Mapathon and the enterprise environmental factors and ‘professional ethics and social responsibility’

Posted on April 5, 2013 by abrachan

The mapathon project by Google may run into trouble as it is against the laws of India (enterprise environmental factors). As per PMBOK, a project is supposed to follow the laws of the country in which it is executed. Going by that, this project by google could be heading towards trouble, at least in India.

When the high intrest low power stakeholders unite…

Posted on December 21, 2012 by abrachan

This is a great case to demonstrate how the high interest – low power stakeholders can become high interest – high power, when they unite together. In this case instagram is forced to roll back it’s decision to claim intellectual property rights to the photographs published at instagram. Somebody’s loss is other’s gain. Some new entrants are capitalizing this opportunity as well. Abort: Instagram Restores Key Section of Terms Back to 2010 Version http://www.petapixel.com/2012/12/20/abort-instagram-restores-key-section-of-terms-back-to-2010-version/

@bangalore. Missing the kochimuzirisbiennale 2012. Work life imbalance..:-)

Posted on December 14, 2012 by abrachan

Back to Bangalore for another round of pmp and scrum trainings. The weather is very cool and cloudy. There is nothing spectacular to shoot within the city except concrete jungles. That is when I miss my home state Kerala. From yesterday onwards the first kochi biennale 2012 is on. I wanted to go for it. Even registered. Unfortunately work related travel prevents me from going for this fantastic initiative. Kudos to the organisers who had the vision and fought all obstacles successfully. If lucky, I am hoping to visit this great event on coming Monday.

The web site of this event is at http://www.kochimuzirisbiennale.org

The Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/kochimuzirisbiennale

Support this great initiative.

Earned value management for the pmp prep program.

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PMP Prepararatory program at Bahrain – Oct 2012

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Watch “Pmp bahrain oct 2012″ on YouTube

Posted on October 20, 2012 by abrachan

Earned value management using white board and post its.

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Putting first things first…ideas for project managers

Posted on October 16, 2012 by abrachan

I already blogged about the relevance of ‘being proactive’ and ‘begin with the end in mind’, the first two of the seven habits of highly effective people in project management. The next is putting first things first. A peep into cyclomatic complexity is of value here. A bug, when detected and corrected within the phase of it’s injection is cheaper to correct. As the lag increases between the phase of injection and the phase of correction, the cost increases exponentially. Another concept which connects well here is the cost of quality. When we invest in certain prevention activities also known as price of conformance, then we save a lot of rework also known as price of non conformance. Most of the prevention activities are important but not urgent, hence gets postponed, inviting lot of extras which could have been avoided.

Proper project planning is one activity which takes a back seat very often. It is generally considered as a formality, hence done without proper attention. Every project is unique hence every project plan must be unique, hence cut and paste plans will not work out well. The project manager must have the inclination to sit down and think through the whole project and develop the plan according to the project strategy that is evolving out of the thought process. This is the beginning of pitting the first things first. Then comes execution of the plan which will ensure that you are doing the right things in the right sequence.

Good luck. Put the first things first. If you have not read Stephen coveys the seven habits of highly effective people, please do so, which will provide you with greater insights about the whole idea of the seven habits. A must read.

Be proactive…..

Posted on October 6, 2012 by abrachan

Be proactive. Sounds familiar?. When Stephen convey inked it down as the first habit among the seven habits of highly effective people, he would not have thought of it’s significance in project management. My career as a consultant and coach project management gave me the opportunity to come across five thousand plus project managers world wide, and most of them fell into the category of blackberry managers. It is the messages and the emails they received during the day which shaped their days. In project management, when the body of knowledge says that ninety percentage of the project manager’s time goes into communication then there is further scope for thought. The nature of communication is decided by the management style of the stakeholders involved. The nature of communication emanating from a proactive manager will be proactive in nature, else it will be reactive. This is the difference between professional project management and adhoc project management. A professional project manager is always on top of things, proactive. An unprofessional project manager is always reactive. Believe me, professional project management or proactive project management is easier than adhoc project management, and this can be accomplished very easily by the application of the right tools and techniques.

Be proactive is an attitude, wear it now.

Quick guide to professional project management

Posted on September 29, 2012 by abrachan

Are you into project management?. Then wear the hat of a professional project manager immediately. Just follow these tips..

1. Understand the purpose of the project. The best place to seek this info is the business case of the project. The person who is funding the project (sponsor) would have documented it in the project charter. If the business case is not available in a documented form, talk to the relevant stakeholders to understand it. Getting into a project which do not have a sound business case can be the beginning of all problems. Understanding the business case of the project, empowers the project manager. Very often seeking to understand the business case of the project will reveal the linkages of the project under consideration to other projects and programs, thus improving the dependency management.

2. Understand other stakeholders, their roles and responsibilities

3. Uunderstand the project manager’s roles and responsibilities and prepare the project plan and strategy

4. Understand the scope of your project

5. Understand the acceptance criteria of hour project

6. Identify the risks of your project and develop risk management plans

7. Work out the resource requirements of your project

8. Understand the resource requirement of your project

9. Define the roles and responsibilities of the key positions

10. Get the team onboard

11. Induct them

12. Delegate

13. Monitor and control the phase