Define Attitude? Organization Attitude Effect On IT Project

Attitude:

                 In project management an attitude is a response toward an idea, event, in situation or                                          to a person positively or negatively. One other definition is a mental situation for any event, situation or idea and response to particular event.

Attitude and IT project:

 As we know from attitude definition that it is a response toward a particular event so attitude has a great effect on IT projects. Developing an IT project is a great challenge for IT project manager and his team. So every member and manager should have good attitude. Attitude provides confidence and it is very important in decision making. So a good project manager should have a good attitude. Organization attitude has a great effect on Projects. So a good project manager must have following properties.

I)                   Respect

II)                Responsibility

III)             Empathy

IV)             Trust

V)                Confidence  

Read more »

Leadership and Management Style of Steve Jobs,

Steve jobs had great leadership and managerial skills. He has been considered anomaly in management. His management style should be admire but cannot be replicate.

 He put the people at the center, it does not mean that he gave everything to employees they want. But Apple’s innovation is not user driven but there is great role of Steve in innovation.

Managing by meaning is means that people are human, they are natural, they have emotions, and they have culture. Steve always wanted to give some innovated thing to people that is why most of Apple’s product sold by their innovation and their style and design. So even some drawbacks of Apple’s product, people prefer to by apple product due the innovation. 

Jobs always try to search those products that make any sense to peoples. That is why Apple’s is champion to create new product. iMac G3 was colorful and beautiful product which has changed the mind of people. iPod and iTunes created a new sense in music world. iPhone was an another innovation which has changed the mind of people from business point of view to social  entertainment. These devices not only gave good performance but they also gave a new sense to people.

Read more »

Minimize or Control Changes to Project Schedules, Project Schedules Problems

The following are some critical points that must be used to control changes in project schedules.

i)          We should perform reality checks on projects schedules. So it is important that projects should have realistic check and project manager should have strong hold on it. The project manager should check the first reality check on that schedule that is include in project charter.

ii)                Use leadership and emphasis to follow project schedule.

iii)              In stakeholders meeting we should emphasis on project schedule and time.

iv)              We should not plan that everyone will perform 100% and we should prepare project schedule accordingly.

v)                IT projects have unrealistic project schedule so we should prepare a better schedule.

vi)              We should know the status of the schedule and we should also note the things that effects on project schedule. So if any changes required in project schedule we should be very careful and we should use tools to implement these changes.

vii)           At the start of the project we should review project schedule carefully and after this we should prepare a detailed schedule for our project and if we found any problem in schedule we should inform top management.

viii)         We should use progress reports, a schedule control system to manage our schedule. These tools and techniques are very important.

Read more »

Critical Issues of Software Project Management

There is lot number of issues in software project management. I will describe a brief summary of these critical issues.

The biggest issue is that the requirements are not clear at early stage of project.  Our customers are not specific and concrete but he gives a very vague problem explanation. So we have to be very careful because if we cannot get all requirements at early stage of project it can be a big loss of time and money.

Another critical issue in project management is communication with our client. If our client is week in communication, then he cannot explain his problem very well. Our client may also be a busy person and he cannot give much time to explain project requirement and that can cause serious problems in latter stages of project.

Another critical issue is that many IT projects cannot start on time due to some reasons. So it becomes very difficult to follow projects schedule and project does not complete on time. To do every project in same fashion is another big issue in project management. Because every project has different time, goal and requirements so we should perform project according to situation and environment.

Sometime client does not happy with our project end result. He may want different output but due to lack of communication and vague requirements we could not achieve goal that we should have to do. So it is very important that we should know all the requirements as early as possible.

Another major problem in project management is that we have to spend a lot of time to fix even very small bug if we have not so much experience. So it becomes very difficult to follow project schedule that is why we should be very careful while making project schedule.

Scope creep is another major problem in software project management. It means that project becomes so big that we cannot complete it on time. These types of problems come when project manager is new and he has not enough experience in this field. So we should be very careful when we choose project and gather requirements.

Lack of strategic alignment is another major issue in project management. For example some project manager and leader do not know what types of project they should start. The lack of strategic planning can cause these types of problems. So any organization or company should have a strategic planning policy.

Stakeholder management is another major issue in software project management. So a strong leadership can solve this problem.

Staff gaps develop is a condition in which a person that is key to project and if due to some problem he stops working we should have a substitute that can take his position. This type of problem is very critical and some time it can produce a project failure situation.

Another major issue is project teams spent lot of time for designing and implementing not on testing. And this problem is very critical issue; it means that our software can have some bugs. Our customer can reject these types of project if bug is critical. That is why we also perform proper testing as well.

Technology does not remain stable for long time it changes very quickly and that is why we have to remain update. So to understand and work on different types of technology, project team has to work very hard and it is also very difficult.

Sometime a project also faces shortage of budget. This thing can happen due to lack of good management and scope creep. Some project need very high quality, so some time it becomes difficult to gain such type of quality.

Time management is another very critical issue in software project management. In IT project it is very critical issue and we have to manage it very well. We should use some tools and techniques that can manage schedule of our project

Read more »

Suggestions for Ensuring that Team Work are Productive

Write briefly 10 additional suggestions for ensuring that team work are productive?

The following are some suggestions to insure that team work are productive

1)      We should be patient and kind for our team. We should not think that our team are lazy and careless. Our assumption for our team should best.

2)      We should fix the problem instead on blaming to people. It will increase trust and productivity of team

3)      We should organize regular meeting and focus on our project objectives

4)      As a project manager or leader we should allow time for our team to go through team building stages. We should not expect highest performance from our team.

5)      The size of team should be 3 to 5 members.

6)      We should also plan some optional social activities for our teams and stakeholder, so that they can know each other.

7)      Create such team traditions that should be enjoy able for our team members.

8)      Encourage our team members to help each other, this will increase the productivity of team.

9)      We should acknowledge our team members and their accomplishments

10)   For our virtual team members we should take some additional actions for better team management.

Read more »

Five Dysfunctions of teams, Lencioni's books suggestions

What are five dysfunctions of teams? And what are Lencioni's books suggestions for overcoming each of these dysfunctions?
In his various books and other publications he has written five dysfunctions of teams. These dysfunctions are

1) Absent of trust
Absent of trust within teams is very critical issue. A project manager should resolve it as soon as possible otherwise project will be going to fail. If team members have absent of trust then they will not share valuable information to each other that they know.

To solve absent of trust he suggests using Myers-Briggs type indicator. It will create trust among team members.

2) Fear of conflict
This is also a big issue in teams so project manager should solve it very well. So any organization should solve every types of conflict issue.
To solve this issue he suggests for passionate debates of team member on critical issues.


3) Lack of commitment
Patrick says lack of commitment is also very critical issue in any organization. Lack of commitment can cause serious problem and it will guide toward project failure and big loss of money and time.
For achieving commitment he suggest to bring out all possible ideas and then getting people to agree or disagree but after this make a commitment on decisions.

4) Avoidance of accountability

Accountability becomes a very critical issue when it comes to team work. So if we are facing this problem in our team then it will be very difficult to achieve our goal, meet the deadline, conduct timely meetings, and to fulfill the project requirements. So project manager and project leader should take corrective actions to solve these types of issues for productivity.
Patrick suggests we should be very clear about ambiguous statement and goals and we should focus on every one top priority.


5) Inattention to resultsIt is very important for a team to have clear goals, otherwise the organizations will totally fail. So it is necessary to have a valid, real, achievable goal. So any confusion in goal can cause project failure and loss.


For inattention to results he suggests that we should use some type of scoreboard to eliminate ambiguity.

Read more »

Importance of Teamwork According to Patrick LenCioni for an Organization

What is the importance of teamwork according to Patrick LenCioni for an organization?

Patrick LenCioni on Teamwork:

Patrick is a well-known author and a team consultant. He has given lot of comments on team work and some other things. He has also write five dysfunctions on teams and he has given some nice tricks to increase our team performance and he has also given some suggestion for improving team work.

According to the Patrick

“Teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive advantage that have been largely untapped team work is almost always lacking within organizations that fail and often present within those that succeed. “

So in this statement Patrick has emphasized on importance of team work. According to his statement if our teams are not better and well organized, and lack of confidence then it is very critical issue for any organization. The organizations that lack of teamwork will fail very badly in their projects and other tasks that they are performing.

On the other hand well managed and good teams cause the success of organizations. Organizations should focus on teamwork and they should develop better teams for their projects. Patrick has also given lot of suggestion for making better teams and to do teamwork. So it has cleared that positive teamwork is very necessary for our organizations.

Read more »