This blog post is contributed by Jason Westland, CEO of www.projectmanager.com and author of the best seller book “The Project Management Life Cycle“. Jason has over 15 years of experience in Project Management industry, and I am sure you will find his ideas useful. As a special promotion offer from www.ProjectManager.com, …more
Prior to the industrial age, the world was essentially an agrarian and a trading economy. Production methods were often a craft and top secret, fiercely protected within a family and handed down from a master craftsman to his sons, and with no machinery for mass production, pretty much every product was handmade …more
A Software Project Manager’s job is often thankless. In a small team, this role is not differentiated enough, and is more ornamental than functional, the project manager being a regular individual contributor just like other team members, for most part of the project. In a large team, project manager often …more
The concept of planning has a very intuitive appeal, irrespective of the type and size of endeavor. Who wouldn’t want to undertake an activity without a little bit of upfront planning? Will you take your car and just head out for the next family weekend in the neighboring town – without first …more
Projects are not living organisms, but they inevitably assume a life of their own. They are born from an idea, they have a lifecycle, they consume resources, they grow, they facilitate development of a social structure around it, they have a hearbeat and a rhythm…and they eventually die. While a natural …more
Management is often blamed for doublespeak. Quite often, it is blamed on management’s ineffectiveness and immaturity to cut the c**p and come straight to the point, however, truth be told, it might as well be its hard-earned and well-deserved ability :). Only the very best of managers have such gift of the …more
Today evening, we lost at least 9 innocent lives in the fire at Carlton Towers, Bangalore, and many more are still battling for life. All these were office-goers who worked an honest living and were part of the burgeoning IT industry. While details will be out in next few days, preliminary …more
Innovation is the survival mantra of today, chanted by everyone, but acted upon only by a few. Companies that routinely invest in innovating for the future are eventually able to putpace their competitors, everything else being equal. However, not everyone is able to kickstart, manage, sustain or nurture an innovation-led culture. Large …more
This was the theme of IIMB-NASSCOM Leadership Summit 2010 where I had opportunity to share my views as a panelist. It was a great evening where we panelists got to share our thoughts, and also learn from each other and from the enthusiastic participants, essentially students of PGSEM and PGPÂ and …more
Many project reports are exactly that much - “Aal izz well” (and for those uninitiated to the latest bollywood blockbuster ’3 Idiots’, it simply is “All is Well”). They speak of yesterday’s weather, don’t help much in forecasting the future and the only thing they help create is the impression …more
What is worse then an anarchy ? You might say that is the absolute abyss, but I think blind allegiance is even more dangerous (and that includes following the letter but tweaking the spirit - things like ‘creative accounting‘ or its parallels in every field). Anarchy at least allows for …more
Last Sunday, we had annual alumni dinner of Bangalore chapter of my alma mater, JK Institute of Applied Physics and Technology. During this event, we also hosted final-year engineering students who were in town on an education tour. I was asked to make a presentation to them on a topic of …more
Its not about the project management methodology anymore. Frankly, it never was, even though it has triggered off some of the most senseless wars in the history of project management. Starting with Frederick Winslow Taylor‘s Scientific Management to Henry Ford‘s assembly-line based mass production system and eventually landing in a flavor-of-the-day …more
Diagnosing the root cause of a problem is a critical analytical skill. Most often, what you see is not what you get - the symptoms might indicate something, but the root cause might be entirely different. Some cases require a short-term fix - an immediate one, while some require careful …more
 (This plog post is contributed by Lt Col (Retd) Rahul Kumar, Managing Director of Srijan Consulting, Bangalore. In this post, he analyses recent failure of the Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by the premier B-schools of India, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and raises key questions on how one should …more
Did you check out the Agile Skills Projects yet ? It seems to be a new and interesting initiative to “… establish a common baseline of the skills an Agile developer needs to have, including a shared vocabulary and understanding of fundamental practices”. They talk about Agile Skills Matrix that …more
