says anything, it is a beginning, and also a finish. It demonstrated all the characteristics of a high-performance team and produce a result that is beyond what any team members working individually could achieve.

Chapter 11: Clear Communication

Communication is the foundation of relationships.

A person with good communication often time has a good relationship with others, and it applies to any situation: in a family, in a working field, friendship...It is not just vital but also essential skill everyone should learn.

As a project manager, strong communication skills will make the project achieve the goal easier and maybe sooner. Project tam members have clear message what they are doing and what their responsibility is. Regular meeting setup will keep team members on track and ensure that all the details are discussed. This is also a way to increase team cohesion since a status meeting is the only time the entire team gathers together and share information and solutions.

Reflection: Strengthen Others 2

Now think of a time when you felt powerless, weak, and insignificant as a result of something a leader said or did. What specifically did he or she do?

As a designer, I have always heard "oh the design should be easy for you, shouldn't take too much time." "why should I pay that much for a design? There is no actual cost."

Design, it is not like a actual product which people can see the process and the cost, so many people take it as granted. When people see a piece of paper with a logo on it, they only think it is just a patterned paper. Most people don't see how much time a designer take to come up a idea and make it to a design. Designer did spend time, mental strength and physical energy. So I am really disappointed every time when people underestimate design.

My ex-boss was not an art major person, just like anyone else who don't really appreciate design. Every time he assigned me to design something, he always added a sentence at last "i think this is easy for you, shouldn't take too much time, right?" If I took a little bit longer, then he suggested me to copy someone else' design and made a little change to it. I was totally speechless. Every design is unique and creative, and it is worthless to the designer.

In the US or in Europe, design is to be respected, and they attach great importance to creativity and innovation. This is what we all need to work on.!

Reflection: Strengthen Others 1

Think of a time when, as a direct result of something a leader said or did, you felt personally powerful and capable. Write down the actions the leader took that contributed to your feeling powerful, strong, capable, and effective - the master of your own experience. Be as specific as you can.

I watched the video clip of the speech made by Steve Jobs in Standford's graduation in 2009, and I was inspired by him a lot. He said: "Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did."

We spend the 2/3 of our life time working, why don't we choose what we love to do? Most people do what they don't really like to do because of money issue, timing, or no choice, so they complain, being upset, and being miserable at work, which doesn't help their life be easier or better. Maybe it is true that not everyone is lucky to find a job they love, but we can choose to work with positive mood, maybe eventually we will love what we do. If things can't be changed, then accept them.

Maybe the thing you are interested in doing doesn't make as much money as something else, but the enjoyment is not what you might get if you have no passion on it. If you love your job, the problem is not a problem anymore because it will be taken care of itself. If you haven't fount what you like to do yet, just try any possibility and never lose faith!

Chapter 9 ideas

A project contains three elements: cost, schedule, and quality, each one is equally important to another. How to balance between each of them is a skill that a PM needs to learn.

A number of ways of balancing the project at the project level:

1. Reestimate the project.
2. Change task assignments to take advantage of schedule float.
3. Add people to the project.
4. Increase productivity by using experts from within the firm.
5. Increase productivity by using experts from outside the firm.
6. Outsourcing the entire project or a significant portion of it.
7. Crashing the schedule.
8. Working overtime

For me, I will rather working overtime than adding more people to the project. The same people working on the same project have more understanding both to the project and each other. There are fewer distractions in the workplace. Unless the new people are familiar with the project, it will end up wasting more time on training and practicing, it is not an efficiency way to make the project better.

I will avoid outsourcing the entire project or a significant portion of it. Every project is different from each other, and there is always something can be learned from. Time-wise this might be a way to solve the problem temporary, but for long-term, it might damage the company's capacity and image.

Chapter 7&8 ideas

Chapter 7

In this chapter, the term "resources" means the people, equipment, and raw materials that go into the project. The cost of a project needs to be clearly listed out at the beginning in order to control the project from over spending. If the cost estimates approximately accurate to what a project really needs, the work would go smoothly and complete on time.

Gantt charts and time-scaled networks are two useful tools to calculating the schedule of the work. The chart shows clearly the work breakdown and the schedule of each work. Participants are able to follow the process without being lost.

Chapter 8

Make the estimate more accurately, estimator must be experienced with the work. We learned that risk can be reduced by learning from the past. Even though every project is not exactly the same to one another, experienced estimator can make better estimate based on past performance data.

There are several estimating methods.

1. Apportioning. This method is to begin with a total project estimate, then assigns a percentage to each of the phases and tasks of the project. This technique is usually used in conjunction with phased estimating.
2. Parametric estimates. This method is to use a basic unit of work, and then multiple the size to the entire project. This is usually based on historical data, and the estimator must develop a solid parametric formula.
3. Bottom-up estimating. This one estimate from the detailed tasks and roll-up. It is the most accurate than other methods, however, it takes most effort and time.