PoddarCo

Just sharing some interesting posts I came across in the past week -

Use Microblogging to Increase Productivity by Jeanne C Meister and Karie Willyerd at Harvard Business Review Blogs

Redefining Project Success by Kailash Awati at Eight to Late

The Absolute Worst Way To Plan A Project by Glen B. Alleman at Herding Cats

ITIL®: A Project Manager’s Perspective by Erika Flora at pmstudent

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Just sharing a video about the L2 Generation Next forum / conference that I am considering attending. One of the speakers is the project lead for ‘Text Haiti to 90999′. Many others will be present - http://budurl.com/PriyankaisGenY

If anyone’s attended any of L2′s (Luxury Lab) events before, please share your thoughts.

Click here for more info on the conference

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Hi everyone -

As I may have hinted on some posts, I enjoy photography.  So thought I’d post a link to some of my photographs.

http://photo.net/photos/poddarco

Feel free to share your thoughts – any feedback / critique is always welcome!  If you want to share some of your photographs, send me the link.  Would be nice to see you through a different “lens”…look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers!
-V

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So, as an update to my thoughts on scrum over the past couple weeks, I signed up for a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course.  It is in the second week of February.  Will share my lessons learned and experiences in due time.  Looking forward to picking up some new tips and tools to use on my projects.

For those interested in reading more about Scrum, read this guide (it’s an excellent intro and overview): http://www.scrum.org/scrumguides/

Cheers!
-V

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The PoddarCo project management Wiki has been redesigned and updated with new content. More information is being added by a handful of people. We would love to expand this pool and have you weigh in as well. Feel free to check out the site and start sharing your PM knowledge and experiences.

Some of the major changes in the beta-2 version of the wiki are

• Redesigned the layout
• Minimized the number of pages making it easier to get to content quickly
• Opened access to edit the home page to those that request such access
• Took greater security measures to minimize comment spam and fake Wiki pages

Cheers

-V

Just sharing a presentation I did at the Talener group. This presentation highlights some of the challenges with requirements capture processes, proposes a requirements life cycle / framework for better management, ownership and tracking of requirements and describes what constitutes a high quality requirement. The key takeaways are driven home through a simple yet effective pasta salad illustration.

It’s tough to imagine where to start with this one. In case some of you have been wondering why I haven’t written regularly in the last month or so, it’s primarily because of this project.

Let me start by stating this project was not one of my typical software/IT projects; this was re-modeling our condo. At a high level, this involved –

1. Demolition: Break a wall between the kitchen and living room, and remove countertop (Independent Contractor, let’s use the name C)
2. Electrical: Re-route wiring as need be (Co: Absolute)
3. Re-build: Place new granite countertop extended into living room as an island (Co: All Granite), replace kitchen appliances (Co: Lowes), fix any gaping holes and clean edges (C)
4. Flooring: Remove carpeting, install bamboo flooring (Co: Lumber Liquidators, Co: Majesty Oak)

Instead of going with just one contractor who could do it all, we decided to use agencies specializing in particular areas. The one contractor approach would have been too dependent on one entity and also worked out 50% more expensive. One of the immediate challenges: scheduling and aligning all these people to do their respective tasks per specific timelines, costs and quality standards.

…Murphy’s Law started to takes its grip…
blowing out my home theater system!

Once the demo work started, we were extremely excited as the instant change was gratifying. The electricians also started re-wiring. They should have done so after filing a permit, but contrary to the information provided to us they started without a permit. That’s when Murphy’s Law started to take its grip. The electricians hooked up the wrong pair of wires that led to blowing out my home theater system and an iron. C (the independent contractor) had patched part of the demolished wall enough so that the granite countertop could be installed. However, a part of the patched-up dry wall had to be re-cut as C had spackled it excessively after the granite folks had made their template.

In the process of breaking the dry wall, C threw a lot of the debris into the garbage disposal; this obviously conked off. After much research we decided to buy our appliances from Lowes. On the morning of the delivery Lowes called to say the fridge was damaged and they’d have to reschedule. We had decided to donate our appliances, and time it on the same day as the delivery. Sure enough, by the time of the call we had already given away the appliances. Realizing that we’d be without a fridge for a few days, we gave away a lot of the food too. By the way, when we tried disconnecting the fridge, as we shut off the valve for the water line to the ice maker, it wouldn’t shut off but just continue to leak. Since our building doesn’t have condo specific shut off valves, we had to call a plumber and pay him an unbelievable sum to replace the valve (it required pipe freezing).

…an electrical appliance
without a cord…!?!

When the appliances were finally delivered (extremely late even per the rescheduled time) the delivery guy asks me, “Do you have a cord for the range?” I was speechless as I couldn’t fathom an electrical appliance without a cord! I was informed the store clerk should have asked us which plug we need, and sent it with the range (pre-attached). We had learned not to expect any better from Lowes, and ended up getting the cord later from Home Depot and connecting it ourselves. Finally the last leg of the race started (or so we thought) – the flooring. Compared to the rest of the work, this process went smoothly over a period of 2 business days. But, miraculously, as soon as the new floors were installed, our bedroom air conditioner decided it had run its course – the compressor died. We paid a pot load to get a new air conditioner (installation happening this week). Needless to say, we are keeping our fingers crossed that the new floor doesn’t get scratched in the process.

City Inspector: “I don’t think I have been here before;
this is my first visit here, right?”

Also in the past two weeks, after a few exchanges with the VP at the electric company, the permit was filed and picked up (at least a month after the work started). The inspection was scheduled for earlier this week. As the inspector walked in, his first statement was, “I don’t think I have been here before; this is my first visit here, right?” Right off the bat, we got the sense that there would surely be another visit i.e. the inspection wouldn’t pass. That’s exactly what happened; the reasons – one of the outlets had sheet rock screws instead of metal ones, and the junction box and cables were not properly supported. So, now the electricians will be back later this week to do the needful. While all this has been going on for well over a month, at least 5 huge holes are still visible in the ceiling and side walls because the inspection has to pass first.

As we are finally getting closer to imagining that the walls will get patched up and edges cleaned, we learned that C got fired from the company he was representing and is no longer eligible to work in our building. I had already paid him 90% of the amount agreed to, since I “trusted” him. In this case, he didn’t exactly run away with the money, but another lesson learned – don’t pay in advance no matter what and who. Fortunately, we have a back-up contractor, who will finish up the work as soon as the inspection passes (again hoping this wraps up by Sat 8/21).

In summary, we now have an almost re-modeled condo that we are happy with after: the lack of proper processes being followed by the electric company, the cowboy contractor, an extremely disappointing Lowes experience, one unfriendly un-cooperative neighbor, multiple things being broken that shouldn’t have been broken (valves, garbage disposal, home theater system, iron, air-conditioner and a door) and a lot of hours spent working on do-it-yourself projects. But what a nightmare it was to live through. So I decided to share the experience as a Wayward Weekend story that others can learn from, or at the very least – find some humor in.

In spite of everything, this was a very interesting glimpse into re-modeling projects. I learned a lot about the work, the entities and the costs associated with such endeavors. Are the challenges typical in similar larger scale projects? I was always keen to pursue opportunities to flip old construction condos, plans for which have been put on hold given the economic conditions off late. But this experience and the lessons learned here will remain forever, and hopefully lead to a streamlined operation in the future. Just sharing a part of my personal life experience with a broader audience. Like a friend and co-worker said, “Here’s to living vicariously through me”  :)

Cheers
-V

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One afternoon, I was just curious to see what kind of results google returns.  Not gleaning any insights from these as the effort is not really justifiable.  Just sharing the fruit of an aimless exercise for fun.  The number is the number of search results returned by Google.

Project Management 135,000,000
“Project Management” 41,300,000

Project Manager 90,200,000
“project manager” 41,800,000

“love project management” 1,990
“hate project management” 182

Why projects fail 64,400,000
“Why projects fail” 12,600
why projects succeed 19,600,000
“why projects succeed” 1,010

pass the PMP exam 162,000
fail the PMP exam 77,600

Risk Management 81,800,000
“Risk Management” 24,200,000

Earned Value Management 14,000,000
“Earned Value Management” 248,000

“Project Management Professional” 1,010,000
“Certified Scrum Master” 37,200
“Certified Project Manager” 74,300
“PMP Certified” 99,900
“CAPM Certified” 9,600
“CSM Certified” 7,540
Agile Project Management 416,000
“Agile Project Management” 184,000

PMBOK 1,140,000

Project Management Training 59,200,000
“Project Management Training” 357,000

Project Management Jobs 60,900,000
“Project Management Jobs” 308,000
“Project Management Jobs Available” 1,510
“Available Project Management Jobs” 6   (LOL…!)

Cheers!
-V

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A new white paper titled, “A Project Manager’s Perspective: The Importance of Early and Thorough Requirements Capture” has been uploaded to PMI and PoddarCo.

To download the paper, please click the White Papers link on the top right corner of the screen.  If you are a PMI member, you can also find the white paper under Resources – Knowledge Shelf – Requirements Management.

Brief synopsis of the white paper:
The aim of this paper is to share a project managerial perspective on requirements capture. This paper proposes a requirements life cycle (framework) for better requirements ownership and management throughout a project. It highlights the iterative nature of requirements, calls out some of the basic misconceptions and suggests areas for risk identification (as related to requirements).

The key takeaways are driven home through a simple yet effective pasta salad illustration. The paper also includes some effective tools you can use instantly: 7 criteria for a high quality requirement, checklist of 7 potential sources of risk within requirements, a sample requirements traceability matrix and 7 simple lessons for better requirements capture and management.

Hope you find this material helpful and practical.  I would love to hear your feedback.  So please feel free to reach out to me via comments on this blog or via email at varunpoddar@poddarco.com

Regards
-V

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