Facts About PMP

Any qualification, let it be MS, MBA, CFA, PMP, PRINCE-2 or MCTS provides the individual an opportunity to "know" the sum of all knowledge in the respective line of  business. Expertise and real-world competence comes through experience and applied learning of the same skills. The certifications give you a global view of the relevant knowledge areas and helpful to those who are not in good position to claim anything about their usefulness to any organisation. Someone without the global view  and domain knowledge will have less options to think about. Doing certifications/training is like reading the user manual before operating the tool. Reading the user manual doesn't make an expert, but experience operating the tool does to any technician.  Most of these (like PMI) provide a good reference but it is AVERAGE global practice and not best practice. It is limited in so many aspects and hardly add any real  value to your project because they are so generic and may hinder the project also if used blindly by some non-technical PM. To make a project success, you need to adopt "BEST PRACTICES" suitable to your project. That is the difference between  failure & success apart from the basic assumptions made at the beginning and the scoping.

I, and most others, do not ignore the value of  PMI, PMBOK or PMP or something else. The issue is that PMP was marketed as best practice where it is not and PMI management has become too focused on the numbers rather than value. By being too commercial PMI is losing many of its volunteers, members, and even PMP. Just look at the statistics PMI publishes numbers of members and PMP are starting to drop and this is a fact and not a opinion. This is also due to the fact that many PMPs are not able to perform at the level "they are marketed and sold" - sorry for these terms but this is the reality everywhere. There are many lawsuites going against PMI as those who are preaching PM have nothing to do with projects  and they are too beaurecratic and theoretical (Oliver  F. Lehmann, PMP case). In fact, they create lots of confusion by giving unwanted attention to not so important matters and promoting mediocrity, gossiping (they call it communication), mis-communication thru  emails/ tables and graphs along with politics and corruption too to cover up their failures.

I have never attacked the accomplishments of anyone who has taken the PMP exam. I have always attacked the claims of people who want to make that accomplishment into something more than it is. When people suggest, imply, or state that the PMP provides assurance of skill and experience as a project manager ... that is just so totally wrong. Finally, if you feel devalued by the facts that are presented  here. Reality is a tough mistress.  Here are just a few of those facts:

•   The PMP was DESIGNED as an entry level certification.
•   The PMP uses multiple choice questions exclusively in its examination, and it does not deduct for wrong answers.
•   The passing grade for the PMP started out as 70%, was lowered to 68.5% in the late 1990s, and then lowered again to 61% around 2005 where it stayed until recently when PMI stopped publishing the passing grade.
•   The number of questions on the exam started at 320, was reduced to 200 in the late 1990s, and then reduced again to 175 around 2005.
•   From the start of the PMP until a few months ago, there was no requirement for experience as a project manager.
•   From the start of the PMP until about 2005, there was no experience requirement that even implied the need for experience as a project manager.
•   PMI verifies the experience of less than 10% of applicants, and when it verifies experience, it does not assess the quality of that experience. In other words, there is no assurance that any PMP has ever managed a project successfully.
•   The first time pass rate for native English speakers who take an exam prep course is around 95%. The first time pass rate for non-native English speakers is substantially lower and is about 65%.
•   PMI does not publish statistics on pass rates.
•   Some candidates lie on their applications because some organizations require the PMP for them to get an interview.

Are some PMPs competent project managers? Absolutely. Are all PMPs competent project managers? No. Are some PMPs worthy of respect? Absolutely Yes. Are all PMPs worthy of respect? Not a chance.

Then, what is so alarming? Is anyone employable and worthy of respect solely by virtue of holding a PMP? NO. There are reasons.  My experience  is that these PMPs are contributing more to project failures than success beacuse their  lack of real/domain knowledge, basic understanding and  inability to appreciate the figures in the PM tempelates and  decisions in critical matters.



What I recommend: Develop a set of criteria that are appropriate to your specific project needs. There is no such thing as a general competence or competency in project management. So make sure that the person's traits match your project's requirements.

A person who may be patient, may be the needed manager for one project, but slow down another one too much. A great group leader may be bad in documentation, a person who is nitpicking on forms and templates may de-motivate a team. Make sure the person has a sound level of knowledge. There are various certifications that test that, but you can also develop your own tests, of course.

I am in the favor of a domain specific project management - I wonder how a "generic" PM who does not have any domain experience would understand and manage any project on the basis of some  PM tempelates. I also think that a PM with no domain knowledge might do well if you  use an automated process that can provide him the necessary metrics - s/he wouldn't have to worry about collecting build times, number of errors, number of failed tests, the most problematic component - component taking the most time, etc. - s/he will get all that automatically through the automated process. So, in my opinion, you should look for a candidate who has the necessary technical experience as well - in addition to project management experience.

No certification guarantees leadership and project success. And no certification exam can test discipline and stamina, two major traits of very good project managers. And be prepared to find in the end that there are no guarantees in project management. Those who promise that probably have their own "Agendas" and they definately dont know what is your project.

Fall of Dubai World - Who Next?

Dubai is famous for its over ambitious builders & their projects. Everyone in middle east still consider  Dubai as model and racing with others to overtake Dubai. Dubai is the most vain and resource wasting places ever built by man. More incredibly we are being asked to believe this place built on sand is not the result of wasting oil money. Lots of big housing/commercial projects in Bahrain & Abu Dhabi etc are still under development to emulate Palm Jumairah  in their own way which has already become epitome of Dubai crisis.

Dubai crisis started from 'Realty' bubble which started to bust after unrealistic prices across the board  and without thinking about the sustainability of prices, demand and supply. Every Tom, Harry and Dick (btw gulf has in abundance)  was trying to become  another Donald Trump and people got sucked in the name of owning a house. $40K  worth of house was sold around a  $200 K  and people went on to buy despite beyond their reach. Their logic- Today’s  $200 K  house would get a value of $1200 K within 5 years. People started to think an asset would always appreciate than thinking about the real value.  Realtors spent a lot of money in unproductive things to justify the prices.

Banks started to give loans to real estate companies without assessing the real value. Their aim is to mint millions in interests. But these banks have forgotten to assess real value of realtors. Banks started to concentrate on variety of activities other than banking. They ventured in Forex, and derivatives which no one understands in the world. People went on buying homes with multiple EMIs without thinking about  their financial stability & sustainability of the plan.

Greed is the only reason for this crisis. Every product and service was priced artificially and companies have been started overnight and it looted money from public. “Overnight millionaire” was the motto for most of the entrepreneur.

Companies went on to stretch beyond their capabilities and core competencies. They took too much leverage. If you don’t think big, you’re dumb. Every company becomes dumb by over expanding in new businesses that are not their core competence. They employed thousands of people and borrowed through various innovative instruments which would be subscribed by a genius called private equity.

Take ex. of India. Whole India ran at leverage and domestic growth story. If  Pantaloon enters in retail business (Big Bazar), why we should wait was the question asked by Birla group and they acquired some retail companies and started MORE which is now creating more problems for Birla group. Stock broking is another business in which everyone from Kashmir to Kanyakumari started to capture their share in India. Insurance is another. Likewise everyone started everything and they went on to demolish brands and made every service as a commodity.

Everything has been created based on domestic growth theory which has been misunderstood by corporate managers who work in air-conditioned room with their tailor made PowerPoint presentations as designed in their PMBOK which they never understood.  They went on to give amazing numbers to their bosses and as a result everyone went on to venture in a crowded business and made it un-viable for everyone who has started it without knowing ground reality about the business.Whole mess has been started by marketing managers who doesn’t know any ground reality about business but who play efficiently with numbers, statistics, case studies and PowerPoint presentations.

Now these folks are calling this crisis as a event that occur once in a lifetime and it was beyond  imagination of everyone. Mess that has been created by managers without understanding of real condition. Mess that has been created in the name of expansion and diversification. Mess that has been created by leverage. Mess that has been created by greed of creditors. Mess that has been created by fictitious value creation by banks. Its all the creditors of Dubai who should be blamed rather than its vain leader for providing it money in bucket loads.

Analysts expect Dubai to receive financial support from Abu Dhabi - a fellow member of the UAE and home to most of its oil - though it may have to abandon an economic model focused on developing swathes of desert with foreign money and labors resulting in huge no. of job losses as cost cutting & restructuring efforts in the next few months.

Project Risk Management

We often execute the risk identification process many times within an iteration's life cycle or project life cycle. I prefer to execute it at regular intervals, during the monitoring and control phase, down till the closure phase. Many would do it even during the planning phase.

Planning is a optimistic exercise, Risk Management is pessimistic. When planning, we are optimistic about what should get done, by whom, in what sequence and when it should get done. After its planned, if we run through the plan with a pessimistic mind asking many 'what if' questions, particularly with those tasks for which we are not completely confident, I think many risks will be unearthed.

That means, even before the plan is put to execution, we should execute the same in our mind -pessimistically.

Another activity which can generate value is in the way the mitigation for the risks are managed.  Mitigations are action items. These action items (i.e., the risk mitigation), most could be within the direct authority and control of the Project Manager. Those which are not should be highlighted in the reviews as items for management attention and their ownership should be assigned and tracked.

To summarize ...

1. Execute the Plan even before executing it
2. Execute Risk Management processes (identification, prioritization, mitigation etc.) periodically
3. Maintain a centralized Action Items log and add the mitigation to this log
4. Highlight risk mitigation items that need management attention during Project Reviews
5. Assign ownership to each Action Item and track them to closure

GIS Data Quality & Concept of Six Sigma

A lot of different procedures for identification and improving business processes have been developed and tried by businesses with varying degrees of success. Some of the most notable earlier procedures include  Value Chain and Total Quality Management (TQM), Business Process Re-engineering, Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), and Six Sigma methodology etc.

If we go as per the definition, to achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect.

Why is Six Sigma so important in the improvement process? We talk of Six Sigma level implementations having an accuracy of 99.99966 percent. Well, after reading the following statistics compiled by the American Society for Quality, you will agree that it definitely is not!
Being 99 percent accurate means that:

• There is no electric power for nearly 7 hours every month in USA cities.
• Every hour, at least 20,000 letters are lost in the mail.
• Over 200,000 errors are made in medical prescriptions on an annual basis.
• Every week, doctors botch up 5,000 surgeries.
• Major airports report 2 incorrect landings every day.

Six Sigma is completely different from the traditional quality model of process capability. Traditional quality model was applied only to manufacturing processes, while Six Sigma is applied to all important business processes. Traditional quality model was known as Three Sigma.Three Sigma had a process standard deviation of less than one-sixth of the total allowable spread. Six Sigma requires the process standard deviation at less than one-twelfth of the total allowable spread.

There are several steps for the implementation of Six Sigma in an organization. These steps include:

• Understanding the commitment of top leadership

• Access to current information on customer requirements

• A process management system to measure current performance and identify where you need to make improvements

• Employing Black Belts and Green Belts to design and improve processes and to assist process owners

• Allowing management involvement and review to reinforce process management, improvement and design

• Adopting effective communication strategy to ensure that Six Sigma methods are implemented throughout the organization. Some famous organizations who have implemented the highest level of quality control are NASA, Boeing, AirBus etc.

Why not in GIS?

Lack of defined accuracy standards, data acceptance criteria and standardization of data preparation processes make it difficult to implement  any uniform quality standards in GIS projects.  GIS data is not a  finished product  in true sense as its  currency & completeness is dependent on  type of uses and many external ever changing factors that may affect  data quality during the QC stage itself. Multiple stake holders of different skills and requirements also hamper standardization. There is not a single GIS co. in the world that has implemented six sigma maturity model for data quality control. That means either  concept of 99.999966 % accuracy is not applicable to GIS or its not worth consideration because of its huge implications on cost and operations.

For promoting quality culture in the organization, one must first have quality people. People who understand the importance of Quality. The very first thing to have is quality leaders. If the organization can boost of quality leaders, they can easily achieve the quality service, quality product. It's not a one time affair or one persons job so in ever changing scenario one must always look into the opportunity to surpass there earlier best enabling them to produce quality products on constant basis. Three factors are important, quality resources, recognizing the importance of quality in work, investment with encouragement on continuous basis.

So, what to say to  those naive people who demand 100% quality of data every time without having quality people. Either they don't know the basics of GIS or just use quality issues as staletactic to delay the vendor payments and misguide the stake holders on their own side. Quality is everyone's responsibility at all level no matter you are on vendor side or client.

Talking - A poem by Khalil Gibran

And then a scholar said, "Speak of Talking."
And he answered, saying:
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more............

Dealing with less than effective managers

I found this article very interesting. Follow the link below for complete discussion and comments.

Working for an Idiot Boss: How to Handle a Lousy Boss?
http://www.resumark.com/blog/author/katia/

Main points are given here. ------------------------

If you’ve never had an idiot boss, consider yourself very lucky.

The rest of us sometimes have to deal with bosses who are control-freaks, intrusive, micro-managing, rude, and even obnoxious.

So what makes a lousy boss?
A lousy boss loves to take credit for your work and never gives you praise or positive feedback for any of your achievements. A lousy boss fails to support you in accomplishing your work, unnecessary interfere due to his lack of understanding and insecurities and leaves you hanging when you actually need their help. He likes recruiting cheap resources but demands best quality and quick delivery (off course with invoice) within deadlines- any PMs worst nightmare. He is usually very poor in cash management which is his main job and to hide that he wants to put blame on others. His obsession with "client is god" assumption also makes him paranoid and anti to his own employees. All the “support” that you get is annoying and results in counter-productive micro-management when you actually don’t need any help and they are just interfering in your and your teams work.

Lousy bosses think their subordinates have no feelings, interests or personal lives outside work and only he cares about the organizations welfare. Fact is he is the biggest threat to the co.s future. They take their employees for granted and think they'll do anything for the salary and contract extension esp he happens to be an expat. They think employees are robots designed for carrying out their orders. They make employees stay late after work for no reasons, attend stupid meetings and perform tasks that make no sense or have little purpose. He has no faith on anyone except few slave types, non-performing psycophants because he lacks self esteem and faith in himself.

The worst type of a boss gives you way too many tasks to handle, with unclear directions, wrong type of untrained resources, and impossible deadlines, while constantly changing their mind and directions, and having no clue about what they want or how they want it done. At the end, when you are late or the work is not done to their satisfaction – it becomes your fault with all the resulting consequences.

Boss's energies are directed towards a whole day drama where he wants to show others that he is the best man for his job. Fact is that he is there because of someone's mistake not due to his capabilities and he is the biggest threat to the co.. He is poor in cash management due to overemphasis on cost cutting to maximize his bonus & commission.

Any of this sounds familiar? Try these four ways to deal with an idiot boss before deciding to quit your job.

So how do you deal with a lousy boss?

1. Be smart and adapt to their style of work. Find the buttons to press. Dealing with less than effective managers (let’s just call them idiot bosses), is a challenge that too many employees don’t know how to approach correctly. One way to prevent problems is to study and understand your boss’s personality, their style of work and their expectations regarding your work. You can then adjust your approach and your style to please your boss, while guarantying yourself peace of mind. For example, if your boss is an annoying micro-manager, ask them about their preferred ways of you reporting to them, and report back on a regular basis and make sure ask for feedback every time. Chances are you boss will love this and will soon leave you alone after seeing that things are done “their way” and that they are “in control”. They may also get tired of “too much control” having to give you feedback all the time and will eventually give you more freedom (as some bosses will put it – “because they trust you will do a good job”. The bottom line – you will make your boss happy and will earn your freedom while keeping your boss off your back.
2. Manage your boss. If it is at all possible, try resolving problems by talking to your boss – it is the quickest and the least painful way. If something concerns you, makes you uncomfortable or offends you – tell them about it right away. For example, if a boss is constantly yelling at you, simply tell them that you understand their frustration but them raising their voice makes you uncomfortable or even threatened. This especially works well if you are a female and you boss is a male – mostly will back down right away.If that doesn’t work, document the facts of all incidents and how that impacted your performance – as well as other employees in the company. This process may be enough to relieve you of the stress so that you can cope. If everything fails – ignore him and take your case to the senior management.
3. Do not take things personally. Try focusing on work. Try to perform well, while ignoring all these distractions and focus on your work to see if that changes anything. Let your boss know that you are doing job to the best of your abilities.
4. Find a mentor or a mediator in the office. If you and your boss don’t connect well, you should consider finding someone else in the office who may be able to help you. A more experienced, seasoned or an elder employee may be more respected by the boss and may have already found “a recipe” to handling them. They can put in a word for you as well as provide you with valuable support and advice in coping with the boss. However, be very careful about your choice of words when talking to other employees – you never know who else they might tell. Tell them you have a problem – don’t bad mouth your boss.
5. Don't be part of money-laundering project – If you are in this situation then you have no escape because you have been hired as per a plan where you have to take blame for all the misdeeds and inefficiency of the people who are sharing the booty. There are few countries where 90% projects are of this type and everyone in client is interested in making a project fail so they can float a new tender for another similar project with new vendor.
   
6. Don’t sacrifice your nerves or self-esteem – it is not worth it! Doing nothing and hoping that the problems will resolve themselves is the worst idea. No one (especially your idiot boss) is worth impacting your mental and physical health, self respect, self-esteem or sanity over them. If there is no way to resolve these issues you should start looking for another job. If you want to stay in your company, a good mentor can help you transfer to a different department provided co. is big enough and he is not the only boss around. If you do decide to quit – do it wisely: don’t burn bridges and have a backup plan if anything changes.

Remember nothing will work (among 4 ways suggested above) with a persons who is trying too hard to masquerade as an effective manager. He is trying to keep an eye on everything though he is blind like a bat. He is a control freak but no control on himself. He doesnt respect his employees and vendors except his own reporting manager. Then its sure, you boarded a sinking ship with too many holes where you have been hired as a scapegoat from the day you signed the contract.

BHUVAN: Indian Earth Observation Visualization

With Best Wishes to you all on our 63rd Independence day, I am putting this information to celebrate the success of Indian Space Programme in last 4 decades.

Bhuvan is a geoportal that provides medium to high resolution satellite imagery of virtually the entire India over the internet. You can "fly" around using mouse and keyboard on a simple desktop computer with virtual globe in front draped with IRS images over Indian region. Many other features are built in, including 3D terrain and information on many thematic data.

Bhuvan is an initiative to showcase this distinctiveness of Indian imaging capabilities including the thematic information derived from such imagery which could be of vital importance to common man with a focus on Indian region. Bhuvan, an ambitious project of ISRO to take Indian images and thematic information in multiple spatial resolutions to people through a web portal through easy access to information on basic natural resources in the geospatial domain. Bhuvan showcases Indian images by the superimposition of these IRS satellite imageries on 3D globe. It displays satellite images of varying resolution of India's surface, allowing users to visually see things like cities and important places of interest looking perpendicularly down or at an oblique angle, with different perspectives and can navigate through 3D viewing environment. The degree of resolution showcased is based on the points of interest and popularity, but most of the Indian terrain is covered upto at least 5.8 meters of resolution with the least spatial resolution being 55 meters from AWifs Sensor. With such rich content, Bhuvan opens the door to graphic visualisation of digital geospatial India allowing individuals to experience the fully interactive terrain viewing capabilities.

Multi-resolution images from multi-sensor IRS satellites of India is seamlessly depicted through the Bhuvan web portal by enabling a common man to zoom into specific area of interest at high resolution. Bhuvan brings a whole lot of uniqueness in understanding our own natural resources whilst presenting beautiful images and thematic vectors generated from varieties of geospatial information. Bhuvan will also attempt to bring out the importance of multi-temporal data and to highlight the changes taking place to our natural resources, which will serve as a general awareness on our changing planet. There are lot more special value added services which will be enabled onto the web portal in due course of time and each one of those services are going to be unique to preserving and conserving our precious natural resources through public participation. We are sure the common man will get rich benefits from these Indian geospatial data services in days to come.

Basic features of Bhuvan:

Access, explore and visualise 2D and 3D image data along with rich thematic information on Soil, wasteland, water resources etc.

Visualise multi-resolution, multi-sensor, multi-temporal image data
Superpose administrative boundaries of choice on images as required

• Visualisation of AWS ( Automatic Weather Stations) data/information in a graphic view and use tabular weather data of user choice
• Fly to locations ( Flies from the current location directly to the selected location)
• Heads-Up Display ( HUD) navigation controls ( Tilt slider, north indicator, opacity, compass ring, zoom slider)
• Navigation using the 3D view Pop-up menu (Fly-in, Fly out, jump in, jump around, view point)
• 3D Fly through (3D view to fly to locations, objects in the terrain, and navigate freely using the mouse or keyboard)
• Drawing 2D objects (Text labels, polylines, polygons, rectangles, 2D arrows, circles, ellipse)
• Drawing 3D Objects (placing of expressive 3D models, 3D polygons, boxes)
• Snapshot creation (copies the 3D view to a floating window and allows to save to a external file)
• Measurement tools (Horizontal distance, aerial distance, vertical distance, measure area)
• Shadow Analysis (it sets the sun position based on the given time creating shadows and effects the lighting on the terrain)

Particular interest of ISRO/DOS would be to provide such functionalities to common man so that he/she adopts participatory approach with scientists to solve simple problems easily and interactively.

• Advanced functionalities to be provided in future versions
• Urban Design Tools (to build roads, junctions and traffic lights in an urban setting)
• Contour map ( Displays a colorized terrain map and contour lines)
• Terrain profile ( Displays the terrain elevation profile along a path)
• Draw tools (Creates simples markers, free hand lines, urban designs)
• Navigation map (to jump to and view locations in the 3D India)

You will be able to see the following data on Bhuvan

• Satellite imagery (LISS III , LISS IV along with metadata and Multi- temporal Data from OCM & AWiFS)
• Value added information (NADAMS “ National Agricultural Drought Monitoring System), Output of flood studies for certain areas,
• Thematic information (Wastelands, Soils, watershed,water resources related maps)
• Base layers ( administrative boundaries, transport layers, water bodies, etc)
• Census information
• Metadata

For more details visit: http://bhuvan. nrsc.gov. in/index. html