Marty Floyd’s Weblog

Wow!

I took a break this past winter. I worked on some personal projects. Painting inside and outside, ripping out my master bath and pulling a “Bob Villa” style do-over. I patched my roof, tore down my pool.

This past March I went down to Charleston S.C. to attend a funeral. My aunt, the one who basically taught me to water ski and had the most infectious laugh, was gone physically.

I was a reality shock for me. She was only 16 years older than me. I felt as though my life was slipping away. I know it becomes natural to “feel mortality” but I was not ready yet. I muddled along until spring was warm and breezy.

I started working in the yard pulling weeds, cutting off pieces of trees that were damaged by a particularly wet and snowy winter.

I tore out flower beds, re-mulched and replanted the beds. I had carpet torn out and new carpet installed.

I did a big shake up of personal items. I took one room at a time (it did not matter to me….I am the project manager for this segment. I am the person responsible. THEN I MADE A BARGAIN. I said that if I could find currency with the object I would sent it over for review/reconditioning. If the item better served an older requirement or was of no particular use/advantage it got dumped.

I made the comment that if anything was special to somebody they should take a picture of it and then say goodbye to it.

That is kind of where I am today. Do I really need this and if so why?

This process takes away from the hoarding mentality. It provides mobility, saves time, resource and money.

With the pictures you may still conjure up the memories and feelings that are good or important.

Think about what is collected, why is it collected, what advantage it provides other than satisfaction of impulse. This is one reason retail grocery stores in particular place cute or tasty items next to the checkout stations. They count on the old queue concept that they analyze to their benefit. If they know the checkout line will consistently have 4-6 patrons waiting it becomes easier to move (sell) small items. Do the thought process fairly often on what, why, what and it becomes natural. You end up with a good system of inventory, storage facilities and usable materials. You also don’t have to spend days getting STUFF ready so you can spend all day on Saturday having a yard sale and/or donating the stuff that has kept you from finding many things you knew were out in the garage somewhere.

Time on the other hand is different. It is given freely, for a price, or is taken and becomes lost. Time is a lot of things but patience is not one of it’s better qualities. Time decides “how long” and gives no more. It is gone. Take close heed of your time. Once spent it can not be spent again.

Stop, find your quiet place, relax, decompress and allow any stress to leave your space.   Clear current thoughts. Breath. Repeat your key word like “OHM” over and over while watching your breathing pattern slow down. Now choose what you want to focus your mind and energy on. Solve some problem or create an easier solution or a safer solution or a more productive solution. You can even waste some time looking at those animals that seem to pop up every time you take some time to just be, to look at the clouds and say what better way to spend my time right now.

Take some time.

This particular post is being placed in all my categories (as of September 27, 2007) as it applies to you just as much as me.

I started working on this post on a sheet of paper (an envelope) from a birthday card I received last week. My birthday is September 23rd and presented a good time for reflection.

I thought about my earlier “experiences” with art (paintings, music, books, TV, radio, cartoons in the newspaper, movies). I especially loved Picasso, future stuff, Flash Gordon, the Disney cartoons and movies, “2001, A Space Odyssey”, the Bible, Carl Sagen, baseball, GI Joe, “The Flying Purple People Eater”, Mickey Mantle, Elizabeth Taylor, Billy Jean. And they were all site and sound!

I have been a truly fortunate person. I have experiences that I still hold in memory. They are better than watching the latest high definition digitally encoded movie on CD for the “unpteenth” time. Some memories actually come with smells, touches, tastes, perfect audio and video!

Think for a moment about something that became truly mapped into your brain, psyche, and soul. Something along the lines of the birth of a child or the thrill of “knowing” you created a positive, lasting experience. What about the “experience” of discovery, freedom, faith? Something as simple as swinging on a swing (at home, a park, or on a tree rope over a lake or pond) or hitting a home run bring in all the senses, known and unknown.

Our capacity to learn, know, be unique, yet the same, is truly amazing! I have learned that the strength of positive inner feelings and mental attitude are far more powerful than negative ones. The negative ones are like weeds. They just grow when we do not engage in intentionally planting and growing the good, positive ones.

I created a web page that is a collection of some of the articles and thoughts I have “experienced” in this my birth month. I hope you take the time to visit soon at my web page.

Even this commercial brings thoughts flooding in on a very personal level,

Sleepy Hollow? Soft, smooth, fragerant, tight, tanned skin? Richard Scary, Stephen King? Star Trek, Star Wars? Bats, Batman? Pumpkins, Jack-o-lanterns? It could go on and on the longer you look at the advertisement.      

Brooks Law (which paraphrased, says that adding additional people to a late software project only makes it later) does not just apply to adding people. Reorganization, changing contractors, or reassigning personnel in a late project will most likely not improve the situation. However, it will provide a convenient excuse for management when things start to fail! When the schedule starts to slip in a major way, there exist only two viable solutions. First, change the schedule. Second, reassess the requirements and provide less functionality. Of course, a poorly designed system that is into development or testing cannot easily have functionality removed without major recoding. Therefore, often the only viable solution is to change the schedule.

The project manager must be aware of what to say and do when management wants to throw more bodies at a project falling behind schedule, especially if the schedule delivery date was dictated by management.

See the full article at http://www.mmbandt.com/PM2000_Software_Development_Estimation.htm

Project Management

My training and background in software development has included the “cradle to grave” approach, the Spiral, RAD, Extreme, Agile, and other software development  styles. The main thing is that they all are implementations of a software development life cycle (SDLC). As such they all include the major pieces of a project charter to say what is to be done and what approach is to be followed. They all define the objectives for the project, the goals, how to accomplish the project, and know that the project did at least meet the stated objectives.

The major tool for accomplishing a project is called project management. Three examples follow that discuss  “Project Management” concepts. First is an excerpt from Brian Tracy, secondly an excerpt from Marty Floyd, and thirdly an excerpt from “Self-Help”.

Brian Tracy said –

Some skills are peripheral to success. It’s nice to have them, but they don’t make much of a difference one way or another. There are other skills, however, that are absolutely essential to your fulfilling your potential, and you must develop them to a fairly high degree if you are to achieve all of your goals.One of these absolutely essential skills is the ability to manage projects of various sizes. A project is defined as a multitask job, the kind that you engage in every day in the process of making a living and carrying on the business of your life.

Marty Floyd said –

As a starting point it is important to discuss what is called the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK). The PMBOK was developed to provide consistent definition to the phases of a project and to delineate what should be considered as important within the context of each part of project management guidance.  The knowledge areas and project management processes are contained in nine main focus areas.

• Project Integration Management - development of project plan, project plan execution and change control.
• Project Scope Management - initiation, scope planning, scope definition, scope verification and scope change control.
• Project Time Management - activity definition, activity sequencing, activity duration estimation, schedule development and schedule control.
• Project Cost Management - resource planning, cost estimating, cost budgeting and cost control.
• Project Quality Management - quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.
• Project Human Resource Management - organizational planning, staff acquisition and team development.
• Project Communications Management - communications planning, information distribution, performance reporting and administrative closure.
• Project Risk Management - risk identification, risk qualification, risk response development and risk response control.
• Project Procurement Management - procurement planning, solicitation planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration and contract close-out.

As you can see from these focus areas there is a strong emphasis on the use and meaning of the word “control”. A LOT of activity and paperwork can be developed in these management areas, but the main point is that there must be corrective action as required. The authority and responsibility resides with the project manager. There are many skills and attributes that a project manager needs to draw upon to be effective. The project manager has to be:

• Leader - as a manager the primary concern is consistently provide key results that are expected by the “stakeholders”. Leading is also required and involves establishing the vision, strategies needed to “realize” the vision, and, in fact, establishing the direction. The leader must motivate, inspire and communicate among the various people overcoming the political, bureaucratic and people barriers. It is important to remember that leadership must be demonstrated at all levels within the project such as by individuals responsible for technical issues and by team members.

• Communicating - exchanging information is the key. Make sure that clear, concise and complete information is given to the receiver. Make sure that the receiver has obtained the information in its entirety and that it is clearly understood. Communications is a broad subject area but suffice to say that, whether oral or written, communications is critical to the project. It does not matter whether the communications are formal, whether the communications are going up, down or vertical. What does matter is that the effort will be far exceeded by the results. One thing to remember is that if you tell everyone at once you have a better chance of getting information disseminated correctly, rather than reliance on word of mouth by members of the team telling others. Every time a different person relays information the slant, intent, body language, inflection all have a chance to infer something different.   

• Negotiating - conferring with people to come to consensus or agreement. Negotiating infers that there may be a need for a mediator, arbitrator or facilitator. It depends on the circumstance, the importance, the level, and, more likely, the issues. Issues like cost, scope, objectives, contract terms and conditions, resources can all require negotiating skills.

• Problem solving - defining (problem definition) and deciding (decision making based on analysis, solution viability or dictates from stakeholders).

• Influencing the organization - the ability to use power and politics to get things done. This requires the ability to understand the mechanics or the organization regarding how to constructively use political ability.     

Project management processes can be organized into five groupings of one or more processes each as follows:

• Initiating processes - this includes recognizing that a project or phase should begin and making a commitment to do it.
• Planning processes - this means developing and maintaining a “workable” plan to accomplish what the project was undertaken to accomplish.
• Executing processes - coordinating people and any other resources to “execute” or carry out the plan.
• Controlling processes - making sure that the project objectives are met by measuring and monitoring progress. Furthermore, it means taking appropriate corrective actions when necessary.
• Closing processes - bringing the project to an orderly conclusion with formal acceptance of the phase or the project.

Everyone connected with managing projects has had the additional core challenge of developing metrics that are “added value” in performance capability and delivery of completed projects that meet the expectations of stakeholders. Collecting metrics does not mean just tabulating figures. It means developing information that helps now and then helps even more in future efforts.There are many, many methods. The charge is to determine what works best for your organization. There are volumes of information on what to collect and how to use the measures effectively. The main point is to not just collect data. Collect information!      To see the reference web page go to http://www.mmbandt.com/Marty’s_PM_page.htm

An example of a project on self-help is at Psychological Self Help: see, download and read it at http://www.mentalhelp.net/psyhelp