"Forget and forgive" !!!!

"Forget and forgive" its the most comman statement others might offer you for a particular situation where we might have been cheated, decieted and taken aback by someone's actions.

What I believe is that nobody, yes nobody but "we" are ourselves responsible for whatever happens to us- good or bad. If thought for a while this statement will make sense, because we have something like  a conciousness which tells us what is right and what is wrong.

I think I have made a statement which might not be going down some people's throat or should I say ears and finally to their brains!

Well lemme explain- it is as simple as if we don't eat we feel hungry and if we eat we don't. We can extrapolate the same logic to problems in our lives and get a reason which actually points to "US" (not united states) for all the problems in the world.

Now about "forget and forgive". We have no right over another being but 100% on ourselves, so we should forgive each time, we make a mistake and forget those which cannot be corrected and soon we will realise that we have found a meaning to our life. But the catch is that we need to correct not forget the mistakes we can improve and some day eliminate.

Yes life is forget and forgive-- there is no third person just "ME".

THANKS

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E-mail Communication

One of the main tasks at all levels of the project management food chain is to communicate with stakeholders and co-workers. Often, the main mode of communication is via email. Believe it or not, there are over 3 billion active email accounts in the world today and at least 25% of those are used for business proposes (1). How many emails do you send/receive a day?

Using email to communicate in the project management environment makes sense for a variety of reasons to include:

-It’s cheap.
-It’s fast!
-People are familiar with email use because it is used in their personal lives. (How many people do you know that do not have an email account?).
-Record of conversation is maintained.

What people often do not think about is every email communication becomes part of their “persona.” Especially in the virtual world where contact with stakeholders and co-workers may be sparse, sloppy, or unprofessional — emails may tarnish one’s reputation. If e-mail is your main, or only, contact with certain individuals it becomes like a saying I often heard in my Navy days… “Perception becomes reality.”

Some tips for using email:

-Consider putting an automatic 1-3 minute delay into sent email. Ever go to hit send and as you’re hitting the key you realize there is a mistake but your fingers are faster than your mind?
-Use Out-Of-Office when you will not be checking emails. Manage expectations! If you regularly communicate with somebody and suddenly stop, you may get the label of unreliable.
-Enable automatic spell check.
-Be aware of the size of the files you attach. If the files are very large, you may lock up the recipient’s email box.
-Use a signature line and include your contact information (name, title, mailing address, office phone, cell phone…). This can be done automatically so each and every email you send will have it included.
-Keep to and CC lines unfilled until you are ready to send. This will help prevent an inadvertent launch of the email before you are ready.
-If you are sending an important email, have someone proofread it before it is sent.

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You Want Me to Estimate What?

You walk into the office one morning, and the Project Manager asks you for a cost estimate for the second phase of your project.  You think, “Wow – there is a lot going on in the second phase!”  Where do you start?  Depending on the size of the program/project – your office may have cost estimators who specialize in helping with this type of request.  Even so, let’s talk about the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and how this process will look in reality.  The WBS will give you the scope, or the baseline, of what you are estimating.  You will also need the master schedule for the project to understand in what timeframe the project must be completed and maintained.  For instance, if a project needs to be completed in a timeframe which would require double shifts or serious overtime of key personnel, you can see how this will affect the cost estimate.  The schedule will also allow you to understand how costs will be phased over time (giving you the framework of a budget).  Some other items to consider are resources, how accurate an estimate the Program Manager needs, the level of risk the program manager will accept, and what other inherent “costs of doing business” may exist.

Once you have this information, the best estimates come from the people actually doing the job.  Very early in a project you might use “Parametric” or “Analogy” cost estimating techniques which will give you close, but more general, planning numbers.  As more information is known, and there is a detailed WBS available, you can use “Actual Cost” or “Engineering” (Also called Bottom-Up) cost estimating techniques to arrive at a rather accurate estimation for the project.  In this situation, given that it is phase two of an existing project, we will likely use an “Engineering” cost estimation technique.  Have the subject matter experts for each area of the WBS provide you their real estimate for the cost each line item.  Remember that padding the numbers is technically unprofessional.  Early in a project you should be within 10%-25% of the actual end cost, and later in the project you should be able to estimate with 10% or less error.  These numbers can be laid across the master schedule (Microsoft Project will do this for you) and will give you an estimate of cost per year.  You can then use this information to roll up the entire cost estimation of phase two for the Program Manager along with a proposed budget submission.  Not bad for a day’s work, huh?  (If only it were that easy!)

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Green Bean Project Management

The Monkeys in the Middle are honored to have a guest article this week by Mr. Peter Taylor, the author of The Lazy Project Manager.

How should new project managers learn from the ‘Old beans’

When my kids were young they loved to play one particular game at the annual birthday parties. This game involved ‘Beans’ – all of the kids standing ready and waiting for instructions and then the cry would go up of ‘Beans’ and the game would begin. ‘Runner beans’ as a call would mean that everyone had to run on the spot. ‘Jumping beans’ meant, naturally, a lot of jumping up and down in one place. ‘French beans’ meant a chorus of ‘Ooh la la’s’ and waving of arms in a posh French way. And ‘Baked beans’ meant … well you know kids so I am sure that you can work that one out for yourself. It goes without saying this is the one ‘Bean’ that they loved the most.
Then at the end a final call would be ‘Human beans’ and the kids were back to normal human beings (or back to kids anyway which meant even more noise and dancing around and general excitement).

At my new company I hear a lot about ‘Green beans’ and the challenge of inducting and developing raw talent in to the organization. So when the call goes up of ‘Green beans’ for project managers what should this mean?

I think that key to having a successful induction of the ‘Project beans’ will include:

Give them a safe place to start

Projects are, by their very nature, tricky beasts and for a ‘newbie’ to learn the practical skills of project management we should ensure that they enter the PM world in a controlled way. Hopefully being handed a new project to lead and being told to ‘get on with it’ (as I was when I became a PM) is long gone. Rather we should allow the ‘Green beans’ to experience project reality by taking up a small part in another project managers project, and watching and learning and getting involved in a small way. In addition, if there are project reviews, health checks, and retrospectives taking place (and I really hope that there are) then this is another great entry experience for the young ones to see and learn. Another safe(r) environment might be internal projects – rather than external customer facing ones.
Key is to make the environment of learning a safe one.

Give them a friendly place to work

Where should they work and report when they first start out? Well don’t leave them out in the cold and without peers and project professionals around them. If you have a project practise then this is the place to nurture those ‘beans’. Make it easy for them to ask the questions that they will need to ask and make it easy for them to see experienced project managers in action.
We all know that there is a world of difference between theory and practice so give them the support they need to move away from the theory.
Key is to make it easy for them to find out all of the stuff that will need to find out.

Give them a helping hand

Appoint a mentor from out there in project management land who will be there to listen to them from time to time and gently point them in the right direction when they need help – such a person will be invaluable to the ‘beans’ in the early days of being a project manager.
Encourage them to make the effort to look outside your organization and connect to some truly wonderful project managers and experts out there on the www. There is a huge amount of advice and guidance through local project management groups, through conferences and meetings, through the online discussions and blogs, and lots more. (It may be in this area the ‘Green’ ones might have the upper hand on us ‘Grey’ ones since all this social connectivity is second nature to them). Key is to build the best possible network for now and the future and to use it wisely.

A final thought

And a final word for the ‘Green beans’ themselves. Be enthusiastic at all times. Trust me; project management is a great place to be right now, you probably won’t be able to stop yourself smiling.

So when the cry goes up of ‘Project beans’ join in all that noise and excitement along with all the other ‘Project beans’ (We will be shouting and dancing as best as our ‘Old bean’ legs will let us).

I kind of wish I was ‘Green’ all over again.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Peter is a dynamic and commercially astute professional who has achieved notable success in Project Management.

His background is in project management across three major business areas over the last 26 years, MRP/ERP systems with various software houses and culminating in his current role with Infor, Business Intelligence (BI) with Cognos, and product lifecycle management (PLM) with Siemens. He has spent the last 7 years leading PMOs and developing project managers and is now focusing on project based services development with Infor.

He is also an accomplished communicator and leader and is a professional speaker as well as the author of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ (Infinite Ideas) and ‘Leading Successful PMOs’ (Gower)

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