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
I just read a book titled “The eMedha Paradigm - A Project Manager’s Billion Dollar Odyssey” and felt terribly disappointed and shocked. The author paints a make-believe world in which a sadist CEO does insider trading and makes his kith and kin richer, while his technically incompetent, control-freak and sexually-deprived project manager …more
Cockroaches just love projects. Several projects have loads of them, but most projects have at least a few of them. Software projects are notorious for breeding cockroaches that are not only hard to spot, they are harder to exterminate. They are a project manager’s worst nightmare, and despite our collective …more
 Large teams might be inevitable in certain large endeavors, but there are several benefits of small teams. A small team can build and maintain a strong culture and a character that gets better with time. Small teams quickly learn the invaluable skills in teamwork and interdependence that lead to higher …more
In a previous post, What is the leadership style in your software teams ?, I discussed about four key types of leadership and their evoluation, and how it could possibly relate to software teams. In this blog post, let’s dwell on this topic further, and explore how to decide what …more
Project Management is perhaps one of the most fiercely debated and grossly misunderstood disciplines in the software field currently, hence let me throw in a disclaimer first: if you are a small team of experts and/or people well-known to each other (e.g., have worked together as a team earlier), and …more
Building Pyramids is one of the most common examples and metaphors in project management, and should I also add, perhaps one that is almost always discussed about by people who have practically no knowledge of construction engineering, let alone experience in building a pyramid (after all, I don’t know too many …more
Most project management frameworks and methods advocate (and actually require) ’point-estimates’ in planning and scheduling. By ‘point-estimates’, I mean there is a ‘hard number’ that seems to be etched in stone, leaving with no ‘tolerance’ or ’leeway’ for the project manager and his team. Even though we all understand that estimates are never point-estimates (and …more
Standish Group just came out with 2009 edition of their famous CHAOS Report: (text highlighting and underlining is mine) “Boston, Massachusetts, April 23, 2009 - New Standish Group report shows more project failing and less successful projects. The Standish Group’s just-released report, “CHAOS Summary 2009,” “This year’s results show a …more
No one likes surprises, least of all executives who might have given high-level commitments on project delivery to their peers in customer organizations, investors or other key stakeholders. I hold Project Managers largely responsible for poor ‘bad news management’. In most cases, there are half-baked estimates that never are a firm basis …more
Yes, you read it right…when are you planning to fail ? In the world where insatiable hunger for ‘success’ is an obsessive-complusive disorder (OCD), we don’t think of ‘failure’ much. It is shunned, scoffed at, systematically eliminated (or mitigated, at least), avoided, bypassed, ignored….everything but embraced with open mind and …more
 The world of new product development is (NPD) is an extremely challenging one, and while the output of such an endeavor is never a sureshot guarantee, the journey itself is immensely fulfilling. Edison was reportedly asked by his assistant on not being successful with his electric bulb work despite …more
