Project Management

Choosing a top Web development firm

2008-07-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

Five steps to the right Web design company.

1. Self Analysis
2. Generate a list
3. Create a shortlist
4. Get proposals
5. Evaluate and select a partner

1. Self Analysis

A good Web development firm will work with you in defining your organization's requirements. That said, the better you can define your Web development and marketing goals (at least the basic ideas) the better it is – for both you and the potential Web development firm.

For instance: Do you want to convey only essential information on your company, like a brochure, or really promote your whole business – brand, products, services, etc? Does your company need Internet marketing such as Google Adwords, PPC or search engine optimization (SEO)? Will your Web site speak primarily to new accounts, or promote a closer relationship with your existing clients? Do you need an intranet/extranet for partners or employees? All or some of the above?

In order to find a Web design firm best suited for your project, your organization should be aware of the following:

* The intended goal of the project
* The intended audience for the Web site
* The anticipated budget for the Web site development
* How the project will fit into a larger marketing/corporate scheme
* The individuals/departments within your organization responsible for the project

Once you have determined these initial requirements, document them and use them as a basis for evaluating each Web design firm. This document gives you a common yardstick to measure each Web design firm you will be contacting. Similarly, a professional Web development company will respect the fact that you are taking your project seriously.

2. Generate a list

There are a number of ways to search for a Web development firm. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, a referral is great but may be biased to different target market or industry sector; likewise, a portfolio review is great, but on its own may miss the technical aspects not visible on the frontend (i.e. database or software development). So a combination of the different approaches will be your best bet for finding a Web design firm to match your needs.

Referrals: Ask business acquaintances, friends, and family which Web design firm designed the Web site for their respective organizations, or if they can otherwise recommend a Web design firm. Be inquisitive. Find out what the individuals responsible liked or disliked about working with the various Web design firms. Some firms are better suited for taking a project from start to finish. Other Web design firms are more inclined to work from an existing concept.

Other Web sites: Determine the Web design firm that is responsible for the Web sites of organizations that you admire. These organizations may be your competitors, or in related or unrelated industries. Sometimes the Web design firm is included in the site credits, or is listed elsewhere on the Web site. If you cannot find the credits on the site itself, feel free to contact the organization and ask which Web design firm is responsible for the Web site. This can also be a good source for references for that Web design firm.

Once you have gathered a list of potential Web design firms you are ready to pare them down to a shortlist.

3. Create a shortlist

From the list of potential Web design firms, your organization's goal should now be to create a shortlist of 3-5 firms that are best suited for your project. In order to determine which Web design firms are most appropriate for your project, do the following:

Examine the portfolio
Do the projects in the portfolio have a consistent quality? If not, it's possible that the company has experienced staff turnover. You may wish to enquire which designers are responsible for the portfolio pieces you admire most, and confirm that these individuals are still with the company.

Has the Web design company provided solutions to other companies in your industry? Have they dealt with similar challenges to those faced by your organization?
These are some important factors to consider. At the same time, look at the Web design firm's breadth of experience – they may be able to address your immediate needs, but will they be able to provide solutions 6 months down the road, or 1 year later, or 5 years later?

Thanks to the distributed nature of the Internet, some of the better Web design firms have implemented systems that allow them to work with organizations across the globe as easily as organizations across the street. When reviewing the Web sites of a Web design firm, note the geographical location of their clients. A Web design firm that has worked with clients in many geographical locations will have a more global approach to your Web site.

Technical competence and experience
Does the Web development firm have technical experience for your requirements (or potential needs) such as ecommerce/ebusiness, Internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), interactive Flash/animation, or software/database development and system integration? Do they code their Web pages in compliance with top industry standards (like W3C)? Is their ecommerce code secure and/or hacker-proof? Do they provide hosting, long-term maintenance and support?

Analyze the process
Does the Web design firm have a clearly stated process for designing and developing Web sites? Do they spend enough time understanding your Web site goals and planning how those will be achieved, such as Needs Analysis? Does the development firm have structure and expertise in Information Architecture? Avoid selecting an individual designer, on a freelance basis, to design and develop your organization's Web site. It is rare to find a single person capable of handling the combined visual and technical elements that make an effective Web presence. Additionally, by depending on an individual, your organization is at risk of losing its investment should anything occur to that one individual – or down the road they simply can't find time to help when you need it.

Determine what other products/services the Web design company can offer
What kind of value-added products or services can the design firm offer? Product Marketing, Pay per Click (PPC) and Web site promotion? Newsletter or email campaigns? If your organization is not currently dealing with a print design agency, for example, this might be a factor for dealing with one group over another. Similarly, can the firm provide database and software development should your organization wish to Web-enable some of its existing systems or processes?

During this stage, your organization should make contact with the candidate companies that are on your shortlist. If any of the above information is not readily available, be sure to ask the potential Web development firm for specific examples as close to your needs as possible. Make sure you understand their scope inclusions, terminology definitions etc. If they don't have a glossary, get them to explain it in detail.

4. Get proposals

Once you have selected your short-list of top Web development firms, request that they send you a proposal. Ask that their proposal include an overview of your requirements and their proposed solution. This will help to determine which Web design firm understands your requirements best. Also ask that each Web design firm include a description of their development process and a price breakdown for the various aspects of the Web site project.

5. Evaluate and select a partner

Start off by examining each proposal individually. Before dealing with the content, evaluate the format and presentation of the proposal. The winning Web design firm will be creating your organization's image on the Internet, viewable to millions of Internet users. How do they present themselves? Do they communicate with you using their Web site and digital documents?

Maintain a list for each proposal, consisting of its strengths and weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of the respective Web design firm based on its other materials (Web site, portfolio, brochure, case studies, etc.). Alternatively, make a grid for easy comparison. Example: in an ecommerce project, compare the competing product features and costs side-by-side.

Importantly, weigh each firm on its ability to be a long-term partner. Have they been in business for several years, being stable and profitable? Do they have a list of clients and projects that you can confirm? Having an outsourced interactive agency as a partner has many benefits: expertise and experience in Internet marketing/SEO, software development and integration skills, and the flexibility of resources on tap. (This still applies even if you have on-staff marketing resources.)

After your organization has reviewed all proposals, compare them with each other. How do they fare in terms of presentation? How do their processes appear in terms of project management? Do they present scalability and/or upgrade paths for your project, that go beyond the needs of the immediate goals outlined?

Once you have made a decision, contact the firms that did not win the contract, and share with them the strengths and weaknesses of their proposals and the reasons (in general terms) why your organization selected the winning firm. Lastly, contact the top Web development firm and let them know the good news.

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What tools and techniques are required to be used by a Project manager while execution of a project ?

2008-03-28T04:06:00.000-07:00

Project managers can use a number of tools and techniques during a project life cycle such as:-

Verifiable objective setting

This ensures that the objectives for the project can be measured and verified to ensure that they have been accomplished.

Brain storming

This technique is used at all stages of the project to support creative thinking and for solving problems and bottlenecks.

Work Breakdown Structures

This is a technique to analyze the content of work and cost by breaking it down into its component parts. It is produced by :-
• Identifying the key elements
• Breaking each element down into component parts
• Continuing to breakdown until manageable work packages have been identified. These can then be allocated to the appropriate person having appropriate experience and skill sets.

Below is a work breakdown structure for the recruitment of a new person to fill a vacant post.

Project Evaluation Review Technique (PERT)

Network analysis or PERT is used to analyze the inter-relationships between the tasks identified by the work breakdown structure and to define the dependencies of each task. Whilst laying out a PERT chart it is often possible to see that assumptions for the order of work are not logical or could be achieved more cost effectively by re-ordering them. This is particularly true whilst allocating resources; it may become self evident that two tasks cannot be completed at the same time by the same person due to lack of working hours or, conversely, that by adding an extra person to the project team several tasks can be done in parallel thus shortening the length of the project.

Below is the PERT chart of the WBS shown above after the application of the network analysis.

Critical path analysis (CPA)

CPA is used in conjunction with PERT analysis to identify the tasks that are critical in determining the overall duration of the project. In the example above the critical path is shown by the tasks with heavy outline boxes.

Milestone Planning

Milestone planning is used to show the major steps that are needed to reach the goal on time. When several tasks have been completed the milestone is reached. It is often used at senior manager reviews.

What are Milestones? Why are they called Milestones?

Imagine you are walking along the road and you see a milestone that says 20 miles to London so you keep walking and later you see one that says 10 miles to London. Now you know that you are going in the right direction and you have made some progress. That is the principle of project milestones. For example, if the project is to build a house then completing each significant chunk of work could be considered a milestone on the road to building the house. For example the milestones might be:-
• Planning permission granted
• Foundations laid
• Walls constructed
• Roof built
• Fixtures, fittings and services completed
• Garden landscaped
• House inspected and approved
• House sold

For simple projects, a milestone plan may be the only plan required.

Accrued cost and earned value analysis

These measures enable the progress of the project to be monitored in financial terms.

Gantt charts

Gantt charts (named after the inventor) or bar charts, as they are sometimes called, are used to display and communicate the results of PERT and Critical Path analysis in a simple bar chart format that can be readily understood by those not involved in the detail of the project.

The PERT chart above is now displayed as a Gantt chart below .

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The role of the IT project manager (PM)

2008-03-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

The role of the IT project manager (PM) is being redefined. In addition to making sure the project is progressing as planned, in today’s environment the PM needs to be good in 2 more areas

1. Effectively manage resources and clients that are mobile and globally located.
2. Understand the business and marketing strategy of the customer because in this competitive landscape the project scope can change or become irrelevant quickly and at any time.

In a traditional sense, a PM takes on the task, breaks it into sub tasks and delegates it to the right resources, assigns timelines and monitors the progress. Projects generally in the past had a long lead time and all the resources and clients were located locally making it easy for the PM to focus only on a well developed project management process to achieve his objective. ‘Waterfall’ project planning methodology with initial requirement gathering session and then dedicating session to design and develop software/web application usually worked well in the past.

But, over the past few years the complexity of the project management has dramatically increased. The life time of business cycle is dropping fast. The large organizations do not have the luxury of slowly adapting to the changing customer needs. The business processes have to re-engineer, so as to support fast decision making and execution of strategy. Business processes now need to be ‘agile’ to adapt to changing competitive landscape. Technological changes have accelerated globalization and have intensified competition and the organizations need to be nimble and agile. The organization’s product, priorities are constantly shifting to take advantage of emerging trends and customer preferences.

Because of the above mentioned changes, the IT Project Manager needs to possess two additional skills:

1. Demonstrate Cultural Intelligence:

This is Emotional Intelligence in the global cultural context. In a globally connected world projects are no longer constrained to a single location. Neither are customers located in a single location. Since, the resources and clients are now globally located, the IT PM needs to build ‘relationship’ with the development resource as well as customers across several time zones. To be globally competitive, a PM also needs to put on a learning hat to acquire knowledge and skills to understand unique culture of diverse individuals in the context of region, religion, ethnicity and country.

2. Understand Business Strategy:

Because of need for agility of organization, IT PM now does not have the luxury of being in seclusion and work on a project for few months at a given time. The IT PM needs to understand the client’s business strategy and challenge any project scope that is not in alignment with that strategy. IT PM should be in tune with changing marketing/business strategy to make sure that the project is still relevant to the client's need. The project management processes need to be agile to enable fast changing client priorities and the fastracing process may have scope in it. The IT PM needs the influencing and negotiation skills for forced prioritization to solve the major business problems in a short development cycle.

In my view, IT Project Managers who masters these additional skill set are going to be in great valuation in near future.

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Project Lifecycle

2008-02-06T00:23:00.000-08:00

Its another look to the Project Lifecyle for a Web development Project. A web development project, once a proposal is agreed, moves through a logical sequence of phases as the different components which are required to be considered for a web site development (design, programming, interface, text and Sign off). Throughout your project, Virtual Viewing will work closely with you, collecting content from you and asking for your feedback as development proceeds.

Design
Working through a detailed design questionnaire with you, the Project Manager will brief the designers to produce initial mock-up designs of Home page first and then on getting confirmation on that from you. The inner key pages of the proposed site will be designed and will be sent for your approval. This will include navigational design, informed by the detailed site map the project manager had developed as part of the project scope statement.

Programming
As well as the construction of the full list of pages of the site (including any for which you will subsequently have administrative access), this stage also incorporates the linking of content to content management systems (such as OSCAR), the implementation of any programmed elements of your site (such as product databases, web-based forms for services such as inquiries and registration/signup, or site search functions), and integration with third-party systems [such as Payment gateway/ RSS (external feeds)/ Shipping gateway/ SMS gateway etc].

Internal Testing
Once development is completed, your website will pass through internal testing against the project specification to identify and correct any issues thats being detected in its operation.

Acceptance Testing
During this key stage, the Project Manager will make a development version of your website available for you to test and check online, so that you can confirm that it provides all specified functionality and adheres to the approved visual design.

At this stage, you should inform the Project Manager of any issues arising from Acceptance Testing (other than those accounted for/by any modifications or variations that have been formally agreed during production), so that the Project Manager can address these in the most suitable fashion.

While further modifications can be incorporated at this stage if so required, please note that any previously unspecified requirements will need to be estimated (cost) and approved by both the parties.

Content
To populate the framework provided by your website’s design/programming, you will need to collate text, visual and other content (including any database that had been incorporated into the site’s functionality). The agreed scope/specification and site map will guide you through the content that will be required, and the Project Manager can also assist you by providing templates that will optimize your pages for search engine visibility.

Sign Off and Go Live
Once all development issues have been completed and resolved, your site will then be ready to be launched to public, subject to any final accounting / administrative issues.

With this stage, there can also be deliverables like arrange Training for your key staffs, Tutorials, QC plan.

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Website Design Project Life-cycle

2008-02-05T04:07:00.000-08:00

A successful website relies on much more than merely its visual design. Careful analysis of consumer wants and needs are essential to the delivery of a successfully designed website. At WEB SITE DESIGN PROCESS, follows these 4 working practices or methods within a project life-cycle: These are the steps which comes in the execution phase of the site's development. Apart from these there are other Management Processes to undertake, which are Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Control and Closing.. The below mentioned steps comes in the Execution Phase..

* Website Exploration
* Website Creation
* Website Evolution
* Website Deployment

These all depend on numerous deliverables and milestones to move the project forward leading to its completion and moving it to the closing phase. WEB SITE DESIGN is here to help guide you through the process with clarity. So, where to start? The first step in your project will be the Website Exploration Phase.

Website Exploration

It is during this phase that the Service Provider's team spends a lot of time getting to know you and your business. It's required to determine:

* What is the purpose of this website?
* What are your marketing objectives?
* Who is your audience and what are their expectations?
* What message are you trying to convey?
* Who are your competitors?

Once a thorough understanding of your place in the market and your business needs is being obtained, then the service provider will require making recommendations of how to best achieve your goals.

The information that the provider uncovers during this phase will provide them with the foundations for the Website Creation Phase.

Website Creation

The designers take the results of the Website Exploration Phase and begin to come up with a concept for your website. Typically, the provider then offers a range of website designs and discusses with you each one in regards to usability and ease-of-use. Designing the look and feel for your website is just one deliverable of this phase; there are other tasks that will seek understanding and agreement on:

* Determining the architecture of your website by developing a detailed site map.
* If there is any technical development, we will need to make sure that the design of the functionality meets all of our usability standards.

Now as the decision on the look of your website had been achieved and have identified all of the pages that will need to be constructed, its an initiation phase to start constructing the website in the Website Evolution Phase.

Website Evolution

Working to the design developed in the Website Creation Phase, the team is ready to construct the pages of your website. During this phase its required to do the following:

* Construct the navigational architecture with usability best practices
* Populate all pages with graphics and content
* Code any technical requirements into the site - including database & e-Commerce functionality and website interactivity
* Create all animations, menus, and multimedia components

The emerging website will be located on one of the development servers of the provider for you to see and discuss prior to its 'live' location. The final phase of the project life-cycle is the Website Deployment Phase.

Website Deployment

Prior to your website going-live its requires to undertake the following:

* Thoroughly test the website to ensure an optimum user experience
* Determine a website launch plan - emails, newsletters, PPC (Pay Per Click)
* Determining the SEO plan for getting higher positions in the organic search of Google (if required)

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Introduction to the WBS

2007-12-05T04:10:00.000-08:00

A Work Breakdown Structure is a results-oriented family tree that captures all the work of a project in an structured way. It is often displayed graphically as a hierarchical tree, however, it can also be a tabular list of "element" categories and tasks or the indented task list that appears in your Gantt chart schedule
Large, complex projects are comprehended by breaking them into smaller pieces until they are an anthology of defined "work packages" that may include a number of tasks.
A $1,000,000 project is simply a lot of $5,000 projects joined together. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is used to provide the framework for organizing and managing the work.

In planning a project, it is normal to find oneself fleetingly overwhelmed and confused, when one begins to grip the details and scope of even a modest size project. This results from one person trying to understand the details of work that will be performed by a number of people over a period of time. The way to get beyond being overwhelmed and confused is to divide the project into pieces, organize the pieces in a logical way using a WBS, and then get help from the rest of the project team.

The psychologists say our brains can normally comprehend around 7-9 items simultaneously. A project with thousands or even dozens of tasks goes way over our ability to grasp all at once. The solution is to divide and complete. The WBS helps to break logically thousands of tasks into pieces that the project manager can understand and monitor. Preparing and understanding a WBS for a project is a big step towards managing its intrinsic complexity.

The WBS is commonly used at the beginning of a project for defining project scope, organizing Gantt schedules and estimating costs. It lives on, throughout the project, in the project schedule and often is the main path for reporting project costs. On larger projects, the WBS may be used throughout the project to identify and track work pieces, to organize data for evaluation, reporting, for tracking deliverables, etc.

History of the WBS

The WBS was initially developed by the U.S. defense establishment, and it is described in Military Standard (MIL-STD) 881B (25 Mar 93) as follows: "A work breakdown structure is a product-oriented family tree composed of hardware, software, services, data and facilities .... [it] displays and defines the product(s) to be developed and/or produced and relates the elements of work to be accomplished to each other and to the end product(s)."

It requires some mental discipline to develop a product-oriented or deliverable-oriented grouping of project elements adding up to comprise the entire project scope. Intuitively, we tend to start out with a task-oriented approach. This is Ok for very small projects where extensive project management controls will not be used. The task-oriented approach is easy to understand, because we can easily think of projects as collection of tasks. A task-oriented WBS can be developed by beginning with a simple "to-do" list and then clustering the items in a logical way. The logical theme could be project phases, functional areas, or major end-products.
If your organization will be collecting historical data to form a cost database, you should try to select a standard approach consistent with the organization’s long term data collection needs.

A sample WBS is shown in the figure below:

WBS Format for Application Development Projects

A WBS for a large project will have multiple levels of detail, and the lowest WBS element will be linked to functional area cost accounts that are made up of individual work packages. Whether you need three levels or seven, work packages should add up through each WBS level to form the project total.

Product or Process Oriented?

The WBS was initially defined as a product oriented family tree, however subsequent definitions have introduced more flexibility -- so a WBS can also be deliverables or process oriented. Your WBS can be built on nouns or verbs. If the results of your project are primarily verbs, then a verb based or process based WBS may make more sense. If your WBS is to be product or deliverable oriented, then you can start by thinking of the WBS as a parts list for the ultimate end-items of your project. These differences are not shown to tell you what is the right way for your project, but just to familiarize you with the distinctions, so you can think about them and choose what's best for your project.

WBS Numbering

WBS elements are usually numbered, and the numbering system may be arranged any way you choose. The conventional numbering system is shown in the figure. The shaded box shown in the above slide could be numbered 1.2.2.3, which would tell you it was in the second box in level 2, the second box in level 3, and the third box in level 4.

WBS Dictionary

If a WBS is extensive and if the category content is not obvious to the project team members, it may be useful to write a WBS dictionary. The WBS dictionary describes what is in each WBS element, and it may also say what is not in an element, if that is unclear. Here is a sample of a WBS dictionary description:
WBS Element 1.5.4.5. - Application Test Equipment Planning - This element includes the effort to identify requirements and specify types and quantities of test equipment needed to support Application Test process. It does not include the design or procurement of such equipment, which is covered in Element 1.5.4.6.

Mapping WBS for Cost Management

In a product-oriented WBS, functional categories of work may form "cost accounts" within a WBS element. Cost account managers are responsible for a functional area’s contribution to a WBS element. Cost accounts from several departments or functions may combine into one WBS element.

Internal department planning for a cost account will be made up of individual work packages. A work package will typically have its own budget and schedule. Work packages should be small enough to be executed by individuals or small groups in a single department, and they should be of relatively short schedule duration. A small project might define a maximum work package size as two weeks of effort. Larger projects will assemble larger work packages that can be appropriately managed and monitored.

The project manager will have to decide to what degree employment of various details of WBS implementation will benefit the efficient management of the project. On a very small project, a formal WBS may serve no useful purpose, but it can become valuable if project size or complexity start to increase.

As an organization’s project management environment matures, or as larger size and complexity are encountered, application of the WBS concept can evolve from an ad hoc list of tasks, to time-phased activity lists, task lists clustered by project deliverables and services, or an end-product focused WBS fed by cost accounts and work packages.

If you are using MS-Project or a similar project management software application, you may encounter the WBS as a vertical list with indents to show structure. This will be compatible with the Gantt View data entry screens. While some software packages provide a separate WBS view, you could prepare your WBS in the vertical format using a word processor, and then cut and paste your WBS into your project management software package.

Organizational Standards

Your organization may want to decide on a standard WBS format or group of formats, use these across all projects, and communicate definitions widely so everyone will be speaking the same language. This can save re-learning project units and can lay the foundation for successful data gathering to aid future cost estimates.

WBS Implementation

When you have prepared a project WBS, think about how you will be using it later in the project. Try to consider how you will organize the WBS, schedule format, manager assignments, and charge numbers, in your early project planning. These days, the WBS in smaller projects ends up automatically being the indent structure in your Gantt schedule, so pay attention to those indents, and make sure that is the WBS you want for rolling up costs in your project. It will be helpful if you can map the charge numbers, managers, and task groups to each other. This will help you track costs and progress for each manager. If your project schedule will on MS-Project, you may want to insert "text" columns into your schedule (Gantt View) for project charge numbers and manager names.

If your project charge numbers cannot be linked to groups of tasks assigned to specific managers, you will have no way to provide performance measurement feedback to managers.

Some project management environments have distinct conventions for grouping items in a WBS. The best method is to have a WBS that works for your particular project and organizational environment. The WBS should be designed with consideration for its eventual uses. Your WBS design should try to achieve certain goals:

• Be compatible with how the work will be done and how costs and schedules will be managed,
• Give visibility to important or risky work efforts,
• Allow mapping of requirements, plans, testing, and deliverables,
• Encourage clear ownership by managers and task leaders,
• Provide data for performance measurement and historical databases, and
• Make sense to the workers and accountants.
There are usually many ways to design a WBS for a particular project, and there are sometimes as many views as people in the process. Experience teaches that everyone takes a slightly different slice of the apple, so make sure WBS arguments seeking metaphysical certainty are quickly brought to closure. Simple practicality combined with enlightened trial and error usually is the best approach. Good Luck..

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Balancing Honesty and Goodwill

2007-12-04T02:57:00.000-08:00

I've been on lots of projects, and some were very high-tech. When suddenly assigned as Project manager for a support team on a very large and complex web and software development project, I wondered if I would be able to incorporate the technology quickly enough to add value. After three months, I learned a lesson I would have learned before. No matter how technically advanced a project is, the hard part is not the technical part, it is the people part 

Projects need special people skills since they often involve people with conflicting priorities and high stress. It helps in such projects to have some reliable principles to rely on in dealing with people issues. Project leadership, especially in a matrix organization, requires that the project manager build informal relationships with the members of the project team. About 10 years back, when I had just started going with a new girlfriend, a professor told me that relationships are built through communication and consideration. Now whenever, I want to build a relationship, I consciously look for ways to increase the communication and consideration I am putting in that relationship.

Project environments sometimes require a great commitment to truth, and this is sometimes difficult to reconcile with the interpersonal demands of getting along. Such demanding environments call for the application of sound spiritual principles. Here is one such principle that I have found useful in project work.

I started thinking about the end of last year when reading the Gita from the beginning. I watched carefully to see the emergence of the spiritual message as it evolved from the first stage of spiritual discipline and obedience and then gradually grew to a larger sense of the spiritual principles of goodness. I was interested to see that some advanced spiritual principles appeared quite early in the text.
I was struck by the phrase "kindly and truly" that appears several times. Even four thousand years ago, it was deemed by some a worthy standard to deal with each other kindly and truly.

It seems we have not always remembered the simple realism of dealing with one another in this way. We often hear people justifying their positions by saying, "Well, I was just viciously honest. I told them just the way it is. I can't lie." And they think this is somehow a recipe for success. It turns out that honesty and good-will need to be balanced together to bring success to our dealings with others.
Our practice of truth and love go together. Our love isn't really love if it isn't true. And the truth doesn't have the positive affect we want unless it is also loving. I learned a few years back that being brutally honest can be, well, how do I put this - an act of viciousness?

Someone once said, "I want neither unloving critics nor uncritical lovers." That reflects the reality that truth and love need to go hand in hand. We value honesty as an ethical principle, but we need to couple honesty with good will. If we have only honesty without good-will, we simply end up as a "whistle-blower" in our organization or as an abrasive "Chicken Little." This may be ethical in one sense, but it is not the sign of a healthy, progressive organization. Success is achieved when we make sure our honesty is balanced with good will and that our good will is really true. Only in the combination of these we can make genuine advancement.

You might think of these two forces as vectors, and the success vector is the resultant of good-will and honesty exercised in balance (as shown in the figure). It is not our exercise of one or the other, simply trying to be nice to people or being viciously honest, but the vector sum of these two factors that is a solid principle for success. The resultant vector is a cross-product of honesty and good-will. There is a good reason for calling this a cross-product, since while either one by itself may be relatively easy, increasingly exercising the two in balance can be a real struggle.

These spiritual principles can be communicated in the work place by simply holding up the standard of honesty and good will, dealing with one another kindly and truly, and best of all, by acting this out ourselves.

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The Spiritual Side of Project Management

2007-12-04T02:54:00.000-08:00

Having spent many years in both spiritual pursuits and project management, I have been intrigued to see how a number of areas overlap. Because spiritual principles seem to have a bearing on running projects successfully, it seems that there ought to be ways to communicate these spiritual principles to make them accessible and practical in the work place.

Some years ago, I was impressed by a need to more completely embody and act out some spiritual principles with which I had been growing increasingly familiar. It was almost a bolt from the blue to me, because I had been thinking that my spiritual inspirations would just eventually cuddle my actions. I got to the point where I realized I must simply stand up on my mental hind legs and do it.

Later, I was talking about spiritual things with someone, and they said, "When I hear you say those things I say, 'Yes, I know, I know', but I want them to be more real to me." My response was that they most often become more real to you after you do them. As we act out our spiritual principles we gain a growing perception of their reality.

Not long ago, in my project management work, I was brought into an on-going information systems project. I asked if they had applied some basic principles of project management, like "first understand and clearly document the requirements." The people around me said, "Yes, we know that is what we are supposed to do, but we didn't do it, because we were too busy and the requirements changed too often."

As the project progressed, this team became even busier, because they hadn't understood and clearly documented the requirements. The project was restarted, and then it dragged out for months longer than it should have.

When the next similar project came along, I put special emphasis on clearly understanding and documenting the requirements, and reviewing it with the customer for approval. Then I put these requirements under informal version identification and change control process and managed any changes methodically and majestically. It was not easy, and it took persistence to nail down all the indistinct issues and get agreement. The result was that project went much, much more smoothly than the previous one, and it was a widely acknowledged success.

In considering what I brought to that project, I realized I didn't tell them anything they didn't already "know." I simply did it.

The difference was in being a doer of the word and not a hearer only. I am still trying to describe that quality, because it is so fundamental to success in my area of work. The only word that seems to fit is "guts," which to paraphrase my Webster's is "common sense, actively applied." It seems that the "actively applied" is the hard part. It involves paying attention, discipline, belief and understanding.

I think understanding doesn’t just know something; it is standing up for something. Until you stand up for something you don't really understand it at all.

It is interesting that in the Gita (The Holy Indian Epic), some of the verses that speak of this quality use building projects to illustrate the principle. See if you don't think the first few phrases of the second verse sound a little like your project environment.

"Therefore whosoever hearth these saying of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

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Technical do’s and don’ts in developing an (Basic) website

2007-11-29T03:10:00.000-08:00

There are many good and bad things you can do in web design; the following is a list of some of those options and how you should deal with them. You can use these as the initials to your Learning curve for website designing, also you can use this as a reference..

1. Forget blinking or flashing text: The only place you see blinking and or flashing text is on the neon signs of naked bars or web sites made in the mid 90's! People don’t like … enough said.
Let’s discuss an important point about online content/text versus print. People read text off a computer screen at about 1/4th the speed that they do paper.
This important fact tells us that we should keep what we want to say on the web short and sweet. If some of my articles have been too long, I apologize for my flapping mouth and keyboard!

2. Make your titles on your web page make sense: One of the core attributes of a web page is its title. In between the title /title tags you can specify the page's title as it appears in the browsers top title bar and in the search engine results.
People pay attention to page titles, so you should make sure that they are clear and obvious. If you have a page on how to take care of baby and you happen to have a baby named ‘Jimmy’ don’t title your page: ‘How to look after Jimmy.’ You should title you page something like: ‘How to take care of babies.’

3. Don’t force people to download a new browser of special plug-in to see your site: Unless you have a site that people are dying to see, why limit your viewers because you want to use some extraordinary features in a browser or a plug-in like Flash. Today, with proper use of CSS and HTML you can present fantastic looking pages without having to jump through the hoops old timers like me had to when  browsers like Netscape 4 were being used in great numbers.

4. Think twice before using framesets: In the olden days you could argue on use for framesets because of HTML’s lousy layout capabilities. Today with CSS positioning being well supported by all the major browsers there is no need to use framesets for just about 99.9% of websites. Why don’t you want to use framesets you ask? Well beginners tend to have trouble creating and using them properly. Framesets tend to make websites more complicated than they need to be and finally they can cause you all kinds of troubles with the search engines.

5. Don’t try any stupid cheat tricks in an attempt to fool the search engines: In the past webmasters developed various nefarious (disreputable) methods in an attempt to get higher rankings in the search engines. Tactics included putting hundreds of key words on the pages as invisible text etc … These tactics may have had some limited success in the past, but those days are long gone. Try to fool Google (the king of search engines) and you and your web site will die a horrible and painful death! I will not describe how to get high rankings now, but keep this is mind: good content honestly presented is the foundation of high rankings and high traffic for your site. In short “Content is the King of your website”.

6. Chat rooms: Most people don’t give a crap about chat rooms. And worst than having a chat room is an empty chat room! Who wants to hang out at a club that has nobody inside? So unless you have a web site with tens of thousands of visitors a month and is of a subject that might require a chat room, don't do it.

7. Flash intros: A few years back Flash intros where all the rage, not sure if anyone knew why we ‘needed’ them, but as it turns out the ‘skip intro’ button is the 2nd most clicked on the web today. Don’t waste your time on Flash intros and in my opinion Flash should be only used in special situations.

8. Under construction pages: Just forget it, if the page is not ready, don’t put it up. If you have links that are pointing to the pages, disable them until your page is ready. If your page is truly ‘under construction’ and has content on it that is ready to be seen by your web surfers, just post a ‘last updated’ date and make sure you get the new content in place soon. What ever you do, don’t put one of those tacky ‘under construction’ images on the page.

9. Don't use background music on your web pages!
Some web designers like the idea of a little background music to set the mood of the page. In special cases like say an MTV or Disney website, this can work. But for most websites this is just a bad idea for a two reasons:

1. Music files are typically pretty ‘heavy', and take time to download. Most surfers will not think that it's worth the wait. Besides, many computers simply don't have sound capability, so it seems silly to force these people to download something they can't use.
2. Unexpected music/sound spewing forth from ones PC can be very annoying and potentially cause problems.
If you want to have music on your web site, make it an option that the user can turn on and off. A good way to do this is with a Flash movie; most browsers come equipped with the Flash plug-in and the Flash supports compact MP3 files.
Of course, if you just want to give users the option to hear some piece of music, like your bands latest tune, or a sound clip from an interview, the easiest solution is to create an MP3 of the audio, and then create a link to it.

10. Don't use Internet Explorer's scrolling ‘marquee' tag.
Internet Explorer came out with the infamous ‘marquee' tag in version 3. This HTML tag (that only works in IE), allows you to create a stock quote like horizontal scrolling display of whatever text you put in-between the tags.
There are options in using the tag in terms of how the text is animated, but in a nutshell, you get animated text scrolling across your page. Some web designers like it, but most surfers don't. Scrolling marquees make your page look cheap and take away from the rest of the page.
Tickers like that make sense when the information it displays is constantly changing. Stock quotes are a great example of when you might use a marquee display. But for static text, it is just a bad idea for the most part.

11. Do keep the structure of your web pages consistent throughout your website.
Some web designers get bored with what they're doing and decide to create a different structures to their web pages within same web site. A classic example is found in the way navigation works on different pages; one page may have the navigation menu across the top of the page then on the next page it will along the right side and so on.
People like things consistent, so your web pages should be too. That's why all windows programs have the same look and feel; the same goes for the Mac programs.

12. Don't create automatic pop-up windows! JavaScript pop-up windows are probably one of the most annoying things you can do to someone visiting your website. If you want to annoy your visitors go right ahead.
Pop-ups are typically used to present ads and other ‘non-core' material to users. If you use pop-up windows, you have to learn how to integrate those elements into your main pages and forget about pop-up windows.

13. Do use standard styles for your navigation. Sometimes as web designers we may be tempted to use some funky navigational system. Things like navigational links arranged in a circle, or some sort of freaky 3d cube that you have to rotate to find the web page links; this serves only to confuse people.
Big companies like Yahoo and Microsoft have spent a tone of cash to figure out what types of navigation works, and what they found is that left side navigation and top navigation is what people are used to.

14. Don't automatically resize a visitor's browser window. Some designers will come up with a style is that looks best with a particular screen size, so they will use JavaScript that will resize the users window to fit that size. This is another surefire way to tick people off; people will typically set their browsers to the window size they are comfortable with.
If your style requires such precise window sizing to work, you need to change your style! There are many factors that can affect the screen real estate that visitors may be viewing your web pages with (window size, screen resolution, browser text size), as such you should strive to create fluid and flexible page layouts because it is not possible to control all those factors.

15. Do make you web pages viewable at 800 x 600 resolution. Many web designers have computers that can display higher resolutions like 1024x768 and 1280 x 1024. They design there pages to fit in that resolution, when someone hits those pages with a computer that can display only a maximum of 800 x 600, the visitor has to scroll to see the page properly.
Scrolling web pages vertically (top to bottom) is ok, as long as it's not more than two and half pages or so. But scrolling horizontally (side to side) is really bad and annoying to visitors.
In a nutshell, you want to design all your pages these days for 800 x 600; they make up about 40% of the web audience!

16. Don't automatically redirect visitors except in very special circumstances.
Sometimes web designers will use JavaScript or other ways to automatically redirect visitors from one page to another for various reasons. This can confuse people, and it can cause problems with the search engines. If you want to send people to another page, create link with a little explanation as to where they're going.
The general theme here is that you should not try to take control away from the visitor except under special circumstances.

17. Do create a custom 404 ‘Page not found' page.
We've all seen them, 404 pages. On websites that are served by Windows servers it is a plain white page that has this text:
The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
Please try the following:
• If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
• Open the www.fakesite.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
• Click the Back button to try another link.
HTTP 404 - File not found
Internet Information Services
Technical Information (for support personnel)
• More information: Microsoft Support
Not very friendly and not useful to visitors, since the page itself doesn't give you much information. The solution is that you can create your own 404 page and have that appear instead of the practically useless one that you see above.
A 404 page is just an html page like any other, you just need to ask your host to set it up so you can use your own home made 404 page. A good 404 page will be clear to the visitor that they found the right website, but just not the right page. 404 pages should include a link back to your ‘home' page and maybe the site map page. If you have a search engine built into your site, then include the search too.

18. Do create a site map page.
A site map is a simple web page with text links to all the websites sub-pages organized in proper categories; a lot of people will use a site map if they can find one.

19. Do keep your web pages under 60k in size.
Web pages can be made up of text, images (GIF, JPEG and PNG) and multimedia content like Flash movies and QuickTime video etc. When you add up the size of all those elements in kilobytes, you get the total amount of kilobytes someone will have to download to see the entire page. This is typically referred to as simply the ‘page size'. If someone has to wait over 10 seconds to see your page, you are probably losing most of your potential audience. High speed Internet is growing steadily, but the majority of surfers are still on old 56k dial-up modems. That means that you are begging for trouble if your pages are over 60k.

20. Don't center everything on your web pages.
Centered text on pages is just hard to read; just think about having to read a book where all the text was centered! Print rules have been refined for well over a hundred years now, and they work well. When in doubt about layout, think about how they do it in print. With that in mind, for western cultures, left justified text (text that is lined up on the left side of the page) is the way to go. You can center major titles or something similar, but do it very sparingly.

21. Don't rely on JavaScript to work on your pages.
The last statistic I've seen, about 10% of people on the web can't run JavaScript or they have it turned off! That basically means that you can't use JavaScript for key features of your website; key features like JavaScript enabled drop-down menus for navigation.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't use JavaScript based menu system, but it does mean that if you do, you should provide an alternative like simple text links at the bottom of your pages, or a link to a site map so that people can still navigate your website.

22. Don't use busy backgrounds on your pages:
You can create a tiled background on your web page by taking an image (GIF, JPEG or PNG) and using it in your body tag like this:
body background="Background.gif"
This will cause your browser to tile the image across the web page. There are two things wrong with this:
1.You want to do all you’re styling in CSS.
2.Background tiles are usually bad news.
Once upon a time tiled backgrounds where all the rage on the Internet; these days most have understood that it's just a bad idea. It can work if your tile image is not noisy and is a solid color, but if you use tiles that are of say a picture of your dog or some other bold image, it will make your page unreadable.

23. Do end your URL's with a forward slash in your links:
Ok, this point is a touch nerdy so bare with me ... this little point will help speed up things a little as far as your user is concerned. If you have a URL (web address) that does not specify an exact page, then you want to trail the URL with a forward slash:
Examples you like
In the above link, you will notice that after the '.COM' I placed a forward slash (/).
If the link were pointing to a particular page, I wouldn't add the forward slash at the end of the address:
Examples you like Resource Page
By adding the forward slash (as in the first example), we remove a step that otherwise the web server and browser would have to take; removing this extra step can give you a speed boost. So to sum it up:
If your link is pointing to a particular file (an html page or a PHP page or an ASP page etc ...) you don't want to use the trailing slash. But if you are pointing to a directory like:
Articles
Then you want the trailing slash.

24. Don't set your type to all capital letters in your body text:
Using ALL CAPS in text is good for emphasize and title elements, but don't create long sentences or paragraph in all caps ... it's just hard to read.
Just compare this paragraph in all caps:
USING ALL CAPS IN TEXT IS GOOD FOR EMPHASIZE AND TITLE ELEMENTS BUT DON'T CREATE LONG SENTENCES OR PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS; IT'S JUST HARD TO READ. JUST COMPARE THIS PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS:

25. Don't have more than a few words in italics:
Italics are one way to draw attention to text, but it makes text harder to read. Using italics for one or two words on occasion is good, but if you go crazy and start using italicized text all over the place, or for long sentences or paragraphs then your looking for trouble!
Just compare this paragraph in just italics:

Italics are one way to draw attention to text, but it makes text harder to read. Used for one or two words on occasion is good, but if you go crazy and start using italicized text all over the place or for long sentences or paragraphs then your looking for difficulty! Just compare this paragraph in just italics:

26. Don't have more than a few words in a bold case:
Sounds like the last two. Nonetheless it is still valid for the same reasons in that the text is harder to read, and then loses its point. Remember that setting text bold, italics or in capitals are all ways to bring attention to the particular words, if you're making everything same, it loses it's impact.

27. Don't use h5 and h6 tags:
These tags will make your text smaller than the browsers default size and make it bold. This combination will result in text that is really hard to read.

28. Do turn off the blue borders around linked graphics:
As you know, you can turn graphics into links or in other words buttons, by wrapping a link tag around an image. By default browsers will surround the image with an ugly blue border showing us that the image is a link. Your images that are acting as buttons, should look like buttons; it should be obvious that the image is something to click on ... so we don't need the blue border.
To get rid of the blue border all you need to do is add this code inside your image tag: border="0"
Check out an image tag:

You may have noticed that I snuck in another tip in this one: making your button images look like something that can be clicked on. That's a 'free of charge' extra for you!

29. Do provide alternate text (using the 'alt' attribute of the image tag) for all your major images:
Alternate text is text that you insert in your image tags () that is used by text only browsers. Text only browsers are used by the blind to surf the web since images won't help them very much ... the alternate text in your image tags is read by the text only browsers in place of displaying the images.
You should put meaningful information in the alternative text that will benefit those who can't see and it will also help you with the search engines. The alternate text is inserted in your image tags like so:

The alternate (alt) text will also be displayed as a tool tip in Internet Explorer.
NOTE FOR MACS:
The ALT doesn't work on the MAC, so instead you can use the 'title' attribute instead:

There is no reason you can't use both on the same tag.

30. Do make images that look like buttons act like buttons:
I think we saw something like this already! Just as I said above, button graphics should look like buttons ... and on the flip side, don't create graphics that look like buttons that aren't buttons!
What constitutes a 'button-like' image?
Classically, any images with bevels or a 3d look to them are typically intended to be buttons and people will naturally try to click them. But the best way to determine what a button looks like (from your visitors perspective) is to consider your web site; if you find that your links are underlined text then any text that is underlined will be perceived as being a link or button ... a little common sense goes a long way here. Another thing to do is to visit other web sites and pay attention to how they do things.
What ever you do, remember these two points:
1. Always try and make things as clear as possible to your visitors.
2. What may be obvious to you may not be to your visitors!

31. Don't use too many colors in your web site:
Color is a way that people identify things; that is why the Coke label dominantly red and the Pepsi label is dominantly blue. Keep the color scheme of your web site limited to a couple of colors and keep it consistent across your site unless you want to denote some major section.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH

2007-11-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

I. Introduction
Project management has to be a core competency for an organization. I said IT projects but that is probably a bad term to use. What we really should be talking about is business projects with IT as an enabler. Research has shown that IT was not actually one of the more significant causes of problems with development projects. Research has shown that if projects are going to succeed one should really need to have a strong business possession, good project management practices and a focus on outcomes. In this regard there is a project management framework to provide a structure to the way of managing projects.

The post will first go through some of the reasons for needing a project management framework. I will then consider some of the key learning, both successes and failures. Finally I will describe a case study of the application of the project management framework.

The key message I will try to deliver is that you should have an agreed project management framework. This is not only to ensure that you have effective project management, but that it is done in a consistent way. You can then support your project management framework with training programs, guidelines and so forth. If everyone is doing it their own way it becomes much more difficult. I will be presenting the project framework, but I am not trying to sell that to you, what I am trying to sell to you is that it is important to have some form of project framework. And there is off the shelf software available that can assist project management. Microsoft Project, ACE Project are some of the examples, but there are many others that you might be able to fairly easily adapt for your own particular state of affairs.

II. The Project Management Framework
Well why its required to implement a project management framework? There are situations in almost all IT organizations dealing with projects, where it have too many projects running over time and over budget. And there also are lots of creep in project scope and that is one of the reasons that they were running over time and over budget. Improper clarity in Project responsibility. Insufficient ownership by the business areas of projects. Insufficient emphasis on identifying risks and how they should be managed. And interestingly there are too much emphasis on output rather than outcomes. This is quite common for projects that are based on new IT applications. There is a tendency to think the job is finished when the IT application has been developed.

Just to give you one example of the emphasis on outputs rather than outcomes, I had a major Jobsite project where the people that developed it said, “it’s built, it meets all the specifications and is fully tested”. But the end users were not using it effectively. So the project wasn’t really complete. There was a missing gap between the ‘output’ of delivering a particular Jobsite application and the ‘outcome’ of it being used successfully by the end users. And I think this is true of a lot of projects. Developers forget about the last step of assisting users to apply the new system effectively.

And also we didn’t have a universal approach to project management. A lot of people did take project management seriously but they did it in their own way. I had been influenced by a Senior Project Manager who had a great reputation for project management. In fact they argue that good project management is one of the most significant contributors to their profit margins.

The project management framework has seven key elements. These are set out in Table 1. It isn’t rocket science, but a lot of common sense. But actually having each of the elements documented and used to manage projects is very sensible.

TABLE 1: KEY ELEMENTS OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
1. Project Planning
2. Management of Risk
3. Management of Issues
4. Management of Change
5. Project Quality Check
6. Project Audit
7. Project Financial Management

1. The first phase I will talk about is project planning. This phase sets out the business case including the specification of outcomes that you actually want to achieve. But also, importantly, it defines measures that determine whether you actually met these outcomes or not. It also sets out the project outputs and how they are linked to the project outcomes.

2. Management of risk is extremely important. The first step is to identify what the considerable risks are and this really should be done in a brainstorming type of session. And sometimes it is very useful to bring in people who are not too closely associated with the project. You might bring in people who may not know much about the particular project but they have experience in project management and through this set of eyes they can see things that often those that are closer to the project cannot see. After you have identified the risk it is important to develop risk alleviation strategies, ie how might you reduce or even eliminate a risk. And then you have to make a decision on whether you will adopt the risk mitigation strategy or take the risk. In some cases its impact may be so low or the chance of it occurring so low you will decide, well let us take the risk and not expend the resources involved in reducing the risk. It is also an important part of project management to think about what the contingency plans will be where you aren't fully taking account of a risk. And of course it is important to monitor risks all the way through the project. They can change. We all know from our experience that issues crop up all the time. They need to be managed but it doesn’t make sense to deal with them one by one as they occur. It would simply lead to anarchy. I guess some are so important you have to deal with them at the time and that is where judgment comes to play. But all issues should be recorded and it’s important to examine if there’s some patterns emerging so that you can address issues in a systemic way rather than just on a one by one ad-hoc way. And as issues are processed they become either tasks or risks or dropped as no longer an issue because they are not sufficiently important.

3. Management of change is another vital driver of project management. And this should be planned for early in the project rather than waiting until the commissioning stage. It really can be the key to success. We all know that change isn’t always welcome by those who are most affected. A lot of people prefer to live in their comfort zone. So it is important to identify the people who might be affected by change, understand what their concerns are and develop plans to address these concerns. It is also important to win their hearts and minds and that they know and understand why you are making change. You need to convince people that it is not only in the long term interest of the organization that it is also in their long term interest if that is the case. If it’s not their long-term interest it’s better that they know that sooner rather than later as well. It helps them plan their future. Job design is a very important part of this process. And if you can, you should allow the people who are most affected to influence the way jobs are designed. And training/ re-skilling of course is a vitally important part of the management of change, particularly if staffs are changing responsibilities.

4. Project quality check is largely common sense. For the outputs, determine how you are going to decide whether they are actually fit for purpose. What are the measures of success?

5. Project audit is an important variable. Many projects fail because the audit arrangements are inappropriate or unclear. First of all, establish milestones and manageable project phases. A lot of projects are very big, so it is important to break the project down into chunks (manageable chunks). A good rule is not to allow any project phase to last more than six to twelve months or take up more than two to four staff years. Once you get beyond that, it’s starting to get difficult to manage. Of course lots of large projects are much bigger than that. So you should try and break it down into manageable chunks that you can control what is happening much more easily. However, you need to have a full understanding of the links between the different chunks. These have to be managed as well.

As to setting up the actual audit arrangements, this is horses for courses. The project management framework suggests that a project board be set up. And generally you should make the business area (the owner or end user of the project) provide the chair of the project board just to make sure the project ownership is appropriate and senior people from the business area are involved throughout the project. For smaller projects this might be overkill and the usual line manager, if you like, can take on the responsibility of the project board, ie the decision making responsibility, determining key strategies, monitoring project progress and so forth. But they may decide to set up a consultative or steering group to assist them even though they are taking the main responsibility. But no matter what the project audit arrangements are, it is important to define and document the roles and responsibilities of all who are involved or confusion can reign. People can start getting involved in activities that are not really their business. Or the reverse can occur, that is they don’t take responsibility for things that they really should be responsible for. The key role is the project manager. That is the person who has most responsibility for the things that happen from day to day. And the project owner is important. They often are the Chair of the Project Board or they may delegate their authority to someone else. But they must retain ownership.
It is necessary to make hard decisions that may change original project plans if things don't proceed according to plan. It may be that as things develop the original plan doesn’t make sense anymore, that you should do something somewhat different. You may have budget blowouts or time table blowouts perhaps even in the early phases of the project. And making necessary adjustments to the project plan is a very important part of the responsibility of the project board or whatever audit arrangements you establish.

6. I will not say much about the project financial management except that it is largely common sense. I have found it useful to analyze variations to expenditure plans, particularly significant variations, because it can give you insights into potential problems.

Just to repeat something I said at the start of the post, I’m not arguing that you should follow the project management framework I had just discussed. I am just using it as an illustration of a framework and suggesting that something along these lines is important for all organizations. It is also important to have a framework for all projects whether IT enabled or not.

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Analyzing a Website Development Initiative

2007-11-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

The website has become an essential tool for all kinds of businesses. We all know that we had to have a website, to target a large customer base at a glimpse of time. But are we using this venue to its greatest advantage?

Most people responsible for their company's websites have stats packages and counters to tell them how many hits, how many unique visitors, where they are coming from, what their IP addresses are, what browser they're using, and of course the all important monitor resolution. So what! Who cares? The real question is do we have an effective website which actually draws customers and helps in either ticking the revenue meter or making the platform a most popular one to visit?
Now if you have a transactional website, commonly referred to as an e-commerce site, you know the number of sales you are generating from your site, which is important, but do you really know how effective your site is? How many orders are you losing because of bad layout, awkward design, confusing navigation, and poor content? How many potential clients have you chased away because you haven't put a telephone number on your site and an accessible real-person that can answer questions?
In short, a website is your business' Public face. Big businesses can look like mom and pop operations and mom and pop operations can look like BMW. The design of your website should not be taken lightly, its budget should not be an afterthought, and the designer you hire should be someone who understands more than code. Your Web-designer should be a multimedia-marketing advisor, someone who can counsel you how best to deliver your marketing message, and someone who can go beyond technical issues.
You can spend a lot of money and have someone analyze your site for you, but are you really going to believe him, are you really going to act on their recommendations? You can't sell somebody something they really don't want - that may sound obvious, but believe me, sales people do it everyday ;-). If you don't think you need a new website, you aren't going to spend the money to have one built. So the best way to tell if you need one is to analyze the one you already have, yourself.
Below is a set of questions you can ask yourself. If you answer them honestly, you'll know whether you need a new site or not. After you've gone through the process, ask some colleagues to do the same. See if your answers compare. Scale them and decide on the basis of that.. Good LUCK..

1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?
Every website should have a clearly defined purpose. Having a website just because everyone else had one is not an acceptable approach. What is your website's purpose?
" Transactional sales-oriented site (E-commerce)
" Customer service support site (Support)
" How to instructional site (Informative)
" Product or service demonstration site (Tutorial)
" Lead generation site (Lead Generator)
" Marketing, branding, positioning site (CRM)
" Promotional campaign site (Business Development)
" Viral or buzz creation site (Firm type)
" Friends and pals site (Community)
" Listing site (Directory)

2. Is Your Website Focused?
Too many businesses both large and small use their website as an information junkyard, a dumping ground for everything you do, everything you've done, and everything you ever thought of doing. This won't work. Customers are like children; they want clarity, direction, and unequivocal answers. Your website should be focused on a singular function. URLs are cheap, there is no reason you can't have different websites for every major thing you do, or every marketing campaign you initiate. How focused is your website?

3. How Functional Is Your Website?
Everybody knows that websites should be easy to use, that you shouldn't have to drill-down too deep to find what you're looking for, and of course everything should work. Your website is a communication tool "virtually". If your website doesn't work properly, the only thing you're communicating is incompetence. How functional is your website?

4. Does Your Website's Construction Balance Competing Concerns?
Websites by their very nature are a compromise of competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame construction, HTML, Flash, client-side, server-side, data bases, SEO tactics, information architecture, marketing communication, transaction efficiency all compete for precedence in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks and unattainable traffic numbers? Did you start with an IT solution like a database and build your site around a poorly conceived information delivery system. Does your website's design reflect your sites' defined business purpose or is it a result of secondary technical concerns?

5. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?
Does your website represent and promote your marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick question for many small owner-managed businesses. Marketing is not sales. Marketing is about communicating who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is about image building, branding, and positioning, in other words, enhancing your business personality. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

6. Is the design of your Website integrated into your overall marketing plan?
Too many websites bear no relation to the rest of their business' marketing initiatives. Everything your company does should reflect an over-riding philosophy, point-of-view, and personality. If your marketing collaterals don't match your website presentation, you are confusing your audience. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

7. Is content "king" on your website?
I once had a fairly large client ask me to build a website based on selling website templates. This fellow was so paranoid that his competitors would see what he was doing that he hid his products from his customers. This business got discontinued before it can start. We've all heard the saying 'content is king'. Is content king on your website? Does your website adequately display and explain what you do, what products you sell, and what services you provide? Are there examples of your work? Are there testimonials from your customers? Have you provided information on how to order, how to use, and how to resolve problems? Is content really king on your website?

8. Is your website an experience, is it cool, up to date?
You watch television, you listen to the radio, you read a magazine, but you experience a website. Unlike other marketing vehicles, websites provide you the opportunity to deliver your marketing message with the full complement of multimedia tools. Websites can stimulate all the senses, sight, sound, and interactive touch in order to communicate and connect with your audience. Websites are not brochures. Visitors shouldn't just see your website, they should experience it. Is your website an experience?

9. Does your website have a distinctive look?
The notion of the flaming animated logo has become a cliché for bad design and style over substance, but that does not mean your website should be aesthetically boring and visually lifeless. Your site should display clarity of vision; it should provide functional page layout; its use of colors, type, and static and dynamic visuals should be distinctive and purposeful. Your website should provide a defining "Look" that enhances your business personality. Does your website display a distinctive look that represents your business personality?

10. Do you list appropriate contact information on your website?
Websites are all about connecting you to your clients, not hiding from them. If you think you can put your website on autopilot and that a FAQ and Help Q&A are going to cut-it, you better think again. Does your website have adequate contact information? Do you list appropriate email addresses and telephone numbers for the people responsible for various aspects of your business?

There you have it. Ten questions that when answered honestly will tell you whether or not you have a website that works and whether or not you need to rebuild.
If the answers are "Negative", at least you found me who can help you bringing your website up to speed! Anyways, once again its your decision..

Finally, and maybe this should have appeared under the first paragraph!
Is your website prominent, is it optimized to come up in relevant searches on the engines? Let's assume for a moment you have covered all the 10 points above, what does it help you to have a beautiful website that will not be found on the internet!?
SEO - Search Engine Optimization is what I am referring to, a vital component to bring your website to true success! An essential component you can not miss! It is really not that expensive and worth it every penny. Ask me if you want at groogle underscore wonder @ hotmail dot com

Good LUCK..

project management training project management

project management webdesign

website design

webdesign

internet

Virtual Mind Study

2007-11-06T03:22:00.000-08:00

Mentioned below are the steps which client’s usually undergo for hiring a firm or a web designer, as a first step for the initiation of a project. As a part of the exercise the Project Manager should have the feel to study the client’s mind through it, while undergoing communication with them.

*) Research
This is listed as 'Step *' for a reason - do not even start to look for a designer until you have done your research (the fact that you're reading this article is a good start!) Never start to scope out designers when all you know is "I need a Web Site". Not only is the designer going to need more information, it is vital that you understand some basic background before you contract with any designer. Much of your decision making process will rely on you having some background acquaintance about what accurately you necessitate - and for that you need to know both what is possible and which of those are easy and which are not.

What to do:
• Research Online - Everything you ever wanted to know about the Internet - is on the Internet!
• Find Sites you like - Jot down web sites you like, but be sure to look at them as if you were their customer - don't just focus on how they look, examine how they function as well. Make specific note of what your competition is doing on-line.
• Be Ready with Branding - Most designers will want to match the look and feel of your web site to your corporate brand (logo, colors etc...) make sure you have this ready or are prepared to work with the designer to create a brand prior to starting work on the actual web site.
• Plan for the Future - Develop a long term goal for your web site. How will it be maintained? Are you planning to add new features later? Is your business poised to expand into other areas?
• Know your budget - Have a good idea what you can have enough money to spend and keep this in the back of your mind as you select a designer.

These are just a basis on which you need to think on before selecting a designer or a design firm...

1) Choose Dynamic vs Static
• A Dynamic web site is built with integration to database (MS SQL, MYSQL, ORACLE, ACCESS etc.) and allows the site owner to make changes to the site without involving the web design firm.
• A Static web site is built by the designer and can only be changed by uploading new files to the server.

2) Look at their portfolio
Almost all web designers/firms have an on-line project portfolio (if they don't that would probably be cause for concern). Look through their portfolio and see if you like their work. The design part of web design is a creative process and therefore is, to a large extent, based on the taste of the designer. If you find that you don't like any of the web sites in the firm's portfolio - then you probably don't share the same tastes as the designer. There isn't much point trying to force a design you like from a designer with different taste.

What to do:
Look at portfolios - find design firms that create web sites that you like. Look at their structure and form - just like an artist, most designers have a specific "feel" that tends to run as a common theme in their work.

3) Talk to their customers
As with any professional, web designers/firms should be eager to share some references. Talk to their customers, find out about how the design process went, how the web site is performing, and what the customer is feeling about value for the price they paid. Along with the schedule and professionalism already levied to them..

What to do:
Talk to at least two references from each of your short-listed web designers/firms. Ask them for their opinion of the firm.

4) You don't always get what you pay for...
I have been in this arena for over past 4+ years, had seen and developed many web sites/applications - all too often I have also seen the unfortunate get fleeced by paying sometimes as much as 10 times what they should have. Usually when a web designer/firm is charging too much for their service it's for one of two reasons, the obvious one is that they are unscrupulous and are simply trying to rip people off. However, equally common is that they don't really understand the technology that they are selling and are charging an arm and a leg for something they find incredibly complex and difficult (because it's going to take them a long time to make it work). Neither one of these bodes well for the customer.

The other extreme is the free web site built by someone like your sister's nephew - in these cases you probably do get what you pay for and that is generally going to be something that needs to be replaced before it even gets launched.

What to do:
As with pretty much anything be sure to shop around. Get quotes from several design firms and make sure there are no hidden costs. If you're getting quotes that are excessively high or low - try to find out why. Try to get a clear understanding document exchange with the web designers/firms mentioning the project requirements and understandability by both the parties.

5) Get a Contract
Make sure you have a contract in place for your design project. Contracts should protect both parties and a good one will eliminate any confusion about what is included, who owns it, what are the works which hare required to be accomplished, how much time will it take, stakeholders involved in it, and how much it will cost. You are hiring a professional - and that should always include a contract (either an NDA or a SOW).

What to do:
Most web designers/firms have a standard contract, get a copy of this before you commit and read it carefully!

project management training project management

project management webdesign

website design

webdesign

internet

Team Building Approach

2007-11-06T01:58:00.000-08:00

project management training project management

Project management best practices

2007-09-15T02:09:00.000-07:00

As an active project manager, people often asks what are the fundamental aspects to successful project management. Whilst there have been many great books written on the subject, I always summarize what I believe to be the best practices at the heart of good project management.

Define the scope and objectives For any project to be successful you need to understand what the project is supposed to achieve. Suppose your boss asks you to organize a campaign to get the employees to donate blood. Is the aim of this to get as much blood donated to the local blood bank? Or, is it to raise the profile of the company in the local community? Deciding what the real objective is will help you to determine how you go about planning and managing the project. The project manager also needs to define the scope of the project. Is the organisation of transport to take staff to the blood bank within the scope of the project? Or, should staff make their own way there? Deciding which activities are within the scope or out of scope of the project has a big impact on the amount of work which needs to be performed during the project. An understanding of who are the stakeholders is also crucial if you are going to enlist their support and understand what each person expects to be delivered from the project. Once you've defined the scope and objectives, you will need to get the stakeholders to review them and agree to them as well as agreeing who should be on the list of stakeholders.

Define the deliverables To achieve the desired outcome from the project, you must define what things (or products/services) are to be delivered by the end of the project. If your project is an advertising campaign for a new chocolate bar, then one of the deliverables might be the artwork for a newspaper advert. So, you need to decide what tangible things are to be delivered and document in enough detail what these things are. At the end of the day, someone will end up doing the work to produce the deliverable, so it needs to be clearly and unambiguously described. Once you have defined the deliverables, you will need to have the key stakeholders review the work and get them to agree that this accurately and unambiguously reflects what they expect to be delivered from the project. Once they have agreed, you can begin to plan the project. Not defining the deliverables in enough detail or clarity is often a reason why projects go wrong.

Project planning This is the time when you define how you will achieve the desired outcome of the project embodied within the objectives and definition of deliverables. Planning requires that the project manager decides which people, resources and budget are required to complete the project. You will need to decide if you will break up your project into manageable phases, decide which products will be delivered in each phase, and decide the composition of your project team. Since you have already defined the deliverables, you must decide what activities are required to produce each deliverable. You can use techniques such as Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) to help you to achieve this. You will need to estimate the time and effort required to complete each activity, dependencies between related activities and decide on a realistic schedule to complete the activities. It's always a good idea to involve the project team in estimating how long the activities will take since they will be the ones actually doing the work. Capture all of this into the project plan document. You also need to get the key stakeholders to review and agree to this plan. When developing the project plan, a project manager is often under pressure to produce a plan which meets the (unrealistic) expectations of some of the stakeholders. It is important here that the project manager comes up with a realistic schedule - one which he/she thinks is realistic to achieve. You will be doing nobody a favor if you yield to pressure and agree to deliver the project in a totally unrealistic schedule.

Communication Even the best made project plans are useless unless they have been communicated effectively to the project team. Everyone on the team needs to know exactly what is expected of them, what their responsibilities are, and what they are accountable for.

Tracking project progress Once your project is underway and you have an agreed plan, you will need to constantly monitor the actual progress of the project against the planned progress. To do this, you will need to get reports of progress from the project team members who are actually doing the work. You will need to record any variations between the actual and planned cost, schedule and scope. You will need to report any variations to your manager and key stakeholders and take corrective actions if the variations get too large. There are lots of ways in which you can adjust the plan in order to get the project back on track (rearrange the order of tasks, assign tasks in parallel if the variation is small, or add more staff to the project or reduce the scope if the variation is very large). All projects require the project manager to constantly juggle three things: cost, scope and schedule. If the project manager increases one of these, then one of the other elements will inevitably need to be changed as well. So, for a project which is running behind schedule to recover so it can be delivered to it's original planned schedule, the budget might be increased by employing more staff (although this invariably never achieves the desired result of reducing the time left to complete the project), or the scope will need to be reduced. It is the juggling of these three elements - known as the project triangle - that typically causes a project manager to tear their hair out in frustration 

Change management All projects change in some way. Often, a key stakeholder in the middle of a project will change their mind about what the project needs to deliver. On projects of longer duration, the business environment has often changed since the start of the project, so assumptions made at the beginning of the project may no longer be valid. This often results in the scope or deliverables of the project needing to be changed. If a project manager simply accepted all of these changes into the project, the project would inevitably be delivered late (and perhaps would never ever be completed) and would inevitably go over budget. By managing changes, the project manager can make decisions about whether or not to incorporate the changes immediately or in the future, or to reject them. These increases the chances of project success because the project manager controls how the changes are incorporated and can allocate resources accordingly and can plan when and how the changes are made. Not managing changes effectively is often cited as a major reason why projects fail.

Threat management Threats are any events which can adversely affect the successful outcome of the project. I've worked on projects where some of the risks have included: staff lacking the technical skills to perform the work properly, improper documentation, communication barriers and many others. Risks will vary from project to project but it is important to identify the main risks to a project as soon as possible and to plan the actions necessary to avoid the risk, or, if the risk cannot be avoided, to at least mitigate the risk in order to lessen its impact if it does occur. This is what is known as risk management. Do you manage all risks? No, because there could be too many to manage, and not all risks have the same impact. So a simple way is to identify as many risks as you can, work out how likely each risk is to occur on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the worst), estimate its impact on the project on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the worst), then multiply the two numbers together. The result is the risk weighting. A high risk weighting is the most severe risk. Just manage the top ten risks i.e. the ones with the highest risk weighting. Constantly review the risks and constantly be on the lookout for new risks since they have a habit of jumping up at unanticipated moments. Not managing risks effectively is also often cited as a major reason why projects fail.

Summary So, in a nutshell, these best practices are the main things that I would expect all project managers to do. They are applicable on all projects big or small. Project management is not rocket science. Applying best practices on your project cannot guarantee that your project comes in under budget, on time and exceeds all the expectations of the stakeholders, but applying them will certainly give you a much better chance of delivering your project successfully than if you don't apply them on your project.

project management training project management

Identify Project Need and Begin Project Studies

2007-08-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

- Select Project Manager

- Prepare Preliminary Project Work Plan

- Identify the Initial Project Scope

- Select Project Development Team

- Review Related or Adjacent Studies

- Initiate Technology Studies

- Obtain Appropriate Mapping of Communication

- Obtain Existing Data from Case Studies

- Identify Project Alternatives

- Obtain Advance Planning Studies for Structures

- Review Project Alternatives

- Prepare Draft Project Study Report (PSR)

- Circulate Draft PSR for Review

- Prepare Appropriate Fact Sheet for Exceptions to Design Standards

- Approve Fact Sheet for Exceptions to Advisory Design Standards

- Approve Fact Sheet for Exceptions to Mandatory Design Standards

- Review of PSR by Project Development Team

- Complete PSR

project management training project management

Keys for Effective Project Management

2007-06-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

Concept Phase

• Project Definition
- New Project Proposal
- Project Selection and Controlling Project Starts
- New Product Business Plan
- Product Definition - Critical Success Factors
- Project Scope Definition: Mission Statement
- Project Scope Definition: Deliverables
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 1: Preliminary Requirements
Gathering
- New System Request for Proposal (RFP)
- Project Request for Proposal (RFP)
- RFP for Training Program Development

• Project Team Startup
- Project Manager/Team Leader Selection
- Project Team Leader Description - Roles & Responsibilities
- Leadership and the Project Lifecycle
- PM Coaching Guidelines
- Project Coaching Check-in Calendar and Worksheet
- Action Item List Formats

Initiation Phase

• Project Definition and Requirements
- Project Scope Definition: Vision Document
- Project Scope Definition: Statement of Work (SOW)
- Product Requirements Specification
- Software Requirements Specification
- Requirements Change Management Guideline
- Requirements Traceability Guideline
- Preliminary Design Review Meeting
- Project Vision Example: Defining a Software Release Life Cycle

• Team and Communication
- Team Roles and Responsibilities List
- "Sweet" Team Building Suggestion
- Responsibility Allocation Matrix
- Task Responsibility Matrix
- Project Escalation Process Guidelines
- Software Release Team Member Glossary
- Communications Plan
- Training Needs Assessment Guidelines
- Milestone Table with Driver Tasks
- Collaborative Milestone-Driven Planning Process
- Personality Types Impact on Team Interactions
- Project Team Rewards and Recognition Guideline

• Planning, Scope and Tradeoffs
- Development Project Plan
- Software Project Plan
- Project Alternatives Tradeoff Table
- Project Flexibility Matrix
- Product and Project Risk Assessment and Mitigation Tables
- Plan Development: Task Identification - Work Breakdown Structure
- Plan Development: Task Assignment and Deliverables
- Plan Development: Logical Relationships/Dependencies
- Plan Development: Task Duration
- Plan Development: Project Schedule and Critical Path
- Plan Development: Optimizing Project Plan Tradeoffs
- Discontinuance End-of-Life Planning
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 1: Preliminary Requirements
Gathering
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 2: Scope Definition
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 3: Planning and Negotiation
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 4: Release Plan Refinement
- Marketing Plan
- Project Overview Test Plan
- Beta Test Plan
- Communications Plan

• Scheduling, Costs, and Estimating
- Department and Project Level WBS Example
- Scheduling Checklist
- Resource Leveling
- Estimating Process and Methods
- Pete's Estimating Laws
- Project Budgets
- Software Release Life Cycle WBS

Execution Phase

• Ongoing Planning
- Software Release Life Cycle Overview
- Introduction to Software Release Trains
- Integration Plan
- Software Bug Fix WBS
- Maintenance Planning Guidelines and Plan Outline
- Discontinuance End-of-Life Planning
- Marketing Plan
- Localization Guidelines

• Specifications
- Interface Protocol Document
- Software Requirements Specification

• Tracking and Status
- Phase Signoff Process
- Milestone Table with Driver Tasks
- Tracking with Visible Deliverables
- Tracking Example – Small Project
- Change Control Form
- Issue Resolution Status Report
- Guidelines - Completion Criteria
- Software Integration Checklist
- Project Status Reports

• Reviews
- Review Checklists: Detailed Design Review
- Review Checklists: Critical Design Review
- Review Checklists: Final Design Review
- Coding Review Guidelines

• Testing
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 5: Development Tracking
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 6: Integration
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 7: System Test
- Software Test Transfer Forms

Approval Phase

• Test Planning and Execution
- Project Overview Test Plan
- QA and Beta Test Manager Job Descriptions
- Software Unit Test Plan
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 8: Internal Testing (Alpha)
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 9: External Testing (Beta)
- Software Test Transfer Forms
- Master Test List
- Beta Test Plan
- User Acceptance Test Plan
- Customer Acceptance Checklist and Signoff

• Completion Criteria/Checklists
- Release decision process
- Software Quality Release
- End of Approval Phase Checklist

Delivery Phase

• Project Completion
- Software Release Life Cycle Phase 10: Delivery
- Project Cancellation

• Close-out Activities
- Project Closeout Meeting Agenda
- Lessons Learned Survey
- Lessons Learned Meeting Agenda
- Lessons Learned Meeting Report

project management training project management

Planning

2007-06-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

Why, What, How?

Planning a project is where the Project Manager must bring together the complete understanding of the project's requirements with a deep understanding of all the elements that are required to conduct a successful project. In many ways, it is the center-piece for the Project Manager's skills. Of course, it all counts for nothing unless it leads to a successful project!

Planning, estimating & resourcing - available as a PowerPoint slide Planning, estimating and resourcing may be viewed as separate issues, but they need to be conducted in parallel as they directly affect each other.

* Planning is the definition of work to be done, including resource requirements, dependencies and timing.
* Estimating is the calculation of the amount of time and effort that will be required per type of resource for each part of the work to be done.
* Resourcing is the allocation of actual resources (usually the project's workforce) to the plan.

The availability of resources will always be limited. Resources may be required in greater quantities than are available or have competing demands on their time. It may be necessary to make compromises or move work between different potential resources to make best use of the resources available. As these practical adjustments are made, there will inevitably be an impact on the duration and timing of tasks. It may also affect the project's predicted costs.

Here are some of the key issues in deciding what approach to take:

* top down or bottom up?
* all in one go or exploding detail in stages?
* fully detailed or streamlined / summary?
* one plan or several sub-plans?
* automated scheduling or manual scheduling?
* activity, process, deliverable, outcome, or milestone-focused?

project management training project management

Project Systems

2007-05-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

Traditionally, project development includes five elements: control systems and four stages.

Project control systems

Project control is that element of a project that keeps it on-track, on-time, and within budget. Project control begins early in the project with planning and ends late in the project with post-implementation review, having a thorough involvement of each step in the process. Each project should be assessed for the appropriate level of control needed: too much control is too time consuming, too little control is too costly. If control is not implemented correctly, the cost to the business should be clarified in terms of errors, fixes, and additional audit fees.

Control systems are needed for cost, risk, quality, communication, time, change, procurement, and human resources. In addition, auditors should consider how important the projects are to the financial statements, how reliant the stakeholders are on controls, and how many controls exist. Auditors should review the development process and procedures for how they are implemented. The process of development and the quality of the final product may also be assessed if needed or requested.

Businesses sometimes use formal systems development processes. These help assure that systems are developed successfully. A formal process is more effective in creating strong controls, and auditors should review this process to confirm that it is well designed and is followed in practice. A good formal systems development plan outlines:

* A strategy to align development with the organization’s broader objectives
* Standards for new systems
* Project management policies for timing and budgeting
* Procedures describing the process

Project development stages

Regardless of the methodology used, the project development process will have the same major stages: initiation, development, production or execution, and closing/maintenance.

Initiation

The initiation stage determines the nature and scope of the development. If this stage is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’s needs. The key project controls needed here is an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project. Any deficiencies should be reported and a recommendation should be made to fix them.

The initiation stage should include a cohesive plan that encompasses the following areas:

* Study analyzing the business needs in measurable goals.
* Review of the current operations.
* Conceptual design of the operation of the final product.
* Equipment requirement.
* Financial analysis of the costs and benefits including a budget.
* Select stake holders, including users, and support personnel for the project.
* Project charter including costs, tasks, deliverables, and schedule.

Planning and design

After the initiation stage, the system is designed. Occasionally, a small prototype of the final product is built and tested. Testing is generally performed by a combination of testers and end users, and can occur after the prototype is built or concurrently. Controls should be in place that ensure that the final product will meet the specifications of the project charter. The results of the design stage should include a product design that:

* Satisfies the project sponsor, end user, and business requirements.
* Functions as it was intended.
* Can be produced within quality standards.
* Can be produced within time and budget constraints.

Closing and Maintenance

Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

Maintenance is an ongoing process, and it includes:

* Continuing support of end users
* Correction of errors
* Updates of the software over time

In this stage, auditors should pay attention to how effectively and quickly user problems are resolved.

Over the course of any construction project, the work scope changes. Change is a normal and expected part of the construction process. Changes can be the result of necessary design modifications, differing site conditions, material availability, contractor-requested changes, value engineering and impacts from third parties, to name a few. Beyond executing the change in the field, the change normally needs to be documented to show what was actually constructed. Hence, the owner usually requires a final record to show all changes or, more specifically, any change that modifies the tangible portions of the finished work. The record is made on the contract documents – usually, but not necessarily limited to, the design drawings. The end product of this effort is what the industry terms as-built drawings, or more simply, “asbuilts.” The requirement for providing them is a norm in construction contracts.

project management training project management

Software/Web Project Management

2007-05-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

Software/Web Project Management is a sub-discipline of Project management in which software projects are planned, monitored and controlled.

Project Planning

The purpose of Project Planning is to identify the scope of the project, estimate the work involved, and create a project schedule. Project planning begins with requirements that define the software to be developed. The project plan is then developed to describe the tasks that will lead to completion.

Project Monitoring and Control

The purpose of Project Monitoring and Control is to keep the team and management up to date on the project's progress. If the project deviates from the plan, then the project manager can take action to correct the problem. Project monitoring and control involves status meetings to gather status from the team. When changes need to be made, Change control is used to keep the products up to date.

Software requirements

Requirements analysis is a term used to describe all the tasks that go into the instigation, scoping and definition of a new or altered computer system. Requirements analysis is an important part of the software engineering process; whereby business analysts or software developer identify the needs or requirements of a client; having identified these requirements they are then in a position to design a solution.

Risk Management

Risk Management is the process of measuring, or assessing risk and then developing strategies to manage the risk. In general, the strategies employed include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk. Traditional risk management, which is discussed here, focuses on risks stemming from physical or legal causes (e.g. natural disasters or fires, accidents, death, and lawsuits).

Software Process

A software development process is concerned primarily with the production aspect of software development, as opposed to the technical aspect. These processes exist primarily for supporting the management of software development, and are generally skewed toward addressing business concerns.

Problems in Software/Web Projects

The problems in software projects come from three different viewpoints. There are project managers,developers and customers. The problems faced by project managers if he/she poor in role definition, poor in estimating and planning, lack of decision making skills. Project managers do need to face the schedule, budget and quality constraints. However, the problems faced by developers if he/she is lack of knowledge in application area, lack of standard, lack of up to date documentations, deadline pressure, changes of application requirement. Lastly, the problems faced by customers is the monetary constraints, receive the products out of the actual time that should be deliver.

project management training project management

The Project Manager

2007-05-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced.

A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm he/she is representing. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality, and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized.

In whatever field, a successful project manager must be able to envisage the entire project from start to finish and to have the ability to ensure that this vision is realized.

project management

Project Management activities

2007-05-23T04:07:00.000-07:00

Project Management is composed of several different types of activities such as:

1. Planning the work or objectives
2. Analysis & Design of objectives
3. Assessing and controlling risk (or Risk Management)
4. Estimating resources
5. Allocation of resources
6. Organizing the work
7. Acquiring human and material resources
8. Assigning tasks
9. Directing activities
10. Controlling project execution
11. Tracking and Reporting progress
12. Analyzing the results based on the facts achieved
13. Defining the products of the project
14. Forecasting future trends in the project
15. Quality Management
16. Issues Management
17. Issues solving
18. Defect prevention
19. Project Closure meet
20. Communicating to stakeholders

project management

Project Management Process

2007-05-23T03:55:00.000-07:00

Project management process is the management process of planning and controlling the performance or execution of a project.

Inputs

* Documented need to act
* Project plan templates
* Lessons learned from previous projects
* Existing project management standards
* External information
* Resources for project planning and project execution

Process

* Project initiation
* Project planning
* Project execution
* Project control
* Project closeout and evaluation

Outputs

* Project products delivered
* Project objectives achieved (as a result of the interplay among project products and the organization or its environment)
* Lessons learned documented

project management

Project Management Definitions

2007-05-23T01:30:00.000-07:00

Definitions of Project Management on the Web:

* Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to a broad range of activities in order to meet the requirements of the particular project. A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to achieve a particular aim. Project management knowledge and practices are best described in terms of their component processes. These processes can be placed into five Process Groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Closing. ...

* The leadership role which plans, budgets, co-ordinates, monitors and controls the operational contributions of property professionals, and others, in a project involving the development of land in accordance with a client's objectives in terms of quality, cost and time.

* A controlled process of initiating, planning, executing, and closing down a project.

* Both a process and set of tools and techniques concerned with defining the project's goal, planning all the work to reach the goal, leading the project and support teams, monitoring progress, and seeing to it that the project is completed in a satisfactory way.

* The application of modern management techniques and systems to the execution of a project from start to finish, to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, quality, time and cost, to the equal satisfaction of those involved.

* Project management is concerned with the overall planning and co-ordination of a project from inception to completion aimed at meeting the client's requirements and ensuring completion on time, within cost and to required quality standards. Project management is typically carried out either by a private consultant or an employee of the project client.

* Manages the production of projects with schedules and tasks associated with the project. It often involves detailed expertise in many of the following areas: planning, cost management, contract negotiations/procurement, technical writing (proposals, etc.), research, technical development, information/computer management, business development, corporate/administrative management, time management, and others. ...

* The methods and disciplines used to define goals, plan and monitor tasks and resources, identify and resolve issues, and control costs and budgets for a specific project.

* May be used in a project manufacturing environment for production scheduling or in a variety of one off projects throughout all types of organisation.

* The action of managing a project. It can involves many activities, from scheduling to communication. Project Management in TOC is outcomes based as opposed to activity based, and TPACC software is an ideal tool used to measure the progress toward the financial outcome.

* Approach used to manage work with the constraints of time, cost and performance targets.

* This is managing the resources needed to ensure that a project is finished on time and within budget and to the satisfaction of the end user. Project managers use tools such as PERT and Gantt charts for scheduling all the tasks that need to be completed. They are conscious of managing time, scope and resources for a project. To reduce time to complete a project the manager might decide to employ more workers which would increase costs. ...

* The planning, control and co-ordination of all aspects of a project, and the motivation of all those involved in it, in order to achieve the project objectives.

* Project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, space, etc). Thus, it could be classified into several models: time, cost, scope, and intangibles.

project management

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2007-05-17T04:49:00.001-07:00

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2007-05-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

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