Utpal Writes          On Project Management, Leadership, Technology and Self-Help

Kavita and I are going for holidays to Kashmir from tomorrow for about a week and I am not sure whether I will  have access to internet over there. I think sometimes it is cool to be in such a near-to-nature place.

Brian Guest (giant rebus)'s Flickr photostream

I prefer designing and planning such holiday tours on my own. I’d like to share what I did.

1. Found a great company for the tour. (Going with my 3 college friends who accept one another the way we are.)
2. Ensured that the tickets are confirmed. To and From – both.
3. Consulted 2 colleague friends who are from that place. Noted their advices and planned accordingly. It’s good to have friend from all around the world!
4. Upgraded my normal digital camera to a newer one with 15x optical zoom and HD video.
5. Created a budget, get it reviewed and approved by the friends who are joining me in the tour. At this point, we know what we are going to spend on each day. We have kept a buffer also – for managing any invisible expenditure.
6. Created a Generic Travel Packing List. The packing list includes essentials, basic OTC medicines + first aid kit, personal/self-care items, clothes, footwear, electronic items, security items, toiletries and Edibles.
7. Ensured that our baggage is not heavy and includes only essential items.
8. At workplace:
   1. Informed everyone concerned (clients, reporting managers and colleagues) about my unavailability during this period well in advance.
   2. Shared a sheet with updated project status of all the projects that I am responsible for.
   3. Assigned temporarily responsible persons for each of the projects.
   4. Communicated with clients about this and whom to contact in my absence.
   5. Created a sheet of necessary contact details of all the people concerned along with my comments and shared it with all the concerned parties.
   6. Managed to share all the necessary information is at fingertips of all the concerned people and ideally there should not be a need for anyone to call me. However I also provided the specific mobile number (which I will be carrying when traveling) to call me in any critical situation.
9. Ensured that I have enough of Cash and Credit/Debit cards along with me and allocated specific amount of cash to each member to mitigate the risk of anything which might happen unexpectedly.
10. Ensured that I have local maps of the sites which we will be visiting.
11. Have Plan-B in place if Plan-A fails due to any reason.
12. Ensured that other family members have sufficient cash flow available when I am out.

I will share more details about this later when I am back from this tour.  Until then, keep reading my other blog posts and enjoy.

See Also:

1. Five Chronic Problems With Failed Projects And How To Overpower Them With Common Sense
2. Best Tips on Running an Effective Meeting
3. Your Fundamental Goal
4. Zen of Team Handling for Software Projects
5. Twelve Tips for working with Offshore Teams
6. Dependable Project Manager 9
7. Project Manager Who Is Most Likely To Produce Great Results 60