Project Manager As Uninspired Taskmaster Information Technology Essay

Project Manager As Uninspired Taskmaster Information Technology Essay PROJECTS change. This simple fact is not fundamentally due to a lack of planning or incompetence on the part of project managers and project developers. Rather, change is an inherent characteristic of any growing entity. Embedded projects grow as much as they are built. Living things adapt to their environment. The environment surrounding any embedded project is ever in flux. Budgets change. Resources change. Schedules change. Competition changes. Customer needs change. Even if this changing environment could be eliminated, another form of change would continue to affect embedded projects. A project learns as it grows and must change in response to this learning. That is, as features come to fruition, the developers, users, customers, and managers become more fully aware of the projects reality. First, by traditional project management we refer mainly to any methodology where project development is viewed as a specialized version of manufacturing or as a construction project. This ty pe of project management is identified by its sequential phases of design, implementation, and testing (the waterfall approach) planned out through critical path analysis (usually represented via Gantt charts). Second, we address here only those projects that include any sort of variability or unknowns in their requirements Agile methodologies such as eXtreme Programming (XP), SCRUM and Feature-Driven Development strive to reduce the cost of change throughout the project development process. For example, XP uses rapid iterative planning and development cycles in order to force trade-offs and deliver the highest value features as early as possible. In addition, the constant, systemic testing that is part of XP ensures high quality via early defect detection and resolution. In spite of some early success with agile methodologies, a number of factors are preventing their widespread adoption. Agile methodology advocates often find it difficult to obtain management support for implementing what seem like dramatic changes in application development. These methodologies require developers, managers and users alike to change the way they work and think. For example, the XP practices of pair programming, test-first design, continuous integration, and an on-site customer can seem like daunting changes to implemen t. Furthermore, these methodologies tend to be developer-centric and seem to dismiss the role of management in ensuring success. Traditional management theory assumes that: Rigid procedures are needed to regulate change Hierarchical organizational structures are means of establishing order Increased control results in increased order Organizations must be rigid, static hierarchies Employees are interchangeable parts in the organizational machine Problems are solved primarily through reductionist task breakdown and allocation Projects and risks are adequately predictable to be managed through complex up-front planning Within this context, it is small wonder that the new methodologies appear informal to the point of being chaotic, egalitarian to the point of actively fostering insubordination, and directionless in their approach to problem solving. We believe that the slow adoption of agile methodologies stems mainly from this misalignment between the fundamental assumptions of traditional management and those of the new agile development methodologies. As such, there is a significant need for a change in assumptions and a new management framework when working with agile methodologies. Specifically, we have begun to build the notion of complex adaptive systems (CAS) into our management assumptions and practices. Complexity scientists have studied the collective behaviour of living systems in nature such as the flocking of birds, schooling of fish, marching of ants and the swarming of bees. They have discovered that, while the individual agents in these complex adaptive systems possess only local strategic rules and capacity, their collective behaviour is characterized by an overlaying order, self-organization, and a collective intelligence that is greater than the sum of the parts. The theory of CAS has been applied successfully in several areas economics, life sciences and more recently, to management. These concepts of CAS led to the inspiration that like the XP team, project managers also need a set of simple guiding practices that provide a framework within which to manage, rather than a set of rigid instructions. Following these practices, the manager becomes an adaptive leader setting the direction, establishing the simple, generative rules of the system, and encouraging constant feedback, adaptation, and collaboration. This management framework, covered in detail in Section 4, provides teams implementing agile methodologies with: An intrinsic ability to deal with change A view of organizations as fluid, adaptive systems composed of intelligent living beings A recognition of the limits of external control in establishing order, and of the role of intelligent control that employs self-organization as a means of establishing order An overall problem solving approach that is humanistic in that: It regards employees as skilled and valuable stakeholders in the management of a team. It relies on the collective ability of autonomous teams as the basic problem solving mechanism. It limits up-front planning to a minimum based on an assumption of unpredictability, and instead, lays stress on adaptability to changing conditions. The Problem: Project Management as Uninspired Taskmaster Traditional project lifecycle development methodologies grew out of a need to control ever-larger development projects, and the difficulties of estimating and managing these efforts to reliably deliver results. These methodologies drew heavily on the principles from engineering such as construction management. As a result, they stressed predictability (one has to plan every last detail of a bridge or building before it is built), and linear development cycles requirements led to analysis which led to design which in turn led to development. Along with predictability, they inherited a deterministic, reductionist approach that relied on task breakdown, and was predicated on stability stable requirements, analysis and stable design. While these methodologies may have worked for some organizations in the past and may still work in some circumstances, for many companies these methodologies only added cost and complexity while providing a false sense of security that management was doing something by exhaustively planning, measuring, and controlling. Huge costs were sunk in premature planning, without the rapid iterative development and continuous feedback from customers that we have come to realize are prerequisites for success today. The results are stark repeated, public failures such as the London Ambulance System and the Denver Airport Baggage system earned the project industry a reputation for being troublesome with huge cost overruns and schedule slippages. Consider the results of the Standish Groups CHAOS surveys. In the first survey, it was estimated that only 18 percent of all project projects were considered successful, 31 percent were failures and 53 percent were challenged. Comparatively, the 1998 figures showed a marked improvement in which 26 percent were successful, 46 percent were challenged and 28 percent were failures. The study attributed the increase in success to scaling the size of projects back to manageable levels using smaller teams. This result is clearly in line with the principles of agile methodologies. Furthermore, many established project management practices still apply to agile development projects with some adaptation and a strong dose of leadership. While managers designed traditional methodologies in an effort to control projects, the technical community gave birth to agile methodologies in response to their frustrations with traditional management (or lack thereof) and the resulting impact on their produc ts and morale. For example, the principles of XP are focused almost entirely on the development process. While the technical community has championed these principles, very little has been written about the management side of agile development projects. The traditional project manager is often seen as a taskmaster who develops and controls the master plan that documents (often in excruciating detail) the tasks, dependencies, and resources required to deliver the end product. The project manager then monitors the status of tasks and adjusts the plan as necessary. So for many managers comfortable with traditional methodologies, the prospect of implementing agile methodologies on their development projects can be daunting. But it doesnt need to be. In fact, independent of agile methodologies, other trends in project management indicate a point to a convergence between the management community and the technical community. The Solution: Project Manager as Visionary Leader The best project managers arent just organizers they combine business vision, communication skills, soft management skills and technical savvy with the ability to plan, coordinate, and execute. In essence, they are not just managers they are leaders. While this has always been the case, agile project management places a higher importance on the leadership skills than ever before. For example, XP teams create and monitor their own iteration plans in collaboration with the customers. The customer creates stories (features) and prioritizes them based on business value. Agile methodologies free the project manager from the drudgery of being a taskmaster thereby enabling the project manager to focus on being a leader someone who keeps the spotlight on the vision, who inspires the team, who promotes teamwork and collaboration, who champions the project and removes obstacles to progress. Rather than being an operational controller, the project manager can become an adaptive leader if sh e can relinquish her reliance on old style management. The basic phases of an agile development project are really no different from those of any other project. He still must define and initiate the project, plan for the project, execute the plan, and monitor and control the results. But, the manner in which these steps are accomplished is different and require the project manager to retrofit what they know about traditional management to a new way of thinking the thinking of complex adaptive systems. The practices outlined below provide a framework for project managers working in this new world. The Means: An Agile Project Management Framework The authors have applied XP successfully on several projects over the past years, and evolved the use of XP practices as an integral part of a CAS inspired framework for agile project management, as described in Section 4.2. Section 4.1 provides a guiding philosophy of the team as a complex adaptive system. 4.2 A CAS-Based Project Management Framework: Six Practices for Managing Agile Development Project We have established a CAS-based project management framework with six Agile Project Management (PM) practices for managing agile development projects Guiding Vision, Teamwork and Collaboration, Simple Rules, Open Information, Light Touch and Agile Vigilance. Together these practices help us to manage our teams as complex adaptive systems while allowing us the freedom to overlay our own personal leadership styles. The six practices build on the fundamentals of CAS, as shown in Table 1. These practices are explained in further detail in Sections 4.2.1 through 4.2.6. Practice #1: Guiding Vision Establish a guiding vision for the project and continuously reinforce it through words and actions. As articulated by Margaret Wheatley [1], when a project vision is translated into a statement of the greater purpose and dreams of the organization, and communicated to all members of the team, it serves as a field that has a powerful effect on their behaviour. It can permeate the project environment and influence team behaviour in extremely positive ways, much more so than a simple task can. A real example of this principle is the use of the commanders intent in the U.S. Army. The Army knows that its leaders cannot be everywhere in the field of combat controlling all the decisions. Therefore, Army leaders clearly establish the commanders intent to serve as a guide on which soldiers can base their own initiatives, actions and decisions. Thus, even if the mission falls on the shoulders of the lowest ranking person, she must be able to understand and carry out the mission. Likewise, the agile manager, can guide the team and continuously influence team behaviour by defining, disseminati ng and sustaining a guiding vision. At the outset of the project, work closely with the customer to understand the vision for the project, how it is expected to support business goals, and how it will be used. A strong grasp of the vision will help the team through difficult decisions about business value and priority and keep them focused on and inspired by the ultimate goal. 4.2.2 Practice #2: Teamwork Collaboration Facilitate collaboration and teamwork through relationships and community. The project managers role is to actively facilitate collaboration and establish the conditions for good relationships. Good relationships among team members start with the project managers relationship with the team members. Know what makes each of them tick outside of work and what motivates each of them at work. He should help team members get to know each other by creating opportunities and the right conditions. Opportunities can be created from planning games, everyday interaction, and special events. To set the right conditions, he must establish an environment in which team members treat each other with respect. He may even need to intervene to stop disrespectful behaviour. Some people may not be comfortable bringing their technical problems to the group. The project manager must monitor the team dynamics and decide when to intervene. As the project progresses, continue to look for special opportunities to get to know people better and to help the team know each other. For example: Establish a regular day for group order-in or potluck lunches Giving team members fun (positive!) nicknames Celebrating successes and milestones with nominal gifts that reflect knowledge of staff interests (e.g., music, gift certificates, special foods).The team that laughs and plays together works together better. Practice #3: Simple Rules Establish and support the teams set of guiding practices. In a CAS, agents follow simple rules, but their interactions result in complex behavior emerging from the bottom-up over time. For example, birds in a flock follow simple rules such as avoiding objects, keeping pace and staying close to other birds. By following these simple rules, flocks of birds exhibit complex, collective behavior by flying in formation for long distances and adapting to changing conditions along the way. Similarly,These XP practices provide the team with a flexible structure within which to work Take a leading role in encouraging the team to try certain practices about which team members may be doubtful. In applying the XP practices, he must set up simple generative rules that are just enough to provide clear boundaries, but not so much as to restrict the autonomy and creativity of the team. Throughout the project, appropriately point out when practices are not being followed and seek to understand why, looking for opportunities to adjust and improve on the pract ices or their practical use. 4.2.4 Practice #4: Open Information Provide open access to information. For an agile team to be able to adapt, information must be open and free flowing. Traditional managers have long prevented this openness and freedom because of a fear that it will result in chaos. Because of this fear, traditional managers have controlled information and meted it out on a need to know basis. On traditionally managed projects, teams often feel like they dont know what is going on only the project manager has the master plan and only the project manager interacts with project sponsor. In the agile world, information is freed to leverage its power. To promote open information, he can try a variety of techniques: Place team members within close proximity of each other whenever possible. Make use of information radiators such as whiteboards, charts, etc to disseminate information. Establish daily status meetings to promote the flow and exchange of information. 4.2.5 Practice #5: Light Touch Apply just enough control to foster emergent order. We believe that control and order are related in a way as illustrated in Figure 1. Without any control at all, there exists a certain level of order due to self-organization, depending on the team skills and dynamics. Initially, as control increases, order increases somewhat linearly, and reaches a narrow plateau quickly, decreasing very rapidly afterwards. Of course, the conventional view holds that the initial condition of no control starts off without any order atall, with an increasing linear relationship. Visionary control is a delicate mix of emergent and imposed order. To impose order, he must impose some control, but do it with a light touch. With a progressive light-touch mindset, lay out project plans at a high-enough level to give the team room for innovation, creativity and rapid response to dynamic environments. Ensure that the project plans are synchronized with her guiding vision, and that they are based on functionality to be delivered and not tasks 4.2.6 Practice #6: Agile Vigilance Constantly monitor and adjust. In leading a team by establishing a guiding vision, fostering teamwork and cooperation, setting simple rules, championing open information, and managing with a light touch, the job of the agile manager has been likened to herding cats each person has his or her own ideas, and is likely to behave in accordance with those ideas. The agile manager, therefore must be continually vigilant to merit the mantle of leadership: monitoring progress, and keeping a finger on the pulse of the development team. Reinforce the guiding vision at every opportunity examine project decisions to see whether they line up with the vision. Continually encourage teamwork and collaboration. Establish simple rules, but take every opportunity to conduct process reflections: regularly examine what works and what needs improvement Operate with a light touch. Intervene quickly, but wisely to solve personnel issues. Motivate and reward initiative, but manage expectations. Recognize and encourage self-organization, but disallow cliques. Conclusion The lack of guidance for project managers of agile development projects has been a gaping hole in the project development community over the past several years. The contrast between the world of agile project development and traditional project management has left many managers wondering what their role should be. By viewing the agile development team as a complex adaptive system and the manager as an integral part of that system, we have begun to develop a framework for managers. This framework of practices is meant to overlay the practices of existing agile methodologies such as XP, and provide clear guidelines for the visionary leadership of projects that use them. These six practices of agile project management do not provide a sure-fire recipe for success.

Blood Station

My eyes slid open, I saw that I was completely frozen head to toe. I wasn't the only one here though, there were hundreds, thousands, even millions! The only thing I could do was move my eyes, everything else was frozen solid. That was strange because I felt water trickling down my body. My hair felt loose. Slowly I unfroze more and more, until eventually I could move more freely. I gazed around only to find that I was trapped in a rather small tube. There were tubes piercing into my arms draining blood. One of my kind, a human, was walking past so I tried to act frozen again but it wasn't working, I knew this because he started rummaging in his pocket. He pulled out a key which was bland and boxlike. He approached my tube, shivers blazed down my spine; he enclosed the key closer to my tube. By this point in time my body had been freed and I was able to move around. The door made a clicking noise as he put the key into it; I presumed that the door was unlocked, so I kicked as hard and as fast as I could. The door flew open and knocked him flat against another row of tube running parallel to mine. I hopped out to take his keys and hide him in my tube. I noticed that I was naked, so I stripped him to his underwear and dressed up in his security uniform, I tossed him in to my tube. The key for my tube was still in the keyhole of my door, so fully clothed I locked the door to conceal him in my tube. Now I was safe I looked around, it was a blood station. The guard in my tank was kicking and screaming now. I noticed a dial and a tin screen on my tube. I turned the dial; the screen now read â€Å"0 gallons of water/ice† so I kept turning until it read â€Å"100†. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 it went higher and higher, 60, 70, 80, 90, max. So I then I pushed the green button. Water flooded into the tank and filled it top to bottom and froze suddenly. The tubes that must have slipped out of me I saw winding through the tube and slipping into his arms like syringes. I looked around again luckily it was an old factory and my tube was right next to one of the fire exits. I walked casually out of the door, there were no guards, and it must have been the one I locked in my tube. It was a desert outside, literally. Mountains of sand were getting blown around by the soft breeze. The sandy mountains were surrounded by three scruffy looking houses, apart from that there was nothing, just a big outstretch of desert. I knocked on one of the doors belong to which was attached to one of the houses. A panel slid open to reveal a pair of eyes squinting at me. â€Å"Alright officer† he grumbled â€Å"password please?† â€Å"What password?† I queried â€Å"I don't know of any password† â€Å"Last chance bub† he grunted at me. â€Å"But I haven't been told about any password† I came out with sounding like a child that had been caught misbehaving. The door swung open faster than the door I has kicked earlier. A big man came into focus, he had torn uniform and a goatee beard, and he was extremely buff. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me back in to the old factory. I cringed as the guard walked past my tank. He glanced at it as he walked past but he didn't stop. He walked on a bit then doubled back to get a closer look. â€Å"John?† he mumbled to himself. He hit the drain button and the tube slowly started to drain again. Once it has he unlocked the door and swung it open. John spat out â€Å"him! He put me in here, he's a donor!† The other guard turned round and gave me a funny look and ripped john's clothes clean off of me. He took john out the tank, john started to get dressed. The buff guard threw me in and I smacked my face off the backing of the tube, the door slammed shut. I felt water rushing in; it was at my neck now. I took my last breath and it all went dark.

Narrow Identities and Violence

Personal identity of individual includes many feature of the individual such as race, religion, profession, personal interests, ethnicity, and language among other attributes. Yet all over the world we see individuals and groups defining themselves in narrow and exclusive terms. We take the view that, in day to day life, the different aspects of personality remain latent. Social and economic context present a background against which individuals choose to retain these different possibilities or to commit to one of these possibilities and to renounce the others. Religious Indentity and violence There are few topics that challenge the capabilities of historians more than religion and violence. When the two subjects are combined, the challenge is only increased. How do historians, discuss the often extreme, or alien manifestations of religious belief?And how should we explain religiously motivated violence—or violence that seems to be inspired by religious beliefs or authorities? Religious and violence opens up a very territories for our consideration. This is the assumption that religious violence is really not fundamentally about religion that other interests, claims, or identities of an economic, ethnic, political, or even psychological nature are at stake. With this assumption it seems to imply that religion can be reduced to something else.I certainly endorse the idea that in most situations in medieval and early modern ages, religious violence is â€Å"really† about religion. This may be less true of more recent times. I wonder, however, how consistently useful it is to think of religion as a social identity in medieval and early modern ages. Situations certainly existed in which people assigned religious labels to one another and/or thought of themselves as part of a religious group, most obviously in religious borderlands or in regions where multiple religious groups lived alongside one another. But the insight first provided by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and subsequently refined by a number of historians, namely that it was only over the course of the late Middle Ages, and especially in the wake of the Reformation, that the concept of â€Å"religion† took on something approaching its modern sense of an organized set of beliefs and practices about the divine rather than an attitude of piety toward the gods, is an important one to keep in mind. And while it is certainly true that many forms of religious violence in late medieval or early modern Europe were directed against neighbors assigned some fixed label such as â€Å"Jews,† â€Å"Dalits,† incidents of religious violence may have been especially likely to occur at moments when new beliefs were spreading into an area and the religious situation was far too fluid to be neatly defined. So when public scenes of disrespect to the consecrated host sparked violent Catholic retaliation in France around 1560, the violence was motivated by outrage against those so depraved as to attack God's body, but the clash cannot be usefully analyzed as one between two groups with fixed social identities. The violence was all about rival beliefs and their public manifestation and defense—a clear matter of â€Å"religion† as a symbolic system. To go from there to speaking of religion as an irreducible identity is a linguistic step it probably isn't useful to take.

Learn How to Use Cè and Ci Sono

There are, in Italian, a great many things that work differently from English. You should take solace, then, in the rare cases of identicalness, such as there is and there are, translated to cà ¨ and ci sono, used in exactly the same manner and with the same frequency as they are in English. Why cà ¨ and ci sono? Very simply, because the pronoun ci means there. The rest you know from conjugating the verb essere. Cà ¨ in the Present Here are some examples of how cà ¨ is used in the present: Non c’à ¨ fretta. There is no hurry.Non cà ¨ problema. No problem.Non cà ¨ bisogno. There is no need.C’à ¨ un bell’uomo che ti aspetta. There is a handsome man waiting for you.Scusi, c’à ¨ Silvia? No, non cà ¨. Excuse me, is Silvia there? No, shes not.Non cà ¨ il professore oggi. The professor is not here today.C’à ¨ una parola difficile in questa frase. Theres a difficult word in this sentence.Non cà ¨ nessuno in piazza. There is no one in the piazza.C’à ¨ qualcosa che non va. There is something not right (in this situation).C’à ¨ una gelateria in zona? Sà ¬, ce nà ¨ una buonissima dietro langolo. Is there is an ice cream shop in this neighborhood? Yes, there is a great one around the corner.C’à ¨ una ragazza che non mi piace per niente. There is a girl I don’t like at all. And, of course, you have heard the ubiquitous Italian expression, Che c’à ¨? which translates to the English, Whats going on? or, Whats wrong? It is most often used when you perceive something being the matter. Che cà ¨, Flavia? Ti vedo un po triste. Whats wrong, Flavia? You look a bit sad. Ci Sono in the Present Non ci sono problemi. No problem.Ci sono molti italiani a New York. There are many Italians in New York.Ci sono Carla e Franco? Sà ¬, ci sono. Are Carla and Franco there? Yes, they are.Ci sono dei gatti sulla scala. There are some cats on the stairwell.Non ci sono professori a scuola oggi. There are no teachers at school today.Non ci sono molti ristoranti cinesi qua. There are not many Chinese restaurants here.Ci sono tanti libri italiani in questa biblioteca. There are many Italian books in this library.Sul tavolo ci sono due bottiglie di vino che ho comprato ieri sera. On the table there are two bottles of wine that I bought last night. C’à ¨ and ci sono should not be confused with ecco (here is, here are), which is used when you see, unveil, find, or deliver something or someone. Ecco la Giovanna! Here is Giovanna!Ecco la torta! Here is the cake!Eccoci! Here we are!Eccoti i documenti che avevi richiesto. Here are the documents you requested. Cera and Cerano: Other Tenses If you want to say there were, or there would have been, or there would be, you follow the conjugation of the verb essere as you know it, still paying attention to whether the subject is singular or plural. In a compound tense, since this is with essere, your participio passato is going to adjust to the gender and number of your subject: Ci sono stati molti turisti qui recentemente. There were many tourists here recently. Of course, remember your rules for using the congiuntivo presente   or the congiuntivo imperfetto, or whatever tense you are working with. Here are some examples in various tenses: Imperfetto Indicativo: Non cera nessuno. There was no one there. Non cera bisogno. There was no need. A quel tempo cerano molti italiani a New York. At that time there were many Italians in New York. Cera la neve per terra quando arrivammo. There was snow on the ground when we arrived. Passato Prossimo Indicativo: Allo stadio ci sono stati molti ottimi concerti. At the stadium there have been many excellent concerts. Ci sono state molte difficoltà   nel suo percorso. There have been many difficulties in her path. Cà ¨ stato un terremoto. There has been an earthquake. Cà ¨ stata una rapina. There was a robbery. Futuro: Dopo mezzanotte al bar non ci sarà   pià ¹ nessuno. There will be no one at the bar after midnight. Non ci saranno difficoltà  . There will be no difficulties. Congiuntivo: Dubito che ci sia molta gente al teatro. I doubt there will be many people at the theater. Penso che ci sia stato bel tempo tutta lestate. I think there has been good weather all summer. Non credo che ci siano stati problemi. I dont think there have been any problems. Avevo dubitato che ci fosse tanta gente al teatro. I had doubted there would be so many people at the theater. Condizionale: Non ci sarebbero dei gatti sulle scale se non ci fossero i topi. There would be no cats on the stairs if there were no mice. Non ci sarebbero stati problemi se tu fossi venuto con noi. There would have been no problems had you come with us.