Aug 5, 2011

Dear Kids,

   There is Chinese saying that "An Intelligent Leader can keep the town save and under the control if anything happens".  What does this mean?  it means a leader of a project or the leader of a country is the one who can control the success of the project or vice versa.  For example, Uncle Tony was assigned a project to repair a swimming pool this summer and now is almost the end of the summer that he still doesn't complete the project which unexpected by the whole family.  Why he fails the project and we should learn more from what he did wrong; we should not copy what he did to duplicate the error for the rest of the life.
   Detail planning is the key thing to make the project to be success.  Tony should set up the road map to show him to complete the project.  First of all, he needs to plan before doing anything as it goes.  The following steps he should carefully planned before working on the project.

    Step I:  He should find out the need of the swimming pool by calling a few contractors who know the business.
                 a. He can get the information in the internet, newspaper and yellow page by calling them to discuss the problems and issues of
                     the swimming pool.      
                 b. Interviewing the contractors to make sure they know the business.  Before interviewing the contractors, he needs to go on the
                     internet to understand the special terms in the swimming pool such as vinyl lining etc. and he needs to understanding the
                     dimension of the swimming pool so that when the contractors are discussing the swimming pool, you can have the same
                     language.
  Step II:  During the telephone interviewing, he should understand the need for the swimming pool for this repair.
                 a. Discuss with a few contractors so that you can have a better understanding what they are doing and the price of the material
                     with or without the labor cost because these information will give you a clear pictures of the basic cost for you estimation
                     and the comparison of the price with the other contractors.  All of them should give Tony an estimation of the cost to fix this
                     swimming pool.
 Step III: Selection the contractors are the most important part in the project.
                 a. You need to find someone who is reliable.
                 b. Most of the reliable contractors do not need the deposit because the company is strong enough to cover the basic cost of the
                     material and the labor until the project totally completed.
                 c. Some of the contractors might need a little down payment to cover the material cost and it depends on the wording of the
                    contract.                
 Step IV:  Signing a contract with the contractors.
                a. When Tony signs the contract with the contractor, he needs to understanding what he is signing because he should know the
                    legal document can affect a lot of things such as breach of the contract penalty or consultant fee etc.  Tony needs to make sure
                    all the things he understands before signing anything.  
                b. When the contractors did the estimation, all the detail of the fixing should be in the contract with the delivery date terms and
                    conditions.
                c. Most of the contractors will provide the performance bond in case they can't complete the project on time.
                d. Never use the people on the street because Tony was hired someone to fixed the window to save a few dollars and end up the
                    contractor was breaking into the house with losing a few thousand dollars.  
                e. Go with the reliable contractors for the future protections and warranty of the swimming pool project because this is the
                    protection for the family which you are talking a half million dollars home and the swimming pool is a part of the house.
Step V:   Make sure all the people coming to the house will be watched by a manpower to make sure the break in happened again.

    If Tony doesn't not have the ability to manage the project, he should ask someone to help instead of doing by himself because he thinks it is easy.  Nothing is easy unless you can manage AND master the project completely including the material and the size are correct.
Tony make sure the people to fix the project are the professional not the people on the street or armature of this game.
    Knowledge and experience are the important thing in this project.  Proper communication is also the other important thing in this project to make sure the people are working there knowing what to do and the project is smoothly done on time.

Love,
Dad