Good technical links for project planning

Info about outsourcing : http://www.outsourcing.com/

Info about COCOMO ( Constructive Cost Model) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COCOMO

Info about project planning : http://www.qsm.com/

Info about decision tree : http://www.mindtools.com/dectree.html

Book: The Greatness Guide

Author: Robin Sharma

Robin Sharma is one of the world's top success coaches. His ideas have been embraced by celebrity CEO's, leading enterprenuers and many FORTUNE 500 companies. He is the author of the famous book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'.

I had heard a lot of the book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'. I have not read it. But when I found the book 'The Greatness Guide'  and came to know that Robin Sharma was the author, I immediately picked it up to read. 

This book has 101 short chapters which offer priceless advice. The author expresses all the advices with his personal experiences or his observations. Which is what I liked the most about the book. I agree to whatever is written in the book. But following it is easier said than done. I hope I can follow the great advices given here and improve life.

Robin Sharma's website : http://www.robinsharma.com/

Here one can find a free audio lecture 'Extraordinary Leadership' by Robin Sharma. It is approx 1 hour lecture. It is an mp3 file with filesize approx 15MB

Academic Earth

http://academicearth.org/

This website provides thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars

Book: It Happened in India

As usual, I went to the NCL library to pick a new book to read. I had looked at this book earlier, but did not pick it. This time I picked it up and wasn't expecting that it would be a great book. But I was completely wrong. This book is just fantastic!!!!!

This book is an autobiography of Kishore Biyani. He is the owner of Pantaloon retail, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and FutureBazaar.com. He is referred as KB or Kishoreji in the book. After reading the book, I have become his fan. 

He writes how he started his business from scratch. Early in his young days, he observed his famly business and told them that it will not make huge profits. Well, to make such a comment is itself quite a daring thing. He explains this very nicely - Every business can be defined in 3 modes - creater, preserver and destroyer. Once the business enters the preserving mode, it is basically simply sustaining itself. Hence the profit margins remain low and then over a period of time, business will not grow. To grow business, creation and destruction is important. This means trying something new and keep on innovating. This takes a lot of learning, unlearning and re-learning. 

There are so many new things that are expressed in the book, which are completely different from the usual conventional methods. This is a must read book for all sales and maketing personnel, MBAs. In fact, I would recommend it for anyone from a junior staff to a senior manager. So many new things I have learnt from this book. I just want to thank Kishoreji for taking time out for writing this great book.

Book: Five Point Someone

Book Name: Five Point Someone

Author: Chetan Bhagat

Another interesting story from Chetan Bhagat. Actually this is his first book. But I read One Night @ Call Center first. Since I liked his story telling, I wanted to read this book. Fortunately, I found a copy of this book in NCL library and brought it home to read.

Another dark and witty story. Story is full of humour and the fun and serious moments are described very nicely. A good book to read, especially for college going students, as what NOT to do in college years.

Link on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Point_Someone_-_What_not_to_do_at_IIT

A movie called 'Three Idiots' is being made, based on this book. It stars Aamir Khan (one of my favourite actors). Hope this movie becomes successful.

Free ebooks sites

The following link of Project Gutenberg offers free ebooks.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Book: One Night @ Call Center

Book name: One Night @ Call Center

Author: Chetan Bhagat

Usually, the backside of book describes, what the book is about. And this is what it is - The book is about six people working in a call center, set in one night. And then they get a phone call. That phone call was from God.

This was enough for me to start reading the book. It is a dark and witty novel. Well, the term dark is in itself dark - meaning language is very informal and some instances actually shocked me.

The novel is full of humour. For some of them, I actually burst out laughing. 

The narration of the story is just fantastic and captivating. The fun and serious moments are described beautifully. There are some instances to which I could actually relate to - such as the use of management jargon (This is like comparing apples to oranges. I am sure every newcomer to industry gets puzzled by this phrase), or the description of network printer. Overall a great book to read.

Details of book on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Night_@_the_Call_Center

A hindi movie 'Hello' was made on this book. I heard it did not do well at box office. I have not seen it, but the book is great!

Author's webpage: http://www.chetanbhagat.com/