PMinFOCUS

Interesting survey about IT and the business its supports misalignment from ComputerWeekly.com:

Only 3% of CIOs believe IT and business strategies are fully aligned despite 35% of boardrooms recognising IT’s critical role in the businesses performance.

The article does not explain the root cause for those results, there are probably a number of them including: separated budgets, business units silos, power struggles, lack of programme management at CEO level, etc.

Nice short post on ITtoolbox about sharing bad news.

Sharing bad news is an important task that the project manager has to handle himself. It’s paramount that trust is the least damaged as possible with stakeholders. That’s where you need to be open, explain clearly the issues and what you are doing about it.

By be open and by engaging with skateholders you will score “trust” points.

A great post from Pawel Brodzinski on estimation for software development:

OK, but what about majority of cases when we need some kind of real estimate? For example all those fixed price projects where estimates are basically a part of risk management, as the better the estimate is the smaller are chances that the project goes under water. I can’t deny that we need to have something better than wild-ass guess then.

Yes. Assessing the cost and make sure the schedule is right. The main two reasons estimates are needed in fixed price projects. Its’ also part of the planning process that helps identify the skills needed.

In other words, no matter the method, if you are just guessing how much something is going to take, you will likely to end up with way worse results when compared to a method, which uses your track record.

This is also about having estimates from people who are actually doing or have actually done the job. We are not machines and every development team works/is different. Everybody is different and I always found that  programmatic ways of estimating work could not be the best tools out there.

Excellent read: Tony Schwartz on HBR Blog Network about focusing on the task at hand.

It’s not just the number of hours we sit at a desk in that determines the value we generate. It’s the energy we bring to the hours we work. Human beings are designed to pulse rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. That’s how we operate at our best. Maintaining a steady reservoir of energy — physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually — requires refueling it intermittently.

Focus, focus, focus…moving that concept to project management and scheduling it means multi-tasking does not give satisfactory outcomes.

Rick A. Morris on unrealistic expectations:

I like to compare projects to weight loss.  Look, I would love to take a pill at night, never have to work out, eat whatever I want, and lose weight.  The reality is that eating right and exercise is what it takes.  The sales numbers for weight loss fads, products, pills, exercise machines, etc. is staggering!  Every day I hear an ad for a new product that promised dramatic weight loss without changing and of the bad habits that lead to the weight gain in the first place.  It is this same mentality that continues to plague projects.  This mentality that if we put it out there it will happen and if we don’t acknowledge the bad stuff, it doesn’t exist is the basis of many of the organizations in business today.

This is true, a lot of organisation do not take planning seriously and prefer to manage issues when they are boiling red.

John Larson on offshoring:

Our heroes’ need to be super explicit in order to get what they want reveals another major advantage that local programmers have: nobody wants to have to babysit their programmer with constant direction and correction.  Communicate the overall vision of what you’re trying to create for your customers, and any programmer worth their salt will bring their A-game to solve it from that shared understanding.  The net result is a project that is completed faster, racks up far fewer billable hours, and saves you headaches and time.

I am sure I am not the only one thinking “Yes, that’s about right”.

I picked this from the first page of “Re-inventing project management” by Aaron J. Shenhar and Dov Dvir” about the number of projects rising in every organisation:

This trend began in early 1900s, and it is accelerating in almost every organisation and industry: not only product life cycles become shorter, but also customers today demand greater variety and more choices, forcing companies to offer more products in almost every market.

Well, Apple is exactly the opposite. Few products, no market differentiation. This leads to simplicity, clarity and eventually customers trust.

“iStudy PMP Exam” is an iPhone application helping you getting your PMP certification by practicing simulated PMP exams.

You can use the application is several mode:

With the “Exam” mode you will be running a dummy Exam: you’ll have 4 hours to answer to 200 questions.

Use the “Stress Test” mode you’ll set yourself the number of questions and amount of time allowed for each of the questions.

There is a “Knowledge area” mode if you want to test yourself against a particular Knowledge area.

Finally the “Normal” mode lets you go though all the questions in the applications database, 335 in total…that’s a lot to go through.

As in the real exam you can “mark” questions and review them later, useful if you are not sure about your choice. At the end of the exam the application will display your score and you can review each of the questions’ right answer together with an explanation. If the 335 questions are not enough then you will be able to purchase bundles of 50 questions, through in-app purchase.

Verdict

If you are serious about taking the PMP exam then you will need at some stage in your study to take practice tests, iStudyPMP certainly is a great way to achieve this. I find the “Stress Test” mode and “Exam” mode to be most useful. One small improvement I’d like to see: when finishing an exam before completing all questions then it would be useful to get the report based on the number of questions you answered as opposed to the whole set of questions.

iStudyPMP is available on the App Store for £5.99.