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December 12, 2006

Well if it is not Google in bed with the terrorists, then it is those damn artists in bed with the CIA

From Momus we find discussion of a documentary by Hans-Rüdiger Minow regarding the CIA sponsorship of the Avante-garde in Post-war Europe as a stand against the Soviets. Blame the CIA for Abstract Expressionism. As Gunter Grass put it "The ideology of the CIA was that the West had to be the most modern of the modern". Interesting to say the least. I'm hoping we can see an English language version sometime.

An interview with the director is here (in German)

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December 11, 2006

How to Change Cell Background color in MS Project

Changing the background color for a task cell in Microsoft Project is now a two-step process:

Sadly there are still only 16 colors to choose from, but they are getting there.

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Taking the PMP Exam - Part 9 - Areas of Expertise

The PMBOK claims that effective project management requires drawing upon 5 areas of expertise.:

These are not intended to be discrete - they overlap substantially. In fact I think they overlap to the point where there are really only three... but that is just my opinion. In an act of grace and kindness the PMBOK grants that no single person have all of this knowledge and skills. But then the whip comes down and it becomes "important that the project management team has full knowlede of the PMBOK(tm) Guide." If you were going to ask me I'd say that you can do fine without ever reading the PMBOK Guide. In fact, what did people do for thousands of years prior to the first version in 1986? And are projects managed prior to the 3rd Edition somehow LESS well managed? But anyway, when I see a list I figure it is important enough to remember. Do you remember the project management processes from last time? IPEM/CC...

So what does this important knowledge of the PMBOK guide consist of? Precisely three things:

This is great news for those hoping to get a PMP cert. Seems simple doesn't it? By the way the 9 knowledge areas are:

Throwing out the reduntant terms we get an acronym of ISTCQHRCRP. Repetition is key to remembering. And multiple choice tests require that you remember rather than derive the answer so look for these items to show up to jog your memory from now until you pass the exam.

OK, that covers the PMBOK. Let's see what else they expect you to know. Starting up with application areas. An application area is a way of categorizing projects. For example an engineering project or new product development could be application areas as they have some common skill or understanding required. The PMBOK tacks on Standards and Regulations surrounding those application areas. Standards are voluntary guidelines, often developed by participants in those areas while regulations are government imposed. To make it a bit messy, sometimes a regulation will mandate adherence to a standard... but it is the compliance which is the regulation, not the standard itself.

The project environment is boiled down into three basic contexts:

All I can say about the environment is ignore it at your own peril. The examples the PMBOK gives for these things are fairly muddled citing timezones as an international and political factor rather than the clear physical factor that they are. But ignore that. I'm sure that the category is the only thing that is important here and anyone can come up with examples of each quite handily.

Three down, two to go. Next: General Managemenk Knowledge and Skills. Here my mind gets twisted by the insistance that Project Management is somehow different or is a superset of this. But that is what the PMBOK claims: "General management provides the foundation for building project management skills and is often essential for the project manager". I view it the other way around. Project Mangement is just another page in the book of General Management Knowledge and until the PMI accepts this PM's are going to be kept in a pen of their own making. This self-limiting is a problem I think. To give a flavor of what General Management is built from here are some keywords: financial, accounting, purchasing, procurement, sales, marketing, contracts, law, manufacturing, distribution, logistics, suppy chain, planninng, organization, the whole of HR it seems, Safety, IT... Enough said

The final piece: Interpersonal Skills. The PMBOK ideal would be a PM who communicates effectively, influences the organization. A leader, who motivates his/her team and who manages conflict and solves problems.. Sounds good. Where do I find one? But further thought makes me wonder why trust and respect are not important enough to rank.

Things to remember from this section:

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December 09, 2006

No longer N*k*d

Sorry if you see my series of articles about taking the PMP exam show up again. I renamed and republished them after I did a google search and got this result:

The word "n*k*d" has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active. (I even censored this to keep it from being censored by safesearch)

The word had to go or no one would ever find the articles, well except the intrepid folks who seem to preface almost any noun with that word. Plenty of them showed up. Maybe they will go away now.


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December 07, 2006

Taking the PMP Exam - Part 8 - What is Project Management

Time to suspend disbelief again or more correctly prepare your mind for acceptance of the gospel...

What is Project Management? The PMBOK tells us that the goal is to meet project requirements through the execution of project activities and project management is applying knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to those activities. I'd argue that the there is a component which is not strictly related to "activities" but let's discard that idea for now..

With this definition in place what is important? First of course, the project requirements are essential. PMI claims that Project Managers are responsible for identifying requirements. This has not been my experience in some organizations, but know that PMI believes that this is the case. (As an aside, apparently senior management doesn't always agree. I've written about this before here).

Let's step back a little bit here though as some key concepts are creeping in. The PMBOK is organized around a number of processes. They are:

It is this framework which forms the bulk of the PMBOK so start getting familar. I think that the exam will require you know these backwards and forward. IPEMCC. Think up your own mnemonic. These processes are "applied" to the work and are "integrated" by the project manager. The PMBOK places a heavy load on the PM. The PM is responsible for accomplishing the project objectives. In my experience much of the accomplishment is due to the efforts of the project team, but not in this book, and likely not on the exam.

This section also introduces the concept of the "Iron Triangle" or "Triple Constraint" which is the idea that every project faces balancing time, cost and scope against each other. These three requirement compete against each other and exist in an "unbreakable" relationship. To give two concrete examples: decreasing the time needed by adding more resources will increase cost, or, adding to the scope will increase time and cost. The PMBOK claim is that quality is the product of all of these. (I'd argue slightly different about the meaning of quality. ) The triangle comes in handy when arguing for more time or more resources or more money or against inclusion of someone's pet feature. By gaining agreement that there is a triangle and it is iron, you force the other to agree to making the trade-off. A sort of "my hands are tied here. I'd love to, but..." argument. In the PMI view of the world, the PM is the one who holds the triangle and makes adjustments as needed to satisfy stakeholders.

Managing risk is perhaps the heart of project management and the PMBOK states that PM's do that too. I'd add that the definition of risk is an "uncertain event or condition" which if it occurs will affect the project. The line between risk and issue is often difficult for some to discern. My personal definition is that if it MIGHT happen it is a risk. If it HAS happened it is an issue. I'm certain I'll have a post all about risk sometime soon.

Here we get onto sketchy ground. PMI claims that the PM team has a professional responsibility to stakeholders - including the public. I'm cynical here and think that this is part of PMI's goals to "professionalize" the act of managing a project. PM's should certainly be responsible. Everyone should be. (hey, how did the "public" get involved in my project?) But PMI insists that members adhere to PMI's "Code of Ethics" and "Code of Professional Conduct". Further, team members who are PMI members are obligated to adhere to those same codes. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand I think, hey why not? Doing the right thing is a good thing right? But then I think, why should PMI be telling me what the right thing is? Am I not righteous enough in my own right? Righteous has its own rewards so I'd rather be righteous for myself than for PMI. For now I'll drop it and pick it up later when we read more specifics on what the codes say.

Next a warning of how processes are iterative because of "progressive elaboration". Saw that phrase already so you know you better know it. "Progressive Elaboration" is the idea that you don't know everything at first but you are getting there. I'm in favor of this concept, but the term is a bit clunky... Say it ten times fast. Or get a tattoo.

This section closes with a note that sometimes people say "project management" when they mean turning everything (well, almost everything) into projects in an approach called "management by project". In a telling sentence, the PMBOK states that detailed discussion is outside the scope of the standard. Remember what this "standard" is? A compilation of practices "generally recognized as good practice". So either there is not general recognition of management by projects or it is not good practice. Why bring it up at all then? Hm?

So that is it for today. A bit of scathing commentary and a few facts. Next time we will get into areas of expertise or die trying.

Things to remember:

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December 06, 2006

Taking the PMP Exam - Part 7 - PMBOK Introduction and What is a Project

We finished the Preface and now it is on to the introduction. Usually this sort of stuff is unimportant, but remember, we are reading the PMBOK for clues on how to pass the PMP exam. Understanding the Project Management "Bible" will help give the necessary context for study, notes and answering exam questions. As with any test, you have to understand the test from the point of view of the test giver. THe better you understand their ideals and how they think, the easier it will be to recognize what they consider the correct answer. In this sort of exam it is not so important what you think as it is what they think.

The Purpose of the PMBOK Guide. Hmmm... it used to be called Guide to the PMBOK (PMBOK stands for Project Management Body of Knowledge). Here we see that the PMBOK is meant to identify a "subset" of all that is known about project management, specifically that which is "generally recognized" as good practice. Sorry to take issue with this PMI, but knowledge and practice are two different things. If I am an architect I have knowledge of say Borromini's baroque "San Carlo alle Quattro Fontana" and may be able to apply some of that knowledge to a current design, but knowledge is by definition a different thing than practice. I would suggest that indeed, the PMBOK guide is becoming more of a practice guide than the taxonomy which it began as. It is becoming more prescriptive than descriptive. Despite the disclaimer (in BOLD) that "the project management team is responsible for determining what is appropriate for any given project" it would appear that the PMBOK is specifying a lowest common denominator for project management. But let's leave that alone now. It won't help in taking the test - except the part in bold.

Here are some other things that the PMBOK does:

OK, but then they call it a "standard". Stretching PMI, stretching... Is it a guide to a body of knowledge or is it a standard? It really can't be both. For the purposes of the exam I'm going with their view that it IS a standard, a standard way to do things, a standard way to name or describe things. Forget about it being a guide.

What is a Project? Good question. Looks almost certain that some questions will be based on this so get memorizing:

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.

Key words are Temporary, Unique,. Temporary in this sense refers to the effort involved in creation, not the end result. Building a permanent base on the South Pole of the Moon is a temporary endeavor and is a project. Unique is a difficult term too. Fortunately, almost everything is unique if you define it widely enough. Different teams, different places, different clients all make something unique. I'm expecting thie "unique" part of the definition to wither and die one of these days, but know it for now.

Bundled up in the definition of what a project is, is a section on "progressinve elaboration. I'm not sure if this is a cut and paste error or what. I think it is perhaps trying to stretch the definition somehow for some purpose. My best guess is that there are projects which do not initially have complete definitions at the start. Fine. expand the definition to things where the general outcome is sort of defined, but the means to get there are not completely known. The two examples they give are both sorts of efforts in a general direction, a chemical plant and economic development. To me this appears to be some sort of quibble about what level scope needs to be decided on prior to calling something a project. For this exam, know the term means "developing in steps, and continuing by increments." It is a bit like playing pool. Name the ball and the pocket and take the shot. Do this often enough and the game is eventually over.

Project or operations? PMI considers operations to be ongoing and repetitive. We already know that a project is... temporary... yes... and... Unique! Very good! The project is over when it is over. Operations are never over. This is not to say an operations group can not undertake specific projects, they can. But such projects must be temporary (they must end sometime) and they must generally create something (product, service or capability) that was not there before. Implementing a new cost accounting system is a project. Maintaining that system is operations. So sayeth the PMBOK.

The last section on what a project is concerns how and why organizations perform projects. I disagree with the assumptions here, but my opinions dont count on the exam. Just remember that a project is meant to address a need that can't be addressed within the "organizations normal operational limits". They go on to contend that they are often part of an organization's strategic plan. I can think of counter-examples... no. I better not. Project are authorized to meet one or more of these considerations:

That was a pretty good batch of stuff. I'll try and get around to making some cheat notes from this to boil down the concepts to a couple of key phrases.

Next time: What is Project Management?

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December 02, 2006

It does it every December - Ginkgo Biloba Tree

Click to see larger sizes

The Ginkgo tree dates back about 270 Million years, before the age of the dinosaurs. So for 270 million Decembers the trees have been turning a buttery yellow (yes, long long before there even was butter, or December for that matter...). In a couple of weeks the leaves will all fall and make a yellow carpet on the ground, most likely in a single rainstorm.

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December 01, 2006

Taking the PMP Exam - Part 6 - Downloading the PMBOK

Switching to a Windows-based computer cleared up my edit problem. Now let's start from the start. It is my hypothesis that you can pass the PMP exam with only experience and a careful reading of the Guide to the PMBOK. So, throwing experience out of the window for a moment, let's take a look at the Guide to the PMBOK. I'll be going through it chapter by chapter and hopefully compiling study guides along the way, but knowing what the PMBOK is and what it isn't is a good first step.

The current version of the Guide to the PMBOK is the "third edition". This supercedes the 2000 version. I'm not sure in practice whether the differences are anything but semantic, but since the PMBOK is nothing if not a taxonomy, it is very important that for a test on this taxonomy that you are looking at the right version. Let's look at what the Preface says to get an idea of what is new and different:

Thirteen changes are called out. Several are not particularly relevant, but some items give clues about what to look for:

4. The number of processes increased from 39 to 44. Seven processes were added, two processes were deleted, and 13 processes were renamed for a net gain of five new processes.

Translation: Throw out any study guide based on the 2000 PMBOK if it has you memorizing the processes. Whatever mnemonic it has you babbling will be wrong.

8. The project management processes were mapped to show process integration. and:
12. Process flow diagrams have been aded to Chaters 4 through 12 to provide added support to the integration of processes.

Translation: Pay attention to integration, or at least know what they mean by it. Flow and integration are the order of the day. This sets the stage for moving to the introduction which I'll post next time.

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Taking the PMP Exam - Part 5 - PMI Standards or the lack thereof

OK, PMI got back to me with hours to spare on their 5 business day service level. Now I take the information I got and plug it into their website. Hooray! I'm in. But the data is old. Let me edit to show my current address. Please let me edit to show my current address. Please please let me edit to show my current address...

Hmmm... Maybe Firefox is just too wacky for them. Let's try Safari... no... not that either. But of course IE will work! Won't it? Oh dear. No. Click click click. Nothing. Guess a late model Mac just doesn't meet the PMI Standards.

Fired off another note to the customer service folks. Looks like it will be next week until the ball gets rolling. In the meantime I'm gonna cheat a bit and see if a Windows-based PC has better luck navigating their site. Silly PMI!

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