Some of you may know I'm on a weeks residential training course this week.
I was absolutely cacking it earlier at Kings Cross Station, and on the train on the way to St Neots Station. I've always been quite confident on courses and doing exams etc, because I've always known that deep down somewhere I know my stuff. This however, is something completely different!
Looking through the pre-reading, it struck me that the conecpts of Project Management themselves aren't that difficult to grasp....if only you can fight your way through the jargon they present it in!! It's basically a course in a foreign language. This is what I'll have trouble with.
Anywhoo, I arrived at St Neots, and after the initial disappointment of finding that the elusive 'shuttle' to the centre didn't exist, sharing a taxi with a Thai lady who spoke VERY little english (she was meeting her boyfriend....who sounded in his 60's when she thrust the mobile phone at me to talk to him), getting to the Willow Centre to find I was staying in a another part and traipsing around for about 15 minutes in the cold and dark trying to find my accomodation.....after all that, it actually turned out pretty cool.
6pm was orientation time and I left very early incase I got lost....I didn't and only succeeded in getting there very early. So had a few others and there weren't too many seats left, so I grabbed one with two relatively friendly looking gents. Julian turns out to be a star, he's lovely and he's on my course too, quite a feat considering there were probably about 80 people in the room and only 15 on my course. The other guy flew in from Uruguay of all places!
We figured...orientation at 6, dinner at 7 and early night/revision in preparation for tomorrow.
Nope
Straight into the classroom at half 6. I'm the only girl. I manage not to blush when introducing myself which is unusual, I'm clearly growing.
Straight into the jargon:
'Managing a stage boundary'
'Configuration Management Strategy'
'Project Initiation Document'
Argh....argh.....argh
I'm SO glad I did some pre-reading, I'd be a jibbering wreck by now. I was quite pleased that at some points, when the instructor was asking question of us....I managed to shout out the answers to a couple....correctly...oh yes!!
We had dinner at about 19:45, a bit of tough old turkey and some nice roasties, followed by apple and rhubarb crumble. Nom.
Oh. I almost forgot to tell you what our daily schedule is!
Breakfast between 7-9am
Morning Session 9am-1:15pm
Lunch 1:15-2pm
Afternoon Session...check this....2-8pm!!
What?
Dinner 8pm-9pm
Back in classroom to review 9pm
Homework
WTF? They've got a health club and driving range here, like anyone has the time or inclination!
And with that, I think I should shoot off and read about stage boundaries. I'll report again tomorrow if I live :)
Sounds like fun. I'm a bit of a sceptic about things like this. I've not yet come across a course of this nature that I thought I learned anything from. The theory's always fine - it's when you get into the real world that you run into trouble. You know, Yvonne has to leave at four pm on Thursdays for choir practice. Steve and Alex don't like each other and won't co-operate. Kev is utterly useless but cannot be fired. Stuff like that tends to gum up the works and somehow these fantastic theories never take these little difficulties into account.
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