Sanjaya had been voted as "Most Favorite Project" by the judges.

The judges were amazed by Sanjaya's performance as they improved their position from 9th to 2nd. Unfortunately, their overall score is only a strand of hair away from the grand-finalist.

Preliminary Stage

Yusuf, one of my friend in Industrial Engineering, invited me to join his team for Project Management Challenge 2014. He offered me a position that was responsible on risk assessment and team creative design. He said I'd be a great asset for team in giving ideas, analysing project's risk and designing the logo and proposal. He acknowledged my skills on problem analysis and creative design concept. For the risk assessment, we were a classmate so he also knew that I just finished the project management course as well as him. And he also ackowledged my great performance in that course. His offer was a perfect one. Professional competition committee, ambitious team, interesting topic of competition, and amazing rivals were reasons why it was a great opportunity for me to sharpen my capabilities.

It was an easy decision to accept Yusuf's offer. It was an honor for me to join the team, but there were many things that I should learn more. Then, I divided my work into three parts: Proposal Design, Research, and Risk Analysis .

• Proposal Design: I have confidence in my design skills, so I decided to prioritize the design above all. I listened to the idea that we would bring to the competition. Then, I worked immediately using Illustrator and Photoshop. In just two hours, I finished the design and got approval from all team members. Time to learn more about risk before I worked in my analysis.
• Research: I did learn about project management course in one of Industrial Engineering courses but, I would compete with the best talents in ASEAN. Getting know project management and the competition better would be a great asset for us. Luckily, one of our team members had Project Management Book of Knowledge (PM BOK). So, I learned from project management reference book and PMBOK thoroughly. PMBOK would be our bible for this competition. I also asked to my lecturer and seniors about the competition and project management.
• Risk Analysis: For the risk analysis, it would be consisted of risk register, risk matrix and risk mitigation strategy. However, we couldn't finish it according to the deadline. Yet we got a permission to sent the presentation late. Thanks to Yusuf who had successfully negotiated with the committee.

Then, we were chosen as a finalist, eliminated almost 50 teams. And we had been invited to Yogyakarta. Our mini project, named WASH, was mainly a pilot project talking about improving sanitation for Indonesian rural areas. As we passed the preliminary, we revised our project according to the preliminary judges' feedbacks. And we also asked my friend's advisor about our presentation and project.

First Stage

In the first stage, all the teams would present their mini project to the judges and we, Sanjaya, got number 9 for the presentation order. However, the presentation wasn't going very smoothly. The judges said our project scope only for Indonesia, meanwhile the topic was for ASEAN. It seemed we had different perspectives with the judges, and we did argue by saying this project was just a pilot project, and we revised all the feedbacks. But, it seemed the judges had their own perspectives.So, they gave us very low score. We needed to bounce back.

Second Stage

As we only had a little chance to survive in this competition, we still believed that we could change the game in the second round. It was the only chance for us to prove to the judges.

The second stage was a case study. The committee took us to one of tourism village in Yogyakarta, Mangunan Village. We had been given a case study that would focus on improving number of tourist in Mangunan. And we had many restrictions from the committeee. The restrictions were:

• Locations: We can go anywhere as we were still in Mangunan, and Mangunan is very big. Meanwhile the collection spot only established in one place. So, I thought we needed to place our working space near the collection spot.
• Time: We only had two hours to give our presentation to the committee. So, I suggested to divide our activities, and each of activitiy's duration needed to be managed.
• Resources: We only had four members, so we needed to manage our members based on their specialities.

To solve our case study, I thought we better divided our activities into four main parts

• Problem Definition: I suggested all of us to participate in defining problem beacuse it was crucial to have similar understanding and goal. I thought it would take the longest duration. One hour was the maximum duration.
• Making Presentation: Each of members would have a specific work based on their specialities. 40-45 minutes was the maximum duration.
• Compiling Presentation: After each of members finished the presentation, one member would compile the presentation. 8-10 minutes was the maximum duration.
• Collecting the Presentation: We've decided to locate our workspace near the collection spot, so it just needed a little time to give presentation to the committee. I guessed it would take 1-2 minutes.

We had spare time for our contigency plan, so if we took more time, we still had available time.

Problem Definition

We decided to take a look about the condition of Mangunan and we asked questions to the employees. We mainly asked about the problem that they faced now, and most of them said they needed more water. May is in the dry season, so many of place in Indonesia suffered drought. I thought that was very logical. That is how nature works. However, it seemed the others believed the water supply was the problem for our assignment. So, it was a difficult situation for me. Follow or oppose the idea? If I followed the idea, it would be a wrong problem definition, but if I opposed the idea, it would be right but there would be an intense discussion that would lower our morale. Then, I decided to give my opinion so I hoped they would change their opinion. Here are my strategy to influence them:

• Gather the team: After we had many information, we had to sit and be calm for awhile. We need to digest all the information, so we could think clearly. If we are forcing to think when we just have many information, then most of times, we would arrive in a decent conclusion (if it isn't wrong).
• Listen to their idea: Listening to others opinion is great. I could see others way of thinking and purposes. And the most important thing is you could use their idea to enrich your opinion. For this case, I could see their condition. They were panicking because we had limited resources and we were under pressure.
• Remind your goal:Retrieving your goal again is a great way to refresh your thought. Sometimes, panicking makes you forget your purpose and forces you to make a decent analysis. Restated our goal in this case made our thought more clear, so we could have a nice discussion.
• Give your honest opinion: After we restated our goal, they will be more open to you as your opinion aligns to the goal. Of course, they defended their opinion, so I did the next step to assure them.
• Give your logical reasons and evidences: To make others think in similar way with you, you needed to give them your way of thinking, so they can follow your opinion and arrive to the same conclusion. In this case my team members still had different opinion, but I suggested to ask questions about the previous condition of visitors in wet and dry season, and the previous iniatives by government. And it seemed the visitors in wet season usually has more number than in dry season and there were iniatives to solve water problem by government but unfortunately the contour of Mangunan is very difficult if we built piping infrastructures. So, the employee proved my argument, and they agreed with me

After we arrived in similar conclusion, we also decided to use Mangunan's strentgh, Durian, as main attraction for our project. And we planned to make a cultural event about durian.

Making Presentation

In this step, everyone had their own job to be done. And here is the assignment for each members:

• Me: I took risk assignment and project scheduling as I had learned on the preliminary stage and I could use Microsoft Project.
• Yusuf: He had many experience as an entrepreneur, so he is perfect for writing a project background and scope. He was studying in Industrial Engineering UI.
• Suhe: Breaking down business implementation is his job that obtained from participating many business competition. He was studying in Faculty of Economics UI.
• Amel: An only girl in team. She took project's budget, she used to plan budgeting and analyse financial condition of firm. She was studying in Faculty of Economics UI

While we made our presentation, we were also discussing to know others insight so we would get better idea for our project. This step took more time than I expected. Fortunately, we had a contigency plan.

Compiling Presentation

After each of us finished our task, Suhe would compiled our presentation, so it would have same design for each of pages.

Collecting Presentation

Then, Yusuf ran hurriedly to give our final presentation to the committee. Fortunately, our workspace was near the collecting spot. So, it just took 2 minutes. And we barely managed to give our presentation on time. Meanwhile, almost half of the other teams didn't meet the deadline.

Result

There were key results that we obtained from this competition.

• We eliminated almost 50 teams to reach the final.
• We ranked on 9th place in first stage.
• We ranked on 2nd place in second stage.
• The judges were surprised with our improved performance, they didn't expect us to doing very well based on their judgement of our first stage performance.
• However, unfortunately, we only ranked on the 6th place based on the overall score with just a strand of hair away from the grand finalist (1st-5th place).
• The judges also were surprised when they heard Sanjaya didn't reach the grand final (according to my liaison officer and project officer)
• Yet the judges liked our second stage's project and they voted it for the "Most Favorite Project"