The accordion principle of project management

The bellow of the bellows

I have always been fascinated by the music of the accordion, the player playing the treble piano side and the pressing the bass buttons to something that sounds more like folk music than anything else.

More so, the player moves the concertina bellows, something rhythmically whilst playing keys and buttons all learnt by practice because they do not have sight of keys or buttons as they play.

Yet, I have found use for the accordion not so much to play music but in expressing the fear of being squeezed in the concertina folds of a project because other elements of time, resource and cost have not been properly managed and I am pressured to deliver to atrociously contrived ends.

The project squeeze

The project manager decides what music they want to play, the rhythm, the tempo and that is how listeners might get entertained or even dare to dance.

Some projects managers however do play such dastardly music that not only would people cover their ears, they might instead pick up stones to pelt the accordionist.

We the project resources who fall between the bass and treble ends of the accordion are squeezed until our pips squeak if we do not react, respond, advice and escalate when we need to, to ensure we are not completely crushed and carrying the blame for a badly run project.

Play that funky music

I love good music and what document as much as I can is evidence of where I have striven not be part of the bellows to help in deciding how the music is played, to whose hearing and for what purpose.

In the end, as much as the project manager, I want to be involved into making good music too, that is how the discussion went earlier today, whether good music would result is anyone’s guess, but in the cacophony that ensued, maybe some silence is what we need to retune the accordion and try a different tune.

That is the accordion principle of project management.

Thought Picnic: Fighting slumber

Slow and low

Before it becomes drudgery feeding on an atmosphere of boredom and vacantness one must find opportunities for the eventful.

Yet, excitement is not an easy thing to come by, the result of which is a day that grinds slowly on as seconds pass like minutes and minutes chime away like the hour when the cuckoos pops out to say hello.

Blow no flow

The minimal cranial activity signals something else, a relapse into the depths of soporific stupor, but one is not where the desire can be given space.

The nod must only be offered in conversation and never as a loss of control of the neck muscles.

You fight the urge as fingers on your keyboard begin to type out a script in a language yet to be understood.

Glow to grow

Oh! For the tonic to stir but to stir to what apart from being more alert to inactivity?

Then strength returns with the will as the journey home begins. Rest is needful and the hope is to be fully rested for another day.

Thought Picnic: Working to get to who we are and loving it

Accepting our humanity

Aspects of self-development require accepting the totality of who we are by appreciating we are human first and from that great potential abounds.

Yet we go through times of personal turmoil racked with the burden of guilt leading to condemnation.

It is a long journey of realisation beyond the regrets and self-flagellation to reach a point where you will not condemn yourself in the things you have allowed.

Allowances for foolishness

We allow many things to be and cannot live on trying to undo the silly, foolish, stupid and sometimes reprehensible things we practice, entertain, endure or tolerate.

Being creatures of habit, some habits die hard, but if we refuse to be defined by our weaknesses we can also work to ensure we are not defiled by our strengths too.

To get contentment

We grow to accommodate who we are as able and capable of changes we desire whilst being cognisant of the things we cannot change for the lack of will, drive or strength.

If we call on a greater power to help us become different, the question then arises about whether we have reached the peace of contentment or are still striving for something that takes away from our happiness.

Thought Picnic: In praise of high heeled jinks

And I cried

I am not a great fan of reality television and the rapid descent from the real celebration of talent to just feeding our innate voyeuristic proclivities has made this type of entertainment the staple of mass broadcasting.

However, every once in a while, these talent shows, one of which is Britain’s Got Talent does reveal a piece of common coal about to metamorphose into a glittering diamond.

Usually, someone sends me a link to a YouTube video and as I watch, tears come to my eyes as amazingly raw talent without any polishing is revealed in a gift to humankind that we can only appreciate and celebrate.

Even watching Paul Potts [YouTube, he won in 2007] or Susan Boyle [YouTube, she came second in 2009] today still fills me with emotion, as you see the yearning to be recognised and acknowledged earnestly demonstrated, time and again, your faith in humanity is renewed. The very best are usually not the pushy, notorious, gregarious or extrovert ones.

Men doing girlie better

Yesterday, I got to see one of those gems of talent, some French guys came to England, Yanis Marshall, Arnaud and Mehdi, Yanis being the lead dancer and choreographer, they join the ranks of men who would supposedly beat the other gender at what they are supposed to be good at.

As I was busy getting over the spectre of Conchita Wurst [YouTube] who won the Eurovision Singing Contest 2014, bearded with a body any woman would die for, the voice of an angel and the dress … it just takes your breath away, these men were dancing in high heels, I would wager that they would beat Beyonce in any dancing matchup.

Having seen Beyonce dance in high heels and wondered out loud how anyone could do that, these guys have perfected the art to the point that Yanis Marshall gives choreography lessons around Europe.

After watching their performance on YouTube, I did not cry but I might be off to a cobbler to get me a pair of high heeled shoes. This was not drag, this was cheeky and camp elegance with a touch of professionalism – this has taken them into the final.

I wish them good luck, besides, I guess everyone secretly wants to dance in high heels like that. Enjoy their first performance and how they got to the final.

Opinion: This violent denigration and murder of girls and women must stop

Sudan: Merian Ibrahim – Apostasy & Adultery

The week ended with some good news for women, Meriam Ibrahim of Sudan who was sentenced to death for apostasy and 100 lashes for the additional charge of adultery for contracting an ‘illegal’ marriage to a Christian is to be released. [BBC News]

If not for the fact that she was with child and about to be put to bed, if is very likely that the political expediency of Sharia law might have exacted the judgement on the woman. Yet, they were ready to punish the lady as soon as her child was weaned.

In the 21^st Century, the state must never have any influence on what an adult chooses to believe, the idea that religious beliefs should be viewed as congenital; that is, passed down from parent to child with the child not having any option to rethink, to reason, to question or to abandon the faith of their ancestors and adopt new experiences and faiths when they reach adulthood is utterly anachronistic and archaic.

Religious politics

The politicisation of religion and the conflation of traditions and beliefs into a bizarre culture underpinned by unacceptable moral laws that denigrates and violates the human rights of the child, our womenfolk, the poor and the deprived of power and opportunity is sometimes used by a Machiavellian elite to oppress and subdue, whilst those same laws rarely apply to the ruling class.

There is every reason for every free and liberated human being to join voices to ensure that the last vestiges of these rotten abuses of human rights are expunged from the statute books of every state that subscribes to blasphemy, apostasy and lèse majesté laws.

Pakistan: Farzana Parveen – Abduction and ‘Honour Killing’

Then in Pakistan, Farzana Parveen was bludgeoned to death by her own family members that included her father, in front of a Pakistan court, in public and with the police allegedly standing by as disinterested onlookers. [BBC News]

That Farzana at 25 had to go to court at all is unbelievably atrocious, she was appearing with her husband to fight her family’s claim that she had been abducted and had entered into a marriage against their wishes.

It makes you wonder when, if ever, women do reach adulthood and a status of independent means and personal responsibility in Pakistan.

A dereliction of duty

Yet, the courts were ready to hear this case, and knowing how volatile such issues are, the system failed to provide the necessary security and essential safeguards  to keep the warring factions apart whilst guaranteeing a modicum of safety for the defendant who was under duress from the law to defend herself.

Too many questions arise about the unfortunate culpability of the court, the presence of such laws in Pakistan’s criminal justice system, the indifference of the police who probably ascribe to the untenable culture of egregious abuse of women in incomprehensibly dishonourable crimes labelled ‘honour killings’.

There is absolutely no honour in the abuse of women, the imposition of marital duress on women against their wishes or the killing of such women that decide to disregard the wishes of others as they pursue their own happiness.

Do women have any rights?

The happiness of relations cannot automatically be the happiness of an individual and any system, law, tradition, culture or view that trammels the pursuit of personal happiness as a fundamental human right must be excoriated and dragged with all possible force into civilisation.

The fallout of this heinous public murder committed with impunity, was exacerbated by another revelation from Farzana Parveen’s husband who alleges he killed his first wife in order to fulfil his affections for Farzana. It makes you wonder whether women in Pakistan are only allowed to draw breath at the mercy of ‘greater’ men for whom they exist to give pleasure or be disposed of.

Where girls threaten a rotten patriarchal system

Surely, this should not be the case for a country that gave us the whirlwind political force of Benazir Bhutto, who I dare say was also disposed of by the Taliban patriarchy in 2007 and with us in England is Malala Yousafzai who the Taliban were ready to dispense of because she clamoured for the right for the education of girls. She was only 14 when they shot her.

These stories are however the ones that made the headlines, there is no telling how many more heinous crimes are committed against minorities in Pakistan’s legal terms and elsewhere without any intervention of the law for justice and the sad acquiescence of the system in supporting perpetrators of these abuses.

The spotlight is on religion, women rights and countries where human beings like us are treated as less than human with no respect for their person, their space, their ideas, their decisions, their happiness or their lives.

India: Gang rape and murder

Boys will be boys, some would say about some events in India that seems to have linked feral sexual appetite with a level of sadistic psychopathy that defies explanation. [BBC News]

Not only were the girls gang-raped by beasts in human skin, they were murdered and left hanging after the rapists had had their evil way with them.

Whenever the perpetrators of this rotten crime are caught as they should be, there is no punishment that can full atone for what they did, however, we should be in no doubt, these people are beyond rehabilitation and they do not belong in the openness of any society.

Unaffected establishment

What compounds this latest in a litany of gang rapes in India [7 publicised since December 2012] is the fact that the authorities are almost unconcerned and politicians seem to handle the matter with such levity that baffles the mind. They seem to be so disconnected from the realities of the victims as to be lacking in empathy and bereft of sympathy.

These gang rapes have become an inconvenience rather registering as a crime wave that needs to be checked and handled with the severity of the law and compassionate humanity.

In a land rich with cultural history that has produced remarkable world leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and most especially, Indira Gandhi, whilst many have sexual needs, it needs to be clear that sexual favours should only ever be acquired with consent, where that is not the case, the perpetrators are no better than animals and one is minded that those rapists be put down like dogs.

Nigeria: Pricing the woman

Back in Africa, we arrive in Nigeria where having enjoyed the humour of the Bride Price App we must see a more serious point to the issue. Beyond the sexism and the objectification of womenfolk when about to contract a marriage, we see the commodification of women when attributes, achievements and looks are the fundamental factors deciding the bride price above the personhood and humanity of the woman.

We are all to a greater or lesser extent affected even if subliminally by this mindset and it is time for us to review our motives and objectives when we are to address these issues.

Blog - Nigeria: Some Truths About The Bride Price App

Nigeria: #BringBackOurGirls – Day 48

48 days since the 14^th of April, 2014 and we are still crying out #BringBackOurGirls with a development that has included the capture of Hassan Ali, a Boko Haram leader; we learnt from him that he had already married two of the abducted Chibok girls. [Leadership Newspapers]

Nothing ever in this world can ever justify the forcible abduction of girls into marital slavery, not to talk of the being in joined in unholy matrimony with Boko Haram brigands. At best, this is a case of aggravated rape.

These abductions are not new, but realising what has happened to the abducted makes for seriously horrific reading. Hassan Ali besides murdering his father and uncle sanctioned the killing of his own sister when after abduction she refuse to become a 'pleasure unit' of another Boko Haram leader.

Innumerable atrocities

Everything about Boko Haram points to something Voltaire said a few centuries ago, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

You have to ask what absurd belief system enables a man to commit the atrocity of murdering his filial relations and siblings. That alone should be enough to seek to proscribe Boko Haram and rid our good earth of every semblance of that organisation, its thinking and whatever support system it enjoys.

We are not the enemy

The challenge for the Federal Government of Nigeria is that for the first time they are forced to act beyond the vacuous promise to delivering results. The result being the rescue from Boko Haram of the Chibok girls; nothing can eradicate the plight of the girls from the world’s consciousness.

The sooner the government realises it has a responsibility to act by using every means possible to #BringBackOurGirls realising the protests are urging them to act decisively and purposefully, rather than some ploy to disrupt the comfortableness of their exalted and unaffected cocoons of power and privilege, the better it would be for all concerned. #BringBackOurGirls from the grip of the Boko Haram menace.

We must stand

As men, we need to be at the forefront of fighting for equality for all participants in our global village, ensuring their rights are upheld, protected and wrestled into existence arresting the descent into the Barbarism that makes other members of the human race any less than ourselves by reason of their gender, their beliefs, their orientation, their means, their culture or any other distinguishing element of our great and broad diversity.

I stand with our women for liberty, freedom and the freedom to pursue their happiness without restraint or interference as we all desire for ourselves in this world.

Nigeria: Some Truths About The Bride Price App

Love abroad

A good friend of mine started a long-distance relationship between Europe and Africa where they for over a year communicated over the phone, via email and many other means professing love for each other.

I was wary, simply because my friend had spent more than half his life in Europe; fundamentally there was no cultural affinity between them apart from a geographical space. Outlooks had changed due to his integration into another culture, community and society, but who knows?

When it appeared things might not work out, I thought he had invested too much in that relationship that the least he could do was go and meet with the family of his love interest and make up his mind after that.

Checking in

We went shopping for gifts and all sorts of arrangements for an introduction and he travelled over to meet the family. When he met the father, they appreciated his interest, took the gifts without as much as a thank you and then gave his companion a printed wedding list that read like greed of the world in objects and payments that baffled the mind.

There was nothing I could do but seek the wisdom of my mother, she sounded a very cautionary tone, to the effect that there was nothing in that relationship than an opportunity to milk and bilk my friend, in the end he cut his losses and ran – the event was scripted in 6 blogs that I titled, “Opening the mouth of the Father.”

Breaking the bank

The wedding list had that one item that caught my eye amongst that many other ridiculous things that I distributed in a narrative of derision and incredulity. My friend at the wedding ceremony would only be able to get the father of the bride to speak by shelling out 50,000 Naira, whilst the whole list came to over half a million Naira and that did not include the cost of the wedding ceremony and the bride price.

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 1

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 2

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 3

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 4

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 5

Blog - Opening the mouth of the father – Part 6

The Bride Price App

Which brings me to the topic of the Bride Price, because yesterday I came upon a web-based application that claimed to calculate the Bride Price of a prospective wife based on a number of attributes, achievements, looks, diction and status of the lady.

Bride Price Calculator

When I first clicked through the application, I commented on Twitter that it spoke to the ridiculousness of the things we place value on.

However, as people discussed the issue, it got to a point where there was a broad spectrum from views from the misogynist, sexist and objectification of women through to risible levity maintaining no seriousness to it apart from jocularity and laughter.

A friend then engaged me in private conversation on Twitter about the Bride Price Calculator and then persuaded me to consider putting my thoughts in a blog. Which started as the following Direct Messages on Twitter.

My views

Asking about my views on the Bride Price App, he said, “I've seen it being misrepresented as sexist and objectifying women. Be honest, is this true?”

I answered back as follows:

“There are many angles to this, looking at it with Western eyes it is sexist and objectifying women, however, not in Nigerian eyes.”

The point I am making here is the danger of conflating different cultures and then using an unrefined standard to assess another culture without first accepting there is an issue to be properly reviewed before making comparisons.

“The fact is the bride price is an unscripted reality in Nigeria that borders on greed and the ridiculous.” As evinced by my introduction to this blog.

The Bride Price App simply put online what in many cases people think when giving away their daughters and the cultural construct that feeds into making those demands without second thoughts. To see the bride price so illustrated in almost an atrociously vulgar manner was upsetting but not divorced from Nigerian reality.

“We must have an honest discussion as to how the cost of marriage harms the institution of marriage in the name of tradition.”

The question is what really determines the bride price traditionally and how have things changed to accommodate not only modernity, but the need to keep up with the Joneses and attempt to outdo others?

“However, many of these traditions have no cultural significance they are new fads of hedonism and ostentation.”

This feeds into the previous comment, we have to ask whether paying up for the bride and the wedding is of greater significance or giving the newly married a firmer foundation on which to build their marriage

“The Bride Price App is a mirror on ridiculous female statuses we use to place value on women is as marketplace objects bought for marriage.”

If we are to be honest with ourselves, a number of the options in that App have informed how the bride price is determined and what kind of wedding is planned for.

Unintended consequences

The dilemma of the bride price is summed up in Part 2 of Opening the mouth of the father, “It appeared I was to be sold a woman for a slave rather than being given a lady for a bride.”

The unintended consequence of a high bride price makes the pain of cost dampen the required utility of love in a marriage, a certain threshold can be breached where cost begins to determine ownership when love should mature partnership – I would not even delve into what might result from the former.

Critically, we must have an open honest discussion on the issue of the bride price, the wedding and most importantly the marriage, the first two are easy, usually a question of means; marriage requires work, patience, love, perseverance and with it would come joy, pain, happiness, sadness, togetherness, distance and whilst many would be at the wedding, only two can really be in a marriage.

You make it work or make it fail, hopefully not because of the cost of the bride price or the ostentation of the wedding, if you want the marriage, you probably can make it work against all odds. The Queen celebrated her diamond wedding anniversary on the 20^th of November 2007.

Picnic Thought: I stand forever blessed

When great adversity strikes

“My son asked me if I missed work and I replied that I missed the respect.” Jo Harris [Story]

These were the words of a judge who lost her voice to motor neurone disease, first found ways to cope through technology and sadly lost her life to the disease.

I heard her story on BBC Radio 4 and decided to search for information about her because there is something about the stories of people whose lives have been changed so radically by debilitating disease that more than basic adjustments need to made, that resonates with me.

Times of my life

In certain times I remember that my life now has a timeframe, BC and AC, Before Cancer and After Cancer, the man I was before illness and the man I became after the illness came and the radical way it changed my life.

As I have written in many blogs before, as I lost my health, I lost position, status, possession, things and in some ways respect.

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Blog - Thought Picnic: When Things Don't Matter Any More

Much as I have had a semblance of stoicism and maintained a sense of dignity, I might have even been an object of sympathy towards pity, even to a point of ridicule bordering on reproach, yet like a child rebuked, I could not talk, and like a rascal disciplined, I could not fight back.

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Standing misunderstood

Buffeted on many sides by adversity and perversity, I stood, maybe cried, but was never bowed, the spirit in said said, the indignities to the point of gross disrespect from rejections on the flimsiest excuses at interviews to having no place to lay my head for the night, but for the grace of God and the amazing kindness and humanity of many, it shall all pass.

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There was a distinction in the prayers my father and my mother prayed when I called to chat to them. She almost swore me to secrecy that the happenings in my life would not be shared with him, but whatever animus they had between themselves I have striven not to allow affect the relationship with my parents.

She prayed for recovery, he prayed for restoration, the prayers are being answered, the speed varying from miraculous to meandering, as a story of life unfolds in the experiences that have defined the existence I have lived, survived and thrived in.

No guilt would hold sway

I lost much, missed much but regretted little as I told my clinical psychologist when she finally accepted my case on being persuaded that I needed someone to chat to because I did not exhibit any of the classic psychological or mental illness issues that I should have presented considering my circumstances, I could not live in regret when there were many blessings to count, little and large.

Maybe fundamentally I refused to condemn myself in the things I allowed whilst the process of handling guilt is still a process, if I cry over how much I have beat up myself, eventually I must get to a point where this vicious circle of the inflicting pain in the hope that some gain would arrive in recognition of my many stupidities has lost its power to assuage my iniquities must stop.

I stand blessed

That is what has won through, despite the external battles that seemed to have the upper hand presaging defeat, internally in my spirit and in my mind, I decided, I would not be overcome or overrun, and I would rise like a phoenix from the ashes of a life and a lifestyle destroyed by illness because that is the core essence of our God-given humanity.

Yes, I missed the respect, sometimes the honour, but I remained respectful, honourable, presentable, optimistic, striving, bettering, working, expecting, trying and most of all living. In the process change has come with renewal, ability, opportunity, recognition, some respect, some acknowledgement and some honour.

I am blessed and with that every other care simply fades into insignificance.