Family man, family problems....My wife and i have been working on finding a Nanny for our 3 year old for past few weeks....Let me say its not an easy task....you have to go through classifieds, talk to your network of friends, interview people for the position, negotiate terms, the whole nine yards...
This activity made me think about writing this article.
Working as an IT Manager, many a times we come across similar scenarios wherein the Client would want to go through a Vendor procurement Process.
For the sake of simplicity, we will refer to the Organization seeking Vendor Services as a "buyer".
Here are a few scenarios from my Insurance world, why a buyer would look for Vendor services,
1> Outsourcing Services
- An Insurance company say. wants to focus its attention on the Insurance Business and does not want to be sidetracked with IT Issues. So it would naturally want to partner with one or more IT Firms to run its business applications, maintain hardware, do application modifications to maintain and Competitive edge in its business domain.
2> IT Consulting Services
- An Insurance company in business for years and decades would have lots of in-house and Third party applications and services communicating with each other. Thus if the company wants to overhaul and upgrade its infrastructure, hardware or software systems for better and reliable performance and scalability, it has to procure services from Vendors who have handled similar Business Transformation Initiatives.
3> Technology Solutions
- An Insurance Company wants to (say.) move away from its Legacy applications and march towards the latest and greatest state of the art application suite available in the market to better run its business.
These are some of the reasons why the procurement manager would want follow proper Vendor Procurement guidelines. Failure to do so, may lead to problems and issues in the whole venture and many a times may lead to scrapping the whole deal either midway or towards the end of the project.
Here are the top 3 reasons why Procurement process may fail,
1> No clear requirement specifications and hence no clear understanding of the exact scope of work.
2> Carelessness in terms of contract clauses negotiations. No clear review of Vendor Contract terms and conditions.
3> Unrealistic targets and deadlines promised and accepted by both parties during the procurement process.
A Vendor Procurement process just like any project life cycle has 4 distinct phases, They are,
1> Requirement scope and Elaboration
- The Buyer has to elaborate on the exact requirements that will be shared with the Vendors and clearly defines why you are seeking the vendor services. These requirements may be Technical, functional etc as the case demands.
There will be a team of Business analysts and Functional experts who will meet the necessary business users to gather the exact requirements and thus prepare the requirements specifications documentation.
2> Vendor Selection
- The requirements specifications created are used to prepare an RFI (Request for Information), RFP (Request for Proposal) or RFQ (Request for Quotation) etc as the case may be.
The buyer Organization prepares a selected Vendor list and sends RFIs/RFP to them. The set of vendors must meet a predefined selection criteria set by the buyer organization. These prospective vendors will be someone, who already do similar service for the buyer organization or are in similar business as the work scope demands.
Before sending out the questionnairre to the Vendor make sure there is a confidentiality Non Disclosure agreement signed, as here the buyer may share some Business sensitive information with the potential vendors. It is necessary to safeguard the business information and Intellectual property from competition.
After this, if the vendors have some technical questions or need any clarifications, the buyer may arrange for a common Q&A session or they may request the vendor questions via email.The buyer sets a deadline for the questions and queries so they can be reviewed and answered.
The prospective Vendors have to be aware of the milestone dates and the formal processes like routing the questions through the procurement Manager etc.
The Procurement Manager is responsible for responding to the questions. The same information should be shared with all vendors, so that no one gets any unfair advantage in this process and in turn will also help the vendors understand the requirements better.
3> Contracting and Contract Administration
After receiving responses from the Bidders or Vendors, the buyer has its own selection criteria to finalize the vendor for the job. This is usually based on some weightage program, Vendor rating system, Proposal evaluation technique or expert judgement etc.
After the vendor selection is complete, then comes the contracting phase. In this phase, the contract agreement (this may also called as the Statement of work, Letter of Intent etc) that is sent by the vendor company has to be carefully read and scrutinized so that both parties agree to the terms and conditions in the contract and it is favorable to both parties. If there is any clarification, ambiguity in any of the points, seek clarification from the Vendor representative immediately.
Contract Administration is a very important phase for successful execution of the Contract. During execution, there may be some changes required to the Project scope, milestone and deadlines approval processes set.
The Contract should also be a project acceptance and completion criteria specified. e.g. For a new Policy System installation and enhancement project, the acceptance criteria specified should be in terms of service or scope delivery timeline (say 12 months) with (say) 2 Critical, 4 Medium and 6 low level bugs open.
There should be software SLA specified in the contract.
There should also be processes set for change controls. This includes tools, techniques and activities that help to monitor the change control process and control the project scope and timeline.
These contracts are generally prepared and reviewed by the legal departments with definite help and inputs from the procurement manager who forms the main coordinator. So make sure the contract is well understood by you - the Procurement Manager. It is detailed and elaborate. The contract has to specify the penalties to be imposed on the vendor in case of missed deadlines like any pricing credits or additional resource guarantee etc
4> Exit and Renewal criteria
The contract also has to specify the exit criteria for extreme cases like either party wants to exit out. e.g. If the buyer wants to default on a contract, there will be a penalty of (say) $500,000 and 2 months notice period and the entire knowledge base will become the Intellectual property of the Vendor Organization.
In case the buyer wants to extend the contract with the vendor, the renewal criteria also has to be specified.
e.g. Annual Maintenance contract for supporting Policy and Claims Administration system can be extended with IT vendor 'X' provided the application went live with max 2 open defects and specified timeline. This will have an elaborate pricing, resourcing and timelines specified.
The service SLA for Annual Maintenance is response in 1 business day and solution within 2 business days for critical issues and 3 business days for regular issues.
Thus Vendor procurement and Contract Management is a very important process for organizations that do business with external vendors. So proper knowledge of the process is an absolute must for both the Buyer and Vendor Organizations.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Art of Negotiation
Negotations - how can anyone live without it. Every day and in every walk of life, we use different negotiation forms on a personal and professional level.
Kids negotiate with their parents on what they want to (or dont want to) watch/eat/play? (and somehow always win...hhmmm i wonder why?..)
We negotiate with our better halfs on whether we eat the leftover cold pizza for dinner or dine out (Guess who wins there?)
At work, we negotiate with our bosses for better career roles, better projects, salary, promotion etc.
While on a project we negotiate the project deadlines, the workscope, experienced resources with skillsets matching the requirements etc etc. In a sales role, we negotiate with the prospects on the RFP Scope and costs. After bagging the project we negotiate with the client on Scope, timelines of the current project.
Well the point here is, Negotiations happen everywhere.
What is Negotiation?
Negotiation is a process where 2 or more parties get together and work towards a mutually acceptable solution to an issue in question.
This is also something that is closely associated to "Workplace Politics". Now generally the term politics is usually referenced or viewed in a negative sense, but it need not be the case. Politics is about talking, negotiating, convincing your Team, resources, stake holders to understand your point of view. For a person to really understand workplace politics, you have to invest your time into it. I mean really invest into it.
For this there are certain necessary steps that you have to take like,
You have to be really interested in people, their likes and wants, their concerns. This helps develop a level of trust and credibility between the 2 parties involved and this Trust is what makes it easier for the other party to understand you, accept you and your viewpoints
But this is not always an easy task to accomplish. But it is an art that can be learned, honed and sharpened with time.
Pre-Steps to a Negotiation
In any type of negotiations, there are certain guidelines to be followed. For e.g.,
1> Invest some time in genuinely understanding the other person or party. This may not always be possible but if you have a chance to do, please do it.
2> Do not deal any negotiation from an emotional angle. Always be ready to have alternatives, walk away solutions
3> Think and work on alternatives that are Win-Win for both.
4> Always make sure you have the deal makers or the actual decision makers at the negotiation table
Rules of Negotiation
1> Listen, Listen, Listen
- When on the Negotiation table, Sincerely listen to understand the other party, their viewpoints and beliefs. Many a deals and arguments are lost because one party did not try to understand the other party.
Always remember, when an person acts, (he may be right or wrong from your perspective) it is because he BELIEVES this is the right thing to do at that moment in time. So step in his/her shoes and things will be easier from that point on.
2> Do not take anything personally
- Negotiations can be stressful, tempers may rise and unwanted and harsh words may be thrown around. Try to keep your calm and focus on the situation rather than the person.
3> Focus on Relationships
Always be empatic to the other person. Focus on strengthing relationship with the other party
- Not all negotiations will end the way you want. In some cases you may get your way and in other cases, you may not. But always remember in the end, people matter more than the deal in hand so do not try to win any negotiation at the cost of losing people.
4> Backup plan
And last but not the least, always remember to work out a back up plan if your current project negotiations fail.
Negotiation Types
Any type of negotiation falls in either of these negotiation styles,
1> Accomodating
- This mostly leads to a Lose-Win situation in which first party is more emphatic to the other person's problems and issues and ultimately succumbs to a compromise.
This happens more so, when first party is more concerned about preserving the relationships with the other party rather than the Negotiation in hand.
e.g. Consider that you as a Project or account manager are siting at a negotiation table with your prospect and are discussing and finaling the project deal. You are leaning and advocating 'X' dollars per hour more than the Prospect But a savvy negotiator would give in wherever possible if there is a prospect of a better deal/s in the future.
or
You are in the last few weeks of developing your Policy and Billing System and now you are told about a new change that business wants to push in, since you want to be in the Good books of the business director and are also a non confrontational person, you may agree to the change (with the accepted risk of quality compromise, elongated Testing Cycle leading to extended timeline possibility) and log more work hours for your Team .
This usually leads the compromising party feeling resentment and short changed
2> Avoiding
- This is a more of a Lose-Lose situation where the first party may try to move away from any contradictions and issues that exist in the negotiation. This may seem as a skillful act by the other party but is actually not. As in the end, both parties tend to lose if the actual issues and problems are simply swept under the carpet.
Consider that on your Policy System implementation project, you want to integrate to a Third party medical Bill review system but the system vendor does have a good delivery record. When you are discussing budgeting and Vendor procurement for this integration with your Business Sponsors and avoid talking about the issues with Vendor performance and delivery, you tend to lose on a larger scale. Becuase when you are actually implementing the project that is when the actual realtime problems will hit you head on.
3> Collaborating
- This negotiation style leads to more of a Win-win situation than other Negotiation tactics for the simple reason being, both parties are willing to collaborate and understand each other's problems and come up with a middle ground
Consider that in your Claims Implementation project, you are developing a Legal evaluation solution in the application, but the business requires this functionality be linked to another third party application which actually feeds overnight to a (say) reporting data warehouse.
You as a project manager understand that, the Legal Evaluation functionality is required in the application for the business to complete their claims entry and processing workflow, but at the same time the business Team understands that you cannot complete the third party system integration in this short time frame without compromising on quality. So you both adjust your scope to implement the UI functionality in the shorter term, but not the integration atleast for the current release and then commit a later release date for the integratin piece of it.
4> Competing
- This leads to a Win-Lose situation wherein the first party negotiator looks at the negotiation as a 'Must Win' game and will try any all creative tactics to win at the game. In this type of behavior the first party negotiator tends to lose on the relationship aspect with the other party as the other party may feel short changed later in the whole deal and may not want to do business with you ever again.
e.g. In your Policy System implementation project, the client wants to implement the endorsement functionality before project release, but you do not want to give in, in any case and will come up with 'n' reasons and workarounds to 'NOT' do the change. In the end, you may win this negotiation, but lose your relationship with the Business Owner or jeopardise future long term deals with the Client,
5> Compromising
- This Negotiation style again may lead to a Lose-Win Situation because the first party wants to close to deal as soon as possible and not look at other possible alternatives and solutions. This may serve to the other party's advantage at the best.
Consider an example where you are working on a Client contract bid and are negotiating the proposal with the Client Business Manager. The Client does not agree to the implementation approach and may want to cut corners by shortening the Testing phase, now based on this concern, the first party instead of trying to come up with some creative alternatives, will begin to lean and then agree towards corner cutting and closing the deal which may not benefit your project and organization as a whole in the long term.
Negotiation Tactics
People who are skillful negotiators or have sufficient street smarts will use various negotiation tactics. Inept or unskilled people may not recognise these. Here are some such techniques used,
1> Playing Good Guy-Bad Guy
- There are 2 guys on one side of the table and one of them will be pro-deal and other one will be anti-deal guy.
2> Competitor Threat
- Negotiators may try to squeeze benefits from the other party by throwing other cometitor names in the mix.
3> Delay
- Skillful negotiators will try to delay and lengthen the negotiation process by using unnecessary questions, viewpoints and delays thrown in the whole mix. The whole purpose of doing so is to tire you out mentally and emotionally so you will agree to the other party's demands.
4> Not enough Authority
- Skilled negotiators never impress on the other party that they are the decision makers and will always leave some wiggle room to think over things. That is why always make sure you have the right decision making people at the negotiation table
5> Low balling
- Skilled negotiators will always try to low ball a deal and will offer you something that is much below the actual deal price (Although this may not always be true). So make sure you do your homework about the deal in question, the market position etc
Negotiation always happen between people (You do not negotiate with a robot, atleast not yet in the real world). This means each party/person will come with his own bag and baggage of emotions, goals and objectives etc. It is therefore mandatory and beneficial to come to a negotiation with a clear mind. Your attitude and perception sets the tone on the Negotiation table (atleast partially, if not completely). Please comment on whether you agree to these points or you feel there is anything else to add here.
Kids negotiate with their parents on what they want to (or dont want to) watch/eat/play? (and somehow always win...hhmmm i wonder why?..)
We negotiate with our better halfs on whether we eat the leftover cold pizza for dinner or dine out (Guess who wins there?)
At work, we negotiate with our bosses for better career roles, better projects, salary, promotion etc.
While on a project we negotiate the project deadlines, the workscope, experienced resources with skillsets matching the requirements etc etc. In a sales role, we negotiate with the prospects on the RFP Scope and costs. After bagging the project we negotiate with the client on Scope, timelines of the current project.
Well the point here is, Negotiations happen everywhere.
What is Negotiation?
Negotiation is a process where 2 or more parties get together and work towards a mutually acceptable solution to an issue in question.
This is also something that is closely associated to "Workplace Politics". Now generally the term politics is usually referenced or viewed in a negative sense, but it need not be the case. Politics is about talking, negotiating, convincing your Team, resources, stake holders to understand your point of view. For a person to really understand workplace politics, you have to invest your time into it. I mean really invest into it.
For this there are certain necessary steps that you have to take like,
You have to be really interested in people, their likes and wants, their concerns. This helps develop a level of trust and credibility between the 2 parties involved and this Trust is what makes it easier for the other party to understand you, accept you and your viewpoints
But this is not always an easy task to accomplish. But it is an art that can be learned, honed and sharpened with time.
Pre-Steps to a Negotiation
In any type of negotiations, there are certain guidelines to be followed. For e.g.,
1> Invest some time in genuinely understanding the other person or party. This may not always be possible but if you have a chance to do, please do it.
2> Do not deal any negotiation from an emotional angle. Always be ready to have alternatives, walk away solutions
3> Think and work on alternatives that are Win-Win for both.
4> Always make sure you have the deal makers or the actual decision makers at the negotiation table
Rules of Negotiation
1> Listen, Listen, Listen
- When on the Negotiation table, Sincerely listen to understand the other party, their viewpoints and beliefs. Many a deals and arguments are lost because one party did not try to understand the other party.
Always remember, when an person acts, (he may be right or wrong from your perspective) it is because he BELIEVES this is the right thing to do at that moment in time. So step in his/her shoes and things will be easier from that point on.
2> Do not take anything personally
- Negotiations can be stressful, tempers may rise and unwanted and harsh words may be thrown around. Try to keep your calm and focus on the situation rather than the person.
3> Focus on Relationships
Always be empatic to the other person. Focus on strengthing relationship with the other party
- Not all negotiations will end the way you want. In some cases you may get your way and in other cases, you may not. But always remember in the end, people matter more than the deal in hand so do not try to win any negotiation at the cost of losing people.
4> Backup plan
And last but not the least, always remember to work out a back up plan if your current project negotiations fail.
Negotiation Types
Any type of negotiation falls in either of these negotiation styles,
1> Accomodating
- This mostly leads to a Lose-Win situation in which first party is more emphatic to the other person's problems and issues and ultimately succumbs to a compromise.
This happens more so, when first party is more concerned about preserving the relationships with the other party rather than the Negotiation in hand.
e.g. Consider that you as a Project or account manager are siting at a negotiation table with your prospect and are discussing and finaling the project deal. You are leaning and advocating 'X' dollars per hour more than the Prospect But a savvy negotiator would give in wherever possible if there is a prospect of a better deal/s in the future.
or
You are in the last few weeks of developing your Policy and Billing System and now you are told about a new change that business wants to push in, since you want to be in the Good books of the business director and are also a non confrontational person, you may agree to the change (with the accepted risk of quality compromise, elongated Testing Cycle leading to extended timeline possibility) and log more work hours for your Team .
This usually leads the compromising party feeling resentment and short changed
2> Avoiding
- This is a more of a Lose-Lose situation where the first party may try to move away from any contradictions and issues that exist in the negotiation. This may seem as a skillful act by the other party but is actually not. As in the end, both parties tend to lose if the actual issues and problems are simply swept under the carpet.
Consider that on your Policy System implementation project, you want to integrate to a Third party medical Bill review system but the system vendor does have a good delivery record. When you are discussing budgeting and Vendor procurement for this integration with your Business Sponsors and avoid talking about the issues with Vendor performance and delivery, you tend to lose on a larger scale. Becuase when you are actually implementing the project that is when the actual realtime problems will hit you head on.
3> Collaborating
- This negotiation style leads to more of a Win-win situation than other Negotiation tactics for the simple reason being, both parties are willing to collaborate and understand each other's problems and come up with a middle ground
Consider that in your Claims Implementation project, you are developing a Legal evaluation solution in the application, but the business requires this functionality be linked to another third party application which actually feeds overnight to a (say) reporting data warehouse.
You as a project manager understand that, the Legal Evaluation functionality is required in the application for the business to complete their claims entry and processing workflow, but at the same time the business Team understands that you cannot complete the third party system integration in this short time frame without compromising on quality. So you both adjust your scope to implement the UI functionality in the shorter term, but not the integration atleast for the current release and then commit a later release date for the integratin piece of it.
4> Competing
- This leads to a Win-Lose situation wherein the first party negotiator looks at the negotiation as a 'Must Win' game and will try any all creative tactics to win at the game. In this type of behavior the first party negotiator tends to lose on the relationship aspect with the other party as the other party may feel short changed later in the whole deal and may not want to do business with you ever again.
e.g. In your Policy System implementation project, the client wants to implement the endorsement functionality before project release, but you do not want to give in, in any case and will come up with 'n' reasons and workarounds to 'NOT' do the change. In the end, you may win this negotiation, but lose your relationship with the Business Owner or jeopardise future long term deals with the Client,
5> Compromising
- This Negotiation style again may lead to a Lose-Win Situation because the first party wants to close to deal as soon as possible and not look at other possible alternatives and solutions. This may serve to the other party's advantage at the best.
Consider an example where you are working on a Client contract bid and are negotiating the proposal with the Client Business Manager. The Client does not agree to the implementation approach and may want to cut corners by shortening the Testing phase, now based on this concern, the first party instead of trying to come up with some creative alternatives, will begin to lean and then agree towards corner cutting and closing the deal which may not benefit your project and organization as a whole in the long term.
Negotiation Tactics
People who are skillful negotiators or have sufficient street smarts will use various negotiation tactics. Inept or unskilled people may not recognise these. Here are some such techniques used,
1> Playing Good Guy-Bad Guy
- There are 2 guys on one side of the table and one of them will be pro-deal and other one will be anti-deal guy.
2> Competitor Threat
- Negotiators may try to squeeze benefits from the other party by throwing other cometitor names in the mix.
3> Delay
- Skillful negotiators will try to delay and lengthen the negotiation process by using unnecessary questions, viewpoints and delays thrown in the whole mix. The whole purpose of doing so is to tire you out mentally and emotionally so you will agree to the other party's demands.
4> Not enough Authority
- Skilled negotiators never impress on the other party that they are the decision makers and will always leave some wiggle room to think over things. That is why always make sure you have the right decision making people at the negotiation table
5> Low balling
- Skilled negotiators will always try to low ball a deal and will offer you something that is much below the actual deal price (Although this may not always be true). So make sure you do your homework about the deal in question, the market position etc
Negotiation always happen between people (You do not negotiate with a robot, atleast not yet in the real world). This means each party/person will come with his own bag and baggage of emotions, goals and objectives etc. It is therefore mandatory and beneficial to come to a negotiation with a clear mind. Your attitude and perception sets the tone on the Negotiation table (atleast partially, if not completely). Please comment on whether you agree to these points or you feel there is anything else to add here.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Project Estimation basics
What is Project Estimation?
Last weekend, my wife and I along with our three year old went for a movie. As it was not a kid flick, my son had zero interest in watching the movie. So he starts with his version of the "20 Questions" game. All questions go towards "When do we go home?" and i gave him some creative answers like "As soon as all the bad guys in the movie are caught"..."As soon as this song ends" (Indian Movie) and so on and so forth.....
This is what is estimation is all about. To arrive at an estimate means to use "Calculated Approximation methods using inputs available to assist in a planning objective"
Preparing IT Project estimates is usually not a one man job (of course that depends on the size of the project), there may be several people involved in preparing a project estimate, right from Project Manager to Business analysts, Development Team, Testers, QA, Infrastructure resources to Project sponsors and End users. Everyone has a say and a stake in making sure the project estimates are to the mark or nearabouts.
As we all know a project has multiple phases...Initiation, planning, development, testing, deployment etc. The projects estimates have to account for each and every one of this phases along with areas that are not phase dependant e.g. Project Management, Vendor procurement, Software licensing, hardware and infrastructure etc items.
Why do we need estimations? Benefits
There is no downside in preparing a project estimate but the advantages are manifold. Project estimation is more of a science than an Art. Projects are usually undertakings that cost time and money. To avoid slippages and failures due to any of these known/unknown factors, the projects have to be properly estimated and controlled.
As both overestimation and underestimation pose a problem to a project. Overestimation will cause the project to get over budget or even cancelled and Underestimation may caue resource, scope, quality and timing issues, again may lead to Project failures.
So what is the need to estimate a project...several reasons
1> To get approval for the project so sponsors get an idea how much the project will cost - ballpark, */-10% etc, resource, time requirements
2> To streamline, monitor and guide project costs, resources when project is in progress
3> To determine project success or failure based on final project costs vs estimation
Estimation Process
Estimation Process
There are 3 processes one can use to do project estimation
1> Analogous Estimation
This estimation process makes use of knowledge base from similarly executed projects and prepares project estimates based on those.
2> Expert opinion
This process makes use of experience of people/projects from prior similarly executed projects.
3> Activity breakdown estimation
This process makes use of breaking down the project into multiple Tasks and activities and estimation is done based on these individual tasks and activities
Estimation Techniques
There are quite a few techniques that can be employed to estimate a project
1> Three Point estimation
This is my favourite project estimation technique (I call it the BMW technique - Best, Most likely, Worst case) wherein we use statistical data and information and come up with Best case, Most likely and Worst case estimates
To prepare these estimates, we use the Activity breakdown process. This means the Project is broken down into multiple tasks and estimates are prepared for each of the individual tasks and then added up together.
Estimates are prepared for the foll 3 scenarios - Best Case (B), Most Likely (M) and Worst case (W).
Based on this we come up with,
A> Standard deviation value, SD = (W - B)/6
B> Weighted Average, E = (B + 4M + W)/6
2> Base and Contingency Estimation
This is a very simple and straight forward estimation technique but not that accurate, wherein we prepare estimates for the best case and worst case scenarios. But this does not give you a similar confidence level as obtained by the prior method as it is more scientific.
How does it work?To calculate the base value assume that the project is executed in the minimal time duration possible and estimates are prepared based on that. To calculate the contingency (or Risk) values (which generally ranges from 10-50% of base estimate) list down all the project risks in a risk register and use that for preparing your project estimates.
These two values are then summed up to prepare the final Base and contingency estimate.
Note that for calculating the contingency value, user can also prepare an actual list of expected risks and issues instead of assuming a fixed percentage of the base. This gives a more nearer number for the risk value.
Also as mentioned earlier, along with the Project task level estimates we have to make sure we account for the non technical areas as well, like,
i> Infrastructure and Hardware costs
ii> Vendor costs
iii> Training costs
iv> Project Management
v> Business Analysis
vi> Testing Costs
vii> Quality Analysis etc
3> Ball park or Order of Magnitude estimation
Here the estimates calculated are usually two to three times that of the actual estimates.
To perform an order of magnitude estimation, break the project into multiple tasks and activities and then score them on basis of Complexity and Amount of work effort involved.
Based on this weighing factors prepare estimates in terms of resources and Time. For e.g. a Task with medium complexity and small size would need (say) 2 resources for 2 weeks.
Summary
Like i said above, project estimation is a Science more than an Art. Always use your prior experience and expertise of others who have been involved in similar projects to come up with a more real to life estimation. Make sure you give sufficient weightage to the risks and issues involved in estimating a project.
Also ensure that you review your estimates at the end of the project to see where you went wrong or what can be done better in the future.
Hope this article will help you in better estimating your projects. Please let me know your thoughts and comments.
Last weekend, my wife and I along with our three year old went for a movie. As it was not a kid flick, my son had zero interest in watching the movie. So he starts with his version of the "20 Questions" game. All questions go towards "When do we go home?" and i gave him some creative answers like "As soon as all the bad guys in the movie are caught"..."As soon as this song ends" (Indian Movie) and so on and so forth.....
This is what is estimation is all about. To arrive at an estimate means to use "Calculated Approximation methods using inputs available to assist in a planning objective"
Preparing IT Project estimates is usually not a one man job (of course that depends on the size of the project), there may be several people involved in preparing a project estimate, right from Project Manager to Business analysts, Development Team, Testers, QA, Infrastructure resources to Project sponsors and End users. Everyone has a say and a stake in making sure the project estimates are to the mark or nearabouts.
As we all know a project has multiple phases...Initiation, planning, development, testing, deployment etc. The projects estimates have to account for each and every one of this phases along with areas that are not phase dependant e.g. Project Management, Vendor procurement, Software licensing, hardware and infrastructure etc items.
Why do we need estimations? Benefits
There is no downside in preparing a project estimate but the advantages are manifold. Project estimation is more of a science than an Art. Projects are usually undertakings that cost time and money. To avoid slippages and failures due to any of these known/unknown factors, the projects have to be properly estimated and controlled.
As both overestimation and underestimation pose a problem to a project. Overestimation will cause the project to get over budget or even cancelled and Underestimation may caue resource, scope, quality and timing issues, again may lead to Project failures.
So what is the need to estimate a project...several reasons
1> To get approval for the project so sponsors get an idea how much the project will cost - ballpark, */-10% etc, resource, time requirements
2> To streamline, monitor and guide project costs, resources when project is in progress
3> To determine project success or failure based on final project costs vs estimation
Estimation Process
Estimation Process
There are 3 processes one can use to do project estimation
1> Analogous Estimation
This estimation process makes use of knowledge base from similarly executed projects and prepares project estimates based on those.
2> Expert opinion
This process makes use of experience of people/projects from prior similarly executed projects.
3> Activity breakdown estimation
This process makes use of breaking down the project into multiple Tasks and activities and estimation is done based on these individual tasks and activities
Estimation Techniques
There are quite a few techniques that can be employed to estimate a project
1> Three Point estimation
This is my favourite project estimation technique (I call it the BMW technique - Best, Most likely, Worst case) wherein we use statistical data and information and come up with Best case, Most likely and Worst case estimates
To prepare these estimates, we use the Activity breakdown process. This means the Project is broken down into multiple tasks and estimates are prepared for each of the individual tasks and then added up together.
Estimates are prepared for the foll 3 scenarios - Best Case (B), Most Likely (M) and Worst case (W).
Based on this we come up with,
A> Standard deviation value, SD = (W - B)/6
B> Weighted Average, E = (B + 4M + W)/6
2> Base and Contingency Estimation
This is a very simple and straight forward estimation technique but not that accurate, wherein we prepare estimates for the best case and worst case scenarios. But this does not give you a similar confidence level as obtained by the prior method as it is more scientific.
How does it work?To calculate the base value assume that the project is executed in the minimal time duration possible and estimates are prepared based on that. To calculate the contingency (or Risk) values (which generally ranges from 10-50% of base estimate) list down all the project risks in a risk register and use that for preparing your project estimates.
These two values are then summed up to prepare the final Base and contingency estimate.
Note that for calculating the contingency value, user can also prepare an actual list of expected risks and issues instead of assuming a fixed percentage of the base. This gives a more nearer number for the risk value.
Also as mentioned earlier, along with the Project task level estimates we have to make sure we account for the non technical areas as well, like,
i> Infrastructure and Hardware costs
ii> Vendor costs
iii> Training costs
iv> Project Management
v> Business Analysis
vi> Testing Costs
vii> Quality Analysis etc
3> Ball park or Order of Magnitude estimation
Here the estimates calculated are usually two to three times that of the actual estimates.
To perform an order of magnitude estimation, break the project into multiple tasks and activities and then score them on basis of Complexity and Amount of work effort involved.
Based on this weighing factors prepare estimates in terms of resources and Time. For e.g. a Task with medium complexity and small size would need (say) 2 resources for 2 weeks.
Summary
Like i said above, project estimation is a Science more than an Art. Always use your prior experience and expertise of others who have been involved in similar projects to come up with a more real to life estimation. Make sure you give sufficient weightage to the risks and issues involved in estimating a project.
Also ensure that you review your estimates at the end of the project to see where you went wrong or what can be done better in the future.
Hope this article will help you in better estimating your projects. Please let me know your thoughts and comments.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Advantages of Cost Benefit Analysis
My son, like all 3 year olds is an avid chocolate and Candy lover. Today his attention at the supermarket was transfixed on a huge chocolate Mousse cake. I did not have the heart to blurt out an outright 'NO', so i put on my health conscious hat and tried to explain him, how chocolate is more harmful for him (as compared to momentary sweet savory pleasure gained after eating a piece of the yummy treat). A single serving has atleast 500 calories plus bad cholesterol, fats, Carbs, sodium etc - he looked at me like i was speaking Martian. This was followed by loud bawling and hands flailing.
This was my version of a failed Cost Benefit Analysis discussion with a 3 year old.
Now on a serious note,
Technically Cost Benefit analysis is a financial process of analyzing a particular product or activity (Let's call this a 'change') where all the factors impacting the anticipated costs incurred and the expected benefits to produce the end result are expressed and evaluated as a common monetary denominator.
There are several factors that have to be considered when coming up with a CBA on a change
2> Time
Steps to perform a Cost Benefit Analysis
2> Lay down all the tangible costs that will be incurred or expected to be incurred now or over a period of time if we go ahead with the change.
3> Lay down all the intable costs that will be incurred or expected to be incurred now or over a period of time. Subjectively analyze these and assign a monetary value
4> Similarly lay down all the tangible and intangible benefits as we did for the costs by coming up with a financial number for it.
5> Substract the potential costs from the anticipated benefits and complete your CBA.
Performing a Cost benefit analysis gives you a well rounded view of implementing the change. It gives a good perspective as to does it make sense to implement the change or not.
e.g of a Cost Benefit analysis
Duration of Project - 3 Months
Intangibles
Benefits
Intangible
I reminded him of my last dentist's visit where i had my tooth extracted and he had to see me in pain.
Cutting to the chase, end result of all this, i ended up buying the Cake + a Vanilla chocolate ice cream cone...go figure...
Now on a serious note,
What is Cost Benefit Analysis?
Cost Benefit analysis is a technique we make use of in our professional life as well as personal life.
Learning to perform a proper CBA is a very important skillset that will benefit any and every project manager in his lifetime career.
One thing to bear in mind is, all the possible cost and benefit factors, external and internal that go on to produce or complete the project (or 'change') has to be laid out in Monetary terms, so that we compare apples to apples.
These factors are then presented before the executive board or the decision making committee so they can decide whether to go ahead with the venture or project or simply scrap the deal.
Thus CBA as is the popular acronym, is a widely accepted technique where the costs incurred in doing a change are substracted from the benefits associated.
1> Tangible vs Intangible factors
All factors have to be analyzed - tangible as well as intangible ones.
Costs and Benefits that are measurable can be easily used in the analysis, but measuring costs and benefits associated with intangible factors forms the biggest challenge in these type of activities and it is to be performed subjectively. Mainly it is you, the project manager (along with the other stakeholders) who has to live with that costs and benefits decision for the duration of the project and you should be convinced about it yourself before trying to convince the stakeholders committee.
e.g. In a new Vendor Procurement project, the intangible cost and benefit examples are - ramp up time of the new vendor resources, leading to productivity loss and advantages of more efficient business functioning due to employing a new vendor agency.
Some benefits and costs are incurred over time.
For e.g. Consider the CBA performed for buying new computers for an entire Customer service department for an Insurance Organization. This will include Cost of buying, service and maintenance costs that occur over time. Similarly benefits can also occur over time. In the same example say. Initial few months of computer usage will be seen as training and onboarding with no productivity and as the use, acceptance and familiarity with the tool increases the productivity (or benefits) will also increase over time
Steps to perform a Cost Benefit Analysis
1> First the user should have an extremely well rounded or a 360 degree view of the change to be implemented.
e.g. Fixed costs like equipment cost, Software and License fees, Training costs, Maintenance fees, Travel costs, Employee Salaries, supplier and vendor expenses etc
e.g. Production Downtime when implementing a system change, employee productivity loss when transitioning to a new software tool etc
5> Substract the potential costs from the anticipated benefits and complete your CBA.
Performing a Cost benefit analysis gives you a well rounded view of implementing the change. It gives a good perspective as to does it make sense to implement the change or not.
So in all, this process is very similar to the Pros or Cons analysis that we normally do in our personal life as well when we want to take any important decision and this analysis definitely helps clear the picture about the process.
Hope this article covers the important aspects of the topic. If you have any view or comments that are different than above or want to add any points to it do feel free to write your comments.
e.g of a Cost Benefit analysis
An Insurance Organization wants their claims department to interface to ISO ClaimSearch. So the Project Sponsoring committee has asked the department Business Lead to perform a complete Cost Benefit analysis, so they can decide does it make sense to go ahead with the project or not
Costs
Tangibles
- 2 Full Time BA Cost
- 2 Full Time Developer Cost
- 1 Full Time Tester Cost - (say) 50%
- 1 Business SME involved - (say) 30%
- 1 Training Lead - (say) 30%
- ISO Account setup/Reporting Licensing costs
Intangibles
- Total loss of Productivity in training resources
Tangible
- Costs to manually use ISO Site
- Claim operator time saved due to automatic reporting
- 3 Operators - 30% time savings
Final decision - Benefits - Costs
Thursday, August 11, 2011
IT Spend in Insurance
Gone are the times when Insurance companies viewed IT as a mere tool with no direct benefits from its implementation and usage. IT was looked upon as a MIS functionary - i.e. statistical and executive reporting toolbox with no potential and direct cost benefits to the business.
Fastforward to current times, despite the economic downturn all over the world, according to a recent study more than 50% of the insurance organizations are expected to revive their IT budgets.
After all companies that have a surplus balance have to make sure that money is well spent.
There are numerous reasons that leads organizations to improve their IT Infrastructure, Systems and processes
1> IT Industry Business expertise
Looking at the technological advances today, Insurance companies (or any other industry for that matter) have to compete and excel in the business arena.
There are so many IT vendors, application and solution providers who provide a wide range of applications and support that not only ease the way Insurance companies do business but also add to the overall bottomline.
This has only become possible for the IT Vendors becuase of their number of years of consulting and hands on experience in the Insurance domain, understanding and working on the customers business model, closely watching their pain points and business naunces.
2> Enterprise solutioning advantage
IT has become a very important function of Corporate strategy and solutioning, even though IT does not always have a tangible impact on business benefits, be it Policy, Billing or Claims Administration or overall Operations, Customer service, Underwriting, Adjusting, Claims Investigation or Financials like Payments, reserving, Quotations etc. IT is still one of the major functionary that can make a difference for a company to have an edge over its competitors.
3> Cost Benefits
In today's times cost of IT hardware, Software, Infrastructure and resource costs due to Competition, offshoring and Application managed services, hosting solutions and consulting solutions - has really made the entire realm very exciting thus helping your business in all ways possible.
4> Cutting edge Soulutions
With the number of IT solution vendors, service integrators, consultants in the market and the level and maturity of IT solutions based on the number of years of experience input, the solutions are really cutting edge in the sense they address all of end user and customer needs, they are very user centric and friendly and at the same highly customizable and scalable.
For instance a legacy Policy administration system that has been installed and developed 15 years ago compared to a current state of the art Policy administration System solution developed using Java, .NET technology solutions, using web services architecture having plugins, integrations, web service calls to enterprise level authentications, third party integrations like CLUE Reporting, ISO, Glass estimation solutions, Comparative rating engines etc. All of this at a very competitive rate too.
No prizes in guessing which solution wins hands down.
A lot of CIOs and IT senior exectives are now turning their attention to better front end processing and more competive software solutions that can be easily integrated to their current what i call the "Spaghetti IT architecture" and infrastructure and also provide much improved software benefits in the long run.
So what are the areas where companies are spending money on,
1> Data Warehousing applications -
Data warehousing is like the pulse of Insurance business. The data analysis reports indicate the financial health of a business and are indicative of times to come. They also prompt for corrective actions that can be taken by exectuves if and when required.
Data Warehousing spend is on Predictive analytic solutions, Data mining and Business intelligence solutions
2> Business Applications and Solutions
If Data Warehouse is the Pulse of a business then the applications that run the business is the blood and lifeline.
The better, functionally rich, efficient and powerful the applications that help you process your business, the more ease for you to do your business.
Increase spend for better applications and application management that would give companies a competitive edge allowing the Company to shift their focus on more important matters like running their core business competitively rather than worry about IT applications crashes, bugs and poor performances.
This requires increase budgets for more application development resources, better and more powerful infrastructure. More money spent on IT solutions like cutting edge Policy, Billing and Claims solutions, enterprise level CRM solutions which would help improve customer-carrier relationships etc
Another important factor that helps reap better IT benefits are business level process changes to better suit the business needs and aligning the features and functionality supported by a Product software with the business.
For example, i have worked for numerous organizations that would follow the traditional manual triaging and assignment of claims even though the daily average of new and reassigned claims volume was around 200. By making use of application generated diaries and automated assignment triggers, the organizations saved atleast 20% of their processing time due to the automated workflow solutions.
In today's world insurance companies can reduce their operational costs and processing costs using IT methods and in turn achieve better efficient operations and hence more profits.
Let me know if you have any special comments on this or have seen some other aspects that are not covered in this post.
Fastforward to current times, despite the economic downturn all over the world, according to a recent study more than 50% of the insurance organizations are expected to revive their IT budgets.
After all companies that have a surplus balance have to make sure that money is well spent.
There are numerous reasons that leads organizations to improve their IT Infrastructure, Systems and processes
1> IT Industry Business expertise
Looking at the technological advances today, Insurance companies (or any other industry for that matter) have to compete and excel in the business arena.
There are so many IT vendors, application and solution providers who provide a wide range of applications and support that not only ease the way Insurance companies do business but also add to the overall bottomline.
This has only become possible for the IT Vendors becuase of their number of years of consulting and hands on experience in the Insurance domain, understanding and working on the customers business model, closely watching their pain points and business naunces.
2> Enterprise solutioning advantage
IT has become a very important function of Corporate strategy and solutioning, even though IT does not always have a tangible impact on business benefits, be it Policy, Billing or Claims Administration or overall Operations, Customer service, Underwriting, Adjusting, Claims Investigation or Financials like Payments, reserving, Quotations etc. IT is still one of the major functionary that can make a difference for a company to have an edge over its competitors.
3> Cost Benefits
In today's times cost of IT hardware, Software, Infrastructure and resource costs due to Competition, offshoring and Application managed services, hosting solutions and consulting solutions - has really made the entire realm very exciting thus helping your business in all ways possible.
4> Cutting edge Soulutions
With the number of IT solution vendors, service integrators, consultants in the market and the level and maturity of IT solutions based on the number of years of experience input, the solutions are really cutting edge in the sense they address all of end user and customer needs, they are very user centric and friendly and at the same highly customizable and scalable.
For instance a legacy Policy administration system that has been installed and developed 15 years ago compared to a current state of the art Policy administration System solution developed using Java, .NET technology solutions, using web services architecture having plugins, integrations, web service calls to enterprise level authentications, third party integrations like CLUE Reporting, ISO, Glass estimation solutions, Comparative rating engines etc. All of this at a very competitive rate too.
No prizes in guessing which solution wins hands down.
A lot of CIOs and IT senior exectives are now turning their attention to better front end processing and more competive software solutions that can be easily integrated to their current what i call the "Spaghetti IT architecture" and infrastructure and also provide much improved software benefits in the long run.
So what are the areas where companies are spending money on,
1> Data Warehousing applications -
Data warehousing is like the pulse of Insurance business. The data analysis reports indicate the financial health of a business and are indicative of times to come. They also prompt for corrective actions that can be taken by exectuves if and when required.
Data Warehousing spend is on Predictive analytic solutions, Data mining and Business intelligence solutions
2> Business Applications and Solutions
If Data Warehouse is the Pulse of a business then the applications that run the business is the blood and lifeline.
The better, functionally rich, efficient and powerful the applications that help you process your business, the more ease for you to do your business.
Increase spend for better applications and application management that would give companies a competitive edge allowing the Company to shift their focus on more important matters like running their core business competitively rather than worry about IT applications crashes, bugs and poor performances.
This requires increase budgets for more application development resources, better and more powerful infrastructure. More money spent on IT solutions like cutting edge Policy, Billing and Claims solutions, enterprise level CRM solutions which would help improve customer-carrier relationships etc
Another important factor that helps reap better IT benefits are business level process changes to better suit the business needs and aligning the features and functionality supported by a Product software with the business.
For example, i have worked for numerous organizations that would follow the traditional manual triaging and assignment of claims even though the daily average of new and reassigned claims volume was around 200. By making use of application generated diaries and automated assignment triggers, the organizations saved atleast 20% of their processing time due to the automated workflow solutions.
In today's world insurance companies can reduce their operational costs and processing costs using IT methods and in turn achieve better efficient operations and hence more profits.
Let me know if you have any special comments on this or have seen some other aspects that are not covered in this post.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Technology and Claims Fraud
Think of the science fiction movie - 'The Minority Report'. The movie concept is, certain humans with Extra Sensory Perception (called 'precogs'), prophesise about crimes that will be commited in the future and Police detective jump in action to arrest the criminals and thus prevent the future crime.
A Typical scenario in today's Insurance Organization -
Advnatages of early Fraud Detection
1> To reduce overall claims and associated policy costs
2> Guard against future adverse risk selection
3> Optimal and accurate product pricing due to saved costs
4> Pass the profits and revenue saved, to Shareholders and insured (via reduced premiums or dividends)
Insurance Organizations have always been hit by fraud claims and in the current economic scenario, they are trying their best to identify these fraud cases and thereby minimize their losses. Today literally tens of billions of dollars are lost by insurance companies due to fraud claims or due to over inflated claims.
When an insurance company pays for a claim, it involves Indemnity payments and expenses (Legal + Claims Handling + Other). All this is paid on basis of its earned premiums and income from investments.
Tools and resources to achive this
Normally organizations have experienced Underwriters, Adjusters, SIU departments that carefully scrutinize and help to identify and avoid dishonest claims and thereby save company money. They also make use of Third party investigators who specilize in handling and investigating certain types of Fraud cases.
e.g. There are few red flags identified on a claim, the predictive analytics tool applies these to the claim and assigns it a claim rank or score. Red flags examples (but not necessarily fraud cases)
2> There are multiple claims filed by this insured and there is a specific pattern to the type of claims filed.
3> Insured has medical bills which are overinflated
4> Insured is on a medical disability leave and wins the National Marathon championship
5> Insured has a claim on property much above the actual cost of damage.
6> Insured has filed a theft claim for a high value and secured property like an antique picture.
7> Multiple Claims for same occurrence filed with different insurers.
ISO ClaimSearch
The key to identifying and eliminating fraud is collaborated data - data that is clean, organized and structured. The more structured data that organizations have access to, the more these companies can use their experiences to analyze the data and make some meaningful reports out of this information anfd thus help eliminate fraud. So collecting and analyzing this data becomes the key to investigating this data.
How do companies get good and clean data -
Predictive analytics
Process
What can companies do to move towards Predictive analytics?
2> Latest tools and technology
3> Budget and preparation throughout organization for implementation and have process changes for clean data entry points
Above post highlights the importance of having organized and structured data. The advantages are manifold, in all domain verticals and not just insurance.
Any other points you feel that should have been covered or added here please feel free to comment on those below.
This is the theme of our post today.
A fraud case is being investigated, an Insured has filed a claim for rear ending other vehicle. But it was detected by the diligent Insurance adjuster that this is a dubious claim.
How did he do this? He made use of software tools and techniques and found a similar trend of the insured's past claims.
The savvy adjuster has saved the insurance company possibly thousands of dollars just by detecting 1 fraud case. Think of the big picture - how careful investigation and early fraud prevention and detection techniques can save Insurance companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
Advnatages of early Fraud Detection
Following are the reasons why an insurance organization would detect or prevent fraud cases
2> Guard against future adverse risk selection
3> Optimal and accurate product pricing due to saved costs
4> Pass the profits and revenue saved, to Shareholders and insured (via reduced premiums or dividends)
Insurance Organizations have always been hit by fraud claims and in the current economic scenario, they are trying their best to identify these fraud cases and thereby minimize their losses. Today literally tens of billions of dollars are lost by insurance companies due to fraud claims or due to over inflated claims.
Structured and organized Data is something that can help curb or prevent these fraud cases by providing uniform and superior claims information. There are several tools and software available in the market that will allow insurance companies to identify and reduce these fraud cases.
When an insurance company pays for a claim, it involves Indemnity payments and expenses (Legal + Claims Handling + Other). All this is paid on basis of its earned premiums and income from investments.
For e.g. If an Insurance company has an earned premium of $100 and pays out $80, it has a loss ratio of 80%. The rest of the 20% accounts for Administrative expenses, operating costs, profits etc for the Organization.
So logically if an organization eliminates or even reduces these fraud payments and associated expenses like legal costs, investigation costs etc, that would add to the profits of the organization.
Tools and resources to achive this
Normally organizations have experienced Underwriters, Adjusters, SIU departments that carefully scrutinize and help to identify and avoid dishonest claims and thereby save company money. They also make use of Third party investigators who specilize in handling and investigating certain types of Fraud cases.
Now these type of cases are not Line of Business specific and thus occur in every line of business (Auto, GL, Property, Workers Comp etc).
Fraud Indicators and Claim Ranking
Based on the company experiences + the historical claims data collected + analyzing fraud claims from various third party agencies, Insurance organization can come up with their own Predictive analytics solutions or make use readymade tools available in the marketplace which help analyze the data and come up with scoring models that help reduce the total claims outcome.
e.g. There are few red flags identified on a claim, the predictive analytics tool applies these to the claim and assigns it a claim rank or score.
These claims with a high score are then passed on to an investigator for further inquiry.
1> Insured uses several different mailboxes for addresses.
3> Insured has medical bills which are overinflated
4> Insured is on a medical disability leave and wins the National Marathon championship
5> Insured has a claim on property much above the actual cost of damage.
6> Insured has filed a theft claim for a high value and secured property like an antique picture.
7> Multiple Claims for same occurrence filed with different insurers.
ISO ClaimSearch
There are some third party organizations like ISO ClaimsSearch which diligently collect P&C Insurance Claims data of hundreds and millions of Insureds. Insurance companies in turn make use of ISO ClaimSearch for a fee to research prior claims history of their insureds, identify claim trends and pattern. The Insurance companies then, will feed their Insurance data to ISO ClaimSearch so as to strengthen the ISO database.
- By improving on their claims processes
- Having Data Models that are well structured
- Having strong Business rules and validations in place that identify every entry point into the system
- Technology and process improvements are the key to good and clean data which will help in better analysis
Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics consists of data analysis techniques and methods which help to develop predictive models used for trend forecasting. These tools typically assign a predictive score which is very similar to an individual's credit score obtained from various credit bureaus. The credit bureaus also similarly look at various criteria for a consumer (viz Income, credit history, balances, loan etc) and come up with a credit score for that individual.
Data Mining and Analysis
Data is first mined from various data sources within an organization along with the relationships between the data elements. This data is then analyzed with the help of various Predictive models this helps an organization in achieving its fraud curbing objectives.
The data that is obtained is analyzed for identifying trends and relationships which may point to some wrong doing.
1> Have consistent and structured data
3> Budget and preparation throughout organization for implementation and have process changes for clean data entry points
Above post highlights the importance of having organized and structured data. The advantages are manifold, in all domain verticals and not just insurance.
Predictive analytics helps insurance companies identify potential fraud needle claims in all of its millions of claims haystack. In any case, all these are crime preventive and minimizing techniques.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Project Management Tools
There are several tools available in the market for various aspects of Project Management. I am sure there must be quite a few that you must have also used in your career span.
This post attempts to touch upon a few which have had a long standing reputation and manage to get the job done. Please comment on any ones that you use but do not see in the list below and your view points on why you use them or should be used over any others.
Several of these tools available in the market are sold on a per User/Project or Organization level licenses. There are some tools that are open sources. Some of the tools are used based on personal user preferences or are simply organizational choices.
Most or all of these are available as a web version for easy information sharing across teams and facilitate collaboration.
If i were to select a Project Management tool my decision would be based on the following objectives, The tool/s should be
1> Cost effective
2> Rich functionally
3> Good Support and Customer service
4> Intuitive and scalable
Listed below are a few Project Management tools by their areas of application
Application LifeCycle Management
Application lifecycle consists to right from Project initiation, planning, execution, control and closure. The tool that serves most or all of these functional areas and has minimal need of other products integrations and plug ins and even if it does, can be easily integrated to the other product (e.g. Project Management tool integrating with a HR System or an accounting system etc)
There are several tools that are available for total Project life cycle management and are mostly used at the program level along with project level. They effectively support areas of projec planning, documentation, QA & Testing tracking, communications, scheduling, time tracking, resource management, content and issues management etc.
TeamForge Collabnet is one such complete application management tool that i have used which allows Collaborate development of multiple projects in areas such as
Testing, QA activities, issues and Tasks tracking etc. This is a web based tool which is extremely flexible in terms of environments support, other tools and processes to be integrated in a project.
Project planning and Scheduling
Microsoft Project is a Planning, Scheduling and Tracking tool which i am sure everyone is familiar with and has used at some point or another of their career. The reason for its popularity and wide use is its simplicity of use and functionally rich and user friendly Interface.
This tool allows you to manage and monitor multi million dollar large projects to small initiatives ranging in a thousand dollars. Though on smaller projects i always prefer to use Excel rather than MS Project. As they say, why use a cannon to kill a mosquito.
MS Project allows you to plot scheduling and tracking graphs, charts, so you can run executive and Management reports and monitor your project progress and take corrective actions wherever necessary.
The only issue i have seen with MS Project is backward compatibility wrt files by older versions of MS Project
Time Tracking
WorkTime is a PC Productivity and project work time tracking tool. This tool provides various options and categories under which you can track your time. The best part of this tool is that it allows you to create reports which give you an exact picture of the time statistics you logged. Users will be able to successfully slice and dice the data by activities, tasks and projects.
Defects and Issue Tracking
There are several Defects, issues and bug tracking tools available in the market. I am sure you also must have used quite a few in your projects so far.
I found JIRA very helpful and user friendly.
JIRA is an Issues and a Bug tracking Software. It is a very customizable, friendly and easy to use tool. JIRA offers a number of Plug-Ins for Time tracking plus Project Management.
Licensing cost and pricing are not too heavy. It is definitely a scalable and very secured system to use.
Another tool which is definitely a strong contender to JIRA is ClearQuest from IBM Rational. It has all the features that JIRA provides. One strong advantage of IBM Clearquest is its very Intuitive user friendly UI
Conference and Messaging
Microsoft Sharepoint is another easy publishing and sharing tool that allows the entire staff/Team to update, upload and download documents on the fly with features such as check ins and checkouts to prevent accidental delete of files. There is also a version and user tracking history maintained to audit who changed a document when and why.
This tool also does a lot more than just content management. Sharepoint will allow you to share workspaces, dashboards and portals across Projects and Teams internal and external via MySites thus help in project and cross project communication and collaboration. It also allows you to search internal Documents and message other employees for communications through a central portal system.
ActiveCollab is another project collaboration tool used for Content and Document Management across projects. This tool allows communication and coordination across multiple Teams and persons like Microsoft sharepoint. This tool can be used across multiple projects and has very Intuitive UI, is easy to use and provides value for the money.
The only disadvantage i would like to point out is, this product is no longer free as it once was.
There are other tools in the market like GoPlan and Basecamp which are also very similar functionally to ActiveCollab and one tool may win over the other on some subtle points.
Costing and Pricing
WinCost is a Cost and billing tracking tool that allows you to enter and track cost and pricing details on a project. This beauty of this tool is it provides realtime reports and statistics on the cost effectiveness of a project. It has a vast library of accounting rich fetures that will help you enter your accounting details.
This tool will allow you to do write offs, reconciliations and other accounting adjustments.
Again, this is in no way an exhaustive or a very up to date list. It is something i have pulled together based on what i have used over time or have seen some of my colleagues use to manage their projects.
If you have some other tool suggestions that others may benefit, please feel free to comment below.
This post attempts to touch upon a few which have had a long standing reputation and manage to get the job done. Please comment on any ones that you use but do not see in the list below and your view points on why you use them or should be used over any others.
Several of these tools available in the market are sold on a per User/Project or Organization level licenses. There are some tools that are open sources. Some of the tools are used based on personal user preferences or are simply organizational choices.
Most or all of these are available as a web version for easy information sharing across teams and facilitate collaboration.
If i were to select a Project Management tool my decision would be based on the following objectives, The tool/s should be
1> Cost effective
2> Rich functionally
3> Good Support and Customer service
4> Intuitive and scalable
Listed below are a few Project Management tools by their areas of application
Application LifeCycle Management
Application lifecycle consists to right from Project initiation, planning, execution, control and closure. The tool that serves most or all of these functional areas and has minimal need of other products integrations and plug ins and even if it does, can be easily integrated to the other product (e.g. Project Management tool integrating with a HR System or an accounting system etc)
There are several tools that are available for total Project life cycle management and are mostly used at the program level along with project level. They effectively support areas of projec planning, documentation, QA & Testing tracking, communications, scheduling, time tracking, resource management, content and issues management etc.
TeamForge Collabnet is one such complete application management tool that i have used which allows Collaborate development of multiple projects in areas such as
Testing, QA activities, issues and Tasks tracking etc. This is a web based tool which is extremely flexible in terms of environments support, other tools and processes to be integrated in a project.
Project planning and Scheduling
Microsoft Project is a Planning, Scheduling and Tracking tool which i am sure everyone is familiar with and has used at some point or another of their career. The reason for its popularity and wide use is its simplicity of use and functionally rich and user friendly Interface.
This tool allows you to manage and monitor multi million dollar large projects to small initiatives ranging in a thousand dollars. Though on smaller projects i always prefer to use Excel rather than MS Project. As they say, why use a cannon to kill a mosquito.
MS Project allows you to plot scheduling and tracking graphs, charts, so you can run executive and Management reports and monitor your project progress and take corrective actions wherever necessary.
The only issue i have seen with MS Project is backward compatibility wrt files by older versions of MS Project
Time Tracking
WorkTime is a PC Productivity and project work time tracking tool. This tool provides various options and categories under which you can track your time. The best part of this tool is that it allows you to create reports which give you an exact picture of the time statistics you logged. Users will be able to successfully slice and dice the data by activities, tasks and projects.
Defects and Issue Tracking
There are several Defects, issues and bug tracking tools available in the market. I am sure you also must have used quite a few in your projects so far.
I found JIRA very helpful and user friendly.
JIRA is an Issues and a Bug tracking Software. It is a very customizable, friendly and easy to use tool. JIRA offers a number of Plug-Ins for Time tracking plus Project Management.
Licensing cost and pricing are not too heavy. It is definitely a scalable and very secured system to use.
Another tool which is definitely a strong contender to JIRA is ClearQuest from IBM Rational. It has all the features that JIRA provides. One strong advantage of IBM Clearquest is its very Intuitive user friendly UI
Conference and Messaging
Microsoft Sharepoint is another easy publishing and sharing tool that allows the entire staff/Team to update, upload and download documents on the fly with features such as check ins and checkouts to prevent accidental delete of files. There is also a version and user tracking history maintained to audit who changed a document when and why.
This tool also does a lot more than just content management. Sharepoint will allow you to share workspaces, dashboards and portals across Projects and Teams internal and external via MySites thus help in project and cross project communication and collaboration. It also allows you to search internal Documents and message other employees for communications through a central portal system.
ActiveCollab is another project collaboration tool used for Content and Document Management across projects. This tool allows communication and coordination across multiple Teams and persons like Microsoft sharepoint. This tool can be used across multiple projects and has very Intuitive UI, is easy to use and provides value for the money.
The only disadvantage i would like to point out is, this product is no longer free as it once was.
There are other tools in the market like GoPlan and Basecamp which are also very similar functionally to ActiveCollab and one tool may win over the other on some subtle points.
Costing and Pricing
WinCost is a Cost and billing tracking tool that allows you to enter and track cost and pricing details on a project. This beauty of this tool is it provides realtime reports and statistics on the cost effectiveness of a project. It has a vast library of accounting rich fetures that will help you enter your accounting details.
This tool will allow you to do write offs, reconciliations and other accounting adjustments.
Again, this is in no way an exhaustive or a very up to date list. It is something i have pulled together based on what i have used over time or have seen some of my colleagues use to manage their projects.
If you have some other tool suggestions that others may benefit, please feel free to comment below.
Friday, July 8, 2011
First Time Project Manager - Steps to execute a project successfully
You have been appointed as a Project Manager on a very prestigious project and you want to make sure you do everything right, so there are no goof ups. At the same time you also feel that big churn in your stomach that says 'What if i get it wrong.....'
This article will try to address those concerns and talk about a few logical steps that can ensure you success not only for this project but for the next ones that come your way....It is as they say, well begun is half done.
Prerequisites
For any project to be successful, the onus lies on the Project Manager, he being the main coordinator, leader and the manager of the project.
Some projects succeed by the grace of god, but we will obviously not talk about that. We are talking about what steps a project Manager has to follow in order to succeed. Certain pre-requisites that need to be taken care of, by the project manager are,
1> Confidence
As a Project manager you have to have confidence in yourself, in your mannerisms and the work you do. Your attitude should be confident. Confidence goes a long way - it helps builds trust in the other party about you as a person and the work and skills that you bring to the table.
One uinversal truth is Confidence grows with experience. The more projects you handle, the more confident you are.
2> Knowledge
Be extremely knowledgable about your subject, of the project ins and outs, about project management as a methodology and its concepts. Know about the dependencies of the 5 cornerstones of any project - Customer, Quality, cost, resources and scope. Know about the Project Phases - Initiation, Planning, Execution and control and closure. Know about all the process steps involved in each phase.
3> Tools and Templates
Be armed with the tools and techniques that will help you execute the project successfully.
For instance - MS Project for Project planning. Templates for Risk Management, Communication Management, Issue resoultion, Status reporting Templates, budgeting and estimation templates etc. Know about tools like Sharepoint for Content management, Visio, MS Office etc.
4> Organization
Be aware of the organization that you will be working with, the org hiearchy, their business model, the culture, stakeholders, people, the management methodology used etc.
Steps for project success
1> Preparation
Make sure you have taken care of the prerequisites identified above. Right at the beginning of the project try to gather as much information as you can. Let the information be incomplete, but add it to your knowledge base.
Make sure you identify and set meetings with the project sponsors and stakeholders. Understand the project objectives and goals that they have in mind, understand their expectations from you, the team and the project.
Plan and understand the high level Project Scope, Cost, Timelines, Resources needs (If identified).
For example, If resource needs are not yet identified, then discuss those in details wrt skillset and specialities, years of experience, time lines required, Interview the resources and understand their expectations and needs.
Discuss how the project can be beneficial for them. what new technology, skillsets and knowledge that they can gain from the project and If they have any issues wrt timelines, work areas, identify and try to match them with project needs where you can. Plan for regular outings, meetings, get togethers with the Team so that they get to know each other better.
Check whether the organization has its own project execution methodology and ensure that your project complies to the standards and procedures set. Have your set of document templates ready that will need to be used in the project.
Do similar plannings with your stakeholders.
2> Project Kick off
Once all the above is done. Prepare your high level Project plan/Project charter. Here identify all the items related to Project timelines and scope, risks plan, communication plan, resource hierarchy - roles and responsibilities etc. The Project phases and milestones, processes related to acceptance criteria and sign offs that are all agreed upon by all parties.
Prepare an agenda for the kick off meeting (Preferrably a PPT and share it with the entire Team before hand)
Keep the Kickoff Meeting to the point. Discuss agenda items, introductions and identify the project objectives and expectations right at the beginning.
Have question and answers session at the end and identify, if there are any take away, action items identified
3> Project Planning and requirements gathering
Now that the kick off meetings are done and all the stakeholders are on the same page wrt the high level plan, start planning for the requirements phase. Prepare the agenda, End user attendees, expectations from each role.
Start planning and mapping out the project risks right from the beginning of the project. Meet with your Team regularly (based on the communication plan) and update your risk plan and project plan accordingly.
After the requirement sessions are done, prepare the requirements documents, Gap analysis documents. Work with the Develpoment Team and prepare the design docs
4> Communications
When everything else is going on, make sure you have a regular frequency meetings with your Team, the stakeholders, PMO so they get regular updates on project progress. You also need the buyins, responses to any issues that may need some intervention.
Have one on one meetings with your stakeholders to get a feel on their view of project progress. It may happen that you feel the project is on target and everything is good. But the stakeholders may have some issues.
For instance: You are working on a Insurance Policy Systems ID Card Bar coding project and you feel you are in line with the timelines identified. But the Stakeholders and end users may not necessarily be in the same happy state as you. They may have concerns wrt QA, final end user, Vendor (DMV) testing etc.
It always helps to have a one on one with your stakeholders to get their perspective on the project progress.
5> Development and Testing
Make sure you have regular meetings with your Development and Testing Teams. Work with them if they have any concerns.
e.g. a certain Policy integration project, requires a third party spell check software and will also need an upgrade to the application server. This can only be known to you as a project manager if you meet your Team regularly and then meet with the necessary parties like PMO or Infrastructure groups, QA and testing and see how they can help resolve this in a timely manner.
Keep the executive board in loop on any issues such as these so they can help you in escalations and timely responses.
6> Closure
The development and testing phases Are complete. You have had enough of Dry runs, End user testing, System, regression tests and defect resolution sessions, the project is finally ready for deployment.
Make sure all the acceptance crteria are met and signed off and have also identified the post production support plan.
A few weeks/days after deployment have a session with your Teams and prepare a lessons learned doc to identify the problems you faced during the projects and what could be done in a better manner the next time around, so the future Teams gain from your knowledge.
Make sure all equipment, material, documentation is completed and returned to the PMO or the IT Group after completion
In all, these are just some high level steps that you will need in any and every projects. Some projects may not go into great level of detail in all these steps, but it definitely helps to know these steps as it will help streamline your thought process and help you achieve success.
Do let me know your comments and feedback, if you liked the article and any points that you feel need mention or anything that you do or would do differently than what is identified here.
This article will try to address those concerns and talk about a few logical steps that can ensure you success not only for this project but for the next ones that come your way....It is as they say, well begun is half done.
Prerequisites
For any project to be successful, the onus lies on the Project Manager, he being the main coordinator, leader and the manager of the project.
Some projects succeed by the grace of god, but we will obviously not talk about that. We are talking about what steps a project Manager has to follow in order to succeed. Certain pre-requisites that need to be taken care of, by the project manager are,
1> Confidence
As a Project manager you have to have confidence in yourself, in your mannerisms and the work you do. Your attitude should be confident. Confidence goes a long way - it helps builds trust in the other party about you as a person and the work and skills that you bring to the table.
One uinversal truth is Confidence grows with experience. The more projects you handle, the more confident you are.
2> Knowledge
Be extremely knowledgable about your subject, of the project ins and outs, about project management as a methodology and its concepts. Know about the dependencies of the 5 cornerstones of any project - Customer, Quality, cost, resources and scope. Know about the Project Phases - Initiation, Planning, Execution and control and closure. Know about all the process steps involved in each phase.
3> Tools and Templates
Be armed with the tools and techniques that will help you execute the project successfully.
For instance - MS Project for Project planning. Templates for Risk Management, Communication Management, Issue resoultion, Status reporting Templates, budgeting and estimation templates etc. Know about tools like Sharepoint for Content management, Visio, MS Office etc.
4> Organization
Be aware of the organization that you will be working with, the org hiearchy, their business model, the culture, stakeholders, people, the management methodology used etc.
Steps for project success
1> Preparation
Make sure you have taken care of the prerequisites identified above. Right at the beginning of the project try to gather as much information as you can. Let the information be incomplete, but add it to your knowledge base.
Make sure you identify and set meetings with the project sponsors and stakeholders. Understand the project objectives and goals that they have in mind, understand their expectations from you, the team and the project.
Plan and understand the high level Project Scope, Cost, Timelines, Resources needs (If identified).
For example, If resource needs are not yet identified, then discuss those in details wrt skillset and specialities, years of experience, time lines required, Interview the resources and understand their expectations and needs.
Discuss how the project can be beneficial for them. what new technology, skillsets and knowledge that they can gain from the project and If they have any issues wrt timelines, work areas, identify and try to match them with project needs where you can. Plan for regular outings, meetings, get togethers with the Team so that they get to know each other better.
Check whether the organization has its own project execution methodology and ensure that your project complies to the standards and procedures set. Have your set of document templates ready that will need to be used in the project.
Do similar plannings with your stakeholders.
2> Project Kick off
Once all the above is done. Prepare your high level Project plan/Project charter. Here identify all the items related to Project timelines and scope, risks plan, communication plan, resource hierarchy - roles and responsibilities etc. The Project phases and milestones, processes related to acceptance criteria and sign offs that are all agreed upon by all parties.
Prepare an agenda for the kick off meeting (Preferrably a PPT and share it with the entire Team before hand)
Keep the Kickoff Meeting to the point. Discuss agenda items, introductions and identify the project objectives and expectations right at the beginning.
Have question and answers session at the end and identify, if there are any take away, action items identified
3> Project Planning and requirements gathering
Now that the kick off meetings are done and all the stakeholders are on the same page wrt the high level plan, start planning for the requirements phase. Prepare the agenda, End user attendees, expectations from each role.
Start planning and mapping out the project risks right from the beginning of the project. Meet with your Team regularly (based on the communication plan) and update your risk plan and project plan accordingly.
After the requirement sessions are done, prepare the requirements documents, Gap analysis documents. Work with the Develpoment Team and prepare the design docs
4> Communications
When everything else is going on, make sure you have a regular frequency meetings with your Team, the stakeholders, PMO so they get regular updates on project progress. You also need the buyins, responses to any issues that may need some intervention.
Have one on one meetings with your stakeholders to get a feel on their view of project progress. It may happen that you feel the project is on target and everything is good. But the stakeholders may have some issues.
For instance: You are working on a Insurance Policy Systems ID Card Bar coding project and you feel you are in line with the timelines identified. But the Stakeholders and end users may not necessarily be in the same happy state as you. They may have concerns wrt QA, final end user, Vendor (DMV) testing etc.
It always helps to have a one on one with your stakeholders to get their perspective on the project progress.
5> Development and Testing
Make sure you have regular meetings with your Development and Testing Teams. Work with them if they have any concerns.
e.g. a certain Policy integration project, requires a third party spell check software and will also need an upgrade to the application server. This can only be known to you as a project manager if you meet your Team regularly and then meet with the necessary parties like PMO or Infrastructure groups, QA and testing and see how they can help resolve this in a timely manner.
Keep the executive board in loop on any issues such as these so they can help you in escalations and timely responses.
6> Closure
The development and testing phases Are complete. You have had enough of Dry runs, End user testing, System, regression tests and defect resolution sessions, the project is finally ready for deployment.
Make sure all the acceptance crteria are met and signed off and have also identified the post production support plan.
A few weeks/days after deployment have a session with your Teams and prepare a lessons learned doc to identify the problems you faced during the projects and what could be done in a better manner the next time around, so the future Teams gain from your knowledge.
Make sure all equipment, material, documentation is completed and returned to the PMO or the IT Group after completion
In all, these are just some high level steps that you will need in any and every projects. Some projects may not go into great level of detail in all these steps, but it definitely helps to know these steps as it will help streamline your thought process and help you achieve success.
Do let me know your comments and feedback, if you liked the article and any points that you feel need mention or anything that you do or would do differently than what is identified here.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Technical Manager
What is a Technical Manager?
I often see Managers branded as a Technical Manager or a People Manager or a Coordinator or a Business Manager.So what exactly is a Technical Manager?.
A Technical Manager is usually a person who has worked in the Technical Domain and is a master of his skillset, knows his stuff like the back of his hand.
He is a well rounded individual with great Technical prowess as well as Management skills.
Focus of his Job profile includes Technical aspects of Project execution i.e. he acts as a liaison between the business teams and the development, QA and testing groups.
What would a Technical Manager do in a P&C Insurance Policy or Claims System implementation?
The Business Analysts have interacted with business and documented the requirements, now it is the job of the Technical Manager to understand and translate these requirements to proper design documents, Identify risks and mitigation strategies, Test plans, test cases and scenarios with the help of the requirements, development and Testing Teams. He is wholly responsible for the design, execution, control and monitoring phases of the project.
There is also the people aspect i.e. resource management, stakeholder management activities that require strong communication and soft skills. A Technical manager has to have these qualities to translate technical issues and topics to non technical stakeholders and get their buy-ins.
This point needs a mention here as Technical people are known to be less 'people friendly' and are more aligned towards a silo-work or are lone rangers as that, because that is how they must have worked during their pure hands on development days, the Technical Manager role requires you to be someone more than just a Technical expert.
Roles and Responsibilities
So at a very high level the roles and responsibilities of a Technical Manager include,
- Help identify the correct standards, procedures, tools and techniques to be followed in a project so as to benchmark and track the project progress
- Help identify the correct resource pool based on their strengths and weaknesses for requirements, development, testing and QA etc
- Help identify the configuration and change management procedure and ensure adherence to the same.
- Help in properly guiding teams in requirements, design, development and testing phases.
- Help identify the risks and issues associated with a project and plans to mitigate or resolve them.
- Plans for code reviews, testing plans and strategies as per the project standards set
- Help in System, user, regression testing and post production support activities.
- Lastly, monitor and control the project financials, so the projects stays ontime and within budget and within scope.
What makes an effective Technical Manager?
To be an effective Technical Manager
1> Strong Technical skills
Make sure you know what you are talking about. Be knowledgable about the Technical aspects of your project.
- Your Team members will respect you either for your Authority (which will not last long if you do not have the command over your Technical skills) or they will respect you for your 'Skills and Technical' knowledge - make your choice
2> Good communicator
Like i said before, your Technical development and Tech guru background will only get you so far. To progress to the next level, go up the career chain, you MUST have this one skill. As a Manager you will have to interact with different folks. e.g.
Stakeholders like the policy underwriters, Claims Representative, Financial executives, operations personnel etc.
Project Teams - Requirements, development, Testing, Infrastructure etc
This communication skill is a definite must because
- Internal development Teams will need to communicate with them about the development topics, milestones, issues faced, propose and discuss resolutions etc
- Stakeholders - To communicate the project risks and status items. To negotiate and get buy-ins on project topics etc
3> Good TeamPlayer
A project is as successful as the Team. So first and foremost, the project Manager has to ensure he has selected an effective team. The team is on mark with their deliverables and development and testing schedules. In case of any issues - personal and professional, you will have to work with the team to iron the issues out. A Project Manager has to be a strong influencer for his Project Team, there has to be a level of trust and understanding between the two.
Technically make sure the team follow the project standards and guidelines. Ensure that there are sufficient rewards and recognition, reviews and appraisals occur throughout the project. Ensure that there are some morale boosting activities like Team building workshops, team gettogethers
All of this is not possible unless the project Team works together.
How to progress your career as a Technical Manager?
Some of you may have got to this position as a part of career growth path or some may have been taken this option as an alternative job path. Whatever the case may be, make sure you perform your job sincerely and effectively.
All of the above points, not only help you be successful in your project, but they will also help you be a better Project Manager in the long run....What do you think? Let me know your thoughts and comments.....
I often see Managers branded as a Technical Manager or a People Manager or a Coordinator or a Business Manager.So what exactly is a Technical Manager?.
A Technical Manager is usually a person who has worked in the Technical Domain and is a master of his skillset, knows his stuff like the back of his hand.
He is a well rounded individual with great Technical prowess as well as Management skills.
Focus of his Job profile includes Technical aspects of Project execution i.e. he acts as a liaison between the business teams and the development, QA and testing groups.
What would a Technical Manager do in a P&C Insurance Policy or Claims System implementation?
The Business Analysts have interacted with business and documented the requirements, now it is the job of the Technical Manager to understand and translate these requirements to proper design documents, Identify risks and mitigation strategies, Test plans, test cases and scenarios with the help of the requirements, development and Testing Teams. He is wholly responsible for the design, execution, control and monitoring phases of the project.
There is also the people aspect i.e. resource management, stakeholder management activities that require strong communication and soft skills. A Technical manager has to have these qualities to translate technical issues and topics to non technical stakeholders and get their buy-ins.
This point needs a mention here as Technical people are known to be less 'people friendly' and are more aligned towards a silo-work or are lone rangers as that, because that is how they must have worked during their pure hands on development days, the Technical Manager role requires you to be someone more than just a Technical expert.
Roles and Responsibilities
So at a very high level the roles and responsibilities of a Technical Manager include,
- Help identify the correct standards, procedures, tools and techniques to be followed in a project so as to benchmark and track the project progress
- Help identify the correct resource pool based on their strengths and weaknesses for requirements, development, testing and QA etc
- Help identify the configuration and change management procedure and ensure adherence to the same.
- Help in properly guiding teams in requirements, design, development and testing phases.
- Help identify the risks and issues associated with a project and plans to mitigate or resolve them.
- Plans for code reviews, testing plans and strategies as per the project standards set
- Help in System, user, regression testing and post production support activities.
- Lastly, monitor and control the project financials, so the projects stays ontime and within budget and within scope.
What makes an effective Technical Manager?
To be an effective Technical Manager
1> Strong Technical skills
Make sure you know what you are talking about. Be knowledgable about the Technical aspects of your project.
- Your Team members will respect you either for your Authority (which will not last long if you do not have the command over your Technical skills) or they will respect you for your 'Skills and Technical' knowledge - make your choice
2> Good communicator
Like i said before, your Technical development and Tech guru background will only get you so far. To progress to the next level, go up the career chain, you MUST have this one skill. As a Manager you will have to interact with different folks. e.g.
Stakeholders like the policy underwriters, Claims Representative, Financial executives, operations personnel etc.
Project Teams - Requirements, development, Testing, Infrastructure etc
This communication skill is a definite must because
- Internal development Teams will need to communicate with them about the development topics, milestones, issues faced, propose and discuss resolutions etc
- Stakeholders - To communicate the project risks and status items. To negotiate and get buy-ins on project topics etc
3> Good TeamPlayer
A project is as successful as the Team. So first and foremost, the project Manager has to ensure he has selected an effective team. The team is on mark with their deliverables and development and testing schedules. In case of any issues - personal and professional, you will have to work with the team to iron the issues out. A Project Manager has to be a strong influencer for his Project Team, there has to be a level of trust and understanding between the two.
Technically make sure the team follow the project standards and guidelines. Ensure that there are sufficient rewards and recognition, reviews and appraisals occur throughout the project. Ensure that there are some morale boosting activities like Team building workshops, team gettogethers
All of this is not possible unless the project Team works together.
How to progress your career as a Technical Manager?
Some of you may have got to this position as a part of career growth path or some may have been taken this option as an alternative job path. Whatever the case may be, make sure you perform your job sincerely and effectively.
All of the above points, not only help you be successful in your project, but they will also help you be a better Project Manager in the long run....What do you think? Let me know your thoughts and comments.....
Thursday, June 30, 2011
System Rollout - Training before implementation
Training needs
Here is a typical project scenario...
Project development is done. Your policy and claims systems are fully configured, tested and are nearing deployment. The Client Organization has spent lots of money in developing the system. The Early business testing event that was sponsored for the end users, business users, agents, adjusters etc made them feel comfortable with the application and its features.
Their feedback so far -
- System looks good, why would i need training?
- I know what i need and how to get there in the System.
- I will look for training needs as and when i require.
- I don't think its worth the time and money to train other people especially after receiving good feedback from this focus business testing group.
These and some other similar responses is what we hear when we talk to busines users about training.
Of course, this is not the case everywhere, some users know the system better than others, some know all the quirks and work aorunds that exist in the system,but overall, somewhere at the bottom of their heart this is the common feeling with most of the business users.
There are some organizations who are fully and completely aware of the importance of training needs.
Training Advantages
Why do we need to get trained on the system
Similar understanding
When the project implementation team lays out the project roadmap, it plans for requirements, design, development, testing and implementation phases. It is equally important to have a training milestone in place, with the objective that all users are on the same page wrt system usage, understanding the attributes and functional quirks.
Change Management
Training forms a very important component of change management. It helps cultivate the importance of the implementation at the grass root levels and helps bring a feeling of oneness within the organization by addressing the issues, problems faced and the solutions proposed therein.
Benefit bottomline costs
Last and most important, Project success is dependant by the success of the implementation and the use of the application thereafter.
If the system implementation involves improvements to the business process and operational activities then training will help increase this awareness, bring a common understanding of the whole process.
It will also help strengthen and highlight the executive direction and perspective behind the implementation.
Training will thus improve the overall efficiency of the end users. This definitely will help to improve your bottomline benefits.
Training Objectives
What do we wish to attain from the training. The Objectives should be clear. Some examples
- It should address the training needs and issues faced by each and every user per the job functions.
To absorb and implement the functionality useful for your day to day operations (e.g. corresponding using System activities/dairies/notes rather than communicating via other time consuming and disconnect methods like hard copies, emails - which are outside the system)
- Make sure that the training is scalable in terms of the organization size
.
- Ensure the trained colleagues understand and propagate the platform and application features to their peers and try to answer their queries. If a question cannot be answered by them, let it be directed to members of the training cell or to the right personnel
Plan and prepare
There is no one size fit all solution here. For example, for a policy implementation you will need separate training modules for customer service, operations, underwriters, managers and supervisors so that each group can perform their job functions efficiently and effectively.
Along with having a separate training module, the training should be such that it meets requirements for candidates for all levels of understanding. e.g.
- Some users may not know the difference between backspace key on the computer vs the delete key
- Some users may understand bits and pieces of the application functionality, but not end to end
- Some users may be used to navigating through, by having worked on similar such applications in their prior jobs or past life
- Some users may just not want to change from System A to System B - reluctance to change
Hence there is a big component of change management that goes hand in hand with training
Before preparing your training material have one on one sessions with each groups of users as identified above and understand their specific training needs and requirements. Come up with a script that actually answers their questions.
The training sessions once done should be followed by a brief Q&A or if it is online have an assessment at the end to make sure the general understanding and the average grasp of training by the audience.
Training Methods
The various training options can be
Online training
This is an online computer based training. It serves as a self paced learning module where the trainee will study the application features as and how they find time and at their own pace and speed.
Hands on or classroom training with a fixed schedule
This is an instructor based training where people will sit and gain hands on experience of the module with instuctor guidance.
Learning using training material
This is also a self paced training where training material is shared with the attendees. This includes material explaining the system and usually followed by step by step screenshots.
Training on the job
i.e. Having the person work as a shadow or apprentice/intern and gets mentored or guided by a senior member on the job. The trainee will face real life scenarios and will use the application to work those.
Make sure you as the training lead or instructor has done a dry run using a sufficient number of people and ironed out all the difficulties and issues present. After all the planning, prepare a proper training schedule, have a concise and clear agenda and propagate it to the attendees as required.
Organizations can benefit by having a well planned training scheduled. Resources who get trained using the methods identified above, not only help themselves by making their jobs easier, faster and error free, inturn they also help improve the organization bottomline who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing the system
So in all to ensure that your project actually hits a homerun after implementation, it is necessary to have a proper training module near the end of the project.
Here is a typical project scenario...
Project development is done. Your policy and claims systems are fully configured, tested and are nearing deployment. The Client Organization has spent lots of money in developing the system. The Early business testing event that was sponsored for the end users, business users, agents, adjusters etc made them feel comfortable with the application and its features.
Their feedback so far -
- System looks good, why would i need training?
- I know what i need and how to get there in the System.
- I will look for training needs as and when i require.
- I don't think its worth the time and money to train other people especially after receiving good feedback from this focus business testing group.
These and some other similar responses is what we hear when we talk to busines users about training.
Of course, this is not the case everywhere, some users know the system better than others, some know all the quirks and work aorunds that exist in the system,but overall, somewhere at the bottom of their heart this is the common feeling with most of the business users.
There are some organizations who are fully and completely aware of the importance of training needs.
Training Advantages
Why do we need to get trained on the system
Similar understanding
When the project implementation team lays out the project roadmap, it plans for requirements, design, development, testing and implementation phases. It is equally important to have a training milestone in place, with the objective that all users are on the same page wrt system usage, understanding the attributes and functional quirks.
Change Management
Training forms a very important component of change management. It helps cultivate the importance of the implementation at the grass root levels and helps bring a feeling of oneness within the organization by addressing the issues, problems faced and the solutions proposed therein.
Benefit bottomline costs
Last and most important, Project success is dependant by the success of the implementation and the use of the application thereafter.
If the system implementation involves improvements to the business process and operational activities then training will help increase this awareness, bring a common understanding of the whole process.
It will also help strengthen and highlight the executive direction and perspective behind the implementation.
Training will thus improve the overall efficiency of the end users. This definitely will help to improve your bottomline benefits.
Training Objectives
What do we wish to attain from the training. The Objectives should be clear. Some examples
- It should address the training needs and issues faced by each and every user per the job functions.
To absorb and implement the functionality useful for your day to day operations (e.g. corresponding using System activities/dairies/notes rather than communicating via other time consuming and disconnect methods like hard copies, emails - which are outside the system)
- Make sure that the training is scalable in terms of the organization size
.
- Ensure the trained colleagues understand and propagate the platform and application features to their peers and try to answer their queries. If a question cannot be answered by them, let it be directed to members of the training cell or to the right personnel
Plan and prepare
There is no one size fit all solution here. For example, for a policy implementation you will need separate training modules for customer service, operations, underwriters, managers and supervisors so that each group can perform their job functions efficiently and effectively.
Along with having a separate training module, the training should be such that it meets requirements for candidates for all levels of understanding. e.g.
- Some users may not know the difference between backspace key on the computer vs the delete key
- Some users may understand bits and pieces of the application functionality, but not end to end
- Some users may be used to navigating through, by having worked on similar such applications in their prior jobs or past life
- Some users may just not want to change from System A to System B - reluctance to change
Hence there is a big component of change management that goes hand in hand with training
Before preparing your training material have one on one sessions with each groups of users as identified above and understand their specific training needs and requirements. Come up with a script that actually answers their questions.
The training sessions once done should be followed by a brief Q&A or if it is online have an assessment at the end to make sure the general understanding and the average grasp of training by the audience.
Training Methods
The various training options can be
Online training
This is an online computer based training. It serves as a self paced learning module where the trainee will study the application features as and how they find time and at their own pace and speed.
Hands on or classroom training with a fixed schedule
This is an instructor based training where people will sit and gain hands on experience of the module with instuctor guidance.
Learning using training material
This is also a self paced training where training material is shared with the attendees. This includes material explaining the system and usually followed by step by step screenshots.
Training on the job
i.e. Having the person work as a shadow or apprentice/intern and gets mentored or guided by a senior member on the job. The trainee will face real life scenarios and will use the application to work those.
Make sure you as the training lead or instructor has done a dry run using a sufficient number of people and ironed out all the difficulties and issues present. After all the planning, prepare a proper training schedule, have a concise and clear agenda and propagate it to the attendees as required.
Organizations can benefit by having a well planned training scheduled. Resources who get trained using the methods identified above, not only help themselves by making their jobs easier, faster and error free, inturn they also help improve the organization bottomline who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing the system
So in all to ensure that your project actually hits a homerun after implementation, it is necessary to have a proper training module near the end of the project.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
IT Understanding by Business
What is Technology?
The dictionary meaning of Technology is "Applying skills and knowledge towards use of Tools and Techniques to serve a purpose". In the Insurance domain, IT Technology is the use of Computers and its associated tools and techniques so as to solve a business issue or serve a business purpose.
Let's say an organization goes for the latest and greatest Policy and Claims administration system investing millions of dollars to phase out their rigid and inflexible legacy Policy administration application. They have hired tens, if not hundreds of IT workers who must work with business and try to get the job done by understanding the business objectives and painpoints and resolve them by using the IT solutions based on the functionality supported by the product and use of their own years of experience.
IT side of Business and its Advantages
To achieve this and similar objectives, it is very important for business to be aware and be abreast of the IT world, to understand the IT jargon that goes on today. Parallely IT also has to understand the business processes, their jargons and painpoints and try to bridge the gap that exists between the two so as to make the job easier.
But the focus for this post is the Business side understanding of IT - Why do we need it? and how do we culminate it?
There are a lot of technology areas that are closely associated with business and having a fair understanding definitely helps and makes your job easier as a Business analyst. For e.g. in the Insurance world, understanding XMLs for sending data across applications, configuring policy, claims and billing applications for user administration, organizational setup, permissions and access, rating rules configuration etc are all areas that are closely associated to the day to day working of the business folks. Lots of Policy, Claims, CRM applications nowadays have a business rules configuration engine which will allow business users to setup business rules without the intervention of Technical group and will thus save cost and time to rollout. The output will also be of a better quality due to the involvement of business who will ensure all day to day and boundary scenarios are well tested.
Knowledge of IT would definitely give business users a good perspective on how things progress from requirements to design to development to testing before making it to the floors. They would be able to better understand the estimates provided by development, cross question and correct the estimates to more real world numbers.
Sometime business people get intimidated and lost in the technical jargon. So it definitely helps to know the tech talk so both Technical and business folks are on the same page. Business definitely stands to gain if they understand the nuances of the functional and technical features of the application along with knowing the tools of usage just as IT would gain if it understands the day to day business process of the applications they work on.
Business should be and nowadays is getting more and more technology savvy. The Gap between Technology and Business is reducing.faster than an ice cream cone in a hot afternoon. There exists a set of business SMEs who not only understand their busines but also the Technology aspect to an extent, but they may not get the whole picture due to various reasons,
1> Not enough technical inclination
- There is a set of business users who have got so used to their own way of doing things that they do not want to change. For example - Some people are so used to use to the abacus for doing calculations that they do not want to switch over to using the latest calculator. Agreed, Abacus has its advantages, but certainly calculator gives you more features and does it faster and with rapid scalability and flexibility.
For e.g. Calculating Rates and premium in an excel though worked as a solution in the old ages, in the new world we have application features that will do the calculations for you or using a desk calendar for policy premium, insured letter reminders rather than using the latest automatic activity and diary reminders that the applications provide out of the box.
2> Know as you go attitude
- I will learn about it when i get there. Procastination is another reason that many smart and intelligent business people do not use their knowledge in understanding IT which otherwise would serve as a great benefit, not just to that individual but also to the organization as a whole.
3> "Who needs this" attitude
- Mr. know-it-all attitude is another detrimental roadbock that delineates project progress faster than you can imagine.
Why does business need to understand IT?
1> Improve solution efficiency
- To efficiently and colaboratively work on Projects. It is necessary for IT and business to understand each other and make sure information does not get lost in translation. e.g. Business says, "Customer service should have the latest billing and payments information so that they can effectively communicate with customers"
Now business has to know and understand
- If financials are stored in the same "Policy & Claims System" or are retrieved from a different system altogether
- Is a realtime integration possible between the financial system and customer portal
- If not, is a nightly batch an option? How long? when does the process run?
- What information is available in the financial system so the type of information to be retrieved can be designed and developed.
- Last but not the least, design and develop a solution that is technically feasible, scalable, flexible and is intuitive to customers, business and the end operations teams alike.
2> Save costs and improve quality of output
- Business involvement in Technology will save lots of back and forth communications and confusions, unnecessary meetings between IT and business.
This will also improve the final quality of output due to the clear requirements and also final real scenario and boundary testing done by business
3> Functionality
- The more business understands about technology, the easier they will be able to put their ideas across and inturn will be able to develop and suggest solutions that are more closer to the real needs and are also technically feasible.
4> Advance knowldege
- Doing all of the above will not help the project and overall organization, but will also help and develop your individual skillsets and improve and expand your area of knowledge. Thus it will help you be more competitive and assist in reaching your career goals
How to achieve this?
1> Explore and understand Technology and business
- Read articles related to technology and business. Be curious, try and understand the daily happenings in the IT world.
- Explore applications
The applications that you work on, spend sometime to understand the fine points, nuances, the small functional quirks that they provide and try to build on that. This will help you not only understand the application's current capabilities but will also help you improvise on them so you can build a better product.
2> Ask Questions
- Ask questions when something is not clear or does not make sense why it is happening. Find a mentor who has a role similar to yours or is from the IT domain. So he/she can explain and resolve your doubts.
3> Training
- Finally training, nothing beats getting trained on the system that will be your source of "if not bread and butter then Jam and Honey"
- If possible, undergo training where you can learn all about Business analyst responsibilities and profile, What does it take to be a successful BA and a technologist?
4> Organization Culture
- IT understanding of business depends strongly upon on the organization culture, the methodologies that are followed for executing a project. How much intearaction and collboration exists between IT and business departments.
- Organizations should also focus on mentoring business folks and having something like a buddy system in place so business and IT work in an aligned fashion.
Doing all this is definitely beneficial to the organization and will help build a stronger and a knowledgable workforce who will help curb the overall organization costs and help in successful project implementations.
The dictionary meaning of Technology is "Applying skills and knowledge towards use of Tools and Techniques to serve a purpose". In the Insurance domain, IT Technology is the use of Computers and its associated tools and techniques so as to solve a business issue or serve a business purpose.
Let's say an organization goes for the latest and greatest Policy and Claims administration system investing millions of dollars to phase out their rigid and inflexible legacy Policy administration application. They have hired tens, if not hundreds of IT workers who must work with business and try to get the job done by understanding the business objectives and painpoints and resolve them by using the IT solutions based on the functionality supported by the product and use of their own years of experience.
IT side of Business and its Advantages
To achieve this and similar objectives, it is very important for business to be aware and be abreast of the IT world, to understand the IT jargon that goes on today. Parallely IT also has to understand the business processes, their jargons and painpoints and try to bridge the gap that exists between the two so as to make the job easier.
But the focus for this post is the Business side understanding of IT - Why do we need it? and how do we culminate it?
There are a lot of technology areas that are closely associated with business and having a fair understanding definitely helps and makes your job easier as a Business analyst. For e.g. in the Insurance world, understanding XMLs for sending data across applications, configuring policy, claims and billing applications for user administration, organizational setup, permissions and access, rating rules configuration etc are all areas that are closely associated to the day to day working of the business folks. Lots of Policy, Claims, CRM applications nowadays have a business rules configuration engine which will allow business users to setup business rules without the intervention of Technical group and will thus save cost and time to rollout. The output will also be of a better quality due to the involvement of business who will ensure all day to day and boundary scenarios are well tested.
Knowledge of IT would definitely give business users a good perspective on how things progress from requirements to design to development to testing before making it to the floors. They would be able to better understand the estimates provided by development, cross question and correct the estimates to more real world numbers.
Sometime business people get intimidated and lost in the technical jargon. So it definitely helps to know the tech talk so both Technical and business folks are on the same page. Business definitely stands to gain if they understand the nuances of the functional and technical features of the application along with knowing the tools of usage just as IT would gain if it understands the day to day business process of the applications they work on.
Business should be and nowadays is getting more and more technology savvy. The Gap between Technology and Business is reducing.faster than an ice cream cone in a hot afternoon. There exists a set of business SMEs who not only understand their busines but also the Technology aspect to an extent, but they may not get the whole picture due to various reasons,
1> Not enough technical inclination
- There is a set of business users who have got so used to their own way of doing things that they do not want to change. For example - Some people are so used to use to the abacus for doing calculations that they do not want to switch over to using the latest calculator. Agreed, Abacus has its advantages, but certainly calculator gives you more features and does it faster and with rapid scalability and flexibility.
For e.g. Calculating Rates and premium in an excel though worked as a solution in the old ages, in the new world we have application features that will do the calculations for you or using a desk calendar for policy premium, insured letter reminders rather than using the latest automatic activity and diary reminders that the applications provide out of the box.
2> Know as you go attitude
- I will learn about it when i get there. Procastination is another reason that many smart and intelligent business people do not use their knowledge in understanding IT which otherwise would serve as a great benefit, not just to that individual but also to the organization as a whole.
3> "Who needs this" attitude
- Mr. know-it-all attitude is another detrimental roadbock that delineates project progress faster than you can imagine.
Why does business need to understand IT?
1> Improve solution efficiency
- To efficiently and colaboratively work on Projects. It is necessary for IT and business to understand each other and make sure information does not get lost in translation. e.g. Business says, "Customer service should have the latest billing and payments information so that they can effectively communicate with customers"
Now business has to know and understand
- If financials are stored in the same "Policy & Claims System" or are retrieved from a different system altogether
- Is a realtime integration possible between the financial system and customer portal
- If not, is a nightly batch an option? How long? when does the process run?
- What information is available in the financial system so the type of information to be retrieved can be designed and developed.
- Last but not the least, design and develop a solution that is technically feasible, scalable, flexible and is intuitive to customers, business and the end operations teams alike.
2> Save costs and improve quality of output
- Business involvement in Technology will save lots of back and forth communications and confusions, unnecessary meetings between IT and business.
This will also improve the final quality of output due to the clear requirements and also final real scenario and boundary testing done by business
3> Functionality
- The more business understands about technology, the easier they will be able to put their ideas across and inturn will be able to develop and suggest solutions that are more closer to the real needs and are also technically feasible.
4> Advance knowldege
- Doing all of the above will not help the project and overall organization, but will also help and develop your individual skillsets and improve and expand your area of knowledge. Thus it will help you be more competitive and assist in reaching your career goals
How to achieve this?
1> Explore and understand Technology and business
- Read articles related to technology and business. Be curious, try and understand the daily happenings in the IT world.
- Explore applications
The applications that you work on, spend sometime to understand the fine points, nuances, the small functional quirks that they provide and try to build on that. This will help you not only understand the application's current capabilities but will also help you improvise on them so you can build a better product.
2> Ask Questions
- Ask questions when something is not clear or does not make sense why it is happening. Find a mentor who has a role similar to yours or is from the IT domain. So he/she can explain and resolve your doubts.
3> Training
- Finally training, nothing beats getting trained on the system that will be your source of "if not bread and butter then Jam and Honey"
- If possible, undergo training where you can learn all about Business analyst responsibilities and profile, What does it take to be a successful BA and a technologist?
4> Organization Culture
- IT understanding of business depends strongly upon on the organization culture, the methodologies that are followed for executing a project. How much intearaction and collboration exists between IT and business departments.
- Organizations should also focus on mentoring business folks and having something like a buddy system in place so business and IT work in an aligned fashion.
Doing all this is definitely beneficial to the organization and will help build a stronger and a knowledgable workforce who will help curb the overall organization costs and help in successful project implementations.
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