Escalating crude oil prices

Came across an interesting article on BBC News summarizing the history of oil price rise from around $2 per barrel in 1970 to $115 per barrel in 2008.

Favoraite Songs

Listed below are some of my favoraite songs
1.As Long As you follow - by Fleetwood Mac
2.Careless Whisper- by George Michael
3.Missing You- by Chris de burg
4.Without You- by Air Supply
5.Time for letting go- by Jude Cole
6.China Girl- by David Bowie
7.Every Sha La la- by Carpenters
8.Strange Love- by Depeche Mode
9.I Love You I'll Kill You- by Enigma
10.Keep Coming Back- by Richard Marx
11.Do you Wanna- by Modern Talking
12.Come Undone- by Duran Duran
13.You Look Wonderful tonight-by Eric Clapton
14.Sacrifice- by Elton John
15.Smooth Operator- by Sade
16.Penny Lover- by Lionel Richie
17.Just an illusion- by Imagination
18.I Don't Want To Live Without You- by Foreigner
19.Casablanca- by Bertie Higgins
20.Another Day in Paradise- by Phil Collins
21.Alone- by Heart

Earned Value Management

What is Earned Value Management?

Have been working on same for past 6 months so thought of putting in my perspective on the blog. Loads of data can be obtained from the net from just typing it out on Google. It essentially is a Tracking and Monitoring methodology for checking on project performance in $ terms .It assists project manager by providing objective, accurate and timely data for effective decision making.

Basic concept:

I got budget for an activity to be done (BAC- Budget At Completion).

I divide the activity into sub tasks and assign $ value to each (PV-Planned Value).

Now I measure at regular intervals (weekly /monthly /quaterly /yearly) based on activity period how much work got done with respect to what was planned . This is called as EV(Earned Value). Since I am getting the $ value against all the work which I accomplish it is called Earned Value.I will earn same $ after completing the task against $ I had planned for.

How much did it cost me in actual $ to perform that activity , how much I had to spend in actual to complete the task is referred as AC (Actual Cost). This is most likely to be different from the planned $ for a particualr task.

PV, EV & AC constitute the basic EVM.

As one can see from the chart EVM gives project manager a perspective of project both from schedule and cost angle in $ terms. All curves are cumulative figures. PV at end is equal to BAC.

There are various metrics derived out of these basic values:

EV-AC - Cost Variance(CV)

EV-PV - Schedule Variance(SV) * in dollar terms

EV/AC - Cost Performance Index(CPI)

EV/PV - Schedule Performance Index(SPI)

CPI*SPI- Cost Schedule Index (CSI)

BAC/CPI- Estimate at Completion (EAC) gives an estimate of cost of completion of activity based on current cost performance

EAC-BAC - Variance at Completion(VAC)

EAC-AC - Estimate to Complete (ETC)

Quite simple yet very powerful tracking and monitoring method . Since gives $ value perspective very well understood by all.

Jaewoo's Visit

Jaewoo was in India on a business trip for 2-3 weeks, shuffling between Mumbai and Delhi.
(catching up with MBA batchmates at Great India Place Mall, Noida - Manish, Dips, Jaewoo,Sumeet & Anshul)

Current Workplace

HCL's building in Sector -60 Noida , U.P., India.

The Search

The latest read is an fascinating book on how the search has become the most important thing in recent years, how it is evolving and impacting our lives. Though neglected for quite a while in the earlier development where companies did not see any revenue model from search itself until Google showed the world power of search...... though Google was not the first one to do it but became the most popular.The book talks about the history of search , its current form and whats it going to be like in the coming future. There are very interesting insights of Google and its rivals covered in the book .
More review here.

NANO - TATA's Revolution

Tata unveiled its new small car on 10-Jan-08 in Auto Expo 2008 held in New Delhi. It has left all the other players in the automobile market surprised and a look of "Aww". Given its low price( 1 Lakh INR /US $2500) and the features it has it surely stands out as a winner. Though the car will be on the roads only by October 08, the hype it has generated in the market is immense. The TATA website is now among the top searched website on the net becuase of the NANO phenomenon. In the recently held Geneva show in Switzerland too it was a star attraction. One can check out the comeplte details about Nano here.