Thursday, November 24, 2011

Google kills off seven more products including Wave

Google has announced that it is dropping seven more products in an effort to simplify its range of services.
The out-of-season "spring clean" brings an end to services including Google Wave, Knol and Google Gears.
It is the third time that the US firm has announced a cull of several of its products at the same time after they had failed to take off.

Experts said the strategy might put off users from signing up to new services.
Google announced the move in its official blog.

"We're in the process of shutting a number of products which haven't had the impact we'd hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward," said Urs Holzle, Google's vice president of operations.

"Overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience," he added.

[Source]

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Cleared PMP on 23rd May 2011

I was happy to clear PMP (Project Management Professional) Certification from PMI (Project Management Institute) on 23rd May 2011.

It was overall a fascinating journey while Preparing for PMP exam. It took almost 8-9 months. I will be writing more on what study process I followed under the guidance of Pradeep Dhanaraj. He is more of Mentor and close friend to me than a office colleague.

PMP Study process or the approach which we took will be published very soon.

Minimum Viable Product

Just saw one of the youTube videos of Marty Cagan on Product Management. This time his topic was on Minimum Viable Product. Based on his opinion it is smallest possible product that really meets 3 criteria:
  1. VALUABLE - Users will choose to buy/use it...
  2. USABLE - Assuming they want to use it, they should figure out HOW to use it...
  3. FEASIBLE - If it meets above 2 criteria we/company should build and use it when it is needed...
Generally the evidence of Minimum Viable Product is collected using prototypes (user prototypes & live data prototypes) and user testing (face to face or split testing).

Friday, September 09, 2011

Water Usage Calculator

http://thameswater.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/corp/hs.xsl/536.htm

While surfing came across this useful website on how to save water and to check water usage.

-Prash

Friday, August 19, 2011

Agile Roles

Product Owner is responsible for "What" part of it.
Team is responsible for "How" part of it.
Scrum Master or Project Manager is responsible for "Process".

Friday, August 12, 2011

Usability Presentation

It was pleasant experience to take a session on Usability in my office. Almost after 2 years I connected my roots to UX world and it refreshed me a lot. In the session I touched upon various principles of Usability by giving real life examples so that my colleagues understands them correctly. I also discussed about bad usability examples by showing few images of Local Trains Restroom, burner etc.

To clear the understanding of Conceptual Model and how it can be applied to interface designing, I gave an exercise to the audience for adding a contact to others mobile phone of different mobile company.

After sharing couple of examples on how Usability can be applied to real life objects around us, asked everyone to note down 1 or 2 items that they think in our quadrant should be more usable or not usable at all. Everyone came up with various items that impacted their day to day activities in office due to bad usability product.

Overall, it was a nice experience to brush upon Usability Principles. I am hoping to take such very often.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

PMBOK and Agile

After getting PMP certified in May 2011, recently, I conducted a session in my company on an Overview of Agile and Scrum. This allowed me to explore Agile further and further, which took me to the point where I started getting a feeling and hearing that PMBOK is Waterfall Methodology based process and Agile is not part of it.

I started googling and also viewed YouTube videos to my doubts. Finally, I found different supportive videos and pages which proved that it was my misconception, my myth. PMBOK is guide, it is standards for Project Management. PMBOK teaches of WHAT do in Project management and Agile's different methodology teaches you HOW to implement that in Software Development by using suitable methodology like Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Crystal, Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Feature-Driven Development (FDD), Lean Software Development. PMBOK is a guide and Agile's methodology tells you how to do. PMBOK does not echo waterfall.

Agile is a philosophy. Agile is a way of Thinking and not just doing.

Chillar Party - Movie Review - 4/5




Movie Chillar Party... Rocks!!! 4/5
I like the way kids have acted. Specially "Jaangya" boy.

It reminded me the way we used to give nick names to our friends. Few of the special nick names were "Helen", "Champaa", "Papad", "Chadda", "Lolla", "Hanger", "Pandu", "Chamdi", "Hawa", "Mummy", "Mulla"... :)... we still call each other by those names :)

Other highlight of the movie was Kid Rhymes in Tapori Style...
Jack and Jill... gaye Sumdi mein Hill..
To fetch a pail of Water....
Jack tha Akela... and Jill thi Akeli...
Life mein Lochaa.. thereafter...

Do watch this movie!!!

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Emotional Intelligence and Projects

Reading Emotional Intelligence and Projects by Nicholas Clarke. This book attracted my attention and I am curious to know what is it about. It's review will be coming soon from me.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Books and me: Book Review: The Palace of Illusions

Following article was written by one of my colleague Sudheer Penubarthy. I am impressed with his skills of narrating his experience after reading a book.

Books and me: Book Review: The Palace of Illusions: "Here we go another book of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, though I saw the author of the book after picking the book up because, to be truthful..."

Monday, July 25, 2011

Scrum Terminology

Following article on Scrum is very well defined. I think this would be useful for few out there...

Scrum Terminology

is made up of three roles, four ceremonies, and three artifacts.

Three roles

  • Product owner: responsible for the business value of the project
  • ScrumMaster: ensures that the team is functional and productive
  • Team: self-organizes to get the work done

Four ceremonies

  • Sprint planning: the team meets with the product owner to choose a set of work to deliver during a sprint
  • Daily scrum: the team meets each day to share struggles and progress
  • Sprint reviews: the team demonstrates to the product owner what it has completed during the sprint
  • Sprint retrospectives: the team looks for ways to improve the product and the process.

Three artifacts

  • Product backlog: prioritized list of desired project outcomes/features
  • Sprint backlog: set of work from the product backlog that the team agrees to complete in a sprint, broken into tasks
  • Burndown chart: at-a-glance look at the work remaining (can have two charts: one for the sprint and one for the overall project)
[Source]

Thursday, July 21, 2011

What is Velocity in Agile Environment?

Velocity is the rate at which Sprint teams delivers business value at consistent rate. Velocity is calculated by adding story points of the user stories which are successfully accepted by business in a sprint.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Recently I took a session in my company on SaaS and Cloud Computing.
Here I am sharing few information about it.

Definition of SaaS
It is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally (typically in the (Internet) cloud) and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.

Advantages for Customers
  • No Capital Expenditure
  • No Software Installation Cost
  • No Maintenance Cost
  • No Upgrades Headache
All above is done by SaaS Providers

Disadvantages of SaaS
  • Security and confidentiality
  • Choose ISO 27001-certified, or equivalently trustworthy partnering data center
  • Risk of data loss
  • Dependence on high speed internet
  • Low predictability of cost
  • Not all applications have SaaS versions yet
  • In many cases SaaS versions may not be as powerful as non-SaaS ones

When to use Saas
  • intercompany projects are initiated
  • Partners and customers need to be connected within a project
  • new software is being tested in pilot projects
  • you expect to use new software, unencumbered, straight out of the box
  • Your organization lacks an internal IT department

When Not to use Saas
  • In-house professional IT support
  • highly confidential data
  • large number of ongoing projects with many participants
  • Continuous customization required

It holds little potential for a project-oriented company with its own IT.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Subscribe Work Breakdown Structure: Purpose, Process and Pitfalls

Just read following article and I found it useful to understand WBS clearly.

http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/work-breakdown-structure-purpose-process-pitfalls.html

Monday, May 30, 2011

Test

Scope Creep

By definition of PMBOK:
Adding features and functionality (project scope) without addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or without customer approval.

Case Study: New Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, USA.
60 percent: The amount workload increased as a result of scope creep.
US$450 million: The increase in the budget as a result of scope creep.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Product Scope Vs Project Scope

Project Scope:
All the work which goes into to produce the product/result is called Project Scope. It is measured against the project management plan.

Product Scope:
All work which changes product requirements is called Product Scope.
It is measured against product requirement