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Developing the Plan

Posted on by Adam Kovitz

During a discussion with a colleague, the topic of the project schedule vs. the project plan came up. The first thing I did was thank my colleague for correctly stating that the tool we Project Managers (PM) use–MS Project–is the schedule, NOT the plan. When I state this, I usually get a glazed look from folks who are not PMs or do not completely understand a PM’s role in the overall project plan. So a discussion is necessary to answer the question, “What is a project plan?”  The first thing we must do as PMs is stop using the term “project plan” when we really mean the project schedule. Now, we can begin the discussion of what is in the project plan.

Which tools make up the plan?
The first tools the PM must receive are the Statement of Work (SOW), and included within it, the Scope Statement, or in other words, what the project is delivering. We are all familiar with the term, “What is in scope.” Well, the scope comes from the SOW. What I like to do is begin the kickoff meeting with the client by reviewing the SOW and highlighting what is in scope and most importantly, what is out of scope. The SOW that includes the scope statement is the PM’s first and most likely most important tool. This is the compass that the PM must use to begin building the rest of the project.
The next tool is what we use to organize or fill the roles necessary to deliver the project. We sometimes call this the Human Resource (HR) Plan. But I like calling it the Resource Plan because we all know if this is an Information Technology (IT) project, the resources could be new hardware or software. This plan should highlight what talents and technology are needed for the project. It should also note if the resources are already “in-house” or if there is a need for a third-party consultant or a purchase of hardware and/or software. Once these resource needs are identified, then the PM can work with management to fill those needs.
The communication plan, which includes the contact list, can then be developed. Also, the PM must have at the ready tools that will become important during the project, such as the risks and issues list and the change request.

Once these tools are established, the PM can then meet with Human Resources to begin building the schedule. This is another common fallacy that must be dispelled: the schedule is not built by the PM alone. On the contrary, the schedule is built by the team. You see, it is the team that puts together the tasks of the project, links the resources to the respective tasks, and then places a schedule for that task, creating the whole MS Project schedule. When this schedule is put together, then reality sets in regarding delivering the project on-time, within scope, and within budget. It is at this time that the first change request may be written and submitted.


I am open to discussion at any time on these blogs or anything else related to project management you would like to explore. If you would like to comment about this blog, please do so by posting on this blog or by responding in an email at Benny A. Recine. You may inspire a blog article. I look forward to your comments.

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“A Call to Action” by Frank Kovacs

Posted on by Brian Mecca

Saturday August 9, 2014 at 8:00am ET

In 14 years of leading the Tri State area’s top networking group we have always strived to stay ahead of the curve and give job seekers and those wanting to manage their careers the best information possible

Phase 1 – Post 9/11 – we set out to help job seekers and found out that the job search process was broken – so we analyzed each step and came up with approaches and techniques that provided an “edge” at each step over other job seekers. Whether it was advice on how to make the case with your resume, how to help the employer see you as a cultural fit, or how to network your way in – we were there with the best advice

Phase 2 – The advent of Social Media – first we began with embracing Yahoo Groups to manage TBCNJ and our communications but then Social Media through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others became instrumental to our job search approach and how to leverage these tools both individual and as a networking group became another critical element

Phase 3 – Enter the New Way Business is done. It began quietly cloud and bring your own device but Cloud, Mobile have now been joined by Big Data, Social, Robotics, Gamification and Cybersecurity and all under the umbrella of Digital Business, Digital Frameworks and Digital Transformation. The rate and volume of change is reaching new levels daily. Now the way business is being done is changing so radically there are new jobs, different titles, and new position responsibilities plus many “legacy firms” those in business pre-2000 are competing against many who were created post-2005 and from the get go on Cloud with new Digital Business Models. Many of the legacy firms are downsizing and people are lost trying to navigate among new job titles, more hands on responsibilities, flattened organizations and last but not least where is your network with the legacy firms or the new hot post 2005 firms? Everyone has a lot of work to do the quicker they get underway the stronger they will be as they find their niche in the new way business is done.

Frank will take you through these changes and give you a clear path on how to position yourself and your career successfully

About the speaker:

Frank Kovacs is the founder of The Breakfast Club NJ the top networking group in the Tristate area which is closing in on its’ 14th year and has over 4,000+ members and has helped over 6,000+ individuals land jobs. TBCNJ was founded following the 9/11 Tragedy to help those that were displaced from their jobs, however, the prolonged economic and financial problems that our economy and businesses have endured necessitated keeping the group and its’ mission alive beyond what was ever envisioned. It is comprised of volunteers who “pay forward” their assistance on techniques that help give a job seeker an “edge” at each step of the job search process, and then we added many ways social networking could be leveraged through yahoo groups, LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter, google+ and others. Frank also added a weekly Radio show, You’re Career is Calling, that he has delivered at Rider University every Sunday going on 4 years.

Frank’s vocation is as a Technology Executive who has spent close to 30 years directing some of the largest global transformations for the marquee names in the business – AT&T Bell Labs, Citigroup, AIG, JP Morgan Chase, Bowne, Medco, GSi Commerce/EBay, McGraw Hill and Ernst & Young. Most recently Frank built one of the largest and most successful Cloud Practices in the world and sold then directing the largest migration ever to Cloud for Nasa’s 1900+ websites Now Frank runs Digital Business, Frameworks, and Transformations for the largest Business Process Outsourcer in the business which includes the disrupting technologies of Cloud, Mobile, Social, Big Data, Robotics, Gamification, and Cybersecurity.

Given Frank’s work in these two areas (Technology Major Transformation Executive/Career Management Expert) and hear first-hand the presentation that he has developed, “A CALL TO ACTION”. The way business is done is changing dramatically. What jobs there are, what responsibilities these jobs have, which firms will be able to define and execute these new Digital Business Models better than their competition is going to lead to the biggest change in the way we do business and work. Many firms just aren’t going to successful make the transition Come and hear this message first hand so you can start preparing today to position yourself effectively in what will be a much different environment The change is already started and underway.

If you are in transition this message is critical to understand what you can change quickly to get re-engaged

If you are currently working this message is needed so you can start preparing today and make the most for yourself from the changes we all will be facing.

Looking forward to seeing you – You Don’t want to miss this critical perspective of the future and its’ impact on you and your career.


 

Posted in Monthly Meeting

Do You Need to Backup Your Cloud-Stored Data?

Posted on by Adam Kovitz
Do You Need to Backup Your Cloud-Stored Data? by David Schuchman
Some organizations assume that because their enterprise data is already stored in “the cloud” that they do not need a separate backup solution for that data. That assumption is wrong. Cloud based solutions for data and application storage require the same diligence for backing up data as for locally stored data and applications. Plus, there are other situations you need to protect against that you may not have considered.

Backing up data is vital for businesses. Lost information can cause a major crisis or worse, lead to business failure. Individuals who don’t backup computer data run the same risk. You need to treat your solution for data backup completely separate from your cloud-based solution for data and applications storage. Your cloud-based data and applications must be viewed simply as the virtual equivalent of having the data and applications hosted in your own facility. Therefore if you would have a data backup solution for your in-house facility, you must do so for your cloud based solutions.

Reasons for backing up your enterprise data are:

Point-In-Time Recovery
You may have business or regulatory needs to recover data from a specific point in time, such as the end of the year close. This could be for audit, tax or meet other requirements. Some databases have this feature built in, while others do not. If your cloud applications or databases do not support a point-in-time recovery, then you need to ensure your backup solution satisfies that requirement.
Accidental Deletion
Most applications allow the users to delete data. Users typically can delete network files they no longer need. When you need to recover lost data, the only means to do that may be via your backup solution.
Protect Against Virus or Corrupt Data
While it is likely that your cloud based service provider has virus protection within their operation, it may not be in force on your instance of the application or data storage. In that case should your data become corrupt, you will need to recover the data from your backup solution.

Reasons to backup your enterprise data stored in the cloud:

Don’t assume the cloud provider is backing up your data
The cloud provider will agree to do whatever is in your contract. They may have their own virus scanning, backup and recovery procedures for their operations. However, that may not be applicable to you or may not meet your specific needs or timing.
Your Cloud Provider Goes Out of Business
If your cloud based data and applications storage provide goes out of business, you lost your data. You may be able to quickly contract with another vendor to host your applications and install the software. If your only copy of the current data is with the vendor that is out of business, you have likely lost that data forever. Even if you could sue the vendor to recover the data and/or damages, it will take much too long for your needed recovery.
You choice for a data backup solution and provider will be made based on your data recovery needs. You primary consideration must be that your data backup solution provider be different than your production application and data provider. That’s because of my final point above. If you have one provider and that organization goes out of business, you lost your data even though its backed up.
David Schuchman

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Are You Nervous before the Job Interview?

Posted on by Adam Kovitz

Most people are nervous before a job interview. And that’s normal. A job interview is nothing less than an oral exam. In most cases, it is very important because the outcome could change a person’s future, milieu, income, and so on. But when large groups of people are asked whether they feel nervous before an […]

The post Are You Nervous before the Job Interview? appeared first on Landing Expert Career Coaching.

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Is the Employer Always Right?

Posted on by Adam Kovitz

In this new, chaotic, and uncertain century, with its more and more minutely specialized occupations and skill sets and with nothing to do with the faltering economy, it’s not only human resources employees who might not be familiar with certain job skills and the actual needs of the open positions in their organizations. Believe it […]

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Lean Tools for Managers

Posted on by Adam Kovitz
Lean Tools for IT Managers by David Schuchman
“Lean” is a practice that considers the effort & cost of resources for any task, other than those that create value for the customer, to be wasteful. Those tasks are targets for elimination. While Lean principles originated in the manufacturing industry, all industries have adopted Lean to make the effort needed to complete production goals more efficient.

Here are two Lean tools which can be useful to a manager for the prioritization of project tasks, and for root cause analysis when issues arise.
PICK Chart
When faced with multiple tasks, a PICK chart may be used to determine the most useful or important. Originally developed by Lockheed Martin, a PICK chart organizes tasks or ideas into 1 of 4 categories. The acronym PICK identifies those categories as  Possible, Implement, Challenge and Kill.

A PICK chart is set up as a grid, two squares high and two squares across. The PICK acronym comes from the labels for each quadrant of the grid:

  • Possible  – tasks that are easy to implement but have a low payoff.
  • Implement  – tasks that are easy to implement and a high payoff.
  • Challenge – tasks that are hard to implement and a high payoff.
  • Kill  – tasks that are hard to implement and have low payoff.
Low Payoff
High Payoff
Easy to do
Possible
Implement
Hard to do
Kill
Challenge
Once each idea from a brainstorming session has been placed on the most appropriate square, it becomes easier to identify which ideas should be acted on first. In a group setting, PICK charts are useful for focusing a discussion and achieving consensus.
Fishbone Diagram
A fishbone diagram, also called a cause and effect diagram, is a tool for categorizing the potential causes of a problem in order to identify its root causes. The design of the diagram looks much like a skeleton of a fish. It has a head (which states the problem), a backbone (connects the head to the ribs), and it has ribs (which categorizes the causes). Hence, the name: Fishbone.
This is useful in brainstorming sessions to focus the conversation. Fishbone diagrams are typically worked right to left, with each large “bone” of the fish branching out to include smaller bones containing more detail.  After the group has brainstormed all the possible causes for a problem, the manager will lead the group to rate the potential causes according to their level of importance and likeliness.

Fishbone Diagram
Lean aims to make work processes simple enough to understand, do and manage. These tools are easy to document and apply in your workplace.

David Schuchman

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Are You Really Good at Job Interviewing?

Posted on by Adam Kovitz

Job interviewing is an act. Yes, you are the actor, and both sides know the rules: You, who are one of the candidates for the position, are doing your best to convince the interviewer you are the ideal candidate. The interviewer, who is the audience, has choices, is an independent thinker and often skeptic, and […]

The post Are You Really Good at Job Interviewing? appeared first on Landing Expert Career Coaching.

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How to Create an Innovative Organization by Frank Wander

Posted on by Brian Mecca

Saturday July 12, 2014 at 8:00 am

The Presentation: “How to Create an Innovative Organization”

Every firm faces daunting challenges: Cloud, Mobile, Social Media, Big Data, Security and an Employee Disengagement Crisis.   Some are even calling this the end of business as we know it.  As this transformation unfolds, talent will reemerge as the source of enduring competitive advantage.  In this presentation, Frank will share how the winning companies of today have learned to unlock the talent potential of their workforce, by building innovative and high performing cultures.  People aren’t interchangeable parts – they never were.  Every leader must become as adept at running the human infrastructure, as they are at managing process and technology.

In this talk, Frank will share:

  • What culture actually is
  • The five levels of cultural maturity
  • How you can design a high performing culture
  • Why institutional knowledge has such high productive and innovative value
  • Why certain roles are assets, and others are expenses

 

About the speaker:  Frank Wander is an author, former CIO, and founder of PeopleProductive, a technology driven consultancy providing workforce productivity and innovation solutions to clients.  After investing many years transforming failing IT divisions across corporations, Wander realized these failures had a consistent root cause: corporate cultures where the leaders knew everything about products, processes and technology, but nothing about the human factors that underpin workforce productivity and innovation.  This awareness led him to write a book for Wiley Publishing, titled Transforming IT Culture: How to Use Social Intelligence, Human Factors and Collaboration to Create an IT Department that Outperforms.  This book is the missing Operators Manual for the human infrastructure.

PeopleProductive helps companies build high performing cultures, by applying the human factors of productivity and innovation to unlock five levels of cultural maturity.  Products include cultural assessments, cultural transformation roadmaps and implementations, management off-sites/workshops, organizational design services, workforce planning, and training.  In these times of tight budgets, the largest unexploited opportunity for most companies is to unlock the full talent potential of their existing staff, often doubling their productivity.

Prior to the Institute, Frank was a Chief Information Officer at three different companies, most recently at Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. Wander is a sought after speaker and panelist at industry events who connects with his audience by sharing meaningful stories, and proven strategies for creating high performance. He has given the keynote address at many technology industry events, and has appeared on Business Insider, internet radio, and in the Wall Street Journal.

Posted in Monthly Meeting

Getting project members motivated

Posted on by Adam Kovitz

One of the questions I hear the most from other Project Managers (PM) is how to get their project team members motivated to do the work they have been assigned. A PM usually works in a matrix organization, and that means that the PM’s project team is a mixture of resources across the organization who have their own “day jobs.”  So, it is important for the PM to set the proper expectations for the team. That does not mean that the PM should not hold team members accountable. So the fine line that the PM must walk is set even before the PM has resources assigned to the project. However, the question remains: How does the PM get project resources motivated?

Understand the balance needed by the resource
As I mentioned in my previous blog, when a PM has a resource assigned to the project, the PM must schedule the introduction with the team and then with the resources. The team meeting should be short and used for introductions. However, it is the precursor of the meeting for the building of the project schedule. The PM has to get buy-in from the project team members to commit to the schedule building meeting. To be clear, this meeting will most likely be more than an hour long. So, breaking up the meeting into two or three meetings over a week is strongly recommended. However, it the meetings extend over two weeks, the members may forget what they committed to, and that must be avoided at all costs. Once the members commit to the task(s), they must also commit to the duration of the task. Once that step is completed, putting dates to the task(s) is next, and this step is the hardest to get commitment from the members. This should be done in a team meeting, but if the PM has a team member that needs extra convincing, then a one-on-one meeting is suggested. Once the schedule is completed, it must be reviewed with the project sponsor and the team members. Once this is done, the commitment is public and the schedule must be in the organization’s public domain.
There are some PMs who prefer to not place the name of the resource next to the task. I do not suggest that and am in favor of putting the resource’s name next to their task. That way there is no ambiguity regarding who is responsible for the task.
Keep the resources informed and ensure there are no surprises
Once the project begins, a weekly status meeting is recommended. In my blog on how to keep the PM and the project team motivated, http://ift.tt/VjyK1j, I suggest that a weekly team meeting is necessary, even if there are no deliverables. This is good for two reasons: one, to keep the project sponsor informed of the progress of the project, and two, to keep the project team members involved. If they become uninvolved, the project team members can become detached from the project. If that happens, it becomes hard for the PM to get the team members re-involved.
Also, a weekly meeting almost ensures that there are no surprises to any team member. Sure, there is always the risk that an anomaly can happen. But a weekly meeting can help the team members identify that risk and discuss how to mitigate it. 
Ensure that the resources know what is expected of them and when the task is due
Once again, the weekly meeting can help the PM keep the team focused on the next tasks and who is responsible for them. This is part of the “no surprises” philosophy that the PM should espouse and encourage among all project team members as well as the project sponsor.
The “no surprises” philosophy is not one to be taken lightly by anyone. We all know that the rate of failure in an IT project is over 75% and the main culprit is lack of communication. The PM has the authority to ensure good communication and must use that authority throughout the project. Even in the best-run projects, there will be times when project team members will have tough moments. The best way a PM can mitigate the possibility of the project team members becoming, shall we say, irritated with one another is to communicate often the next steps and the responsible parties. That way, a PM can develop good team members.

I am open to discussion at any time on these blogs or anything else related to project management you would like to explore. If you would like to comment about this blog, please do so by posting on this blog or by responding in an email at Benny A. Recine. You may inspire a blog article. I look forward to your comments.

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Use Blogging to Achieve Your Professional Goals

Posted on by Adam Kovitz
David Schuchman
This post is the first to start my 2nd year of blogging. As I look at the performance of TechTopics4U over the past year, I am impressed by how my following has grown, both organically and with my own self-promotion. For example, this site no longer has any zero-view days.

Here are my observations as to why you should use active blogging for achieving your professional goals:
Establish Yourself as an Expert in Your Field
As you write more posts and share more of your expertise, your blog site will change from “just another blog” into a strong demonstration of your knowledge in a field. When somebody visits your site and sees the insights you have shared on a subject, along with the comments of people who respect and seek that insight, it will be clear that you are genuinely an expert in the field. Being an expert is a good thing. You may get consideration for new business, career advancement, or consulting opportunities.
You Will Become a Better Communicator
Just the discipline of sitting down and writing will improve your writing and communication skills. The more you blog, the more you write. Therefore, you will become a more effective communicator of your ideas.

Take Control of Your Online Identity
Whether you are a person or business, there is probably a lot of information about you online. When somebody searches for you or your company online, you want to make sure that they get an accurate and complete picture of who you are and what you are passionate about. A blog is a great way for you to control your online identity and make sure that the top search engine results make the right first impression.
Build Your Professional Network
Starting a blog is a great way to expand your professional network. A blog is a good platform for reaching out to others, who in turn will look to contact you. Interesting and relevant blog posts attract readers who will then comment on your site, and can send you personal messages through your “contact us” widget or page. Some of your readers will ask for help, while others will look to help you.

Improve Your Visibility and SEO
People search for and discover information online more than ever. Search engines want to deliver results that are helpful and relevant to their users. When you write a series of in-depth and valuable posts around a topic, search engines such as Google takes notice. Each blog post that you publish is another opportunity to get traffic from search results. In addition, the comments you receive on your blog posts implies that your blog postings are relevant, which will also improve the SEO visibility of you and your blog site.
David Schuchman

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