TI2011 Spring 2020 – Page 20 – Project Evaluation and Management

Guess the song! Deadline 13-14

--Originally published at Parra’s Project Management Blog

Hello everyone! Today I’m going to play with you a little game: Guess this song’s name, but with a little twist. I’m changing the lyrics with the most important insights of chapters 13 and 14 of The Deadline, by Tom de Marco. Enjoy it!

P.S. : I don’t sing well at all. Just trying to make this fun.

If you have problems with the embedded player, use this link: https://clyp.it/y0todmpq

Lyrics:

Today we learn something
Process improvement
Beware of the danger
The danger

Fixed improvement approach
Cost time and money
Certifications damage
May damage

Insteaaaaaaaad
Choose just one improvement

Standarization
Cuts the creative
They don’t let your admins
Take shortcuts

Every project’s different
Their natures may change
There’s no perfect process
Process

And yeaaaaah
That was chapter 13
Up neeeeeext
Mr T. talks bout time gains

If you don’t change strategy
You will not cut time
So cut the debugging
debugging

A well implemented
Extensive design
Will grant you a bug free
A bug free
software

To wiiiiiiin
your staff be empathic

So caaare for theeeeem
And just understand them

The eeeeend
Of Mr .T in this chapter

Expeeeeect
More songs with this pattern

Fareweeellll
Till next guess song challenge

Seeing the unseen

--Originally published at Site Title

Normally bosses are like a throw a coin, 50% have a good one or 50% to have a bad one you never know who is going to be, if is the first case you are lucky. However, when is the second one, watch out bro, it can really mess with your head and make you hate your job.

The common thought is that he is just a jerk or he likes to mess with people, nonetheless, the true reason could deeper, maybe we do not know all the pressure that guy must have from his superiors and he is only retransmitting that pressure. And for a strange reason most of the managers thought that keep pushing his people will make them improve their performance and that is something that NEVER HAPPEN, well, can be a useful tool ONLY for a short period of time, maybe a couple or days but no more.

In the other hand, being a manager, is not a easy work, there are too many things like the counterproductive effect of push your team that they do not catch up easily and some more things due the pressure they live and feeling of being below the average, so they keep pushing harder themselves. For example, when you are trying to make a doc spec, where you have a party of stakeholders in conflict is harder to produce something that will meet everyone’s needs, so make a document ambiguos will make you win maybe more time or evade the bullet, but this won’t fix the problem, for this reason you must look what is unseen to get a good solution and not evade bullets.

Chapter 13

--Originally published at Erick learning experience

In this chapter in the part that Mr. Tompkins and the Audit Group manager start talking about the importance of a following the same methods, it was very illogical from my point of view how the manager said that even if the project has something that can’t be apply to that process you must follow it is kind of nonsense because the process you use to produce in this case software must be the one that allow you as a team to complete the project without problems in my opinion, so in this part I consider that is important to have a process that you can replicate the times you want but also do some changes to the process if necessary.

Another thing that I have experience with is the specification document, instead of using a other document in the project of reta 6-0 we use the user manual as the specification document, this thanks that in this document are all the functionality that the web page in my case needs so it would be a waste of time to write the same thing in another format, is just better to make use of your time in production if you have already a document even if is in another format,, so in conclusion of this chapter I agree with Mr .Tompkins about the danger of standard process can make you miss important shortcuts.

Chapter 14

In this chapter I agree in the part they talk about the importance of not showing you dislike to someone at the moment of speaking because if you show to the person you are talking to some anger or dislike all you said would be in vain.

I like the idea of the Mr. Kenoros that said the process improvement is to subtract steps, I Continue reading "Chapter 13"

Webster meets the “first programmer”

--Originally published at Blog Oliver

giphy

In this two chapters we meet a new different department that will consume more time and make the deadlines more difficult. We meet the audit group which are in charge of certificate all team projects to level three or more. Teams must follow certain rules or specifications. For example using a suitable documentation model. Audit group will go from building number one to number seven which is a problem for Webster, they will discover his secret teams and experiment. And thats not the only problem Webster have.

One of the project managers from the teams was following a different pattern for the documentation that the one required for level two. So that specific team was in level one. The reason behind this was very unique. The project manager found a shortcut where he could save some time in the step most programmers hate, the documentation. Webster needs to find a solution quick or the audition will consume months in order to take effect. We learn that not because you add an improvement to a project it means it will reduce the time needed. Improvements need time to take effect and sometimes its not worth it.

200_d

In the next chapter we meet the two persons in charge of the audit group, Webster goes to talk with them because he need a big favor. He needs them to pretend all groups are now in level 4 going to level 5 and ignore Webster secret teams. Webster finds out why people follow him and follows his orders. Webster care for his teams and work the best he can. Webster talks with Dr. Mennoti who he thinks is the boss of the audit group. Dr. Mennoti is a really nice guy who understands what Webster was talking about. Mennoti agrees to let Webster talk Continue reading "Webster meets the “first programmer”"

How to have an unhealthy workplace?

--Originally published at Blog de Célia

In the 16^th chapter of the Deadline novel, the events get more complicated. The situation looks stressful for Mr. T. He is supposed to handle the fact that the managers sometimes can be really angry to their employees and the fact that specifications that they have for the projects are not precise at all.

In this chapter, I learn many things that I have never thought about before reading this. First, as Mr T. wrote in his book:

“Anger and contempt in management are contagious. When upper management is abusive, lower management mimics the same behaviour”

I never really had a reflexion about this, but it is logical. You are putting the stress and the anger that people put on you on the others.

Then Mr. T understood that too:

“Ambiguity in a specification is a sign of unresolved conflict among the various system stakeholders.”

They have had a big debate about the specifications for the projects, and most of the time when the specifications are unclear it comes from above. For me, when the stakeholders cannot be agreeing on the important decision, they are not able to create an ambitious and productive work environment. However, it gives more freedom to the managers that are closer to the reality. To my opinion, it is not to bad, even better because they know better what the best for the company.

For me, this chapter is on the conflicts and what is create the unhealthy environment of work. I have always thought that your manager is responsible of the ambiance in the company, but it comes from above. The culture in a company depends from the head managers, they create the environment in the company. For me, working in a nice and healthy environment is the most important, Continue reading "How to have an unhealthy workplace?"

Break point

--Originally published at Site Title

Pressure is not the same as productivity and many bosses do not realize it and that is a day a day problem in the life of most of the managers and employees.

Every day I wake up, through my way to work I think about what did I learn a day before and how I can improve any situation of my life and since the last Thursday one thing that did not go out of my mind was a curious phrase a PM from Flex, Iliana Valdelamar said: If you want to have baby in a month you can not just put 9 woman pregnant and try to make it happen, the things do not work in that way, is impossible.

Of course, that is true, but how this kind of things affect the people in their works?

Sometimes when you have a deadline that you must accomplish, your boss try everything to make it happen and it does not matter the actions you take, he only keep saying: “Do whatever you want, but you must have the work done at the end of the month, hire more people or make them work overtime is necessary, but make it happen”. And the majority in that situation would do what you supervisor is telling you. Nonetheless, overcrowd a project and push your workers to the limit is never the answer and that is because people under pressure don’t think faster and I really know about that stuff, as programmer and student, most of the time I like to left things at end and feel the adrenaline of it, but in that kind of moments the only thing I know is that my brain inside is crashing and any mistake can break down everything and try to solve it would be impossible.

DEADLINE, chapter 12. How deep do metrics delve?

--Originally published at TI2011 – Roger's Rad Records

This chapter has another of those moments in which something or someone is introduced as mostly irrelevant, but turn out to be a big deal in our reality. It happened before with the introduction of the NNL (Bill Gates) and now it happened with a ’charming small company’ that turned out to be none other than IBM.

“IBM” flickr photo by Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine https://flickr.com/photos/opengridscheduler/22848635441 shared into the public domain using (CC0)

T. Johns Caporonus was the trigger this time. This man was the consultant of the company that created a unit that determines the size of a software product entirely from the outside. These units are called ‘function points’. Mr. Caporonus went to Morovia and had a long session of research and calculations with Webster and Gabriel which resulted in a little chart that displayed the sizes of each of their products in function points.

When Belinda showed up, she was amazed at how useful function points could be. She immediately made a correlation between those units and their simulation model. A lot of information can be retrieved from such measurements, for instance: how productive the company is or how much certain product will cost.

Function points are an actual unit of measurement that express the amount of business functionality, an information system (as a product) provides to a user. They were originally created by Allan Albrecht from IBM in 1979 and are currently accepted as a standard in the industry. As of 2013, there are five ISO standard specifications regarding function points, this website has some information about them, as well as a more detailed explanation of how FP work.

According to Mr. Tompkins, Caporonus spat out several statistics and pieces of information that could be useful to them. I found this document that

DEADLINE, chapter 11. This situation we ought to leaven.

--Originally published at TI2011 – Roger's Rad Records

The plot of the book thickened in this chapter: Mr. T was having a great morning until Waldo came and told him that the NNL had to go to the US and put someone else in charge. “Allair Belok, Minister of Internal Affairs and Deputy Tyrant” is how he introduced himself. He made a strong first impression by joking with Mr. Tompkins’ countdown display and making it display ‘420’. By the way he was described, Belok seemed like an infuriating person. Mr. T got all sarcastic and the two of them started discussing about the deadlines, the teams, the managers, profit, among other things.

“Belted Kingfisher” flickr photo by YoungSue https://flickr.com/photos/95782365@N08/24419080976 shared into the public domain using (PDM)

Belok basically wanted to let Mr. Tompkins know that things would be different while he was in charge. He ordered to merge the three teams for each product into one bigger team, he set a new deadline six months earlier than the previous one* and didn’t seem to care about what Mr. T had to tell him. He just wouldn’t listen and turned out to be just the kind of boss Webster despised.

The NNL was gone, and so was Ms. Hoolihan. Mr. T, Belinda and Gabriel had no alternative: they had to do as Belok commanded and all of their efforts until then would go to waste. Or would they? They actually decided to obey their new superior, but not without making new secret teams to stick to their original plan and secretly work on three different instances for each of the products, as they initially intended,

This chapter was heavily focused on the story, so there isn’t much technical content for this entry. The only thing I can think of is the Pathological Politics mentioned in both Mr. T’s

Break the rules & change

--Originally published at Site Title

Normally in the world for every process we have a series of rules to keep the order and standards, in other words, letting have a controlled system where you can measure your progress and know how far you are from you objective. However, these kind actions are only good when you are in charge of a huge group of people where regulation is the key to keep work flow and do not waste time. But this type of practice in a dynamic group where you can save time jumping from one step to another, can push back, for this reason is good to know when and where is the right moment to use one strategy or another.

Another good plan, can be try new things, change the complete methodology of work, to achieve your goals, like Albert Einstein once said: “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different result”.

This idea came to me when I was reading the Deadline and make me thought how hard can you see something that we are not unaware of or are not used to doing and even harder try to make people follow this idea, you must be persuasive and have the backup from your team so they can trust on your leading. A good way to gain the trust from your team can be showing that you care and appreciate them.

“Ambiguity implies unresolved conflict”– Chapter 16

--Originally published at Meeting the Deadline

Conflitzd doggos foundz at https://tipsfromadogtrainer.com/how-to-give-attention-to-two-dogs-without-creating-conflict/

For me, this chapter is special, because it gives us a perspective not many people have, or at least one that many ignore or doubt the truth behind it. And it is important because it applies to the real world and to our very lives.

As the title of this post says, ambiguity implies unresolved conflict. But what does this mean?

It means that, instead of resolving conflict (regarding projects, among people, or even in oneself) people paper over it with ambiguity; because ambiguity evades commitment, responsibility. It’s like a patch that “works” for political reasons, or just for making a deadline. But there is no real value to it, and when the time comes to really understand the situation, one can only get confused.

That’s the case with documentation the gang is analyzing and reviewing about a very important project that never saw the light of the day.

The documents are large, they say nothing, and they are supposedly specification documents.

In reality, a specification is a statement of how a system (a set of planned responses) will react to events in the world immediately outside its borders. It is basically a set of inputs, outputs and the reasons behind that transformation.

Sometimes, people can enter conflicts, of interests, ideas, you name it. When that happens in a project and a specification must be delivered, ambiguity is the most used tool because it allows the creators to avoid being specific and technically “get the job done by not disagreeing with nobody”. But his is dangerous.
Not only the documents are useless, but the whole project; that ambiguity can lead to failure, in both project management and the real life and real relationships.

For that, one must avoid it. How, you could say? Continue reading "“Ambiguity implies unresolved conflict”– Chapter 16"