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#11
November 24th 04, 04:45 AM
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N2EY wrote:
In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: (N2EY) wrote in message ... In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: is the ES 101 stuff. Actually doing it is very different. For example - just what *are* all the facets of a given problem?. I have no idea what "ES 101" is or was. One of those intro engineering courses. Lays out basic concepts and methods. DIT didn't bless us with any of those. I guess we were expected to pick it up on the fly during our industry periods. Which would be typical. Like one of their standing policies; "Topics in the syllabus not covered in class or by the homework will be covered in the final." Different generation... Seasoned technical types degreed and otherwise learn out in the college of hard knocks how to plan and execute projects in highly systematic manners because when money is involved the project better be pulled off properly or yer outta work. Which is not the same factor here. In business if ya signed the contract to deliver X on date Y, you better do it or bad things will happen. In this balloon thing, a delay of weeks or months is no big deal if the result is success rather than failure. I meant from the standpoint of organizing a project. Being nit-picky about it "delivery dates" can matter in some hobby projects like when one is faced with finishing up the job jar to get set for a specific contest. I agree, in most cases nothing bad comes of slipped dates in non-commercial efforts like it does out in the commercial world. Point is it's still a different world. It is an exceptionally different world. More on that in a minute That's the incentive. Beyond that we is what we is and we don't change our stripes when we get involved in the planning of off-hours volunteer efforts or our hobbies. Maybe *you* don't. Not when it comes to identifying and organizing the sequence of project milestones, laying out a budget, identifying the unknowns to the extent possible and listing the assets required and such I don't. It all goes down on paper or in an MS Project file from square one just like I do on the job. Which is the way I'd run Mike's balloon project. And which I sense is not the way Mike is approaching it. You don't know Mike... The world of gathering a number of people that go out to do something for the sheer love of it is not anything even close to the world of having a number of people working at a place that get assigned to a particular job because if they wanna get paid, they do what the boss tells 'em. In addition they may be starting on a job that a proposal has existed for some time. To have a meeting and plot out all the milestones is great, and to have a firm grip on costs is wonderful. I've pointed out that we are in the organizing stage right now. Does it make good sense to define the exact projects and the launch dates and make specific cost estimates when you are looking for the people to do the job? This is NOT that world. As I pick up the core group of people, I will then be finding out where the project is going to go. I've picked up a programmer, some elementary students and their teacher, A NOAA guy, a few others of general Ham experience, and most recently, one of my collaborators from the Star party I put together a few years ago. As soon as he came on board, the whole early complexion of the project changed. The guy is a technical whiz in several areas, and when he commits, things happen. He has some specific projects in mind for this endeavor, and we're going to run with several of them. Had I been doing this Microsoft Project project and had firm dates and costs as of yesterday morning, I would have wasted alomst 100 percent of the time spent on it by yesterday afternoon. Only parts that would not have been wasted time would have been the raw material costs. Big deal, a couple hours and a couple phone calls. The way that I have to run this sort of project is to first make the pitch to people, then find out how many people are interested enough to volunteer their time. At that point we separate into committees. I'm pretty much at that point now, although I'm looking for a few more volunteers to make committee placement easier. First we get some general ideas of costs, time committments, possible launch dates, etc. After that, we go off and do our initial research. Then we come back and flesh out the plans. At the second meeting we start to map out the plan of attack. We find out about anything that was unanticipated during the organization meeting. Schedules are made, and construction begins soon afterwards. I've done it that way before, and it has worked very well. There are many people that are not suited at all for this sort of thing. If you are the sort of person that needs a perfectly clear path, this is not the project for you. If you need everythnig spelled out for you, this is not the project for you. When you are in a multidisciplinary atmosphere where you have to have technical and non-technical people mixing, and you are convinced that the only people on the project that are worth anything are the technical people, this is most *certainly* not the project for you. As an example: (of those that replied in the thread) Lenover21 is definitely not suitable for this sort of project, unless he has a distinctly different off-keyboard persona. I think Brian Burke would do okay on the project. Brian Kelly would not. He prefers more structure than this type of project can provide, and I would have problems with him in that I think he has some issues with those he considers non-technical types. Not a good mix there. Leo? Hard to say... Now you would probably do well on this sort of thing. I noticed that you did some research, and came up with good suggestions. You've also demonstrated interest in multiple areas, which is a big plus. When a person understands what the other discipline id talking about, it is a very good thing. I suppose Leo would call it more mutual admiration, but that's how I see it (does Leo hate it when people aren't arguing?) Wherein come the clashes with the non-technical types we get involved with on joint efforts. Pick any mid-to-large scale Field Day planning session around here for a perfect example. You might wanna look up how the CP folks did... Ya ducked the bullet. I scanned the scores but I couldn't find 'em in 2/3/4/5A. I missed it? They didn't submit an entry? Howcum there's two lists for 1B-2? They ran something like 8A with a call you probably don't recognize. Most of the categories are split into three lists: Battery, Emergency Power, and Commercial Power. He let his cat out of the bag at some point in past but it got past you. He's a VE but I had him in the wrong province. Didn't get past me. Leo sez he's a VE3. But no call, no last name, no positive ID, no website, no outside confirmation. Maybe he is, maybe he ain't. I'm convinced he is a VE3 named Leo. Your mileage is obviously varying for some mysterious reason. I'm simply pointing out there's no proof one way or the other. No way, changing writing styles like changing fingerprints, can't be done. Nonsense. Ghostwriters do it all the time. Len's done the pseudonym thing here more than once - that we know of. Sweetums is a patterned, unlettered compulsively combative fomer military aerospace bench tech, professional ghostwriters are usually talented journalists, historians, etc. . Now that's a valid point! 73 de Jim, N2EY - Mike KB3EIA - |
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