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.

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..."

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]

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Product management vs. Project management

Project managers are responsible for the successful delivery of a project — a one-time endeavor with a goal, scope, deadline, budget, and other constraints. A project manager will work to align resources, manage issues and risks, and basically coordinate all of the various elements necessary to complete the project. As they relate to products, projects can be undertaken to build a product, to add new features to a product, or create new versions or extensions of a product. When the project is complete, the project manager will usually move move to a new project, which may be related to a different product.

Product managers are responsible for the overall and ongoing success of a product. Once the project to build the product is complete and the project manager has moved on, the product manager remains to manage the product through the entire lifecycle. Other projects related to the product may be initiated, with the product manager being the one constant stream throughout, defining the project goals and guiding the team to accomplish the business objectives that have been defined.

There are some important points to keep in mind related to project management and product management:

■ Just like every product needs a product manager, every project needs a project manager.
■ Just because product managers think they can manage their own projects does not mean they should.
■ The skills, talents, and traits involved in project management are very different from those involved in product management.
■ Just like it is hard to find one single person who can fill the product management role and the product marketing role, it is hard to find one person who can be successful at both the product management and the project management role.
■ Project management is not a stepping stone to product management, nor vice versa.
■ Good project managers are just as valuable as good product managers.
■ Finding a good project manager to manage your projects will help you be an even better product manager.
■ The less time product managers spend on project management, the more time they will be able to spend on product management.
■ To avoid conflicts between product management and project management, product managers, project managers, and project teams should all agree on shared goals and objectives as much as possible.

[Source]

New Wikipedia Redesign is Coming Soon

Wikipedia is close to rolling out a new design that it hopes will make the “user-edited” encyclopedia easier to use and navigate, and thus potentially appeal to new users more than the slightly clunky-looking current site. A note from the User Experience team at the Wikimedia blog says the new design — code-named “Vector” — will be launched on April 5 for all users who visit Wikimedia Commons, the media repository for the encyclopedia. If that goes well, the redesign will then be rolled out to all users of the English version of Wikipedia and then to versions of the site in other languages.

Source

Harr Color Kuch Kaheta hai...

Red: Passion, Love, Anger
Orange: Energy, Happiness, Vitality
Yellow: Happiness, Hope
Green: New Beginnings, Abundance, Nature
Blue: Calm, Responsible, Sadness
Purple: Creativity, Royalty, Wealth
Black: Mystery, Elegance, Evil
Gray: Moody, Conservative, Formality
White: Purity, Cleanliness, Virtue
Brown: Nature, Wholesomeness, Dependability
Tan or Beige: Conservative, Piety, Dull
Cream or Ivory: Calm, Elegant, Purity

Source

Internet bus to criss cross eight towns in Kerala

Google’s “Internet Bus” will crisscross Kerala covering eight towns in the next 25 days providing online experience to the people of the state.

The bus - a custom desgined mobile vehicle, which started from Tamil Nadu in February this year, has already travelled over 10,000 km across four states in the last 10 months, Dr Prasad Ram, Head R&D Google India, told reporters here. It would travel through Kochi, Alapuzha, Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Palakkad, Kozhikode and Thalassery, he said.

“The bus journey has touched the lives of over 400,000 Indians across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, helping them understand how they can use internet to do everyday things more easily,” he said.

The internet bus would focus on four themes - Information, Communication, Entertainment and Education and showcase informative content in both English and Malayalam to provide users an understanding of how internet can be used, he said.

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

Chrome OS can start a PC in less than 7 seconds

New Google software will start up a computer as fast as a television, according to Google, as it showed off its Chrome operating system designed for computers.
Source

Events related to ‘Design in India’ in the month of November 2009

November 2009. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Happening:‘An Arc of Infinity’ – making of the world's longest 'Graffiti Scroll'Nov 1, 2009 at IDC, IIT Bombay http://www.inaplanetofourown.net/
2. International Conference, Workshops, Exhibition:'In a Planet of Our Own' - A Vision of Sustainability from across six continentsNov 3 - 7, 2009 at IDC, IIT Bombay http://www.inaplanetofourown.net/
3. TED Conference:‘Ted India – the future beckonsNov 4 - 7, 2009 at Mysore http://conferences.ted.com/TEDIndia/
4. Roundtable on trends at NIFT, DelhiINSIGHT INDIA 2009 organised by Onio Design and Style-Vision with supporting institution NIFT, Delhi6 – 7 November 2009, New Delhihttp://www.oniodesign.com/roundtable
5. Conference
   The NASSCOM Animation & Gaming India 20096 – 7 November 2009, Hyderabad http://www.nasscom.org/nasscom/templates/flagshipEvents.aspx?id=57264
6. Related Conference: at Delhi ‘India Economic Summit 2009'
   Theme: India's Next Generation of Growth8-10 November, in Delhi at Taj Palace Hotel http://www.weforum.org/en/events/IndiaEconomicSummit2009
7. Workshop in Ahmedabad:‘Design Ergonomics’November 11-13, 2009 at NID, Ahmedabad http://www.nid.edu/nidworkshop/workshop_user.aspx
8. International Trade fair at New Delhi ‘India International Trade Fair (IITF) 2009’14th – 27th November, 2009 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi http://www.iitfonweb.com/
9. Conference in Aligarh:‘Ergonomics for Improved Productivity’ 21-22 November 2009 at Z H College of Engineering & Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarhhttp://sites.google.com/a/zhcet.ac.in/eip2009/Home

If you know of other events related to design in India, do email:contact[at]designinindia.net orcontact[at]in-de-as.org 'Design, Peace and Cheers'
The above event list taken from HCIIDC forum.

Chowmahalla Palace - Timings

This might be useful information for tourist who are planning to visit this wonderful palace in Hyderabad.

Chowmahalla Palace

Open: All Days except Friday
Closed: Fridays and National Holidays
Timings: 10.00am to 5.00pm

Flickr Reaches 4 Billion Photos, Continues to Grow

It seems that every autumn, Flickr continues to pass over yet another landmark in image hosting. While in November 2007, it reached the 2 billion photo mark and in the month of November 2008 it reached the next milestone, 3 billion, the company got ahead of itself with one month and reached the 4 billion mark a few days ago.

The photo can be viewed here and was immediately noticed as the lucky image upload by one of Flickr's users. This comes to no surprise to industry experts who share a general opinion that Flickr will be hard to take down as the top image hosting service by any of its competition. This includes Wikimedia Commons, PhotoBucket or ImageShack.

And if some of those industry experts don't agree with their colleagues, a “Flickr is Hiring” blog post published a month ago should convince them that the service is clearly in an expansion period. Checking the Jobs Page on Flickr, we found out that the jobs are still opened “for a few talented geeks to join […] (a) panda-wrangling, daily-deploying, shard-juggling squad, based in downtown San Francisco.”

Capitalizing on its huge success, Yahoo also jumped on the Flickr bandwagon, recently adding its logo to the Flickr service. Even if it owned Flickr for a long-time now (March 2005), this was the first time it publicly displayed its logo on Flickr's page. Users were quick to jump at criticizing Yahoo for its lack of marketing effort all these years, only to pop its trademark when things got really good.

The main core of the Yahoo criticism is rooted in the days of 2007, when many Yahoo! Photos users where forced to migrate to another image hosting company, mainly Flickr (options for Multiply, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak Gallery or Photobucket were added later), being informed that Yahoo! Photos would shut down and the photos deleted.

In the beginning, not many of those users were informed that Flickr was owned by Yahoo at that time, so a big number of them still think that Yahoo had abandoned them a couple of years ago, and now comes in to force its logo inside a service that they had not fully recognized or marketed as an entire Yahoo product all these years.

Source

AP Flood Disaster: A step further!

AP is witnessing a flood disaster in the state that has taken away lives, property and has displaced many people. Thousands have lost their lives and many are left homeless.

People were trapped in many parts of the state in worst floods in recent memory inundated the districts in Andhra Pradesh. People have lost their houses and belongings. The standing crops are gone. Flood has destroyed the total source of their livelihood. Many families are also struggling to cope amid food shortages.

When you lose everything it is very hard to recover, however a helping hand from you will bail them out temporarily out of starvation.

VLF has always been in the fore-front in responding and helping the needy. VLF has joined hands with HYSEA & NASSCOM who are helping in coordinating and ensuring that the collections reach the needy in time.

Source (ValueLabs)

Usability and Accessibility

Usability
Usability is a measure of the quality of a user’s experience in interacting with information or services. It is about making web sites easy for customers to find the exact information they need when they need it. Usability is affected by a combination of factors including look-and-feel, navigation, interface design, information architecture, accessibility and compatibility.

Accessibility
Information on the Web is accessible when it achieves the highest level of usability - it means that everyone can find and use it. Offering equal access to disabled users is compelling, helps to build Web site audience and grow a loyal customer base.

(Source)