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March 31, 2006
Wisteria Macrobotrys after the Rain
Friday is a slow day and I have no Friday humor to share so here is a picture of one of my favorite spring flowers, wisteria. This was taken just after a torrential downpour:
Click on the picture for some larger versions.
Posted by Jack at 05:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2006
So soon?
My registration expired this morning. But if you are reading this it is all better now. It is hard for me to believe this site has been up and running for almost a year now, serving up PMBOK downloads, PMP Certification, MS Project Macros and the occasional flower pot manufacturer.
Keep the clicks coming folks so I can give you another year of the same old stuff!
Posted by Jack at 02:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 25, 2006
2007 = 2007: Microsoft Office Project 2007 Delayed
There is a reason why they decided to call it Project 2007. Seems that they are slipping the release until 2007 corresponding to the slip in Vista. Some more information here:
http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/014509.html
Since Vista most likely will require a new PC due to heavy hardware requirement, I guess they are thinking that most office users (read corporate IT) would hold off on an upgrade to office until the Vista dust settles. Or at least that is what I think they may be thinking.
Posted by Jack at 08:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2006
How to cheat on the pmp exam?
OK, I know people are out there looking for free study material and even bootleg copies of the PMBOK, but it is a bad sign for the profession when I get people coming to this site trying to find out "how to cheat on the pmp exam":
Whoever is out there searching google for:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+cheat+on+the+pmp+exam
you have lowered my respect for you by at least a notch or two. Spend some of the energy you are currently using to game the exam to study a bit. It isn't that hard. Read the dumb Guide to the PMBOK and take some notes. Study the terminology used. That should cover it. If you think that you need to cheat to pass it, you have already failed.
I'm even more convinced that the whole PMP certification is just a scam.
Posted by Jack at 11:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 23, 2006
Schedule Assumptions
Have you ever thrown out an old project schedule? Have you ever had to start from scratch? Have you ever had to look at a schedule with no supporting documents and tell if it is "OK" and be unable to say more than "well, it depends"? If you have been managing projects or schedules then I guess the answer is yes. At least once. And one of the key reasons is that the assumptions made are either wrong or are missing.
This might even be true of some of the schedules for projects you are currently working on. One of the tragedies of scheduling software is that it is rather poor at capturing the basic assumptions on which the schedule is built. Sure, you might have a WBS which describes the work, but the manner in which the work will be performed is not really included there. Further, there is often little documentation about whether the estimated work and durations are based on an optimistic or pessimistic view.
The whole point of this is that the schedule "file" is nearly unintelligible to outsiders without some narrative which describes the basic assumptions which it is built upon. I'm still struggling with determining what the proper amount of documentation for this might be, but at the very least, you should have a page or so which describes what you and your team were thinking when they came up with the schedule. And it is worth reviewing it every once in a while to make sure that the assumptions are still valid. Too bad tools like Microsoft Project don't really have a convenient way of capturing this sort of stuff.
Posted by Jack at 11:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
At first I thought it was a joke
My logs show someone from Chinanet showing up here looking for Plastic Flower Pot Manufacturer:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=plastic+flower+pot+manufacturer
I mean, hey, if they really wanted plastic flowerpots they would search with Accoona not Yahoo.
But perhaps I was wrong and plastic flower pot manufacturing is more popular than I ever imagined.
Next up "Mifare MF rc-531 (wireless chip)". I'm more interested in what I might have to say about a spring festival though.
Posted by Jack at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2006
Sell on the News - Google enters the world of Finance
If you haven't seen the new google finance pages ( http:\\finance.google.com ) it is worth taking a look. At first glance it looks like a rip-off of finance.yahoo.com, but when you look a little closer, the charts are actually rather interesting. First, they are draggable like google maps, but more importantly they are annotated with key news stories and announcements. Take this example of the chart for Intel:
Those marks with letters in them like "E", "F" and "G" are links to news stories. Click on them and you go to the headline, from there it is another click to the story itself. There is an old saying which goes "buy on the rumor, sell on the news". At least this chart of Intel seems to illustrate the wisdom of that. It would be interesting to see if there is any more corroborating evidence - and now you have a way to find out.
Posted by Jack at 10:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2006
Mercedes 2007 S Class Review
Can you judge a book by its cover? Well, maybe. I'm going to try.
This weekend I got a big package from Mercedes Benz NA. Hmmm... Why are they sending me this I thought. So I opened the cardboard box. And inside was another box, but first it was necessary to break through the plastic shrink wrap surrounding it. It would not render to my dexterous fingers without a serious fight.
Under the shrink wrap was a slipcased box. Also a very tight fit. Pulling it out caused a tear in the virgin black-flocked imitation velvet lined plastic box and a bit of styrofoam packing popped out. No worry, I got the rest of the box out in one piece. Emblazoned across the top in metallic writing were some words to the effect of "Introducing the 2007 Mercedes S Class".
From this point my troubles were few. The flimsy plastic opened without a hitch and I was confronted with a series of slightly larger than post card images of the latest Mercedes Flagship. On the back was some glowing prose, I think. I didn't really read it. I tossed it out. Sorry Mercedes. It doesn't look like a Mercedes any more. The cheesy packaging intended to tempt me to create a vision of my own self importance surrounded by plastic luxury just doesn't do it for me.
Maybe it was one too many lectures on deconstructivism in college, but your marketing which appears to be centered around choosing a car which implies a certain lifestyle just makes me laugh when behind the message is a mass of plastic and styrofoam. Gone is the focus on engineering and in its place is a world of things to buy which will show you are special, or at least will make you think you are special. Unfortunately, I know I'm not, so your marketing is wasted on me. Why not a postcard which says "come drive it here..."?
How can it be true that I'm happier driving a car that you built 19 years ago than with any of your current offerings?
Posted by Jack at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spring has sprung a leak
Rain is dashing all thoughts of a lunchtime walk. This is compared to the fine weather this weekend which found the local Japanese Maples in full bloom...
What? They bloom? Yes, but the flowers are small and inconspicuous compared to most flowering trees. Here is a closer look.
The flowers are only a few millimeters across. You can click on the picture for a larger size view.
Posted by Jack at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2006
A question of Tolerance
Tolerance is usually defined as being an allowed variance from a set standard. Just about every profession has some tolerance or ranges of tolerance. For example, buildings are designed to standards which allow certain deflections of floors (Deflection of l/360 is one common tolerance for beam design). The floor can bend by that amount before it is considered a problem.
Projects also have certain tolerances. How firmly fixed is the end date of your project? Is there any leeway one way or the other? If there isn't, there probably should be. The real question is how to determine the appropriate tolerance and to convey it to someone who is less informed about the project than you are. There are people who you give a date to and that date becomes the single acceptable value. They implicitly turn your "plus or minus" into "minus" and allow no plus. What this means is that you have to adjust your target so that even if you reach the limit of your tolerance, you are within the tolerances set by others.
There are a few ways to do this. Theory of Constraints does this with a project buffer. A number of vendors have determined rules of thumb for sizing of these buffers. The problem with them is that they are just rules of thumb. It probably takes a few projects to find out what the real size should be for your project and your team.
Another approach is probabilistic scheduling and simulation. In this approach you build a schedule model and instead of a fixed duration for each task you enter a probability distribution. Then the schedule is calculated based on a large number of random samples. The result is a probability distribution for the completion of your project. If you are successful at this, it gives you a tool which you can use to set a tolerance which you have a high probability of meeting or exceeding. I have a brief article about the basics of this method and a Microsoft Project macro which can introduce you to this approach. You can download it here: Free Download Microsoft Project Monte Carlo Simulation
Posted by Jack at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 15, 2006
More Japanese Maples - Acer Palmatum "Sango Kaku"
This red-barked Japanese maple has very bright colors in the spring, even before the light green leaves start to show.
This picture was taken under a full moon in a break between the rain. Those white dots are stars.
Posted by Jack at 10:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 10, 2006
Project 2007 - No UI in sight
But we can see some of the changes in the Office 2007 User Interface here:Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog : Picture This: A New Look For Office It would be nice to see Project get a big makeover like this, but I'm afraid it isn't going to happen for 2007. Good to see the changes they made to Excel though.
Posted by Jack at 07:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 09, 2006
Springtime is when young mens fancies turn to ... Project Management Blogs?
Nope, they don't. Brian is talking cowbell, the Microsoft Project blogs are so dead they don't show up in my bloglines feed along with countless other favorites, Glen seems to be taking a rest after a spurt of post-review entries last week. David A. is happy to be showing off his badge and taking in concerts. Clark Ching is awaiting TV shows and laughing about books.
Summer seems unlikely to be any better. Sound like we need to wait until cold fall weather drives people back into their caves before there is anything going on in this space. We now return you to our regular program of spring foliage.
Posted by Jack at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2006
Japanese Maple just getting started
Japanese Maples (Acer Palmatum) are well known for brilliant colored foliage. The Japanese name "momiji" is believed to be a derivation of the archaic word "momizu" which means to change color. Usually we associate the changing of color to be something which occurs in the fall, but even when the trees are just starting to leaf out we can see some intense colors - unfaded by sun or dust.
For a closer look you can click
here.
Posted by Jack at 11:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 05, 2006
The rain has pretty much done away with...
the plum blossoms.
Prunus cerasifera is one of the earliest to bloom around here usually in early or mid february. Right now though, the rains are knocking most of the flower petals off. In a sense, they are even more transitory than the well known cherry blossom.
Posted by Jack at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 02, 2006
Giants of the deep
OK, so 9 inches is not that giant, but the California Abalone - Haliotis Rufescens is substantially bigger than Abalone in other places around the world. A recent article suggests that this is due to sea otters.
"We realized with this study that most abalones are small, averaging 2 inches across, and live on coral reefs in the tropical Indopacific," Lindberg said. "So why does the world's largest abalone live in the same place as this major predator, the sea otter? We think the abundance of kelp, the ability of abalones to stay hidden in crevices, and the predation of otters set up an ideal system to ratchet up the size of abalones."
I'm not sure I completely agree with their speculation, but the history of the interaction between kelp, sea otters, abalone and sharks is interesting reading.
My picture above shows the relative size of abalone with the shell of the abalone from the Northern California coast completely enveloping some abalone (awabi) shells picked up on the beach at Hayama on the East Coast of Japan. The larger shell is about 9 inches across and was harvested near Fort Ross. The little ones are one and a half to two inches. They are much more delicate as well. Of course if you only care about eating I direct you to this recent blog entry by one of the better food bloggers http://epicureandebauchery.blogspot.com/2006/03/awesome-awabi.html
Posted by Jack at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Free Monte Carlo Simulator For Microsoft Project - Want to help out?
I don't think I've mentioned it here, but if you are interested in Monte Carlo Simulation for MS Project (and who isn't?!) then you can download my quick and dirty simulator here: Microsoft Project Monte Carlo Simulator
Since it is just a VBA macro, the source is there for all to see and modify. Have at it! And if you make any improvements, please consider sharing them with me and others. Any updates will be posted with acknowledgement to the contributor. I've had this version up for a couple of years now and will keep it up until this function comes built into Project.
Posted by Jack at 04:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What if you are not sure?
About anything? The color of your horse, how a computer works, what the new features of project are, who gives god a haircut? Apparently the answers are in short supply as I noticed someone ended up here last night after google suggested that this is a good place to answer that question
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=what+if+you,are+not+sure+%3F&spell=1Is the internet the place to find certainty? Isn't it just another fortune telling stand?
Can you trust anything you find here?
How can you ever know?
Historical note on the fortune telling stand - Mikuji: The silver cans have thin sticks in them. You shake out one of the sticks and then look at the label which tells you which drawer to pull your fortune from. After drawing a fortune, if you don't like it, you simply tie the paper onto a stand like this.
You keep the good ones
Posted by Jack at 09:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 01, 2006
Project 2007 vs. Excel 2007
This post about multi-colored data bars
Microsoft Excel 12 : Conditional Formatting Trick 1 – Multi-Coloured Data Bars in the upcoming Excel 2007 is making it look even better for the small time scheduler or as a credible reporting/analysis engine for project data. I can envision a number of macros which might benefit from this feature.
Posted by Jack at 01:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Why I'm saying nothing about Project 2007 today
My smoke alarm decided it should remind me that its battery is low. Unfortunately due to regulations I have more than one. Another unfortunate thing is that to alert you it emits an extremely brief periodic chirp. The time between chirps is several minutes - coupled with multiple smoke detectors this means you are either lucky or you wait (there is actually a third choice - the one I took). The first chirp or two are useless in locating which smoke detector is chirping because you are asleep. Another unfortunate thing is that batteries when they get cold lose some power, thus the time when the warning occurs is going to be the coldest time - in my house that is usually around 3AM since the thermostat is programmed to reduce heat at night. Finally, smoke detectors are mounted on the ceiling, out of reach. It would be fair and balanced to say that they are the spawn of the devil.
The end result of this is that now NONE of my smoke detectors have batteries in them. It shouldn't have to be this way. Yes, it is great that they warn you. But the warning should have some persistance so that you can find the right one easily and quickly.
Any of you LEAN folks out there have a suggestion?
Posted by Jack at 09:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
