Book Summary Who Moved My Cheese

Recently I read a novel - Who Moved My Cheese? It is a business novel. It describes an amazing way to deal with change in work and life. This book has sold more than 26 million copies worldwide in 37 languages and remains one of the best-selling business books. This book is written by Dr Spencer Johnson. 

Who Moved My Cheese? Features four characters: two mice, "Sniff" and "Scurry," and two little people, miniature humans in essence, "Hem" and "Haw." They live in a maze (a representation of one's environment) and look for cheese (metaphor of happiness and success). Initially, without cheese, each group- the mice and humans, paired off and travelled the lengthy corridors searching for cheese. One day both groups find a cheese-filled corridor at "Cheese Station C."

 Another day, Sniff and Scurry arrive at Cheese Station C to find no cheese left, but they are not surprised. Noticing the cheese supply decreasing day by day, they were mentally prepared beforehand for the hard but inevitable task of finding more cheese. Leaving Cheese Station C behind, they begin their hunt for new cheese together. Later that day, Hem and Haw arrive at Cheese Station C only to find the same thing- no cheese. Angered and annoyed, Hem demands, "Who moved my cheese?" The humans have counted on the cheese supply to be constant, and so are unprepared for this possibility. After deciding that the cheese is indeed gone they get angry at the unfairness of the situation and both go home hungry. Returning the next day, Hem and Haw find the same cheese-less place. Starting to realize the situation at hand, Haw thinks of a search for new cheese. But Hem is dead set in his victimized mindset and dismisses the proposal.

 Meanwhile, Sniff and Scurry have found "Cheese Station N," with new cheese. But back at Cheese Station C, Hem and Haw are affected by their lack of cheese and blame each other for their problem. Hoping to change, Haw again proposes a search for new cheese. However, Hem is comforted by his old routine and is scared about the unknown. He knocks the idea again. After a while of being in rejection, the humans remain without the cheese. One day, having discovered his debilitating fears, Haw begins to chuckle at the situation and stops taking himself so seriously. Realizing he should simply move on.

 Still fearful of his trek, Haw jots "What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?" on the wall and, after thinking about that, he begins his venture. Still plagued with worry (perhaps he has waited too long to begin his search...), Haw finds some bits of cheese that sustains him and he can continue his search. Haw realizes that the cheese has not suddenly vanished, but has declined from continual eating. After a stop at an empty cheese station, Haw begins worrying about the unknown again. Brushing aside his fears, Haw's new mindset allows him to again enjoy life. He has begun to smile again! He is realizing that "When you move beyond your fear, you feel free." After another empty cheese station, Haw decides to go back for Hem with the few bits of new cheese he has managed to find.

 Uncompromising, Hem refuses the new cheese, to his friend's disappointment. With the knowledge learned along the way, Haw heads back into the maze. Getting deeper into the maze, inspired by bits of new cheese here and there, Haw leaves a trail of writings on the wall. These clarify his thinking and give him hope that his friend will find aid in them during his search for new cheese. Still travelling, Haw one day comes across Cheese Station N, ample with cheese, including some varieties that are strange to him, and he realizes he has found what he is looking for. After eating, Haw reflects on his experience. He ponders a return to see his old friend. But Haw decides to let Hem find his way. Finding the largest wall in Cheese Station N.

 Cautious from experience, Haw now inspects Cheese Station N daily and explores different parts of the maze regularly to prevent any complacency from setting in. This story gives us an idea about dealing with change.

• Change Happens: They Keep Moving the Cheese
• Anticipate Change: Get Ready For the Cheese to Move
• Monitor Change: Smell the Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old
• Adapt To Change Quickly: The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese
• Change: Move with the Cheese
• Enjoy Change! : Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!
• Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again: They Keep Moving The Cheese.

7 C’s of Communication for Project Managers

It’s every Projects Manager’s responsibility is to provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which team members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth. To achieve this objective first we need to understand the Communication process very thoroughly. Communication means not only verbal but potential dimensions of communication that need to be considered like Internal and external, formal and informal, Vertical and horizontal, Official and unofficial, Written and oral, and verbal and nonverbal etc.

Components of the communication process (Communication Models): 

• Encode: Thoughts or ideas are translated (encoded) into language by the sender.

• Transmit Message: This information is then sent by the sender using the communication channel (medium). The transmission of this message may be compromised by various factors (e.g., distance, unfamiliar technology, inadequate infrastructure, cultural difference, and lack of background information). These Factors are collectively termed as noise

• Decode: The message is translated by the receiver back into meaningful thoughts or ideas.

• Acknowledge: Upon receipt of a message, the receiver may signal (acknowledge) receipt of the message but this does not necessarily mean agreement with or comprehension of the message.

• Feedback/Response: When the received message has been decoded and understood, the receiver encodes thoughts and ideas into a message and then transmits this message to the original sender 

Communication Method

• Interactive communication: Two or more parties performing a multidirectional exchange of information. e.g. meetings, phone calls, instant messaging, video conferencing

• Push communication: Sent to specific recipients who need to receive the information. Push communications include letters, memos, reports, emails, faxes, voice mails, blogs, press releases, etc. 

• Pull communication: Used for very large volumes of information, or for very large audiences, and requires the recipients to access the communication content at their own discretion. These methods include intranet sites, e-learning, newspaper, television etc. 

Communication Technology

• The urgency of the need for information.

• Availability of technology. 

• Ease of Use. 

• Project environment. 

• Sensitivity and confidentiality of the information.

7 C’s of effective communication

• Completeness: The communication must be complete. It should convey all the facts required by the audience

• Conciseness: Conciseness means wordiness, i.e., communicating what you want to convey in the least possible words. Concise message is non-repetitive in nature

• Consideration: Effective communication must take the audience into consideration, i.e., the audience’s viewpoints, background, mindset, education level, etc. Ensure that the self-respect of the audience is maintained and their emotions are not at harm

• Clarity: It makes understanding easier. Complete clarity of thoughts and ideas enhances the meaning of the message.

• Concreteness: It is supported with specific facts and figures. Concrete messages are not misinterpreted.

• Courtesy: It makes use of terms showing respect for the receiver of the message. It is not at all biased.

• Correctness: Correctness in communication implies that there are no grammatical errors in communication. The message should be exact, correct and well-timed.

Knowledge of communication models is very useful to Project Managers to achieve organizational goals and objectives in a very short span of time.

Book Summary What the CEO wants you to know

Ram Charan is an advisor to Fortune 500 companies and has lectured at Harvard and Northwestern’s Kellogg school of business. In his book What the CEO wants you to know, he explores what he describes as the “basic building blocks of business”. Using comparisons from his family’s shoe shop in India he deciphers the day-to-day necessities of business in order to describe the essential information you can use to determine whether a business is successful. Here is a synopsis of some of the essential finances of a business as described in” What the CEO wants you to know”:

1. Cash generation – The difference between all the cash that flows into or out of the business in a given time period.
2. Margin – Margin is the percentage of profit made on the products the company sells or services the company provides. As a meaningful statistic, it usually refers to a company’s net profit margin after taxes.
3. Velocity - Sometimes referred to as “inventory turns”, describes the concept of how frequently the company’s stock is moved off the shelves into the hands of its customers, and replenished by suppliers. It defined by how many times a particular product has to be restocked in a year. Additionally, he measures “Asset velocity”, this is AV = Sales / total assets. This measurement is somewhat more interesting in terms of software companies that don’t have a physical product.
4. Return on Assets (ROA) – The amount of money you are able to make with a given amount of fixed assets. Occasionally companies use slightly different measurements such as “Return on investment (ROI)” or “Return on equity (ROE)”. These measurements answer the questions of “How much money are you making with your investments, or with the money, shareholders have invested in the company?”  ROA can be simplistically defined as a product of Margin and Velocity (R = M x V). Mr. Charan describes the ROI of a business as a critical marker to the health of a business. Comparing this figure with competitors and the previous year can gauge whether a company is succeeding or failing.
5. Growth – A company’s growth is the increase in a company’s size in terms of employees. The author argues that with a lack of sustainable, profitable growth, a company may not be able to attract the type of employees that the company needs to succeed in the marketplace. If a company stagnates, the amount of money it can afford to spend on research and development decreases, the opportunities for promotion within the company begin to dry up, and the ambitious employees move on for greener pastures. Even more dangerous is unnecessary growth, where the company expands at a rate which is not consistent with the return on the investment in the new employees/stores etc.
6. Customers – A company must listen to its customers in order to succeed. In terms of e-business, neglecting user feedback to your software or website is detrimental. The prevalence of the internet means it is possible to promote your business globally, and if you don’t cater to the tastes of your customers they have little need to stay. The cost of attracting customers is relatively high, but in most cases, the cost of switching for a customer is very low.

Using these measurements, one can get a summary of the business:

• What were the company’s sales?
• Is the company growing, or is growth flat or declining? How does this growth compare to competitors or the market segment?
• What is the company’s profit margin? How does this margin compare to the competition?
• What is the company’s inventory velocity? It’s asset velocity?

In terms of wealth the book delves into the business from the eyes of an investor:

• Price-earnings multiple (P-E Ratio) – How much profit the company made for each share of stock. For example, a P-E Ratio of 7 means that for every dollar of earnings per share the stock is worth seven times that much. It represents the expectations of a company’s current and future money-making abilities. When a company begins to miss its earnings-per-share expectation investors often decide to take their money elsewhere, resulting in sliding stock prices.

This is followed up with some notes on personnel management, coaching, and how to determine whether a person is suited to a job, though I’m not certain that this chapter belongs in the overall context of the rest of the book. Finally, there is a personal check-list you can use to evaluate your own company on the metrics described previously. I found this a nice basic primer on business finance, I’m certain that each of the topics could have entire books devoted to them, but this is a good overview with enough detail to be interesting without getting too dry.

Scrum Master Interview Questions.

6 months back, I was eagerly looking for a job change and attended interviews with various IT companies in Delhi and NCR reason. I have collected below Interview questions based on my experiences in job interviews. I was able to get an offer letter from 3 reputed IT companies with just one month of preparation. Below is the list of Interview questions.

 

1. What are your roles and responsibilities in the agile team?  

2. What is your team Matrix?

3. What is your role as a Scrum Master?

4. What is the difference between the Scrum Master and Project Manager?

5. Tell me about your day to day working

6. Who is the product owner in your project and what’s his role?

7. How do you calculate story points?

8. What are the attributes of a good user story in agile?

9. How do you plan a sprint? What is the duration of a sprint planning meeting?

10. What is your team's Sprint duration any why?

11. How do you draw a Burndown chart?

12. What are the different roles in Scrum?

13. What are the different Artifacts in Scrum?

14. What is your team’s velocity?

15. What is the difference between capacity and velocity?

16. What is the Definition of Done?

17. What is a Sprint Review meeting and who participates in it?

18. How do you do the Sprint Retrospective Meeting? Do you use any tools to capture Retrospective meeting output?

19. What do you do with the Retrospective meeting output? Explain with an example.

20. How do you plan your Sprint?

21. How do you manage risk in Scrum?

22. How do you consider that your deliverables are complete?

23. What is a Burndown chart?

24. What is a Burnup chart?

25. What is the difference between burn-up and burn-down charts? How do we use them independently?

26. What is user Story and what are characteristics of a user story?

27. What is Epic? Who is Epic owner?

28. How do you split epic into a story, what are the criteria?

29. What is a query in Jira?

30. Can you show a role-specific dashboard to users in Jira?

31. What are the four Values of The Agile Manifesto?

32. What are the twelve Agile Principles?

33. How do you run a Daily Scrum Meeting?

34. What is the difficulty you faced in agile implementation?

35. What are the different ceremonies in Scrum?

36. What is the Scrum of Scrums?

37. What is Feature Driven Development?

38. What is CI/CD? What are the tools you use for it?

39. What is Planning Poker? What is the use of the Fibonacci sequence in Story point calculations?

40. What is a Cross-Functional Team?

41. Explain some common metrics for Agile

42. What is the biggest challenge you faced in Project management?

43. Do you perform automated testing? What are the tools you use for it?

44. What is Test-Driven Development?

45. What is a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

46. Share the current scenario of SAFe implementation in your project.

47. What is the role of the Release Train Engineer?

48. What is the difference between Epic, User Stories and Tasks?

49. What is product backlog and who maintains it?

50. What is the role of a Product Owner?

51. What is time-boxing in Scrum?

52. What do you understand by Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in Scrum?

53. Who shall be writing user stories?

54. What are the challenges you faced as a Scrum Master?

55. What is the release Burndown chart?

56. What is the value stream?

57. How do you foster a self-organizing team?

58. What is a definition of done, why the written definition of done is important?

59. Why you should minimize work in progress (WIP)?

60. How you will run multi-location and multi-vendor Scrum teams?

61. What is a product backlog refinement/grooming?

62. What is the Minimum Viable Product and Minimum Marketable Features?

63. Have you ever tried Pair Programming? Do you think it is useful?

64. What is Increment?

65. What is Technical Debt?

66. What is time boxing?

67. What is Moscow?

68. Can we change sprint lengths in between?

69. How do we develop a framework code and architecture in Scrum?

70. Can Scrum Master and Product Owner be the same person?

71. What is Emergent Architecture?

72. What is Scrum of Scrum?

73. What is sprint zero?

74. What is the Build Breaker?

75. What is Spike?

76. What is Kanban?

77. What is design thinking?

78. What is XP?

79. What is BDD? What tools do you use for BDD?

80. Limitations / Drawback of Agile / for what types of projects Agile is not suitable.

 

 

Always be prepared with 5-10 questions that you want to ask/learn about from the company or position for you to have applied.    

 

Please suggest questions in the comment section if I missed any. 

 

Certifications for Software Project Manager: Required or Hoax?

There are so many certifications available in the IT Industry. These are mostly related to Software Development, Software Testing, Enterprise Architect, Project Management, Business Analysis, and Service Delivery Management, etc. All the certifying agencies claim that their certificate is more promising and helps to improve accessibility to the Job market. There are so many factors related to the selection of the right certification. It requires a lot of time, money and hard work to get the certification. So it’s very important to invest hard-earned money and precious time in the right certification for optimum benefits. This is a kind of investment we usually make to improve our credibility.

 

Is certification really necessary?

 

This is the first question professionals usually ask. Certification has very little contribution to the actual job scenario and your experience plays a vital role in challenging the environment rather than certification. Job recruiters are mostly from the non-IT background and search profiles from the job portal on predefined criteria. If you have certification then there might be more chances for you to come up on the search results but if you don’t have it then even after experience and knowledge, you have fewer chances to reach on the interview desk. We cannot deny the knowledge gained through certification and its implementation in a real scenario. These certifications add some value to your profile. For example, the Employer knows that if somebody is PMP certified then he/she will demonstrate a level of knowledge and commitment in the project management field. Sometimes certification is contractual and needs legal obligations. Peer pressure is also one of the necessities for an individual to attain certifications.    

 

Some of the factors to choose the right certification

 

• Value in Job Market – One should choose certification which has great value in the job market. For example, PMP, CSM, and PRINCE2 have great value in the IT Job market compared to other Project Management certifications
• Choose the right certification – Choosing the right set of certification also plays an important role. Certification should be relevant to your profile. For example, PMP certification is not relevant for the Enterprise Architect role  
• Credentials of Certifying agency – Certifying agency should have a prestigious name in the industry. It should have some accreditation and should have spent some time in the field. For example, PMI which provides PMP certification is more than 40 years old organization and has a great credential in the industry
• Cost – Cost of the certification is also very important. One should check their pocket before investment
• The proximity of testing center – This is also one of the important factors

 

There are various certifications available in the market for Project Managers. Few important certifications are

 

1. Project Management Professional – PMP certification is one of the prestigious certifications in the field of Project Management. Project Management Institute is the only certifying body of this certificate. As of August 2019, there are 932,720 active PMP certified individuals in 218 countries. Gaining PMP credentials is not easy, you require a lot of dedication and hard work. The Project Management Body of Knowledge has a set of standard terminology and guidelines for project management. Knowledge of PMBOK in the practical scenario is required to pass the PMP exam.  

 

2. PRINCE2 Registered Practitioner - This certification has two-parts: Foundation and Practitioner. PRINCE2 emphasizes dividing projects into manageable and controllable stages. It is adopted in many countries worldwide, including the UK, Western European countries, and Australia. If you are managing a project for the company of these countries, gaining PRINCE2 would be beneficial. AXELOS is the only certifying body.  

 

3. Certified SCRUM Master – CSM is one of the premier certifications in the field of Agile project management. Two days of training is mandatory to gain this certification. In this certification, you will learn the Scrum framework and gain an understanding of team roles, events and artifacts. SCRUM Alliance is the certifying body

 

4. PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner - The PMI-ACP spans many approaches to agile such as Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Extreme programming (XP) and Test-driven development (TDD.) This certification is provided by the prestigious Project Management Institute. If you are already a CSM then you don’t require to do PMI-ACP as it meets the same purpose.

 

5. ITIL Foundation Certification – This is one of the prestigious certifications in IT Service Management. ITIL is an acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, has a set of detailed practices for IT service management that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of the business. There are five stages in the ITIL V3 Service Lifecycle: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. AXELOS is the certifying body.  

 

 

I would like to conclude that I am personally in favor of gaining appropriate certifications based on an individual’s area of expertise and interest. However, it is not a golden rule to be followed by everyone. If u have a zeal to grow and move towards the top ranks in your industry, certifications can serve as an elevator. 

 

 

 

Creating Weekly Support Dashboard for Client: How I Structure It

One of the major duties of a Project Manager is to share the weekly report about the health and progress of the ongoing Project or Operation. We usually collect details of service requests from any of the tools like Service Now, Azure DevOps Board, and Jira etc. End Users usually log their incidents on online issue tracker tools and the support team updates the status after the issue is resolved.

 

Many tools comprise of inbuilt reports already but often the inbuilt status report is unable to give the tailor-made picture to the client. In such cases client needs their weekly report customized. That is when the role of the Project Manager starts. PMs Collect raw data from these tools, develop and customize it according to the needs of the client.

 

Today let me shed light on the process I am personally using with my current project of developing a weekly support dashboard for my client.

 

Filter Data and Graph Plotting 

 

• Extract the data that is resolved (current week) and the unresolved data (pending)
• Segregate and mark the incidents logged in the previous and the current week
• Further, the data is bifurcated into two parts: Issues and Service Request
• Moving ahead, I divide the resolved incidents level wise and issue-type wise
• We come to know a number of carried forward incidents after subtracting the number of resolved incidents from open incidents for the given week
• For all the open incidents I will divide it into three categories: Active, Awaiting information from the third party and Awaiting user information
• I then create Pivot tables for all the Active incidents, Issues, and Service Types according to priority. I plot all the data for visual representation on excel graph with proper data labels and Legend

 

 

 

Country-wise Segregation of Data

 

• In this kind of segregation, we filter out data according to the countries and brands.
• The tickets logged in the current week are taken into account and display the data with a small summary
• We may also add data related to application performance

 

 

 

 

At the end of the dashboard, I present key updates from the reported week. I also exhibit:

• Development activities
• Support activities
• Risks, Dependencies and Action items 
• Issues of the project 

It also includes:

• Discussing with the client about the pending points 
• Highlighting the initiatives taken in the project

 

 

 

 

Here is a peep into my existing dashboard. However it is primarily an individual’s discretion on how and what he/she wants to use for their dashboard presentation. Depending on the needs and asks of the client the same can be altered or elaborated.

10 Common Mistakes as a Project Manager: How to Avoid Them

We all are human beings and often do mistakes. Learning from these mistakes and moving on to our path is the essence of life. ‘Discipline’ can play an important role in avoiding those mistakes. In professional life discipline is an important factor in achieving professional growth. We should practise self-discipline to avoid such mistakes. As a leader, team members look up to us when they need our help. Maintaining a high level of commitment and integrity is essentials to set an example for team members. Some of the common mistakes that I have experienced myself are: 

 

Not Involved in Day to Day Operational Work –

Project managers are involved in many things like preparation of weekly and monthly dashboards for the client, project health audits, meetings with the customer, senior management review, risk register update and many other things. Sometimes they also need to manage multiple projects. Many times they do not get the opportunity to be involve in day to day operations and some employees take advantage of such situations; they provide false or misleading information to project managers or manipulate the things according to their needs. By the time, some employees become functional experts. They acquire domain knowledge or technical expertise of the particular process and create dependency. After some time it is difficult to remove such dependency and hence they start taking undue advantage of this situation. A project manager needs to arrange some time daily from their busy schedule and understand the ground level of the situation, domain, and the nitty-gritty of business needs. For example, if you are a Service Manager, you should know what the types of Incidents getting logged are and how the team is resolving the issues. But you cannot build this capability overnight, it takes time. You can start by understanding RFP points, Participate in the demo and understand Open Bugs or Incidents.

            

Not Technically Involved –

Project managers usually come from a development background and have good knowledge of technical things. But due to overburden in management activity they start losing interest in technical things. That is when the Solution architect or Senior team members take advantage of such a situation. Project managers should always involve in the technicality of the project and be aware of the latest technology trend of the market so that he can also contribute technically to the project. In future, these things will matter a lot and make a difference.    

 

Not Having Control Over Project data –

As a Project Manager, you should have full control of project data. Higher management, Customer or Auditor can ask you to provide the data at any time. If you have control of data, you can analyse it and extract important information out of it. You can also play with this data, keeping business objectives in mind. PM needs to track all kinds of project data related to Project status, risk, productivity, individual performance, etc. You can start by keeping some data always handy, keep yourself up-to-date with audit prospective and organize your project dashboard.

 

Not Applying Best Practices –

PM should need to aware of all kinds of best Project Management practices and their practical implementation in the Project. There are a lot of them available in the industry like Six Sigma, PMBOK, Prince2, Agile, Scrum, ITIL, SAFe and many more. You don’t require certification on these but gaining inherent knowledge will suffice your need. If you know these best practices, you can utilize them to manage your project and meet the business objectives. 

 

Not Familiar with Project Management Tools –   

There are many tools and software available in the market which help Project managers to perform their tasks efficiently. These tools are mostly related to Schedule management, Risk management, Cost estimation, tracking of work completion status and Communication. Examples of such tools are MS Project, Azure DevOps Board, Jira, Calendar, MS Teams, Skype, Planner and Sticky Notes, etc. Arrange some time and learn these tools and utilize these in your project.      

 

Interacting with Selected Team Members –

We usually spend our time with the selected person who likes us or we consider him/her important in the project execution perspective. It’s human behaviour. But as a Project Manager we should not restrict ourselves to a selected person but mingle with the entire team so that the entire team can feel comfortable to share their thoughts, views, and issues. Some people glued to you for their personal motive and want to take advantage of your power and position. Always identify such people and beware of them. Make yourself available to every team member. I started interacting with everyone and spending some time in general discussion while having coffee, tea, etc. with all the team members. Even established formal relationships with least likeable people.   

 

Unable to Efficiently Manage Office Politics –

The efficient management of office politics is also one of the important skills for any employee. Project Managers need to keep their eyes and ears open for them always. Don’t unnecessarily jump in the matter of others. We should also keep away from all kinds of gossips and backbiting. If you need to say something to anyone say directly to that person. Many times conveyer conveys the message according to their perception and need. In the workplace, nobody is your friend or enemy. We all have assembled here for work only.

 

No Interaction with the Hierarchy Above –

Often we interact only with our immediate bosses only and not above him/her in the hierarchy. You never know what he/she has conveyed to his boss about your performance and attitude. If you have interaction with the above hierarchy then you can convey your message and make your points when required. Although it is advisable not to jump hierarchy but in some scenarios you may require it. So always establish rapport with the Boss of the Boss and do regular interactions with them. A few days back, I read the book “Managing Up: How to Forge an Effective Relationship with Those above You” by Rosanne Badowski. It provides detailed insight on this topic.     

 

Not Respecting his Own Power:

Project Management is a responsible but powerful position. Organizations provide you the power to give Appraisal, provide Performance Grade, Salary jump, Job Confirmation, give Promotion or Demotion, Hire or Fire somebody etc. You have to use all these powers with the utmost care. Don’t misuse it by being arrogant, rude and angry; changes are very vital in corporate. Never abuse or lie to anyone, you don’t know how long you have to work with them. Always be polite, grateful and humble with your position. Keep yourself distant with all kinds of Judgements and Grudges. Trust on people’s ability and intentions. Be secular and don’t force your political, religious orientation to anyone. Keep yourself disciplined by embracing good habits, following truth, timeliness, doing clear communication, transparency in the act, following rules, following secularism in the workplace, maintaining professional hierarchy, showing a positive attitude, exhibiting the right way of doing things, trust and give people respect.

 

Developing Emotional Attachment with the Project

According to PMBOK, the definition of Project is – ‘Project is a temporary endeavour’. Every project which starts will end one day. You are hired by your employer to just manage the project, you cannot control everything. Don’t develop emotional attachments with the Project, Team members and Customer. It can hamper your growth path. It will stop you to take new challenges in professional life. Don’t get in the comfort zone but focus on your Learning and Earning. A project can be run for a longer duration like decades but you cannot stay there for the rest of your life to execute it.

 

Team members and Customers trust only that person who leads a disciplined professional life and a person who treats others with respect and takes his commitments seriously. By avoiding such mistakes we can keep ourselves going and earn a reputation in professional life.  

Senior Management Review of Managed Services: Essential components

Senior Management Review is an essential part of every project. PMs need to provide the status of various information, project health, risks and issues to senior management and audit professionals. This is needed to seek their advice and gain their approval as they can provide useful insights to the project based on their experience to avoid the project from going in a wrong direction.

 

There are various components of a Senior Management Review:

 

Project Overview

We need to provide high-level project scope to give the Senior Managers the basic details of the project. It is also necessary to inform them about the end result of it. It includes Project Duration, Project Methodology, Project Cost, Contract time, Delivery Strategy, Communication Protocol, Project Governance, Technology and Environment used, Key Highlights and Lowlights of the Project followed by Key Updates and Business Objectives.

 

Monthly Status Dashboard

This dashboard provides the details to our SMs about the Issues and Service Requests made by the Customer. It informs us about how many of them have been solved (priority wise) and how many are carried forward in the reviewing month. Here’s an illustration:

 

Classification of Data and Project Metrics

Data need to be classified in various aspects like Priority wise or Group wise count of incidents created and their respective resolutions. We need to establish a trend from the existing data and compare it to that of the previous month. This trend may include a number of Incidents created and their resolutions. To help you further here is a visual representation:

 

Previous Review Action Status and Future Action Plan

After every review, the Senior Management provides their Insights, Feedbacks and Areas of Improvement. Project Managers need to capture them as MoM. In the next review, the previous feedbacks that were documented with the owner of the action item, current status, and the tentative closure date, are also discussed. The actions taken on them are analyzed too. The goals and tasks set for future targets are also discussed under this forum. The team can assess the review and discuss further if required.

 

Customer Feedback and Action Taken

We need to organize the Customer Satisfaction Survey every quarter and the feedbacks gained in those surveys are documented for the SMR. Different areas like Communication, Technical Capability, Timeliness and Initiatives Taken etc can be classified and presented along with the customer ratings gained. The workable areas are highlighted and discussed by the Senior Management so that Actions suitable to be taken for each area can be discussed. Plotting down a Table Representation can be helpful:

 

Delivery Schedule

Different deliverables of different projects are timelined here. They are presented with their Planned Dates, Actual Dates and Current Status. Any delays in any of the deliverables are documented here along with the reason for the delay.

 

Reopened Incidents and RCA

Often when the Customers do not approve some of the incidents resolved, they bounce it back as Open Incidents. There could be n-number of reasons for reopening the incidents: the incidents being partially resolved or the Customer not approving of the resolution. Project Managers need to analyze every reopened incident, find their cause and provide Actions to be taken appropriately. The analysis and action items need to be shared with Senior Management. Let’s have a look at the graph:

 

 

 

KPI and SLA Meeting

The team is provided with a set number of incidents for each quarter that need to be resolved. The number of incidents solved is highlighted in each and every month of the quarter along with the discrepancies in the targets if any. This is the Key Performance Indicator of the quarter stating the work done. The same is highlighted in the review for the Senior Management if the Service Level Agreement for the customers is met every month.

 

High Level Project Risks and Concerns

The review also talks about the different kinds of risks involved or that may emerge later such as Financial, Technical, Human Resource, Time and Delivery etc. The criticality of the risks and concerns along with the ways appropriate to mitigate them are discussed in the meeting.

 

Current Team Structure

The Resource Deployment is exhibited here by showing the total number of people designated for the Project classified as Onsite and Offshore based on their Experience Level. This helps the Senior Management to keep a check on the ‘pyramid-like’ distribution of people in a team based on their experience. I have used a pie chart to illustrate the same: 

 

A Senior Management Review is thus, a formal, structured meeting that involves top management and takes place at regular intervals throughout the year. The sole purpose of this review meeting is to evaluate the effectiveness of your management system, helping you to determine its continued suitability and adequacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time and Tide wait for None

“Time management” is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time effectively between specific activities. Good time management enables you to work smarter – not harder – so that you get more done in less time, even when time is tight and pressures are high. Time management is the essential part of any project execution. Making Project profitable is the ultimate aim of Project Manager. Productivity makes project profitable by effective time management. Failing to manage your time damages your effectiveness and causes stress for entire project team.

 

God gave equal time to everybody but some reach to a much higher position compared to others by effective time management. We can utilize various tools and techniques for optimum time utilization.  If you manage your time effectively you will be rewarded in a variety of ways:

Efficient: You will be more productive

Successful: You will achieve goals and great accomplishments

Healthier: You will feel more energetic and less stressed and so on.

Below are some tips to better manage your time to improve productivity.

 

Make a to-do list

Develop your to-do list. This is a collective list of all the priority activity with a target date. You can create daily, weekly and monthly to do list. You also need to develop ‘not to do list’ for optimum utilization of your time. One can use simple notebook to make to do list, alternatively “Planner” in MS Teams can also be used for it. It will also help you prioritise your work.

 

Take the advantage of Tools

Tools used for time management boils down to focussing on four keys areas Tasks, Time, People and Information. There are various tools available for time management, some of them are online Calendar, Mobile Alarms, Outlook reminders, Checklist, Notebook, Alexa and sticky notes etc. You can use these as a backbone of any productive system. Set reminders and notifications in much advance for your meetings and demos.

 

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by 5 minute short breaks. After about four Pomodoro, you can take a longer break of about 15 to 20 minutes. You should note down the distractions in a notebook to analyse it later on. You have to completely focus on one task. The idea behind this technique is that the timer instils a sense of urgency. This Technique encourages people to work with the time they have—rather than against it.

 

 

First things first.

Block your time for important tasks. We can divide our tasks in urgent and important category. Do urgent and important tasks first. Prioritize your task by removing non-essential tasks. Don’t rush to replying mails or answering calls when it comes. Make schedule for this activity. Put a time box to attain completion of tasks.

 

 

 

Do one thing at a time

Don’t do multiple things in the same time, it will reduce your effectiveness. Do only one thing at a time. Saying no is not always easy, although it is vital to time management, understand the implications of saying yes.

 

Audit your time spent

Collect data for your time spent in various activities. Analyse this data, not where you are spending your productive time. This will help you to see wastage of your time for unnecessary things in office like meetings, demos and cafetaria etc. Online Calendar can be used to audit your time if you don't know how and where you are spending it.

 

Read books and articles on time management

There are various books available in market which help us about managing our time effectively.

Eat That Frog and Time Management by Brain Tracy, Pomodoro Techniques by Francesco Cirillo and Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss are some of the good books on time management. We can learn some effective tools and techniques of time management from these books. I have learnt Pomodoro Technique from above mentioned book. 

 

Utilize your waiting time

Some time is wasted while we wait in between meetings or demos. We can utilize this time by finishing some essential tasks like reading mails or making schedules etc. Always keep some activity to finish in this scenario.

 

By practising the above mentioned techniques, you can enhance your time management effectively. Productivity is the key essence of any project. By exercising effective management we can significantly reduce the number of people involved in a project and we can perform lots of tasks in less costs and make our projects profitable. Thus, owning up to effective time management will not only help you to achieve project goals effectively but also enhance your day to day activities and help you prioritise your work.