Vis...Visio....Vision

This is the second time I am writing this post. The first one was not saved for some reason, so currently my vision is that the post somehow reappears. Well, that obviously won't happen but at least I tried.
We all have a vision, and these visions change as we go trough life. For example, I wanted to be a pilot (who didn't), but as you grow up you understand and see things differently.
I have a few visions for the future and I will share them with you (again). They are all somehow connected, but they don't really depend on one another.
First, I want to have a large family. Before I do that I need to get married (hopefully she will say yes, and hopefully she's not reading this post). By large family I mean five children at least; I grew up with three siblings and I had a great childhood and I still enjoy it. I want my children to have the same great experience.
My other vision, is opening my own business. I cannot provide too much info on this (don't want you to take away my idea), but it is in the process and I hope it will be successful.
I don't know what you think about my visions but I think I'm pretty modest with my visions. All I want is to be happy, and make sure my family is happy. If you can throw there an extra few $$, I'll be even happier...

Best Test For The Student and The Rest

What will happen if a professor asks his students to design their own test?
You would think that they would design a test and have the answers written upside down on the bottom of the page; just like a crossword-puzzle.
Not in this class. Here, we made a test that might be easier then the first one, but definitely not easy. That's integrity for you!
The entire process started out when the professor gave us the chance to design a test and vote on it. All this with only one condition - there has to be an absolute agreement of the class.
All in all, the process went pretty well; it was lead by one person who wrote the ideas that were brought up and then we all voted on it. People were pretty fair, they listened to one another (most of the time) and they were very flexible and gave up when they had to.
I took a pretty active part in the decision making process (maybe a bit too active..). I would argue that most of the students that took part in the process (yeah, those that were yelling), including myself, at some point were in all the different stages of conflict handling. In the beginning we all wanted to get our own agenda to the room, and then some of us just withdrew from the entire thing, and the rest kept on. After a while we started to compromise and collaborate with the rest of the class. Some student (probably those who got an A on the test) accommodated others' ideas because they didn't care much.
I think that the way we handled this as a class was quite remarkable. The entire process was done in a way that at the end, everyone in class (besides the professor), was happy with the decision.
Could we have done this better? Maybe shouting a little stronger.....
Well, we could have divided the class into smaller groups, and then one person from each group would give their decision. With this, we might have been able to get more ideas out. This way we could have filtered the first ideas that were unrealistic or irrelevant, and stick to the better ones. In addition, some students would have found it easier to raise their own ideas in these smaller groups.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun and I think the we rocked with our decision!
Happy testing to all!

Egg-otopia

There are many ways to evaluate a good planning process, but what do eggs have to do with planning, and does a broken egg signify bad planning?
Well, if the plan was to prevent the egg from breaking - then the answer is a obviously YES!
Our group was given the task to design and build some sort of contraption for an egg, and then release it from approximately 10 feet high. The objection was to prevent the egg from breaking. All this sounds too easy, but when you are introduced to a totally new team and the team has only 30 minutes to complete the task, the word "easy" breaks along with the egg.
In spite of the constraints mentioned, our team worked pretty well in getting this done; we had some arguments (AKA brainstorming) in the beginning about what is the best contraption to design, but at the end we somewhat combined all our ideas to create the best contraption ever made. Or so we thought.... The contraption didn't work and our planned failed. The question is why did it fail and how can we improve?
Our team didn't go through the planning process as listed, but it is very natural to go through most, if not all of the steps without even thinking about it. You cannot have a good plan if you bypass any one of the steps. For example, you will not be able to do anything without knowing your objective first, and you will not be able to succeed in the future if you do not evaluate your results at the end.
Our group was pretty well organized, but it is pretty hard to work in a team where you do not know one another, and you do not know which one of the members you can trust; if you work with a team that you have worked with in the past, and you know the members, then you feel more comfortable with other members' ideas. That said, even in a new team like this, it was very easy to differentiate between those who knew and cared about what will happen, and those who didn't and only created panic.
As a conclusion, our planning process was good and if we will work in the future in the same team, things will be much easier and more successful. Regarding the egg process, a different plan would have probably worked out better, but the most important thing is to learn from past results and improve for future planning.