Focus On Malaysia

Thank you Project Destination for arranging an absolutely amazing event with Altran representatives! If you are are one of those that missed out on the event you might want to know that the evening offered a variety of wine tasting contests and speed dating. Sounds pretty good, huh?!

So what about the host company? Altran is an international consultant firm and Europe’s leading with 17’500 coworkers within fields such as IT, management and technology. We got the opportunity to meet representatives from different fields and also one trainee that not so long ago was behind the school bench just like us. It’s always something special to meet the people behind the company logo under more personal forms and have fun together.

As the topic says, do not miss the lunch lecture by Snille on Tuesday, 22/5. Snille will talk about what they do and what they can do for an engineer. They also offer a free lunch, so don’t miss out!

We’ve participated in the Squvalp carnival. The purpose  at Squvalp is to build a raft of some sort and have a lot of fun while doing it! We started building at 6 am, everybody was surprisingly cheerful and we did have a lot of fun. Our raft may not have been a candidate to “Best construction”; to our defense, only one of us is a mechanical engineer. =)

As custom is, the day ended with a spectacular party and most of us were awake for more than 24 hours. This year, the band Maskinen was the main attraction. Thank you Squvalp for an amazing day!

Today the Malaysian embassy and MIDA (Malaysian Investment Development Authority) in Stockholm invited us for a lunch meeting to give us the opportunity to present our project, but also to get some insight in how they work towards Sweden. MIDA is a very interesting authority which main focus is to attract foreign companies to invest in Malaysia. All in all it was a very fruitful meeting and we look forward to a collaboration.

Yesterday started off with a lunch meeting at KTH.

Later that day the whole FocusOn group was invited to Ernst & Young. They started with a short introduction off the company and also gave us some useful advise on how to run a project. After that we all went together to the restaurant 1900 on Regeringsgatan, close to the office. Once there we enjoyed a three course dinner and had a very pleasant evening together.

Tomorrow, Wednesday we have been invited to Ernst & Young’s office in central Stockholm for an exciting evening with focus on how they work and manage projects in the Advisory Services within Ernst & Young. Since almost all the work within Advisory Services is project based we are firm to believe that Ernst & Young have a couple of tips and wise words about project management to share. Later the same evening we will all enjoy a dinner together.

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http://www.facebook.com/pages/FocusOn-2012-Malaysia/105140752945558

Just wanna start of by saying that we all love the project and that we have a lot of fun together as a group. But it’s also a lot of work! All of us are doing this besides our regular studies and jobs, which leads to long hours at the office. One of the hardest parts is motivation. To keep the motivation on a high level throughout the whole project.

We’re trying to keep the spark alive by constantly motivate and encourage each other. We meet up three times a week to breif each other on the progress we’re making. But also to sit and work together as a team=)

We also got one lovely group member emailing us “inspirational emails” at least once a week. The lastest one was some photos of scubadivers in Malaysia. This is to say that if we just work a little bit harder and keep up the spirit we will be able to do just that, scubadive in Malaysia!

At 10:49 AM this Saturday the bus went from Ropsten, Lidingö. No one knew where we were going except from the project managers. Unfortunately, the weather gods had given us the winter again. After a while, we came to a house where we were going to stay. It looked like a mountain chalet. So with that kind of weather and the fire, the feeling was really good.

The whole day was made up of surprises and one of them was that we got to try military training. It is really an experience to remember and be happy about, however, now a few days later the whole group is really sore. Our sauna bath afterwards was very good for our cold and soured bodies.

We did also discuss the project assessment which was a good way to find improvements in the project management.

We ended the day with a really nice homemade dinner.