welcometotheheaven – Page 2 – TI2011 Spring 2020

It’s all about the time

--Originally published at Site Title

It’s funny how time always intrigues us, when we are waiting a message, a product ordered online, finish the homework before deadline, when the waiter will come with the food; this little things make us feel crazy and are just trivial events during the day, in a short term. Now, imagine when you are running a huge project and your client request you a estimated date to the delivery, how would you come with it, would you throw a random number, would be greater than the required or just keep a silence and say that you have to talk to your team first to win some time, what would you do?

Knowing how long your project would be is important data that any manager must know or at least have an approximate to get a plan and know during the time when an adjustment would be needed or have to make an improve. For example, an architect or civil engineer sometimes is easy to make estimations in base of the budget they have and know exactly how more builders would be needed. Nonetheless, in the software industry this changes drastically, because any project is different and any builder(programmer) have their own way to make things and how can you size a program, with code lines, functions, how manny software engineers you have, is not a linear behavior where you only add more personal and get better results, all the process is a complex equation.

For this reason, in the software industry is necessary to have a research and analysis about how long projects can become and how they were working, how many personal and how qualified were they for the job, because all these data is the one that allow you to run a simulation where you will find an Continue reading "It’s all about the time"

Partial Review

--Originally published at Site Title

In the last two months I realize how wrong was my idea about the skills needed and what kind of activities does a manager has to develop in his career.

Most of the time I though that being a manager were supervise people, tell them what do they have to do and how to do it, make some reports and follow the advance of the project. However, this things only make you a bossy person, what really makes you a manager or at least a good one is lot more qualities and characteristics, being a boss is only the beginning, you need to be a leader.

Before this course the entrepreneurship and administration courses that have before were more focused about making market analysis, swot analysis and all the activities needed to make successful your company or product, but never they talk about people, about how you have to behave to create a good environment and allow people communicate like a real team, you need a lot of skills to interact and listen others. Besides, I am an engineer and most of the courses are about specific topics of science or quite technical, so your learn all the time about process and how to fix things but never someone use to tell you the cost of production or how expensive could be add an employee to the project and a delay that can generate, this is pretty important stuff needed that sometimes the only way to learned is in the hard way, living it.

Also something important learned in the course was some mathematical operation to make calculations about simple interest and compound, very important for investments, the cost of hiring new personal and how complex this process can be, due to the interview, capacitation, travel if is needed Continue reading "Partial Review"

Home Office

--Originally published at Site Title

Nowadays with the pandemic of COVID-19 the life of most of the people have changed, for students it become kind of easy is just staying in home and assist to online classes, maybe is harder to keep focus or do all the work in home. However, the big problem begins when you have a job.

With the situation that we live every government recommends stay in home for the own security. Nonetheless, the economy and life keeps going and people must find a way to maintain their job and incomes.

Home office arrived as a good alternative to hold up the work avoiding contact with people. Working in home at first is kind of hard, is a challenge to do everything through screen and discover how to feel comfortable and not be distracted in your home.

This is a privilege that not everybody can enjoy, not all the works are suitable for it.

For managers change all the dynamic, due most of them use to supervise the work passing to the office of an employee or face to face talk about the advance, but being behind a screen depends on trust. For some jobs is easy to keep the record of the work done, you can have the files and reports, but for others it become hard to know if the employee is really doing his job, everything depends on trust and control.

There are a lot of tools for this remote work like zoom, where you can have virtual meetings with your partners and also if you need to have a private conversation with one employee you can do it directly without problems.

Some software companies have used long ago this model and they share that the basis is the trust of the employee. Besides they share that a Continue reading "Home Office"

More for less

--Originally published at Site Title

Is amazing the way finance work in the industry and big companies, how this can make every decision in a project as long as money can be saved.

In the chapter 11 of The Deadline I learn how the thing that makes a company move is the money and most of the decisions made it at the end depend directly on how the finance of the project were or if the boss decide to cut the budget.

Once a professor at college told me: when you are the head of the project, you must always require more(money, time, resources) that you need, because at the end the person above you would try to cut cost to be more efficient, besides, you must always have a plan B to proceed if the things have to change drastically.

Is not easy to be a manager and less when everyday cost a quarter million dollars, for this reason you should be surrounded by people that can help you to continue the project no matter the adversities, because they will come and you must be prepare.

Finance and Politics are the most difficult part of any project.

Hunches and gut

--Originally published at Site Title

Normally when we find ourselves taking the lead in a project most of the decisions made it are based in our hunches and gut feeling, in other words, experience of how things use to work for us. Occasionally they are good and others result to be pretty bad.

Sometimes, when a person use to take good decisions people think, that person have really good hunches. However, the reality is he has a good model of how things work and are affected by different variables and can make calculations of how things will end and what would be necessary to achieve the goal.

But if in your case your hunches are not good at all or you want to improve it to get more effective decisions, you can make it happen developing your model on paper or in a software, where you can visualize what variables you are using, which ones are missing and which ones you do not need. With this action you can realize about how you were doing things wrong and how to improve, this is really importan in big projects to make a good decision and not end up regretting.

In this way, if you put attention on the most important aspects of a process you can be a step ahead and make the good choices and the good moments.

Seize the day

--Originally published at Site Title

Is amazing the way you can learn crucial knowledge about management that you only would be able to learn trough years of experience in a short talk with a senior manager.

In the last chapters I just read, could discover how relevant a good advice at a good time from someone who just have the same problem before could be to improve your work.

Through the lecture Mr. T highlighted some points of two different experts that are important to take care while your project are in development.

From the first one he stand out that prevent risk is one of the most important tasks to improve the development, even more that try to be more efficient in the success. However. to archive this goal you need to take some action, like create an environment where people can communicate possible risks or failures, through an anonymous channel or through a spokesperson, because it is the only way to prevent it on time.

The last one spoke more about how important is to not waste time and make every day count, this means do not waste your time on failures and if you see something that is going to fail cut ti out and the moment and keep going forward, a day lost at the beginning is as painful as a day lost at the end. Besides, he touches on the importance of keep together a good team, if you find a group that work great keep them together, it would make thing easier.

Basically, talks you about being all the time a step forward to know exactly how to solve the problems.

Is in the gut, in the heart, and in the soul.

--Originally published at Site Title

TI2011

Is amazing when you found somebody that is in the same frequency as you, the one that can follow you and also teach you new things on the way.

While I was reading two chapters of a great novel about management I discovered about three specific qualities that any good manager must has, and these involves to lead with the heart, trust your g u t ( t r u s t your hunches), build soul into the organization and develop a nose for bullshit. It sounds kind of hard but is true, you need it to be great on your job and not only another boring boss.

Sometimes to be a great manager you need help of someone you can trust, the one that allow you to express your doubts and help you to make a good decision, because it does not matter how long you have run as a leader, you can always screw up. For this reason you must trust in your team and make an environment where they can trust in any teammate, so by the time the battle comes, your real work is already done.

Remember, listen more than you speak.

Feared or Loved

--Originally published at Site Title

While I was reading an amazing novel called “The Deadline A Novel About Project Management”, from the chapter 3 to 5. I realized something that is pretty important when you are the head of a group and that is the way your persuades people to do the tasks that you want and how to keep them motivate.

Be persuasive normally requires at least one characteristic, this aspect is the one that defines the way that you are going to be seen by the people you are rounded, for example, if you are a ruler of a country and the people love you, you will be seen like an Autocrat. However, if the people fears you, you will be seen like a Tyrant.

A lot of people differs about what is the best practice in everyday life, some believe that be feared is the best, because people is not allowed to say you no and is the only way is to do the things that you want, due to the fact that they are scared about the actions you can take against them, so they tried everything to accomplish their task and their motivation is the fear. Nonetheless, the problem of this methodology is when someone can not fullfill their activities, because if you does not apply the right punishment the rest is going to think that the things you say are only a lie, for this reason is just a matter of time to lose the power.

Meanwhile when you are a loved leader, the things work totally different, because you are surrounded only by the people that enjoy working by your side. Their motivation comes from the way you treat them, how you make them fell that are part of something important and their contributions are good for everyone. Continue reading "Feared or Loved"

Economics of Software Engineering

--Originally published at Site Title

TI2011

Digital analytics data visualization, financial schedule, monitor screen in perspective

Is very common to see how engineers get amazed about new software, computers, gadget, tools and everything related to technology, that is what make them who they are. However, now days in the industry that is not enough to become a manager in a big company, you need to know real stuff about development of a process, like finance, efficiency, cash flow and decision-making process, otherwise your product could be the best on the market that is going to offer world peace, but if you do not know how administrate the economy of the project form the beginning to the end, the only thing that you are going to produce is going to be a huge debt.

Knowing this concepts and methodology is kind of hard because it change everything about what you see in a project like engineer, because normally you want to create a new software so you think about how many programmers you are going to need, how many computers and servers are going to required, so you make a list with the best people for the job and the best equipment without knowing that no one is going to accept the project for all the money that is going to be needed for your request, so in this point is where a good manager arrives and make you realize that at first you do not need all this people and equipment, first you can start with only 3 persons and one server, while you get more advanced you can get more computer systems and people to work, but first you have to be sure that the project is going to keep alive until the delivery and that is what engineers sometimes does not see.

For

Administratriv…trivia

--Originally published at Site Title

TI2011

In the chapter 1 and 2 from the book: “The Deadline: A Novel about Project Management” you can read a story of an incredible manager who use to fall sleep and have livid dreams that teach you the basis of Project Management while you are enjoy a great novel that allow you to imagine every moment and create the same environment that the story is telling .

I really enjoy the way of learning important concepts of Project Management that sometimes people do not put attention because they think that this concepts and skills are not as important as the theory is and that is a HUGE problem. Due to the fact that management is about knowing how to deal with people all the time and getting the best for them and for you. For example, in the novel you find a moment where a group is taking a course about PM where the syllabus was only about charts, status reporting, a section on interfaces to the human resources department, conduct of weekly meetings, use of e-mail, filling out time cards, progress tracking, project milestone reporting; stuff that is important but only is going to help you in the office work. Nonetheless, what are you going to do when you have a problem with an employee, your team work is unmotivated, know who is the correct guy to hire, observe who is the better making a specific task and assign it directly to him to make the work more efficient, this things are the ones that makes you look like the best manager and the guy who do all the hard work, while the truth is that your team is the one that is making everything posibles because you put them in the right place.

This scene also Continue reading "Administratriv…trivia"