Paco Sanchez – TI2011 Spring 2020

Project Evaluation and Management, Second Partial

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

If I had to describe this semester in one word: Unexpected.

This second partial has been very different to the start of the semester, with the global pandemic online classes were exiting at first, but now I know for sure I miss physical classes. There is something about the face to face interactions with everyone that even though I am enjoying a lot of time with my family in Tepic, man do I miss Guadalajara.

The one thing I have enjoyed the most from this partial is all the speakers that have got us a taste of how the real world looks like and a whole lot of things about project management I found very useful.

To be honest I am already using lots of guidance I have received from them in my projects. Little things like keep track of the first days of your project, as that is where you throw away time the most, or keep communications as clear as possible with your team, the more clear it is the more efficient everyone will be.

But I am also getting awesome spoilers like the importance of having lawyers beside you and the importance of protecting the programming team from all the politics money brings, programmers shouldn’t deal with all of those things, the main objective of a project manager is to get everyone the tasks they are the best and most passionate at.

Something I have learned is that it doesn’t matter if I’m never a project manager, the skills I have learned from this course are still going to be very useful, because as the book says, project management is people management, and we all deal with people, whether they are our work partners or our boss people skills and leadership skills are important.

Last big lesson, Continue reading "Project Evaluation and Management, Second Partial"

Deadline, Chapters 13 & 14

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

Deadline, Chapter 12

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

I have officially gotten to the point where I get the impulse of reading the last part of every chapter so I can learn what the project management laboratory results are, I mean I’ll wait but I really want to know what the results are when running a group of 60, 17, and 7 all doing separately the same product, it just sounds crazy, especially when the PShop project is twice as big as the rest according to T.Johns results.

One of the most challenging aspects of project management is the set of a deadline, for example, if you say it takes you 6 months to make a project and you can’t get it done before you will be in a lot of trouble, many experienced project managers say you should always add a cushion time in order to protect your projects, this is based on the simple assumption that things can and will go wrong. But the must important part is being as accurate as possible on the time you think it will take to finish a project, and that takes lots of knowledge and experience, the main things to figure out according to this chapter’s task for Waldo is figuring out how effective your team has been in past projects, and how big the new project is.

“That’s what we do as managers. Apply people where their skills and talents can really shine.”

Project Evaluation and Management, First Partial

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

At the start of this partial I didn’t know what to expect really, I thought it was going to be another theory class where we would just read some theory and learn management concepts, do tests, pass and on to the next class, but it has been way more than that.

I have practiced a lot my English, as well as my writing and communication skills, at first it would take me hours just to get started in a blog, I felt kind of lost on how to start writing and expressing myself, but week after week I felt how it got easier, this is something I never expected to learn from this course.

The book along with the speakers has taught me many things that I have never learned in another class, it feels clearly that this book talks about things you don’t learn by studying, you learn by experiencing and living the work life, you can tell from the way the book lessons and the speakers lessons make the same arguments and have the almost the same points of view. To be honest I don’t feel passionate about the idea of only working as a project management, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested about everything I have learned from this class.

Management is a topic everyone should learn as the basics of it are as important for a manager as for a employee. The main lesson I have learned is how wrong I had the idea of management in my head, to be honest I thought it was all about administration, deadlines and rules, clearly I was a little lost in the subject you could say.

Management is about people, you have to get to know the people that work with you (not for you), of course

Deadline, Chapter 11

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

If there is something project managers seem to get used to over time is to manage problems, it even seems that experienced managers don’t get affected emotionally by them anymore. Giving it a good thought that seems like a challenge, and to be able to put away all work problems should be considered a gift in my opinion.

Deadline, chapter 10

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

Finally a chapter where Webster is out of Morovia, it’s kind of refreshing to imagine a different scenario in your head when you read. But what for sure is different than any chapter is the proposal from Dr. Jamid, it seems we jumped from management to artificial intelligence, specifically a way to measure hunches.

There is a famous expression in the field of AI (artificial intelligence), and it says “When a solution that seems to require AI is created, then it’s no longer AI”. Somehow this expression is very accurate, as AI is always related to what is impossible, but once you make it possible it means there is a tangible solution, and suddenly AI is nothing more than machine learning, lots of graphs, and lots of ifs, in short, AI becomes the quantification of what didn’t seem possible to make numbers out of.

Home Office

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

“They feel as though they can get more personal work done. They feel that they are much more productive at work,”

What used to be an option some people had, now is a privilege many would wish to enjoy. Home office is now the best answer to keep up with work and protect the community from COVID-19 pandemic.

A few months ago, home office was a good option for those who felt were more productive working at home, and one of the main reasons is that you can adapt way easier to fit your work with your personal life. Traveling to work becomes extra time, many small personal life tasks become way easier, but with all those luxuries a new challenge rises, the communication challenge.

Of course for the past few years there has been a debate whether it is an effective choice to home office or a comfy choice that reduces efficiency, but as of a few weeks ago, it is the only choice available for all of those who don’t need to interact physically with work. CBC spark talks about home office, how it is a new challenging experience for many, but just another day to companies like Wildbit, a company that has worked remotely for 20 years.

The first thing you can notice from that podcast is how hard it is for inexperienced workers as they haven’t adapted their needs to be efficient, me personally trying to work in the kitchen table was one of the worst decisions, as people came in and out, distractions were everywhere and the mess it created just slowed me down dramatically. For sure the most important thing is finding out a way to get your own personal space, as if once you sat in your desk you weren’t at home,

Deadline, Chapters 8 & 9

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

New chapter, new kidnap case, to be honest I’m getting a little used to it but now they took it to another level. Best way to kidnap someone famous temporarily? Make it so he doesn’t know he was kidnapped.

Tomkins asks Rizzoli (the “kidnapped”) about moving the entire staff from CMM Level 2 to Level 3. CMM stands for Capability Maturity Model, its a 5 level process improvement model to determine how well defined, controlled and standardized a process is. If you are unfamiliar with this model I suggest taking a look at this small reading.

” There is no such thing as a short-term fix in our business. There is never a way to improve productivity in the short term”

One of the big lessons in this chapter in project management, is that as well as many things in life improvements and achievements don’t come overnight. As many people say: “Rome wasn’t build in a day”. Many times the search for that instant and effortless miracle becomes a waste of time.

“Software development is a risky business and managing that business is, most of all, an exercise in risk management.”

The truth is process improvement will only take you so far, and risk management is crucial for the survival of any project. Mistakes happen and being ready for them can make the difference between a quick fix and source of a huge problem in the big picture.

Deadline, Chapters 6 & 7

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

“Was he up to it?”

That is a question we have all asked ourselves, life isn’t a movie where dreams come true after the struggle, failure is always a possibility and that is something we gotta have respect for, but the biggest failure in life is being afraid of failure itself. So as Tom does in the book, he didn’t answer that question with words, he kept going until he gets an answer by trying, and so should we.

“It’s your heart that people respond to.
They don’t follow you because you’re clever
or because you’re always right,
but because they love you.”

That I believe is the biggest difference between being a leader and a boss, of course you can motivate people for what they will receive, but to welcome them as a part of your team and get them to share the same motivations as you will get you the most motivated people you can find, because they won’t just worry for themselves, they will care about everyone around them that has the same goal.

“Community doesn’t come from our towns anymore. But the need for community is still in us. For most of us, the best chance of a community is at work.”

Many people find that as a problem, and I think it is too, getting to know your neighbors is something I have barely experienced in my life, and there isn’t an old person that hasn’t told me how different it is now. But this opens a huge opportunity, now work is where people find a sense of belonging, and with that a sense of purpose and motivation comes in. Which is why many companies like Google and Cisco put lots of efforts to make the work environment feel the most comfortable.

Continue reading "Deadline, Chapters 6 & 7"

Deadline, Chapters 3,4,5 (Not done)

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

If something is for sure in this book, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t predict what’s coming next. I mean, I suppose if you kidnap someone you don’t go ahead and take his entire house furniture so he wakes up in his own bed. But again in this book kidnapping is the new hiring so not much has to make sense.

Something I have always found worrying is the fact that must people look for a job with money as the most important aspect, and I know it sounds silly because the world works with money, but I feel many people forget what for me is crucial in a job, it HAS to be something I enjoy. I have met people that used to get paid in some cases twice as much as in their next job, but once they found a job they truly enjoyed, the main lesson they had is that their life is happier and with the passion they now have they will achieve more in the long run.

Getting back into the book, it’s very important to notice all the questions Tom asks Lahksa about the job position, first things first, communication is key, he wants all his employees in the same place and all of them able to communicate in English with him as with all the right tools and up to date systems, he also wants to bring people he knows will do a great job working for him, and to be able to do that in a job must be awesome as you don’t have to deal with finding the perfect co-workers again.