Project Management 101 (when in doubt..)

When in doubt, do everything !!

There would be situations in your organization where you talk to one person in your organizations (Sr Project Manager and/or highest authority in Project Management) you get different answers. This situation happens in companies which do not have a robust Project Management in place. (if there is still discussion happening on do we need Project Managers or Scrum Masters or both, its not a mature project management environ).

Good thing is the environment is still developing and you have a scope to be a change agent. Also you have the ability to pick and choose on what's best for your organization for Project Management.

Bad thing is its confusing time. No one really knows what is best or they know their aspect of it and you are left alone to try and figure out whats right and wrong.

In such a situation do all.

Secondly evaluate what things are best not done. i.e. why are you implementing something ? What is the purpose ? Who is the audience ? How does it add value to them ?

Finally learn to say No and have good reasons to back your decision. There will be several instances where people will come to you and say "I want to see this" and "I want you to do this ....",. Evaluate if it makes sense. It would be best if you try it out and then decide coz if a suggestion has come to you it might have some merit. But again since its your job and you are qualified and know most of what should happen in Project Management, you need to make a call yourself.

A case in example, both waterfall and agile methodologies can co-exist together. Agile in Scrum implementation and Waterfall in overall project management. If both are looked at independently, both methodologies can co-exist in their own domains. Scope of Scrum limited to Sprints while scope of Project is multiple sprints and anything which hampers that project. Different implementations for different views (ground, 100 feet or 10000 feet).

Happy Project Management

Cheer !!

My Space is hiring

Putting this post out there to publish that My Space is hiring.

Developers, QA, Project Manager's.

Please visit the official site for more details or let me know.

ETF's (A better alternative to Mutual Fund)

I had indicated in my previous post that mutual funds are good instruments to invest when you don't have time and energy to invest via stocks. There is a lot of research that you have to do when you are investing in stocks. Not that you don't in case of mutual funds but you have someone in charge to make sound decisions for your fund. A fund manager. Anyhow this post is not about stocks or mutual funds.

Its about a third option when you want to a buy a lot of stocks but don't have money to buy all at the same time and also you want to diversify. So what you do you look for an ETF. In simple language ETF is everything (check details) a mutual find is except you can trade an ETF like a stock and is not as expensive as a Mutual Fund.

So benefits of ETF's in nutshell are:
1: Lower Costs: Most ETF's do not have 12b-1 fees.
2: Buying and Selling Flexibility: Buying and Selling can happen on Stock Market at any time just like stocks.
3: Tax efficiency - ETFs generally generate relatively low capital gains, because they typically have low turnover of their portfolio securities. While this is an advantage they share with other index funds, their tax efficiency is further enhanced because they do not have to sell securities to meet investor redemptions.
4: Market exposure and diversification - ETFs provide an economical way to rebalance portfolio allocations. An index ETF inherently provides diversification across an entire index. ETFs offer exposure to a diverse variety of markets, including broad-based indexes, broad-based international and country-specific indexes, industry sector-specific indexes, bond indexes, and commodities.e.g. If you want to invest in India an ETF like IFN would be a great way to start (I have invested in IFN)

I found it an effective way to invest in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and India only. You can invest in any number of way on any number of index's and gain maximum advantage out of it.

Hope you enjoy this post.

Thanks,
Sumeet

Nice Small Trip in LA (Los Feliz, Sunset )

This was one nice small trip which I could capture only partially as it was night time and could not roll down windows of my car and therefore could not take decent pictures. But what ever we could we have. This small trip is good to drive around. We started from Studio City to Los Feliz via Highway 5, then took Hollywood Blvd and then Sunset Blvd finally reaching Beverly Hills driving on Ave of the stars and turning back to drive on Rodeo Dr.


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Investing: Look beyond stocks

When I first tried my hands at investing in stocks it was too complicated and it gets overwhelming when you realize that investing in stocks is beyond "buy low, sell high" (even then knowing "when" is the key, when you know a stock is low enough or high enough :) )

So my first investment was a mutual fund. I had investment in a Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund. To be investing in a equity diversified fund made sense. One it will have stocks and second it will be diversified. It worked well for me, I sold it as soon as I made some decenet profits on it (I think it was something like 15% including dividens). Later I realized mutual fund investing is not like stocks and should not be treated the same. If you want to invest in stocks then do so, if you want to invest in mutual funds dont think stocks.

Benefits of Mutal Fund investing:

If you dont have time to track the market and cannot follow all the research and steps in my post on April 7th, http://freedomat35.blogspot.com/2008/04/stocks-investing.html then mutual investing is for you.

1. Diversification. If you dont want to take too much risk and invest in all stocks there are funds with invest in stocks, bonds etc.
2. Professional Management: The idea sounds great doesnt it at first. I dont have time, I am not an expert why not give my money to someone who does this for a living and has a record of giving good returns.

Some negatives:

1. Fees: Entry load (fees you pay for investing), Exit load (fees you pay when you selling), Redemption fee (fee charged to you if you sell before certain time), Opearting Expenses (12b - For Management fees and for advertizing expenses).
2. Little control: Now that you are trusting the mutual fund company you personally dont have control of which stocks you sell and buy and when. Its the fund manager (so research well)

Research Well:

Best place for mutual fund research is morning star. Yahoo Finance being one of the best financial sites.

1. Look for history of fund manager
2. Reputed fund company
3. Look for past record (1yr, 3yr, 5 yr and since inception)
4. Compare with other top funds.
5. Look for holdings in the fund. The normally give top 10 holdings which amount of largest investments in the fund.

With the info above its a good point to start.

Good Luck !!

PS: I found something better than mutual funds. Next Post

Interworking of Product - Project - Dev

Having worked in Consulting organization all my life I always wanted to work in a Product company and I am glad to say that working in a company where Product - Project and Dev Management is on the same page.

If that is the case and your company is on Agile imagine rolling out new stuff in 4 weeks !! Isnt that cool. So how do you get Product - Project and Dev on the same page ?

First step is clearly clarify what are the roles and if there is any misunderstanding on that. I did that when I joined the new team and it was extremely sucessful. As a result this is how the three functions stack up.

1. Product Manager:

   § Owns the requirements and prioritization based on inputs from Product Owner and team goals.

   § Provides specs, PRD, requirements to Dev team.

   § Gives direction to launch dates etc.

   § Manages external communications (partners, sponsors etc.) to provide timely feedback etc.

2. Dev Manager:

   § Owns the resources to execute planned work.

   § Has bottom-line responsibility for resolving resourcing , major software delivery issues.

   § Overall technical responsibility for design, architecture etc for product.

   § Provides leadership and guidance to team members reporting to reach optimum performance levels and career development.

3. Project Manager:

   § Owns the Project Management deliverables:

   § Project Plan. (In Agile world Sprint Plan) plus managing wiki and intranet.

   § Project Monitoring & Control: daily stand up meetings and spackle updation. Will also include management of Intranet sites. Updation of Issues list of the features. Manager planned versus unplanned work in consultation with Rob.

   § Project Reporting: Weekly Status Report for projects.

   § Communication: Communicates and interacts with stakeholders (Product Manager and Dev Manager) for team and manages inter-project dependencies.