Project Portfolio-Program Management

Reading from a dilbert strip with funny lines like do a lot of con and insulting together will result in consulting . Above line summarizes the business of consulting to take down the line  the negative notion about consultant because consultant are offering services they have with and not what client need or business requires. So, what is a consultant? A consultant is professional who plays different roles , who acts as a enabler, who has competence to attain knowledge  and skills to apply at business, who is a integrator, acts as a advisory and many acts who does for the client as a service provider which is billable . So, skill of acting as a consultant is a consultant. So, What is the business of consultant?   With the evolution of IT consulting business is now more competent and rapidly changing.business environment is making consultant job more challenging and useful to business. So how does a consultant's career take start and a true consultant will function

Egyptians left a mark of the civilization in the form of pyramids. pyramids are symbol of high integrity. Pyramids tells a story of time and  built symmetrically in layers. Pyramids have been built over a period of long time and not easily destroyed. Organizations development is a phenomenon which encompasses human potentials to be explored and directional in nature. Lets look at the pyramid again with help of a mirror, moving up from flat to top from concrete to transcendental and moving from flat to bottom reflects. Organization development OD is contextual again based on relevance. OD evolves on group and team purpose and objectives. OD Types  likely hood are hierarchical ,bureaucratic, matrix, ,pyramidal, entrepreneurial, flat, team oriented etc. in nature. Size of the organization also determines the type of development. OD reflects the culture of the org and it will encircle the overall vision and mission of the org by operating procedures. OD in recent times of gl

budget (Photo credit: 401K ) What is earned value : It measures cost , schedule, and work done .Its a way to measure projects progress and provide budget variances. Its a indicator of schedule, budget,and milestone.It also gives us percentage of work done, budget spent, and time consumed. So the units to measure it is dollars and and work hours. So whats the next step to calculate EV: Prepares a WBS (work break down structure) to quantify each task as phases and then phases into modules, modules into more detail units as it descends with time-frame for each task have fixed time which gives us a baseline structure. Lets understand some terms: BCWS - Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled ACWP - Actual Cost of Work Performed BCWP - Budgeted Cost of Work Performed From above terms earned value will be defined as "Cost incurred to accomplish the work that has been done to date." Derived metrics known as Schedule variance and Cost variance, if they fall into ne

Risk Management road sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) So what is a risk ? First understands and identify a risk is most important part of risk management.A risk is a probability of uncertainty associated with executing certain item/task/process/work etc.  A risk generates out as soon as we initiates a task. A critical resource in terms of skill set, in a team is a potential  risk of leaving the project in between because of unavoidable reasons. So a risk is inevitable, only thing we can do is ; manage and mitigate. Just like handling/catching error in software program . Always plan for the element of risk in project from the start and reiterate control over it for any contingencies. Steps to assess risk: Identify---------->Analyze--------------> Set priority to each risk Steps to control risk: Mitigate------------>Plan for contingency----------> Quantify it and Set a control process Design a Solution process at the team level: Taking help of the experts inv

software_sin_medida (Photo credit: elprosumidor ) What ever it takes to execute a project whether it is a fixed bid or Time and material based what matters is how you are managing your finances in terms of billing. Lets take a closer look to difference between fixed bid and time and material based project.  A fixed bid project is the one which is having a fixed budget from client and defined set of scope. So, in a fixed bid project the ball is in your court. You define how efficiently you can manage on resources to utilize them fully to balance on your margins. There is other side of the coin also by having a scope creep if you really blow up your work. Obviously a fixed bid project later can managed by the delivery team and driven by project team. While a time and material project is like a billing of resources involved on hourly basis for actual worked performed with agreed on terms and conditions. Also here one can get reimbursement for overheads. Here there is one possibility of