There is a number of ways to organize a team and, from my point of view, there is none better or worse than the others, it simply depends on the goals, focus and priorities of the team.
What I call a vertical organization consists of a project focussed structure where the team is built up when the project starts and disbanded when the project is closed. There is as many teams as projects and first - and often exclusive - priority is delivering the project on time, cost, scope and quality.
This structure team is especially effective for critical projects and short term efforts but do not necessarily delivers long term and high quality products.
On the other hand, we can organize a team in a horizontal fashion, with specialized resources for specifics domains and not transient teams but stable in the mid term. In this way, deliverables quality increases as same people are doing very similar work for some time so they become experts in their technical and functional domain.
Horizontal organization is the most usual for operations departments and those where the stability weights more than the agility.
Is anyone better than the other? Yes, the balanced one is the best. Depending on the maturity of the company, department, systems, and professionals, depending on the business priorities, timeframe for meeting objectives and which one of the triple constraint (quality, cost and time) weights more, there is balance on vertical and horizontal functions.
There is always room for horizontal functions such as Technical Office, Quality Assurance, Program Office, Operations, Business as Usual projects, Architecture among many others, as well as some others must be driven as vertical functions, such us, first implementation of a new architecture or system, complex projects with many dependencies and so on.
Finding the balance is, as always, the challenge...
26 febrero 2010
24 febrero 2010
Entry or exit milestones ?
As I described in a previous post, a milestone project schedule is often requested by senior management as a way of a "helicopter view" of the project schedule, focussing the attention just in a few dates that can be tracked and reviewed easily and quickly.
Milestone is defined as a zero length event that is relevant for the project, that can be "project initiated", "product A delivered", "risk matrix distributed to stakeholders" amongst others.
A milestone can be related to the beginning (entry) or to the end (exit) of a project phase, task or activity and which one to report is part of the project management methodoly used and can change from project to project or it might well be driven by the resourcing strategy.
The end of phase, activity or task is relevant when a major deliverable is linked to it, for instance, the end of the analysis and design phase should become a milestone if a key design document will be delivered at that time. It also can be the case that one of the phases of the project is outsourced and they can invoice as soon as the products are accepted by the project manager. In such case, it makes sense to report the "analysis and design phase completed" as a milestone.
On the other hand, when, as part of the project, a number of hand overs need to happen, it is important to highlight the handing over date to allow the taking over team to plan accordingly. For instance, when a software is released and the test activity starts, that is a zero length event that will happen in a particular date and has to be tracked and published to the stakeholders as part of the project plan.
Milestone is defined as a zero length event that is relevant for the project, that can be "project initiated", "product A delivered", "risk matrix distributed to stakeholders" amongst others.
A milestone can be related to the beginning (entry) or to the end (exit) of a project phase, task or activity and which one to report is part of the project management methodoly used and can change from project to project or it might well be driven by the resourcing strategy.
The end of phase, activity or task is relevant when a major deliverable is linked to it, for instance, the end of the analysis and design phase should become a milestone if a key design document will be delivered at that time. It also can be the case that one of the phases of the project is outsourced and they can invoice as soon as the products are accepted by the project manager. In such case, it makes sense to report the "analysis and design phase completed" as a milestone.
On the other hand, when, as part of the project, a number of hand overs need to happen, it is important to highlight the handing over date to allow the taking over team to plan accordingly. For instance, when a software is released and the test activity starts, that is a zero length event that will happen in a particular date and has to be tracked and published to the stakeholders as part of the project plan.
22 febrero 2010
Milestone based project schedule
Project scheduling can be approached in a number of different ways depending on the granularity and detail required.
The most detailed approach consists of going down to the activity level, let us say, what as less as one person can develop in as much as a week. This schedule can not be reported as such to management and a higher level view must be prepared. It will describe project schedule in terms of phases, stating start and end dates for each relevant phase of the project. This way, we will have a good picture with regards by when resources will be needed and by when the deliverables linked to every phase will be completed.
For senior management, sometimes, it is again, too detailed as they want to track events like when the project will be completed or when the resources can be released to be utilized for other projects.
This brings us to the milestone based schedule, where only a few – up to five – dates are reported. Some examples could be: products delivered, project closed, project initiated, products ready for test and so on.
25 enero 2010
Most popular applications on Android Market
If you go to Android Market app and look fort the most popular applications, you will find the following ordered list:
- Weather Channel
- MySpace
- Backgrounds
- Ringtones
- DailyHoroscope
- Barcode Scanner
- ShopSavvy
Note that this list does not include the preinstalled Google apps like Gmail, Gtalk and so on.
The above list reflects the number of downloads but not the usage of the application, that means, it reflects what the Android user community consider interesting upfront.
The first in the list is about weather news and forecast, the favourite conversation topic for the elevator, for the office, for new friends … sometimes the weather is relevant for you, to drive to the office, to plan holidays, trips … and some other times is relevant only to be informed and have some specific piece of information, like “tomorrow the low will be -11 C” you will catch people’s attention with those statements.
Second is about social networks, to keep yourself up to date with your friend’s activity and post your activity, using your mobile … upload pictures on the move, change your status at the airport while waiting for a delayed flight and some others but I believe most of the usage of social networks is in front of your PC.
Then, we have a couple of applications to tune the handset with nice ringtones an beautiful background pictures.
The Horoscope is also a very popular conversation topic, specially among women ;-) so it is funny to know what your and other people horoscope can tell you about today.
At the bottom of this list, there are two versions of a “showing off” application, the concept is amazingly creative and, in principle, very helpful … the application manages to take a picture of a product bar code, read the code and google it and most probably it will come up with some product information together with the price in other shops. This way, the user is better informed before the purchase is closed.
I said this application is “showing off” because I know many people who downloaded and know how to use it but I have never seen anyone actually using it while shopping.
I would be interested in taking a look at usage statistics to see how many of the most downloaded are the most used … keep you posted.
17 enero 2010
Cómo se paga al médico
Aqui en Alemania, cuando vas al médico "por lo privado", después de la visita, no tienes que pagar, ellos, simplemente, te envían una factura a la dirección que tú mismo hayas apuntado en el formulario. No piden tarjeta de crédito, ni cuenta bancaria, confían en que cuando te llegue la factura, pagarás.
¿A donde miramos antes de cruzar una calle con semaforo de peatones ?
(Vamos a generalizar un rato, que es divertido ....)
Vas a cruzar una calle con semáforo para peatones y ves que esta en rojo, ¿qué haces?
En Alemania, sigues mirando al frente, hasta que se pone en verde, entonces cruzas y sigues mirando al frente ya que estas seguro al 100% de que los coches respetarán su semáforo.
En España, miras a los lados para ver si no vienen coches y te da tiempo a cruzar, si no ves oportunidad, esperas hasta que se ponga en verde y, mientras cruzas, sigues mirando al lado por el que vienen los coches por si alguno se despista.
26 noviembre 2009
Earning PDUs
When time of renewing the PMP certification comes, one checks how many PDU were earned and realizes they were not enough.
Anyway, it is time to put together the "project plan" to earn the required PDU, one must balance cost, time, quality … the usual triple constraint ;-)
Out of the 60 PDU required, half of them are easy to earn, basically, it is just a matter or claiming properly to PMI.
If you have been working as Project Manager since you have gotten the PMP certification, you can earn up to 15 PDU in the category of “Practitioner of project and/or program management services for more than 1,500 project hours per calendar year “. Claim gets earned automatically, not even checked by PMI Customer Care. Should you think you have not been working as Project Manager, just think it again; it is very unlikely that your work can not be packed as a project and the role you played named as project manager.
There is another pack of 15 PDU easy to earn, the category of “Self- Directed learning activities are individualized learning projects involving personally conducted research or study. Learning may include informal activities such as discussions, coaching sessions with colleagues, co-workers, clients or consultants”. Again, should think you have not done this task, just think it again, every project manager does some research or study, even, inadvertently.
Well, at this point you must have 30 PDU easily earned, you are just half way.
Now, it is time to assess and value the best next step.
One can go for online training, I found some courses at www.iil.com for 850 $, earning 12 PDU in 12 hours, which is basically 70 $/PDU.
Another option is to go for a congress, for instance, the SeminarsWorld organized by PMI, let’s say the return ticket costs 600$, the hotel is around 175$ per night and the seminars themselves are 2.400$, earning 28 PDU, it makes all together 3.900 $, which means, 139$/PDU, well, it is twice as much as the online training option but you stay for one week somewhere in the USA like Naples, Florida ....
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