Project Management.....

thanks. All good advice and all welcome as usual.

just to clarify... I'm not looking to make a fortune!

Just not looking to spend one! LOL...

I'd be happy with break even for eternity... and just pay myself a little wage.

 

the cruel thruth about NA´s

Nautipedia >NA > Naval Architect : sort of mental disorder, does´nt hurt the infected subject, impossible to cure.
see also:> starved artist
The typical subject suffering from NA is white, male, single and able to exist under waiver of a social environment.
NA usually proceeds in several stages:

Stage 1 usually substituting childhood

Subject is focussed on generating senseless drawings almost always showing boats, ships, nautical structures, impossible to build.

Stage 2 usually developing during higher education

Subject believes that mathematics and science being related to boats and yachts. Develops a sort of kryptic language like "Metacoefficientlateralprismaticdisplacement" means: I know that you don´t know I know nothing.

Stage 3 unusual, most subjects stay on their student job at Mc Donalds, if not:

Subject produces drawings, sketches, pictures nobody needs, to impress innocent ******. Some of these victims buy his stuff.

Stage 4 rare occurance most subjects die from hunger at stage 3, if not:

Subject was able to force one ore two of his innocent victims to get a yacht built by use of his paperwork. At least one of them ends up with a floating thingumabob by following the adverse advice of a shipwright.
Now the deep seated disease changes dramatically.
Subject believes to make a fortune by generating more senseless curves, scantlings and the like on much larger sheets of paper accompanied by endless, kryptic formulae. Ability to exist outside a social environment is substituted by the ability to live in unsocial environment. Subject tends to stay in proximity of the rich and famous.

Stage 5 infrequently found, most subjects decay at stage 4 by the misuse of drugs and alcohol, if not:

Subject manages to force some NOT innocent ****** to neglect eons of knowledge and buy his effusions.
Subject inadvertently makes a fortune.

Final stage
Subject ends up at the lunatic asylum or wins the "Rolex Cup"


Nautipedia> RC> Rolex Cup> very important tool for frequent travellers:

the typical RC is a very cheap² mug filled with plain water. RC serves the purpose of verification of genuineness of the bargain watch bought in Istanbul.
² RC always gets destroyed after the first use!

So Frosty now you have it........

Sorry TAD and peers.... could´nt resist.....

Regards
Richard

 

Oh boy, your right on that one.

AppleNation, We're in the middle of tooling a sailboat for production. (first time for us) We got buried in the logistics of the whole project.

Things that help : Database for tracking contacts - suppliers and parts we buy from them. Without this we would be buried in paper scraps.

We tried project planning s-ware and it just didn't help. Actually gave me a headache.

The biggest help was putting a large white board on the office wall. We call it the "Tomorrow board" Along the top is the list of projects were doing.

Deck, Footrest, Keel mold, Hatch, hull, rudder, stereo..

Along the left side is the list of people available.

Each project is broken into about 3 to 5 "next" steps like "cut dry-stack", "gelcoat mold", or "sand thru grits".

Every evening we look at the board, update the steps and put an "X" for who starts working on what the next day.

What we found was that, for this project, anything that added any structure/rigidity made things worse. The prigect is too unpredictable. The whiteboard gets things done "today" and is extremely flexible.

For doing a production project where things repeat? Completely different animal.

Hope this helps!

-jim lee

 

Cheers Jim and good luck.

 

AppleNation, if you have the selling ability you're ahead of the game in my experience. That's a personal attribute like height, and cannot be learned.

Project management on the other hand is a learnable skill and a recognized science. It can be learned in college but maybe the best hands-on way to learn it would be to sell your marketing skills to a company with the PM people on board and watch it happen.

As far as PM for yacht building is concerned, while there are some things unique to each field, 90% of PM is common to anything from missile development (where the critical path method originated) to mining.

There is a snag in all this, real actual live PM is hideously boring unless you are a born mandarin-style desk jockey. You don't sound like one. Perhaps you were thinking of something else?

 

Thanks AK.
You are probably right, it is the other parts of running a business that I am best at.
However, I'm a bit of a stickler for understanding every part of the business that I am involved in.

Cheers.

 

Wikipedia has a good summary of modern PM practices but it's boring ...

 

THanks for that AK.

It's not so much the PM part of it I need.... I have 5 years PM experience outside of boat building.... and have used and been trained in methodologies such as Prince2...

What I require really is an idea of every single step in a build.... in what order.. dependencies etc.

Looks like I'm going to have to work this out myself.... cheers.

 

After 5 years of PM you expect someone to write down here, to you, all the details and nuts and bolts of how to be sucessful in bullding a boat?

When you've got one knocked up and its selling well at all the boat shows maybe you could tell the forum how 'you' did it.

The last words of your post have been the most sensible.

Sorry sounds a bit aggressive,--not meant to be.

 

You want to be a boat-builder and small-time is OK by you. I'm going to assume you will be content with building and do not want to get into design.

Lots of boat-related business are failing right now, good people are being laid off right and left. You cannot reasonably expect to get a job with a boat-builder even if you offer your services for free if you have no related experience.

So the only way you're going to get that is to buy material and build boats. Being a PM you want to go about it in an organized manner. I suggest, if you haven't already done so, that you buy some books on the subject. They will concentrate on materials and skills, but will give you some insight. Buying a plan will provide more. There will be some embedded PM in boat-building instructions that you can extract and elaborate on. Although you will find the odd book in places like Chapters, if they are in UK, but the best place to find them would likely be a boat-building supplier.

The next stage I imagine would be to build a small boat, limit the risk, learn the skills. You will realise that PM is far less important than tools, knowledge of materials, attention to detail and sheer determination. You will have to be quick to catch the next boat-selling wave. Good luck!

 

What's your plan again? This sounds more like research for a software project.

-jim lee

 

What you want is not free. Those of us with extensive building experience are not going to share for zero. You are asking for to much from forum members. If you want to build a boat for yourself you will find mucho help. If you want free bussiness advise so you can compete in the difficult world that's a NO NO

 

You would think that after 3 years in Pm he would know that.

The young are great are'nt they? so much enthusiasm and nothing is too hard.

I can remember!!

Everything is easy if I just knew how to do it.