Is your plan just a placebo?
Plans have a huge credibility problem. For large part of recorded history, they have always had this problem. With all the advancements we have made in estimations, forecasting, scheduling, risk management and planning, our execution still continues to challenge us, at times even confound us....
Project Manager and The Three Questions
He was newly appointed as the Project Manager for a moderately complex project. Prior to this assignment, he was trained in the best of methods and had access to the latest of tools. And yet, he was struggling. He was struggling to get the right answers to the three most basic questions: What is the right time to do begin each activity? Who are the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid? What is the most important thing to do? Like this:Like Loading......
Is Planning an old idea whose time is up?
In the age of nano attention-spans of people, the tendency and respect for planning things upfront has taken a serious beating. The mainstream logic is to simply “play by the ear” because there are far too many moving parts to be completely accounted for and properly factored-in - and in any case, by the time the plan goes to execution, ground realities would have changed beyond recognition, thereby rendering the plan completely useless by that time. In software development, an inaccurate predictive long-range model such as Waterfall has been replaced by more accurate adaptive short-range Agile methods that solve the line-of-sight problem but don’t address the original problem - that of planning a large project with its own share of uncertainties. While none of those arguments might be wrong par se, we conveniently ignore the fact that that is the nature...
Your estimates or mine ?
For decades now, the project management world is divided between top-down estimation and bottom-up estimation. While a top-down approach might have limitations, it perhaps is the only way to get some meaningful estimates at the start of a project. A bottom-up approach might be a great way to get more accurate and reliable estimates but you might have to wait for a problem to be whittled down to that small a level to get such reliable estimates. Both are required for a comprehensive and useful project planning, but unfortunately, most people see one over other, and the Agilists abandoning top-down in favor of the highly accurate but low-lookahead bottom-up methods. A top-down estimation is a great way to abstract the problem without worrying about its nitty-gritties, and come up with a workable estimates when there is no other source of getting...
32 Reasons Why People Don’t Plan Projects
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 checking if your car is roadworthy for the long drive, has enough gas, or needs a visit to the garage before the long drive? Will you buy a house without first checking your cash flows and other commitments for the next couple of years? Will you get your kids admitted to the nearest school you come across, or you will do little bit of investigation and plan is based on your specific needs and child’s comfort? Still then, it comes as a great surprise when many among us disregard...
What can we learn from CAT’s failures ?
 (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 have done adequate planning, thorough testing, backup planning and then some more! You can write to him at [email protected]) The Business Management Gurus had a PLAN – to go online for CAT. And do I hear that this was all that was required? PLANNING was ZERO!  Like this:Like Loading......