Did you know that it costs money to post in the “jobs” section of a group? If you’re not a recruiter you wouldn’t know that LinkedIn pockets this money.
LinkedIn: Joshua (Josh) Lee
Topic: Did you know that it costs money to post in the “jobs” section of a group?
One issue I have always had with most software project tool is load balancing between planning and implementing stages. The issue we need to plan the type of skill level with load balancing to project expected levels and types staffing per roles needed. Said another way, we use staffing by categories to forecast staffing by role needed – so we can consider roles needed in combination with learning level requirements. Consider, the skill level within a defined role of a given person changes very significantly between six, twelve, eighteen, and 24 months but is fairly constant from 2 years to 5 years. Thus, if your resources are limited to people with less than 2 years more training and supervision will be required with the six months level requiring the most. This same grading of level of experience applies equal to company knowledge (acculturation effect) level of experience, another significant forecasting issue that can increase funding levels. And so-on and so-on .
However, when we assign an actual person, they may fill more than one of these forecasted roles and they are usually over loaded (how about 120 for a 40 hour work week). Obviously you can’t avoid this overload skewing. It can be mitigated as long as it does overly skew monthly, quarterly or yearly manhour planning. Once the initial planning with overall WBS has been iterated a couple of times a guesstimate of actually staffing levels can be used, But this doesn’t guarantee the actual persons wanted can be acquired so recasting using a scheme such as PA1, PA2, etc can be used to possibly reduce the eventual skewing of actual person/role versus manhours forecasting. Also, one would like the system to keep this staff forecasting by role for comparison against actual staffing. More fun stuff…
LinkedIn: The Project Manager Network – #1 Group for Project Managers
Topic: Any recommendations for a project management software?
Success for many projects is anything over 85% complete. Why 85% – you need to read on. Also, 4 out 5 successes is great but I’m talking major IT development project over 2 years. Many projects are just called complete based on a time period of 1 year (we did this at Toyota Motors, USA). Why? The reality is that there is always scope creep as stakeholders improve their business knowledge base and their expectations. The 2nd year starts a “new” project with all the new expectations and new goals (and partly for financial reasons).
We literally took all the completion requirement sheets, turned them over, took them off the table, and put a new, blank sheet of paper out to emphasize the past/old was done and now they could start asking what they wanted for the 2nd/next year. It was amazing thing to do and watch the shareholder expressions – but works! There is also a physiological and mental characteristic that says making something “old” and it becomes an accepted fact; you can do this mental switch by starting with a fresh blank piece of paper (this also works in training). And wait – for the other side to start talking about what “new” goals and requirements they want.
One very important aspect of completing a project is giving the staff a definite stopping point because they will continue to attempt to improve or correct software they don’t “feel” is complete. So many projects, phases, and major task points are just called by the lead analysis. On the other hand, you need to have a transition work path that pulls the staff away from the “completed” activities and forces them to devote all their time on the new, transition activities. This is why it is important that leads and project managers repeatedly and decisively call “completion”.
Yes, it takes some courage, experience, and firmness but that is part of being a leader.
LinkedIn: The Project Manager Network – #1 Group for Project Managers
Topic: Is it possible that Project Management can ever reach a point where all projects succeed?
There are numerous ways to collaborate within social networks but also there are some non-effective ways. This discussion will highlight some pros and cons – please feel to make you choice which is which.
This discussion will provide some details about i4Aid revolutionary shorthand notion: SEM+SOA(Security+)+SEM analysis and design approach. Other design paradigms that will be discussed are Internet Facing End-Points and Customer Facing integrated combination or IT and personal customer mentoring/coaching.
Eugene M Murray’s First Response on Linked
First, remember what a sunken cost represents – that is, funds that have already been spent. Many of my clients unconsciously seemed to assume that some how the completion of the project would not only earn the original expected benefits but recapture this sunken cost already lost!
Mike Ellison has very good advice. For several projects, I just started by implementing what is call a positive, forward looking weekly management reports process. The whole notion takes some explaining so I will just give the expected result. Have people report what they have completed for the last 2 weeks and report what they are expecting to complete this week and forecast the next week (submitted on Friday). Have your lower level project leads review these reports in a staff meeting on Tuesday morning (why – another long explanation). The basic result is to emphasis completion and thus success – personal success at every level.
1 – This keeps things moving
2 – Starts to develop an attitude of personal participation in the completion process
3 – Keeps the focus on positive, forward looking behavior while you minimize the “protect your a__” attitude that is usually a present hold over from the past (another type of sunken cost).
While this process is ongoing, review these weekly reports and ask that each groups manager summarize what their people expect to accomplish and how that aligns with their major business goals. Yes, your are asking them to repeat somethings but this simply re-enforces how their completion focus aligns with what their people are doing – more simplistically if you can’t write it down – you probably can’t do it. (If this process becomes a bit repetitious – you are making good turn-around progress by increasing the amount of work they are doing while reducing your time so that you can move on. Enjoy this, the real work with the big payoff is coming!)
Concurrently, review the risk factors in conjunction with major tasks – many times there are immediate results reported in the weekly reports that you can capitalize to make forward jumps in the completion process. Also, this gives you a fast chance to put your energy into supporting the best positive, forward looking near completion results. (Again, they increase their completions while you decrease you time so that you can move on.)
That usually take care of the first three weeks. Week 4 – you should start by partitioning the project into major business benefits forecasting so that you can make a positive, forward looking projection of how to bring the whole project to its final completion; the partition help with proper scoping of the project. This is called a re-targeting process – a heuristic estimate so that you can start realign completion work (now that you have gain more people’s participation) for completing the project.
This process was used to bring early success to the IT development of the Toyota Motors, USA National Part System in just one year. Revenues at start was $85 million and 3 years later revenues were up to about $500 million – but basically the IT goals where completed in the last year and the system accommodated the greater increase in business. The 4th year produced even more completions.
LinkedIn: The Project Manager Network – #1 Group for Project Managers
Topic: How can a PM effectively overcome a project handed to them in the red?
Check out this Free Project Management Checklist.
Not sure where to start with project meetings. Start with this check list – then tailor it to your own, proven list that matches your project culture and environment.
Using your laptop or internet-enabled device to get work done away from your office or on the road is becoming widely accepted………………………………….
Use this list of tips to learn how you can keep your internet-enabled device laptop more secure where ever you are travel – out-of-town or between office (formal or informal) and home.
Traveling or at your coffee barista or at your office or home base, increases your internet-enabled device security exposure. Said another way, reduce your laptop security risk. Rapid growth in laptop computing has made portable systems the target for theft around the world – while traveling, at your informal office / coffee stop, or at home. Also, if your laptop computer is stolen, company information and very personal information is exposed, such as your very private personal and financial information. Continue reading
Welcome to i4aid blog for IT aware people/
Should BI teams be more focused on the business side of things or should they have technical IT expertise?
i4Aid/Internet4Aid RESPONSE:
Ajay Sharma • There is no one answer to this question. BI teams have multiple roles – some of which fit in the business side while others in IT. PMO role is required to manage and deliver to the timelines and comitments from various groups involved in a typical BI project. While business owns the functionality and final outcome of the project, IT should own the infrastrucutre, maintenence, licensing, operational aspects of the BI project. There is general accusation that IT slows down teh project and cant keep pace with the agility required by the business. This is a true statement but can be addressed by carefully designing BI project teams. There are various models that can be implemented based on organization’s structure and culture.
i4Aid • My quick response is that Ajay Sharma presented the appropriate basics including his notion about the integration aspects. Briefly, BI should fill out management policies and provide the first break-down levels for the functional processes but not more than 5 levels of detail. Then IT should review and integrate these processes into their IT framework before doing more levels of detail – it is a kind of first scope and impact estimations as they adjust and balance conceptualization and implementation. Then review and balance with both parties – do this before before specifying any more detail processes and procedures and agree on any high level the risk factors. Then do a rough estimate of project timeline.
We did this on the Toyota Motors, USA National Parts System development and it remained fairly scoped for 1-2 years of our development process such that IBM adopted most of this high-level approach.
I will be entering this in my blog: i4Aid.WordPress.com
i4Aid - I saw it snow - twice - at the Santa Monica pier in CA! 