Future Managers Program "Day 6" -- Goal Setting

The second session was on Goal setting and was taken by Revathi. As usual we had branded her that the session wouldn’t be good and not so interesting. It turned out to be really a different and interesting session and also it made us envisage into our own selves. The session all started with the discussion on whether we really have dreams which we can really achieve. Are we really able to achieve the same?

She handed us over the photocopy of her cheque. We suppose to fill out the cheque with a unit which would cost some amount of Rupees. If given an amount what are the two things we would with the unit. Every one of them filled in the amount and kept it aside and she told at the end of the session she would give the amount if we deserve it. Later she started giving us lot of information but it was really one sided.

Future Managers Program "Day 6" -- Better Planning for Better Results

Yesterday was one of the satiating days in FMP. It was Shrikala who made the session on “Better Planning for Better Results” so exciting and interesting. When I went in, I saw a lady who was not part of our batch but was running to write something on the sheets. Later on I found out that she was our trainer. In the room there were very few attendees as it was drizzling outside. So we started with a light chat and started waiting for others to come. FMPians started drizzling in and every time we had to ask why were they late and the discussion went on till 9.00. Then we had a formal introduction and she started with the session.

I would put across things which were really good and had some purport for the sessions. She gave a strategic game, which would make us understand the importance of having good plans to get better results. She had drawn a map on the board with squares in it. The sides of the squares represented the roads on the map. It would take 15mins to traverse between the vertexes of the squares. She had marked various locations on the map as client locations. The location would the place, which would fetch the company various projects of different amount. We were divided into three teams and were the sales team who would plan for the day 8am-5pm such that we would make maximum amount. The amount for each project at the corresponding location was specified at the bottom of the map. We planned such that we could get maximum amount and traversed really well. We finished before time and had time to review it also. We had made 7.3Lakhs. The maximum amount, which could be gained, was 7.4Laks. This gave us a clear understanding of how a better planning will help us get better results.

The next topic that we discussed was about the four quadrants. The quadrant represented four things 1. Urgent & Important 2. Not Urgent & important 3. Urgent but not important 4. not Urgent & not important. So we were asked to put things in each of these quadrants. We put lot of things like releases, work we had really an exorbitant lists, which I don’t remember … 2nd quadrant had hobbies, shopping, exercise, shopping etc…which is important but not urgent….3rd quadrant had things like paying bills etc fourth had recreation and others. We discussed about how we put things and don’t prioritize our needs. We procrastinate things and push everything into the first quadrant and make all things very urgent and important. We don’t plan our work and don’t enjoy our life to maximum extent. So push most of our work to the first quadrant and really don’t prioritize our hobbies and socializing. So if plan we could properly learn to things in the 2nd quadrant.

We also watch a video which gave us the idea of how to plan for what ever you do. He also gave the idea of to start with an end in mind. Put all the facts about it and ask questions about the same like when to, where to do and following up the task how it would go. We should never run against the watch but be more toward compass needle. That is being oriented what is our end and going towards it.

So to conclude, it gave us a good idea of how to handle a task in hand by planning for the same.

Future Managers Program "Day 5" -- Mid term review

I was very reluctant on the mid term review as I was not able to put in my 100% into. When Usha sent me the ppt I just put a reminder so that I could start working on it in the evening. As the nature's laws go, the more you plan better the failure case is. So I was tied up with different discussions, estimations and design related meetings. In the evening the reminder popped up and fortunately I was at my seat. As soon as I opened the reminder and the ppt, I got a call from next cubicle from the other team member. They had a release and unfortunately both for me and for them they had a crash in a module. So I had to help them out in the module. It went up till 10 ten in the night and we were not able to solve. Later I decided I am really getting late, I insisted them to go on a particular debugging path and I would help them over the phone.

I reached home and I got a call from office as I stepped home. The call was from office and luckily the technique, which I had insisted on, had worked and he had called to inform the same. I was relieved from the problem and i was really happy for that. After having my dinner I sat in front of my comp and downloaded the ppt, which Usha had sent. Then I went through all the slides, to my horror I did not have enough time for preparing as it was already 11.00 and I was feeling sleepy too. So I pondered over and also went through my old blogs as I was not sure what to put and how to put things across. I felt that 5mins is very less and I need to put those things only which really impacted. I thought one slide was more than enough and what matters in the end is how well I present over there. The comfort level in the end was not so much. So I further divided the slides into three, first slide with agenda, second and third with explanations. First slide had slides "Impact of FMP" first professionally impact and second personally impact, second slide had Professional impact points and third slide had personal impact points.

Today I reached EC sharp at 8.30 even though there was major traffic jam then usual. I parked my bike and started striding to the training room. On the way I met Usha and I taunted her that she was late and even though I new why? I reached the training room and saw that everybody had crowded around the centre computer to download the presentations onto it. I felt it weird, as we all could have waited at our seat; one by one we could have downloaded the ppt in a professional manner. Anyway everybody downloaded their ppt onto the systems we were all the set to begin. I saw nervousness on most of the faces and some had a bit more evident expressions even though it was completely to a sensible audience.

Usha asked us how would it be better to begin the order is it random or alphabetical order or any other suggestion. We all voted in alphabetical order and I was the third person in the list. We had some ground rules like how to go about timing and somebody suggested on whistling too and every accepted. For first presentation he whistled and it made the room really light and somebody suggested that it would make the presenter loose his seriousness and it would be better to do it in a different manner.

I got my chance and I started with my presentation to my luck I started getting right idea of flows. I just had put two points in agenda as I had told earlier; one on personal impact and the other was on professional impact. I started with explaining the professional impact and I got lost in giving instances in which way FMP help me and I didn’t keep track of the time. The timekeeper raised his hand and I realised I had to conclude at that point. So what I did was skipped the personal impact slide entirely. I don’t know whether others realized it or not. I just elegantly concluded and asked the audience to ask their questions and I only got three questions and I managed to answer them in a satisfying way. One question was have anybody given me feedback on my presentation, the other was how would I create a win win situation with my managers and last one how far was I able to use the meeting etiquette in daily life. I was not happy on the number of questions which I got, as the questions would determine how well was I able to present my idea to the audience.

Later I saw that in the beginning everybody were really formal and not asking questions which would help them in giving them feedback. As more and more presentations were completed the situation changed and FMPians started asking questions such that it would be positive feedback too. I would like to cite few of the instances which were discussed and had been put across by the fmpians. The difference between a question and a doubt. One of the FMPian told that when he was onsite he used to say I have doubt and the manager/colleague out there had told that you have question not a doubt. Indians doubt everything even though your have a question to ask. The other one was keeping distance. When the FMPian had gone onsite she had to stand in the queue and she stood very near to the lady in the queue. The lady in the front turned around instructed her to stand in the circle, which was drawn on the ground. The other one, which was really memorable, is the uncomfortable scenario, which the other FMPian had faced with the client. He team member had resigned and joined the client with who they were working. In their TCON the client introduced saying a new member had joined their team and introduced him to the ODC members. To their horror it was the same member who had resigned and he new every problem the ODC was facing and why it was facing. The fmpian's manager got provoked and he just went out of the room handing over to his PL. The PL tried to handle the situation and even he followed the suite. The PL asked the fmpian to take charge of the situation and it really went out to be heated discussion. The FMPian felt had he been put in such a scenario, he could have handled in a better way.

I saw little common behavior in few presentations. The one major observation was most of them were really nervous and were getting hampered by it instead of making use of it. Though they were speaking very well while talking to the team others, when the same person is given the dais; they would just get nervous and start giving bad presentation. Few were really confident and had a real good flow in the presentation. One person had drastically changed his style and show a remarkable difference in his presentation. The other person who was not so socializing was able to interconnect with people and had given a really good presentation by bringing in humorous scenarios through sarcasm. Well, few of them were also getting really involved emotionally and in one particular scenario I was really taken aback. I wanted to give a positive feedback, so I asked how did that person had handled the scenario assertively. To my horror she got offended and she also got carried away by that question to an extent that I felt I was being seen as the real person with whom she had face the scenario.

Unfortunately, I had not attended the sessions on meeting skills and presentation skills. So I couldn't get quality feedback on my presentions. I would appreciate if you could give you qualitative feedback for my presentation.