Ego-Wise...: Reform...!

"Everything in this universe is perfect... even your desire to improve it". Being the greatest and die-hard believer of this hypothesis (specially the later part), I have always been a huge proponent for 'Reform'... may it be a place, a system or a constitution for that matter. It excites and interests me more to work on reorganizing, renovating and restructuring virtually any existing thing for betterment with a touch of creativity, by retaining its heart and soul, though. That's the reason I get attracted to projects that would exploit my innovative impetus and make my creative juices flow like a river. This Achilles heel, however discomfort and commercial in-viability it may cause, has developed as protrude to my being that cannot be cut off... who needs to cut it off, anyway...!?!

Owing to this rather uncanny feature of my professional practice, I am inclined to look for Projects that demand ‘out of box thinking’ (in its truest sense) and embrace all such opportunities with the undying vigor of a 12-year old. The recent being quite an enriching and fulfilling undertaking that taught me few lessons and enjoyed an honor to be termed in PMI terminologies as I had this PMP status for the first time throughout this project. Now, does that PMP feather in my intrinsically organized cap, made any difference to progress of the project could be a subject to explore in my next post, may be…!

This project of 'Setting up Census Data Center at GIPE', Pune in a ‘framed’ space that is a peculiar example of composite structure with a stone porch extended to serve as a bridge first and closed to make it a room later. It goes without saying that the challenge started with accommodating all the excessively protracting civil works to rehabilitate the structure to cater to the multifaceted requirements with open-ended specifications and was topped with the time and budget constraints being the inevitable fate of projects like this.

The theme, if I can call it, for this project was ‘Salvation’, not of souls but of the available material and resources! The logic and reasoning behind this act of salvaging was firstly, the usual budget constraints and secondly quality and availability of the long partition made of teak wood with glass panels that needed an intricate effort to dismantle and reassemble as per the new design. The carpenter had to be a craftsman to this otherwise hectic task and I must credit it to my carpenter Santosh whose hard as well as soft skills made it to deliver the visualized result. Right from the start, the idea of minimalistic design with impeccable execution facilitated the progress of the project and the fundamental theme of ‘form follows function’, graced it.

For the aesthetics and to satisfy the conventional Interior design expectation, I played with the colors of the venetian blinds, flooring with ‘L’ border, finish of the workstations and chairs with a touch of tastefully selected picture frames of shades matching the theme that added the element of elegance. As a borne believer of use of eco-friendly material and conservation of resources, I always make it a point to use minimum energy equipments and select those on their energy-saving capacity. To improve the light and ventilation, white paint is used all over with matching light fittings and 2-track sliding windows, when opened, eliminate the need of any artificial wind.

It indeed required the Creative effort as expected in the tender document and by providing ample opportunities to think on my feet, this remarkably successful project with both SPI and CPI ≥ 1, followed all the laws from PMBOK to Murphy’s, en-route! I am more proud of the progress of this project than the project sponsor’s contentment with the outcome of it! Way to go...