Quantum Forest

Since Orlando’s arrival last week I have had almost no time for updating this weblog or for my usual participation in numerous internet fora. No, I am not complaining but only presenting a statement of fact. It has been good to have a rest from many endless discussions (for example, about the environment in Tasmania) and focus in the new little one. In addition, I have been too sleepy to present any coherent thoughts or drive a good argument.

I have also been working shorter hours, but of a much higher quality. The units of work per time spent have more than doubled. There are so many things that I need to complete that I do not have much time for web browsing, TV or any other “time wasters”. This is great, but I still want to spend more time planning the next year, so I can finish some interesting pending projects.

In another note, I had never been much of a car person; my basic philosophy has always been ‘if it goes forwards and backwards is OK’. Now I love cars, not because of the make, features and speed, but because they are great at soothing babies. If we need to travel, Orlando will cry at most four blocks and then he is sound asleep. What a great treat for struggling first time parents!

While soothing Orlando I have been reading again the notes on project management that I got in a course ran by John Smyrk. They are very (may be too) concise, but present a good structure on things to take into account for the management of projects. For example, the distinctions between outputs and outcomes, the non-existence of so-called “solutions”, ways of determining the stakeholders, etc. Some of the forms used for the ITO (Input Transformation Output) approach are available in this Tasmanian Government web site. I will probably also start re-reading J.R. Turner’s book The handbook of project-based management, which seems to go pretty much with the ITO model.