Project Portfolio-Program Management

Consulting rhymes with Insulting, is it so?

2012-04-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

Reading from a dilbert strip with funny lines like do a lot of con and insulting together will result in consulting.
Above line summarizes the business of consulting to take down the line the negative notion about consultant because consultant are offering services they have with and not what client need or business requires.

So, what is a consultant?

A consultant is professional who plays different roles , who acts as a enabler, who has competence to attain knowledge and skills to apply at business, who is a integrator, acts as a advisory and many acts who does for the client as a service provider which is billable.

So, skill of acting as a consultant is a consultant.

So, What is the business of consultant?

With the evolution of IT consulting business is now more competent and rapidly changing.business environment is making consultant job more challenging and useful to business.

So how does a consultant's career take start and a true consultant will function in practice. A consultant basically sells all the time, what ever comes to him from the client, consultant is basically selling. Consultant job is contextual , not a innovator of a product or altogether doing something new instead consultant is providing advisory to existing business or ideas. Being consultants one should organize, listen, orchestrate, articulate and focus on client needs and demands.

Consultants does not have any magic wand tool with them. Consultant are integral to the business provided client can really make out of them what they need.

Organization development in context

2012-04-06T05:51:00.001-07:00

Egyptians left a mark of the civilization in the form of pyramids. pyramids are symbol of high integrity. Pyramids tells a story of time and built symmetrically in layers. Pyramids have been built over a period of long time and not easily destroyed.

Organizations development is a phenomenon which encompasses human potentials to be explored and directional in nature. Lets look at the pyramid again with help of a mirror, moving up from flat to top from concrete to transcendental and moving from flat to bottom reflects.

Organization development

OD is contextual again based on relevance. OD evolves on group and team purpose and objectives. OD Types likely hood are hierarchical ,bureaucratic, matrix, ,pyramidal, entrepreneurial, flat, team oriented etc. in nature. Size of the organization also determines the type of development. OD reflects the culture of the org and it will encircle the overall vision and mission of the org by operating procedures.

OD in recent times of global transitioning phase where we have virtual teams working in dispersed geography. With modern science based approach where individuals seeks input based action and transformational goals with certain level of feedback process to have desired output which gives organization a continuous invention and improvement to have sustained development. DNA of the org is again shaped from people coming from diverse background with varied skills and knowledge when amalgamated to form synergies. This in result will have many fold impacts and innovations , far reaching evolution of human behavior.

Do we really need to calculate earned value for project?

2012-03-29T10:24:00.001-07:00

budget (Photo credit: 401K)

What is earned value: It measures cost , schedule, and work done.Its a way to measure projects progress and provide budget variances. Its a indicator of schedule, budget,and milestone.It also gives us percentage of work done, budget spent, and time consumed. So the units to measure it is dollars and and work hours.

So whats the next step to calculate EV:

Prepares a WBS(work break down structure) to quantify each task as phases and then phases into modules, modules into more detail units as it descends with time-frame for each task have fixed time which gives us a baseline structure.

Lets understand some terms:

BCWS - Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled
ACWP - Actual Cost of Work Performed
BCWP - Budgeted Cost of Work Performed

From above terms earned value will be defined as "Cost incurred to accomplish the work that has been done to date."

Derived metrics known as Schedule variance and Cost variance, if they fall into negative zone then project is in problem either by schedule slippage or by over budget.

Earned value measurement helps us in forecasting and status reporting of the project.

Frisking out project risk

2012-03-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

Risk Management road sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So what is a risk ? First understands and identify a risk is most important part of risk management.A risk is a probability of uncertainty associated with executing certain item/task/process/work etc. A risk generates out as soon as we initiates a task. A critical resource in terms of skill set, in a team is a potential risk of leaving the project in between because of unavoidable reasons.

So a risk is inevitable, only thing we can do is ; manage and mitigate. Just like handling/catching error in software program. Always plan for the element of risk in project from the start and reiterate control over it for any contingencies.

Steps to assess risk:

Identify---------->Analyze--------------> Set priority to each risk

Steps to control risk:

Mitigate------------>Plan for contingency----------> Quantify it and Set a control process

Design a Solution process at the team level:

Taking help of the experts involved in the project will always a idea for certain of the items to assess for the risk. Prepare a risk register to notify each of the team member and stakeholder.Prepare for ownership records for each of the items .

Fixed bid VS. T&M : Whats the diff

2012-03-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

software_sin_medida (Photo credit: elprosumidor)

What ever it takes to execute a project whether it is a fixed bid or Time and material based what matters is how you are managing your finances in terms of billing. Lets take a closer look to difference between fixed bid and time and material based project.

A fixed bid project is the one which is having a fixed budget from client and defined set of scope. So, in a fixed bid project the ball is in your court. You define how efficiently you can manage on resources to utilize them fully to balance on your margins. There is other side of the coin also by having a scope creep if you really blow up your work. Obviously a fixed bid project later can managed by the delivery team and driven by project team.

While a time and material project is like a billing of resources involved on hourly basis for actual worked performed with agreed on terms and conditions. Also here one can get reimbursement for overheads.

Here there is one possibility of getting paid for scope creep of your project, so changes in scope will result in more billing , which in will result in more revenue.

So before giving estimates you actually think about whether its a Fixed bid or a T&M based project because fixed bid is fixed one has to live by the fixed amount budget whatever it takes to do it. In that case there is always a possibility of scope creep by having a change in requirements. So keep updating your estimates on regular intervals as requirements changes, to acknowledge of customer.

Because at the end of the day its important to get paid for your work and resources blocked for the same.

Constructive Blame storming and using Devils Advocate in problem solving and competency development

2011-07-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

Cover of Six Thinking Hats

Discussions leads to solutions , mistakes leads to innovations, As part of innovation , solution approaches, models quite often used technique in healthy discussions on day to day basis is Brain Storming, mischievously known as blame storming.

To the extent organizations build competency around subjects of real time situations, till it takes to materialized very few of them make it to the concrete implementations. Take for example Google revolutionized the way we use internet with countable team, that storm sustained and now second wave coming from Facebook, Linked etc. Questions asked about their revenue models but skepticism will always there, social networks are strong tools not only for marketing but of communication, collaboration, and increased productivity and realized intangible benefits.

Discussions are full of Arguments, counter arguments, statements, facts, thesis, anti thesis etc. Contextually the term devil's advocate can be discussed here, Devil's advocate is someone who, given a certain argument, takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with, just for the sake of argument to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position. So a devils advocate helps in testifying the strength of the opinion and justified to be relevant, which can be of importance in brain storming process, it may or may not create lateral arguments, or form synergies.

Any thoughts during brain storming process can be presented it may be of relevance or not. Decisions cannot be made during this process. Obviously during discussions, participants ideas should be connected to the problem areas. Edward de bono's technique of six thinking hats for discussions in which each participants wears different hats of thought to think in different ways to the same problem with a different perspective with different roles for solution approaches helps a lot for a healthy brain storming session.

Porter's outside-in and Hammel - Prahald's Inside-out

2011-06-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

Over the years inspiration and motivation to out do something which creates spark in the
genre of concurrent times is always been challenge for all of us, to make things happen requires a plan, an out of the box solution to rationalize its existence.

More often than not inspiration are unknown to us, which may leads to different scenarios of multiple ways of looking at things differently and indifferently also, anyways there are always n-1 degrees of freedom to think differently for n+1 different ways looking at things.

Inspired by a spiral which is coincidentally a galaxy in our spatial system gives us views like --if one start from a point from outer end to reach at center, will reach from outside-in and if one starts from the center and circle outwards move than that will be inside-out thinking. So again its up to individuals, which way move. Traveling by we see stars and other objects binding each other with gravitational forces.

Galaxy

One of the many management strategy framework, Porter has given a outside-in approach for the organization strategy framework working towards corporates success or may be applicable to many scenarios. In which he suggest about forces influencing from outside and to investigate those scenario.

On the other side Prahalad and Hamel has proposed theory of inside-out approach gives us a core competences of the organization to utilize and plan many outcomes.

Taking a balance view of the approach gives us the suitability of the application for best fit solution. While in modern times we have techniques like six thinking hats by Dr. De Bono suggest us to wear different strategy hats for different scenario to make decisions, formulating strategy.

Agile vs. Metrics

2011-04-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

Vectorized from: Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle: Agile Software Development with Scrum Prentice Hall PTR, 2001 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over the years, its by human nature to quantify most of the aspect when it comes to Return on investment. Project dashboard are meant to provide bird view of the project's overall health from a top level perspective. Although it gives a broad level view of the time lines , resource utilization, budget and so on so forth. Can we quantify performance indicators like human aspect of deliverable like motivation levels of team members, quality of customer sustenance, business continuity etc. Since emotional intelligence has certain predominance over IQ definitely it matters.

In concurrent times of agile development where practices like scrum, iterative development, extreme programming are kind of just in time techniques to deliver solutions to different kind of projects. can we be able to quantify human aspect of indicators in agile scenarios to produce measured performance on dashboard view. To some extent agile scenarios are not fit to all project management techniques. It may create a chaotic management scene where project management is not required. This might be because of agile techniques ignores human element involved in development and quantification not required for this approach as in agile development end results may not be sustainable and team should be dismantled. But for the companies looking out for inclusive and holistic growth will definitely try scale up on all front.

We have been always amazed by the fact how business and life driven all the times to aspire, motivate, sustain and inclusion from different aspect of human endeavors to achieve nirvana.

Usecase Scenario development and User Stories

2011-02-26T04:13:00.000-08:00

A common comic mail circulates with this image, which gives good understanding of how requirements captured during a project life cycle goes like this:

Typical Software Development Life-cycle explained

Above picture succinctly tells about common perception of developing a software, how requirement understanding filters with changing roles, time and space with gaps between factual and results. Thanks to the the word "agility", which has evolved in world of software technology with the evolution of Rational unified process the term use-case or scenario development for documenting and capturing requirement in the initial phase of software development.

"A use case is a software artifact of systems and process of expected sequence of interactions between a module and an external actor, which leads the actor to desired goals and objectives."

Use case scenarios can be mirrored as clip of a movie making scene development where-in director has assigned a script or stories to actors to act in the dialog delivery with lights, camera and action that's called a TAKE.

On the very same lines we have User Stories which can be a powerful tool to be converted into a Use-case scenarios. User Stories can be categorized into user needs, wants and demands from usability perspective of the system development.

Definitely Use cases are key building blocks of any software development life cycle which is again powered by user stories. It is well known fact, mislead requirement will lead to many gaps created in early part of project to be rectified at each cycle of the project in later phases of the project.

Understanding Business Value of IT(Information Technology)

2011-02-06T23:52:00.000-08:00

Is IT driven by business?

I believe its a good question to be asked at this point in time after the doom of financial markets allover world. When top investment banks collapsed in USA and Europe everybody is asking a question how it is possible if the system in place. IT in general supposed to be driven by business requirements so its natural process that, as other component in business, this is also adding value to business, but is that benefits realized to business?

Is IT a hype from time and again?

Business value of IT measured in different metrics and methodologies that may or may not give true picture of IT value to business, so the contradiction lies in the hypothesis itself that IT is driven by business which is adding no value but continuing. In the concurrent world where businesses are competing for survival and existence IT is invaluable from intangible perspective.

Making sense of PM triangle

The infamous scope, cost and schedule trio can be realized for IT business value in terms of earned value over time may only give results for a particular project. But unit or entities are interconnected by infrastructure, service delivery, process, people, and technological enabling for fostering agility and innovation.

Green IT

New buzz word in circulation to many, but required for sustenance to justify IT value to business, justifying new technologies may be Cloud Computing or web services to improve overall business functions and IT Cost Optimization required to reap benefits in future growth of IT.

Attitude, Values, Beliefs with Reflection and Role Playing

2011-01-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

Lets start with a story,

Once upon a time there was a herd of tiny elephants. who gathered for a competition. The goal was to reach to the top of a very high peak . A big crowd had gathered around the peak to see the race and cheer on the participants...

The race began...

Honestly, No one in herd really believed that the tiny elephants would reach to the top of the peak.

Crowd yelled statements such as:

"Oh, NO WAY, too difficult!! They will NEVER make it to the top."

"Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"

The tiny elephants began collapsing. One by one...... Except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher...

The crowd continued to yell

"It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!"

More tiny elephants got tired and gave up......But ONE continued higher and higher and higher...

And he had made to the top ................

Can you guess why he is able to make it to the top......

All of the other tiny elephants naturally wanted to know how this one elephant managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny elephant how the one who succeeded had found the strength to reach the goal?

It turned out...
That the winner was DEAF!!!!

The wisdom of this story is: Be deaf sometimes in your life to make things happen.

Here many events happened, it is the someones disability which would became turned out as strength. Its the attitude of one which is able to make it, it is belief that herd is motivating him, it is the belief of herd which has been broken for the good, values generated to part formed in the race.

Its role playing activity which is making shape of attitude, values and beliefs over a period of time via reflection which is handy tool to introspect. Attitude as defined in modern times as a act to respond towards a certain situation it may negative or positive. Values can be good or bad as perceived and beliefs generated out of society which may be again have frame of reference and transform over a period of time.

General introduction or Ice breaking activity plays an important part in role playing and one reflect to interest area to identify attributes. Transformation at this stage in this activity will add value in a inclusive way to strengthen integrity and overall value system.

Games People Play in context to Projects

2011-01-23T00:54:00.000-08:00

Games People Play in context to Projects:

Contextually life and projects full of games, work on dynamics of human relationships by Dr. Eric Berne guides us not only in many social but relationship situations in corporate world also. In Todays concurrent world where we are living in a global village with Orkut, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and other social media leads to discounts of information in social network, where more of transactional games played knowingly(conscious) or unknowingly(unconscious).

Precede to this let us understand game, A game full of transactions played with different roles by players changing their roles for a outcome in different ego states like Parent, Adult and Child ego states that will payoff.

Continuing with Payoff, specifically in context to Project teams where transactions happen at concrete or transformational levels where people not necessarily behaving rationally and motivations are not known. These "Transactions" can be used for motives of projects it may be team structure, driving change, transition, motivation, team building, persuasion etc. for project completion payoff and many intangible results yield.

Games in corporate world specifically to a company played in a subtle way which company also wants to utilize to improve communication and have hierarchy in place to achieve said goals and objectives. There are roles played by individuals it may be passive , active or away from office politics. One can have whatever stance it may be but not necessarily to be part of these to achieve desired results, Since winner in general will be a in an adult ego state which is attained in case of objective individual. But industry often driven from outside-in by ways and means so Games are part of life one should enjoy playing games instead focusing on outcomes.

P.S: Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships is a 1964 bestselling book by psychiatrist Eric Berne. Since its publication it has sold more than five million copies. The book describes both functional and dysfunctional social interactions.

Analyzing Open Source Project Portfolio Management Tools

2011-01-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

Project Portfolio Management Tools : Issue/Incident Management

Why PPM :

Its similar to manage a portfolio of different asset classes in financial world with varied set of information available to manager. Every portfolio manager wants to increase return on investment with limited available resources.

In the same fashion every Project Manager demands for successful completion of project best quality project deliveries, within budget and on-time. In managing such diverse information and resources one may face challenges like, change of requirements, internal competition for resources of staffing, infrastructure etc. So a robust PPM framework enabled with online tools is necessary to manage projects.

Project Portfolio Management Tools:

A set of projects portfolio managed across organization via a common tool for issue tarcking and incident managemtn helps a lot in managing and resoloving issues within a definite time period. Organizations are using project portfolio management (PPM) as a way of executing projects and delivering the results of benefits to end customer.

In case of projects, one of the open source tools used in as part of project execution is "Jtrac" web based software application used for incident management and issue resolution which is very effective in online collaboraion on a single page.

It has certain feature which is of use like email exchange, customized work-flows, fields etc., and also having a dashboard with search option across all project with custom roles. More information about the JTrac can be availed at location : http://www.jtrac.info/.

Project Portfolio Management Tools not only give a dashboard view of resources but also serves the purpose of knowledge management tool to have repository of resources available from project execution.

Simplifying ITIL for ITSM

2011-01-14T05:24:00.000-08:00

Simplifying ITIL one by one:

ITIL V3 best-practice guidelines across the five stages of the service life-cycle are
complex in nature and understand to interpret. ITIL libraries are abstract and didn't provide implementation details.

The ITIL process framework concentrates on the service lifecycle and the how that service management components are structured and linked in that framework. It personifies road-map for IT companies that are looking to improve on service quality levels and align more closely with business objectives to create value for their clients.

Process Improvement Program(PIP):

PIP a small concept but have larger impact, Process improvement program designed on multiple aspect of any process with a Plan-Do-Check-Act (P-D-C-A) steps and a strong feedback mechanism will make process pitfalls to more robust. Looking from the microscopic level at any of the existing process in an organization from concept of PDCA cycle and multiple checks will increase the probability of success for PIP which can be applied as generic template for any of the existing processes.

Take one : Availability Management

Availability Management focuses organizations to make happen the IT service-availability to support the business functions both as a customer and service provider.

Availability Management facilitate the contract of performing certain functions on a continuous basis for period of time. It also gives a entitlement of sustainability, maintainability, reliability, up-time and downtime, backup of services to be restored in contingencies and at the same time security of data from any threat.

Above practices requires quantity and quality of people and technology in sync to get best results. Obviously ITIL is a structured framework, which provide certain way of acting and handling operations but not necessarily an out of the box solution to a problem.

P.S.:

The IT Infrastructure Library originated as a collection of books, each covering a specific practice within IT Service Management. ITIL was built around a process-model based view of controlling and managing operations often credited to W. Edwards Deming and his plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle.

Dissecting IT service management (ITSM) Model in Mid Size companies

2011-01-05T23:26:00.000-08:00

IT service management (ITSM) Model and its effectiveness:

In today's Agile environment where clients needs and fast changing business environment keeps service delivery on top of the minds of CIO, over a period of time many frameworks have grown up as part of service delivery management which have standardized as well like ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) that guides us in delivering services with quality and efficiently which satisfy client needs and demands.

ITIL objective focuses on implementation of delivery model and how efficiently we can optimize resources to best availability to infrastructure and other services offered. ITIL encompasses as structured framework which has five elements as part of service life cycle named as Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, Continual Service Improvement. Now the question is how these elements be accommodated in day to day operational level implementation.

Above listed service life-cycle elements can be customized according to organisation needs which again energized with six sigma, and other control methods. At the more granular level it has been further categorized into several criteria which are named as in ITIL V3 like Availability Management, Problem Management, Capacity Management, Release & Deployment Management, Change Management, Request Fulfillment, Event Management, Service Asset & Configuration Management, Financial Management, Service Catalog Management, Incident Management, Service Level Management, IT Service Continuity Management, Service Portfolio Management, Knowledge Management will be used as per organization suitability metrics.

Obviously these terms looks quite abstract in nature but can be deciphered at more specific requirements at times needed but in general it provides a governance framework as part of service delivery management with effectiveness in many ways.

Managing Projects in 2011

2011-01-04T23:26:00.000-08:00

Everybody has question in mind what will be trends in Project Management in new decade and obviously how 2011 factor will laid out its plans to shape things road ahead. The way technology is driving humans from outside-in, so a common answer expected would be the technology platforms and their use in project management will be a key role to play in shaping communication, collaboration, planning and many more ideas will be generated over a period of time.

Existing Collaboration tools like messengers(voice, non-voice), video conferencing, virtual meetings via remote computers(it may be device other than PC, like tablets, iphone etc.) are contributing a lot on connecting and communicating. Evolution like facebook, twitter, google tools like online spreadsheet and other Google docs shared across globe at same time will drive dissemination of information in broader and effective way to be observed closely, how it will be used productively in managing projects.

Although a debate over what can be automated and what cannot be will go on continuously but facts remains same, technology has changing continuously the way we used to executes project and managers need to continuously learn and adapt to new environment and practices it may be technology , process, people or management.

Good, Bad and Ugly Part of Project Management

2010-09-24T00:26:00.000-07:00

Project management stories

When it comes to project management, there are definitely many stories with everyone out there to tell it may be Good, Bad and Ugly, Whatever it may be it does not matter as far as it is meeting the successful delivery of the project and said goals and objectives are achieved. But each story will have different colors to tell and how it can be managed, it may be with relationships, infrastructure, stakeholders, execution, resources in terms of cost, scope, operations etc. Readers can classify them as per their appetite.

Make simple things simple:

It is always good to be simple for straight forward task to be done. Always have to do list in a diary in written it helps a lot. It is always good to track task and status in Spreadsheet. Using a web based Wiki for project can really work based on its availability to users. A wiki can work as single location for processes, planning, docs, collaborate, communication point, issue logs and tracking.

Try to Make complex scenario/situation simpler

Visualization is key to make things simple. Many a times complex projects requires task breakdown at more granular level than usual to make things simpler. Projects run into bad scenes when task start delaying and getting accumulated over a period of time. As systems approach says to solve problem of larger context by viewing them in parts and solving problem in context to relation of the parts and then joining these parts together results in synergistic solutions. Systems approach provides modular thought process to disintegrate a complex system into small task and catalyses the whole system.

Projects in critical condition

Success has many fathers but failure is orphan. Projects turn into ugly situation when things go awry and the blame game starts. A pyramid made of blocks can go down at same depth which is it attained height if team members starts pulling legs. One has to think every project is a mission critical project and same has to be re-iterated again and again like chants.

All is well that ends well

A project manager need not have to reinvent the wheel to handle the scenarios emerging out of difficult situations. Projects are managed via standard "PMBOK" management process and not rocket science.

Project management via Transformational leadership and innovation

2010-09-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Transformational leadership and Project management

One of the many stints I have been through my experiences, the followers have shown exuberance to me is the change which is happening around them and transforming individual aspirations into realities via transformational leadership management. A leader transforms the needs, values, attitudes and aspirations of followers by a strong vision. A leader with a vision can lead organizations and individuals to successful and sustainable development by bringing in continuous change.

Organizations are driven by innovation, they continuously innovate to survive competition, growth, bring new ideas to products and drive change via transformational leadership. As part of project management, driving projects requires leadership style for a project manager to continuously manage resources and change as per time and business environment demands.

Project managers create opportunities for team members to connect and drive projects who can lead to successful delivery. Definitely a framework needed for managing transformations and change to drive innovation which is based on some fundamental questions to asked at the very beginning in planning phase like What, Who, When, Where, How etc. for resources(people, process, infrastructure etc) to be managed. Obviously transformational leaders share their vision with the team, they motivate individuals to their best, they do introspection, have integrity, believe in values and sustainability.

Here we can talk of leaders like Bill gates, Barack Obama, Steve Jobs are the few names in recent times have given a vision for everyone who is connected to them and created a sustainable and deliverable transformation which is the need of the hour.

Transformation leader creates a problem solving environment in which team member can participate to brainstorm and bring in solutions. It creates a sense of accountability, responsibility, makes them participative, creates change agents in the system and these change agents will create sub system change agents.

Here I would like to specifically mention the role of non profit organisation where individuals perform for organization above their self interest which creates a trust among team members to connect with each other. By this way a manager not only connects with team but also brings in integrity and accountability. Obviously transformational leadership style is just not one activity to be done but a gamut of styles which encompasses the many facets of an individual to be harnessed and leveraged.

Obviously here one cannot apply a hard and fast rule to bring in change and follow a particular leadership style and also a vision can be easily formulated and communicated. Please share your ideas to lead, motivate, transform and get buy-in from management.

Aligning Projects with CSR (Corporate social responsibility)

2010-08-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

CSR (Corporate social responsibility) in context to Project management:

Projects are unique entity units, they have a start and a logical end. Projects executes in a time frame with certain goals and objectives to achieve by the end of project and obviously Business as whole is connected with project where sustainability matters. Project managers seek responsibility and accountability from each team members in projects to make project a success, there comes the role of CSR wherein project managers can engage project members to achieve the stated objectives in a project in a sustainable way with responsibility.

Corporates do CSR but at the corporate level, if we drill down CSR initiatives at the implementation level and align operational objectives with CSR which can drive projects in a holistic way by driving individuals inside-out from organization perspective and projects outside-in.

CSR is just not one word but a gamut of activities are associated with it where in one can leverage its full potential by ethically practicing project management.

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Service delivery in agile times

2010-08-09T22:44:00.000-07:00

Agile Project Management (Photo credit: VFS Digital Design)

Service delivery in agile times:

As part of project management, quality service delivery is the focus of any managers goal to achieve client satisfaction by optimizing resource allocation. Specifically information technology projects are quite dynamic by nature because of their direct correlation with business itself, since changing business scenarios pose risk of project usage , its goals and objectives, which leads to expanded time horizon, resources and cost. So, we are using Agile methodologies to execute successful projects and deliver services in agile environment. Obviously, here we will talk about Iterative and incremental model.

Now comes the question of how we device our processes, tools, techniques to achieve optimized ROI and definitely sustenance and repeatability of the business. In recent times IT project have several infrastructure tools enabled like online collaboration meeting via voice and remote desktops(Web-ex, Go-to-meeting etc.), messengers(Skype, yahoo etc.), virtual meetings by video conferencing, common use of Google spread sheet, presentation which are not only cost cutting ways of execution but also leading to a high performance environment with value addition.

Recently one of the experiences with turnkey project execution for a finance team turn out to be a success in terms of service delivery with Iterative development model and Agile project management methodologies. Iterative development model caters the need of customer happiness by delivering product with shorter time period and usability of the same. When we say "Agile" it has many facets to implement in each phase and every bits of the project execution. We have to design our services considering operational issues faced during development via continuous feedback mechanism.

Combining Agility and Iterative development for service delivery may attract buyers to sustain and continuity of business as whole and all of the aspects need continuous transition with latest upgrades for people, process and Technology again which is a multidimensional arena to deliver.