Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Good Lesson !!! :-)

3 comments

One of my colleagues sent this to me today.. Though we cant stick to the rule... Its a good lesson I should say :-))

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

If you want to look out for opportunities to work in a PMO

1 comments

Its nice to hear there are many good and established companies looking for Head of Project Managers and concept of Project Management offices in order to get their multiple projects on track.

Last Sunday Observer there was an add from a reputed Software company for a Head of Project Managers and Im sure its going to be a quite challenging and interesting Opportunity. Other than that lately I got many requests from some reputed Tele communication companies for the position of Project Management Officer ( They called it ) ..

Quite Nice to see that organizations are getting more focused on Project Management .. instead of that stupid attitude of remote controlling project managers like toys by some functional managers or top management who has no idea what Project Management is ..(these guys love Project failiures.. and they deserve it.. You cant help that.....). But I hope these comapnies will set up real PMOs which really deliver results instead of just name sake PMOs

Any Idea of Project Governance? Any body knows any Sri Lankan Company who has implemented that ? I have few friends in US and Canada who worked for such projects ( Very large scale projects for Governments and Banks)and seems its quite interesting…

Monday, February 19, 2007

Apprentice and Project Management....

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Quite a lot to write about though I don’t have time right now..:-) I’m really enjoying the show… Sri Lankans can watch it through STAR channel at 9.PM

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

One inch away from Project Management

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Once you finish the project and complete the project closure you are very happy.. Specially when its marked as a successful project.. You are on Budget .. Within the time.. Quality standards are met and great teamwork.. Everybody talks about you.. WOW What a Project Manager…..!!! You celebrate with your team.. Awards from the management and customers.. Big launch to go live … Its like Christmas…

Your duty is over.. But the system should run.. everyday.. it needs care.. So who is going to do that? It’s the poor “maintenance team”… After going through many large scale projects.. Over and over its proven to me that this maintenance of a delivered project is a critical problem.. When you don’t do proper maintenance there can be amny frustrating issues in the system and the users loose faith on the system.. so they decide to kill it and install a new system and the cycle continues…

I have observed many reasons which causes these maintenance problems..

  1. Huge knowledge gap between Development team and Maintenance team
  2. Customers are reluctant to spend much on maintenance and they think when the system is delivered that’s it. Most of them see the maintenance fee is as a waste till there is a real problem
  3. Allocating less time for user training than required due to budgetary issues.
  4. Loosing trained people in the long run. The new people have no idea about certain “Underhand” techniques and assumptions done by previous guys
  5. Loosing Management interest
  6. Software companies always hire low caliber , cheaper resources for maintenance teams than the resources they hire for development teams
  7. Lack of Project office involvement at Maintenance phase
  8. Some times customers decide that they will maintain the system by themselves without getting support from the vendor. But in the long run they realize that its impossible for them to do and at that time the whole system is in a mess.
  9. Incomplete documentation of the system.
  10. Assumptions made in the initial stage are no more valid and forgotten by all the parties.
  11. Politics ( if the New IT manager joins , sometimes he will stress the senior management even about minor issues of the current system and he will try to initiate a new project under his full control.
  12. Remote support – Some times when you have support teams remotely, the time to solve takes quite longer times. And it needs more time to communicate the problems clearly and simulate the problems in another location. Then apply them in the live version is another hectic task.
  13. No proper management and methodologies practiced during System maintenance.
  14. Lack of Local support and support is always needed from overseas parties.
  15. Misunderstandings between support parties and customers

These are few of the points which I have seen occurring in many systems time to time.. This is a serious issue to think about.. Once you complete the project and wrap up, your job is finished as PM.. But then…….

Be a PMP
 

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