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The Management Myth - Magazine

The Management Myth - Magazine
During the seven years that I worked as a management consultant, I spent a lot of time trying to look older than I was. I became pretty good at furrowing my brow and putting on somber expressions. Those who saw through my disguise assumed I made up for my youth with a fabulous education in management. They were wrong about that. The strange thing about my utter lack of education in management was that it didn’t seem to matter. After I left the consulting business, in a reversal of the usual order of things, I decided to check out the management literature. Management theory came to life in 1899 with a simple question: “How many tons of pig iron bars can a worker load onto a rail car in the course of a working day?” Taylor was forty-three years old and on contract with the Bethlehem Steel Company when the pig iron question hit him. When the Hungarians realized that they were being asked to quadruple their previous daily workload, they howled and refused to work. And so was I.

Project Management Tools The purpose of this article is to discuss a variety of project management tools that are available to project managers. The specific tools that will be discussed are a budget, work breakdown structure (WBS), network diagram, and risk management plan. Included will be descriptions of these tools, along with a brief explanation of the relationship of these tools to applications that automate these processes. Budget "The budget is the amount and distribution of money allocated to a project" (Wideman). A budget is a tool that the project manager uses throughout the term of the project. Microsoft Excel can be used to create budgets and produce reports, although this program would be best suited to smaller and simpler projects. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchical structure that breaks down the project as a whole into separate tasks and determines the duration of those tasks. Network Diagram Risk Management Plan Conclusion References Wideman, R.

Six Secrets of Top-Notch Business Analysts - CIO CIO — Most line-of-business execs, project managers and software developers who have worked on application development teams can attest to the importance of good business analysts. In many instances, in fact, today's business analyst can affect the outcome (good or bad) of a software project. "When business analysts aren't able to carry their weight, it's evident to everybody on the project. Sure, executive boardroom support is key at the kickoff, but the CEO or CIO isn't down in the trenches every day, hammering out compromises, grinding out specs and pushing all involved toward the finish line. While most employees might have a sense of what a traditional business analyst does, not everyone knows how BAs do their jobs' effectively. So what do the best business analysts do so well? They understand the specific business problem that software aims to solve. "The ability to properly frame and structure a problem is 75 percent of the effort to discern a solution," Bonig says.

Rands In Repose: Bored People Quit Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It’s written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don’t have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they’ve either never done the work or have forgotten how it’s done. These are the people who show up when your single best engineer casually and unexpectedly announces, “I’m quitting. I’m joining my good friend to found a start-up. You call on the motivation and retention police because you believe they can perform the legendary “diving save”. It’s an impressive show of force, and it sometimes works, but even if they stay, the damage has been done. Boredom is easier to fix than an absence of belief. Detecting Boredom There are many reasons other than boredom that someone will quit. My three techniques for detecting boredom: Any noticeable change in daily routine. I think of boredom as a clock. A Boredom Plan of Action Where are they going?

Microsoft's Long, Slow Decline Thursday, 30 July 2009 There were two interesting Windows-related news stories last week. First, Joe Wilcox’s story on a report from NPD claiming that 91 percent of $1,000-and-higher retail computer sales now go to Apple. Second, Microsoft’s quarterly financial results, in which revenue fell $1 billion short of projections and declined 17 percent year-over-year. To be clear, Microsoft remains a very profitable company. However, they have never before reported year-over-year declines like this, nor fallen so short of projected earnings. What is particularly alarming about Microsoft’s numbers is that revenue from its Windows PC division suffered an even greater year-over-year revenue decline than the company as a whole: 29 percent. But Microsoft’s operating system business is not new, and it has never been particularly cyclical. Windows is at the core of everything Microsoft does that makes money. One argument is that the fault lies with the global economy, not Microsoft itself. Some Joke

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Introduction The purpose of this article is to discuss the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and its five life cycle phases. Project Management Institute (PMI) The Project Management Institute (PMI) is an internationally recognized organization of project managers. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a set of project management guidelines that was created by PMI. PMBOK is formed of five phases. Initiate - the process in which it is decided that there is a need for a particular project and then the decision that the project will begin. Plan - the process in which the scope of the project is developed, including "documenting the actions necessary to define, prepare, integrate, and coordinate all subsidiary plans into a project management plan" (Project Management Institute, p. 337). Execute - the process in which the necessary actions are performed in order to accomplish the goals that were set in the planning stage. Personal Experience Conclusion References

Buy Gold Bullion Today ▷ GBP Pound Gold Prices - BullionVault.com Definition of Done: A Reference An Agile project has ceremonies (sprint planning, release planning, sprint retrospective, etc.) and metrics (sprint & release burndown charts) designed to ensure that the project is in a healthy state. Unfortunately, many Agile projects fail even after following all the ceremonies religiously. Why? An explicit and concrete definition of done may seem small but it can be the most critical checkpoint of an agile project. Before we explore a definition for done, it is important to define another Scrum term: potentially shippable product. What is a potentially shippable product? A potentially shippable product is one that has been designed, developed and tested and is therefore ready for distribution to anyone in the company for review or even to any external stakeholder. The agile community differs in their opinion of what is shippable and what is potentially shippable. Am I finished with a feature? You are not finished with a feature until it meets the benchmark defined by done. Better.

Elizabeth Warren: America Without a Middle Class Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it? Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. Families have survived the ups and downs of economic booms and busts for a long time, but the fall-behind during the busts has gotten worse while the surge-ahead during the booms has stalled out. The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. But core expenses kept going up. To cope, millions of families put a second parent into the workforce. Through it all, families never asked for a handout from anyone, especially Washington. The contrast with the big banks could not be sharper. And when various forms of this creative banking triggered economic crisis, the banks went to Washington for a handout. Pundits talk about "populist rage" as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class. Families are ready for change.

The Responsibilities of a Project Manager Introduction The purpose of this article is to discuss the main responsibilities of a project manager. These three main responsibilities are planning, organizing, and controlling. Performing these responsibilities requires many skills. Planning The planning function includes defining the project objective and developing a plan to accomplish the objective. The project manager must also develop a plan to accomplish the objective. Organizing The organizing function involves identifying and securing necessary resources, determining tasks that must be completed, assigning the tasks, delegating authority, and motivating team members to work together on the project. The project manager must then determine what tasks must be completed. Finally, the project manager must motivate members of the project team to work together in order to complete the goal. Controlling The controlling function involves tracking progress and comparing it with planned progress. Skills Conclusion References Davies, J.

Tom Gilb & Kai Gilb The foundation for successful project management is being able to express your stakeholders (users, re-sellers etc.) most critical requirements. Stakeholders have requirements at the level of the improvements they expect to gain for themselves (i.e. savings, better customer relations), and at the level of the product (i.e. improved usability, security etc.). Most conventional requirement methods are so weak, in so many respects, that everyone involved in writing and reading requirements are uncomfortable with the process. Something is clearly wrong, but people struggle to explain how requirements should be written. We tackle the Requirement process head on. Grouping the Requirements at the appropriate levels (Stakeholder, Product, Sub-Product etc.). And finally we teach the art of raising the whole Requirement process from 1000 sub-requirements to a few critical Requirements that serve as the main guidance to the whole project.

Fool's Gold - Steve McConnell “Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.” —Francis Bacon Software problems have persisted partly because of the bewitching appeal of a few common, ineffective practices. During the California gold rush in the late 1840s and early 50s, some prospectors were deceived by fool’s gold—iron pyrite—a substance that has the luster and sparkle of gold. Moving the Block Looking back many centuries before the California gold rush, suppose that you were working on one of the ancient pyramids and were given the assignment to move an enormous stone block 10,000 meters from a river to the site of a pyramid under construction, as shown in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1 One way to think of a software project is as a heavy block of stone. You are allowed to use any method you like to get it to its destination. Some block-moving teams might immediately begin pushing the block, trying to move it with brute force. Figure 2-2 Figure 2-3 Smart teams continuously look for ways to work more efficiently. Figure 2-4

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