New year greetings to you all

Posted By Pankaj on January 1, 2008
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Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year

The cliché is another year has come and gone.

Okay some flashbacks:

The year gone by, was more of exploration into new dimensions never tried before. The one major achievement for me in the year 2007 was to get the PMP certification (November 4th) and probably the next one would be this blog. This is still in its early phase to be called an achievement but I do intend to make it a good story in my life. Blogging has taught me a new way to keep myself up to date on a favorite topic of mine - management. Its more personal and anecdotal which means it comes from experience :)

And some forethoughts:

I am not much into making resolution at the eve of the New Year but I definitely have plans for year 2008. My personal efforts for this year will go towards living a healthier life by practicing Yoga. Also I would continue to be sensitive and be more aware on the causes and affects of Global Warming. I intend to try reducing my carbon footprints and educate people (friends and families, their friends and their families etc) towards Global Warming. Well, let me start right here by suggesting you to read a PDF document on computer myths and facts and do your bit towards reducing the carbon footprints. This is the least we can do to make our contributions towards a global problem which affects everyone of us.

Another interesting article which I would like to recommend to you would be The real costs of saving the planet published on Business Week.

Once again, a happy 2008 to all of you and wish you all the luck in achieving what you have planned for.

Thanks for reading.

Anytime is the right time to act

Posted By Pankaj on December 28, 2007
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Most of us and I am not excluding myself keep complaining or whining about the lost opportunities but we still don’t choose to act to avoid further disappointments in future. A truly inspiring and eye opening post by Seth Godin titled as Only two years left is a must read for everyone especially to those who are aspiring to achieve. In this post, he clearly lays out the behavior of the poeple who act in time and who procrastinate and end up waiting, whining, worrying and wishing.

Learning is ON … Everywhere

Posted By Pankaj on December 27, 2007
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Even on vacation as I have now discovered.

First where have I been since the last few days. Well, I have been away on a small vacation just to get away from the grind and the boredom. It was a good break to drive down and enjoy the good mountain air of the western ghat section.

In between all this vacationing, I also got to learn a few things. One was about the service of the hotel we stayed in. Exemplary. The owners had really put in a lot of thought into converting their residence into a hotel and had painstakingly trained the staff to ensure that the guests had the best experience at this place. I assume there must have been quite a few trial and error learning process before they achieved this kind of service. I for one do plan another short trip again and also intend to refer this place to my family & friends if they need to travel. I guess this is what converting customers into client is all about :).

My other area of learning came from friends whom I shared the vacation with. Everyone had interesting anecdotes to share about work and come from diverse fields in variety of positions they work at. We discussed topics like team management, ethics, performance evaluation etc. Quick learning that I am bound to remember and use at work.

Anyway the bottom line for me is that once I have started writing this blog :), I am constantly in the lookout to learn more and share the same.

Change, Change and more Change

Posted By Pankaj on December 16, 2007
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I started project management early in my career and as a young project manager; I used to get greatly perturbed whenever there was a request for a change from any of the stakeholders. That point in time, any change meant more rework, more effort, more time and primarily more confusion. All the hard work gone gone for a toss at the blink of an eye. I used to think, … why is it so difficult to decide beforehand what needs to be done. But this is story of that time.

Over the time, as I have gained experience and knowledge, I have realized that changes, in general, are inevitable. You can not avoid it. No matter how hard you try, you can not simply avoid it. That’s the way it works and now I think that’s the way it is meant to be working. Why? Because, everything else around us is changing, isn’t? Think about it for a minute. Businesses and the way it is being done is changing, hence stakeholders needs are which calls for changes in requirements. Product or Service would definitely not be of any use if it doesn’t meet the stakeholders business objectives.

Everyone wants to get their product / service as perfect as possible and competitive but that is simply not possible in the first shot. One needs to keep working and changing it is that perfect thing you want.

That’s why PMBOK, stresses so much on the change management that almost every knowledge area has one change control process. Various agile methodologies are developed around change because some of the plan driven development methodologies don’t handle change very well.

So don’t get bogged down when your customer asks for a change, instead plan for those changes and move on. To make it a even better, be proactive and look for various possibilities of changes and be the first one to suggest if it makes life easier for the various stakeholders. Because sooner or later, they will come your way (it always happens at least with me).

Remember, changes are inevitable. We, as project mangers, are there to help our customers achieve their goal and if that requires implementing many changes, so let it be.

I know its easier said than done, but remember the oxymoron the only thing constant is change .

Should you bill the customer for non-productive hours?

Posted By Pankaj on December 12, 2007
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May be, this question needs a bigger forum than this. Since the answer requires the breath and depth of the knowledge in project management field along with general practices in various organizations. Also one may think that it is more of a ethical question than anything else.

Nevertheless, I am raising this question without trying to answer or pass my verdict, simply because I alone can not. All I am trying to do here is to write my experiences and express some of my thoughts which were hovering around for few days. I would like to make a request though to all of you project managers, consultants, sponsors and anyone and everyone reading this blog post (if any) to share their experiences and their point of view. Probably your point of view could be as simple as that that there is no such practices or this question itself is invalid, but do share.

To start with, what are these non productive hours anyways? I am sure everyone has a fair idea about what are productive and what are non productive hours. As I see it, any time spent on tasks or activities (in working hours of-course) which do not really create any value to the customer or sponsor can be put under the non productive category. Some of them could be …

- Personal Blogging (Writing a post or reading other blogs/articles to write one for own blog)
- Blogging for company (Company blogs have become a tool for marketing nowadays)
- General surfing on the web (news sites, dating sites, reading dieting articles, orkut etc)
- Reading / Responding to personal emails
- Extended breaks in cafeteria for tea / coffee, smoking, lunch etc
- Meeting with insurance agent, financial brokers etc
- General gossips at work
- Non productive meetings (unscheduled, uncontrolled meetings)
- More than average time spent on a given task (usually non-performing or not skilled people take much more time finish the task)
- Any task not covered in the project schedule
- Attending training (competency/technical) not related to project

On the other hand, examples of productive hours will be those where in time spent on task creates the required value to the customer such as
- Tasks included in the project schedule
- Researching / surfing on the web to find a solution to complete the task
- Team building activities (customer should be aware of this if she is being billed for this)
- Training sessions to enhance the skills of the team (if the customer permits for it)

If the type of contract used is Fixed Price Contracts, then it really doesn’t matter as customer has agreed to pay a fixed amount for the work he has asked for. It is the performing organization’s responsibility to look after their profits by making sure that they increase the productivity of the team and include the cost for these “leisure hours” in the cost estimates itself if required or mandated by the company policy. Ideally, cost estimates should specifically state the methodology based on which the cost estimates has been prepared.

This question is more relevant where the cost is not fixed but variable like cost reimbursable and the Time & Materials (Money) contracts. These contract types are commonly used in outsourcing and off-souring model. In these scenarios, the cost is not fixed but only the rate of unit like person cost per hour. The organization bills the customer based on the total number of hours spent on doing the tasks for the client. For example if the team consists of 5 people then 5 * 160 hours (40 hours / week) = 800 hours will be billed to the customer. Number if billing hours can decrease (if there is holiday in the organization or the person himself is on vacation for few days) or increase (if person puts in some extra hours to meet a tight deadline). But based on whatever experience I have in various organizations, the calculation of these “to be billed hours” does not really reflect the non productive hours. Situation, I believe, could be explained with the following reasons …
Organizations have to worry about the top line and they have to plan for the cash inflow/outflow and profits. Simple assumption is made of minimum number of billing hours (160 hours with an assumption that everyone is working for full 8 hours everyday anyway) in their calculations and a hit on it (below 160 hours) can disturb the entire calculation. So why should they even bother? This very pressure directly / indirectly is passed on to project managers by the top management.

Lets look at it from team members perspective. Why would an individual team member admit to 5 hours (actual productive hours) instead of 8 hours (Time spent in office / sitting at their desk) in his time sheet. The employee could face the risk of being categorized as non performer just for not ‘working’ 8 hours.

I feel, normal employees, don’t really think in terms of productive and non productive hours. They worry more about the number of hours spent in office. Correct me if my observations are wrong.

The problem is much bigger than it looks. Because the number of non productive hours being billed (money paid but value not earned) in one milestone will add up to the next milestone of the project or will appear under some other heading in the contract management. And if the practice continues, the customer ends up paying much more than what he actually should have.

Well, don’t get me wrong here, as I am certainly not suggesting that organization or project managers should ask their teams to work like robots. In IT industry, I don’t think this method will work as it is about people and people need to relax and take various types of breaks to give their best . They face mood swings, trouble at home / office. They definitely need to have fun and relax. So expecting “8 hours of productive work” everyday, just doesn’t seem possible.

So what can be done? I think the organizations needs to be aware of the situation and put some conscious effort and not just by including fancy words in their mission and value statements. They need to build a culture where honesty is practiced, customer’s interests are put into actions and promises made to them are kept. It is not easy by any means but at least, everyone can go a step forward to deliver the value to the customer for which he is paying and deserves.

There are examples where larger organizations have tried and trying to correct this situation but I still feel numbers will be far too less.

Once again I would request you all to share your views and experiences.

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