Posts related to IT and Project Management.
This seems to be a cardinal sin that many web sites are committing. In order to prevent any potential security issues or accidentally divulging the system architecture, all systems that are LIVE should not display the verbose error messages that are used for the developers’ debugging purposes.
If you just want to check out some of these errant sites, just click here (courtesy of Bing). While most of the error messages may not reveal much and may not compromise security, why tempt fate?
I came across this interesting question earlier and it did set me thinking… Consider the conventional SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) which consists of the Analysis, Design, Development, Testing and Implementation phases. Of these 5, which would you pick to be the most important?
Of course, generally speaking I would say that all 5 are important and that you will not be able to attach any less importance to one over another. However, if I really had to choose, I will favour the Design phase over the rest. A good design will immediately highlight any requirements that may have been overlooked during the Analysis phase, and will also serve as a guideline during the Development phase. You will also be able to perform tests against the design specs. However, there might be less correlation between the Design and Implementation phase, unless its a hardware project instead of a software project.
What about your take on this question? It should be interesting to see the different viewpoints out there.
With so many people using visual drag-and-drop tools to create web pages nowadays, I wonder how many people still truly appreciate what goes on behind the scenes after they click on “Save”?
Based on current standards, if the tools you used to create the web page is compliant with standards, it should specify a W3C DTD that it will comply with, failing which it may not be rendered properly by an Internet browser. But of course, so many Internet browsers are so flexible (read non-compliant) that they tend to forgive errors and attempt to interpret and render the page anyway.
Here are the 4 DTDs where one be used in your web pages depending on your needs.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd”>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd”>
The Project Dashboard is a business metric that is sorely lacking in many organisations. Even if it exists, it might not be updated in a timely manner. However, credit should be given to the people in the PMO who valiantly try to get the PMs to update the Project Dashboard in an accurate and timely fashion.
In one of the places where I worked, the management tried to introduce a Project Dashboard through the use of a Knowledge Management tool. I must say that it was a very good effort as it immediately gave the HoD an idea of a project’s status via the green, amber and red indicators. Buy-in was an entirely different story as the people running the projects were already overloaded and could barely contend with their daily tasks and project tasks…
How important is this document called the Project Charter? I must admit that I have not seen such a document nor have I written one so far in all the organisations that I have worked for. Conventionally, it is supposed to contain quite a few bits of information, but I feel that the most important sections that should be shared with all members of the project team are the Statement of Work and the Business Case
The Statement of Work describes the expected deliverables of the project while the Business Case illustrates whether the project is viable from a business perspective. With these two documents, the members of the project team will know what they are striving to achieve and should get the bigger picture of what their “small” individual tasks are contributing towards.
Not sure if this is a unique problem, but I’m experiencing issues with the Lenovo Power Manager where it can consume memory in excess of 100MB! I’m quite sure there must be a memory leak somewhere as it is inconceivable that a mere power manager can take up so much RAM!
Anyway, what I did to resolve it was to kill the rundll32.exe that was running the memory manager and restarted it. The command-line to start it up is:
“C:WINDOWSsystem32rundll32.exe” C:PROGRA~1ThinkPadUTILIT~1PWRMGRTR.DLL,PwrMgrBkGndMonitor
Seems like HP has angered quite a lot of consumers recently. I saw a website dedicated to complaints against HP where the recurring theme is that HP is not doing anything about products that are obviously defective.
Something to think about before buying that HP notebook/desktop? I would also think twice about Compaq since its tarred by the same HP brush.
Visit http://www.hplies.com to find out more.
If you are in a position where you manage people, you ought to be careful about what you say to your subordinates. My ex-colleagues from another department had the misfortune to work under a manager who had these words of wisdom for them with regards to a project that was threatening to overrun the deadlines: “Don’t ask for a deadline extension unless you have worked 24/7 and over weekends as well.”
Perhaps that manager was misguided into thinking that the people under his charge will either be scared to the extent that they will work harder, or they will not be scared but still soldier on anyway. Unfortunately, he should have realised that people can also choose to walk away, and once that happens, domain knowledge and expertise goes with that same person as well.
Managers who take on the role as people-managers should realise that all their staff always have the option of tendering their resignation regardless of the importance or progress of a project. I’m just thankful that all the managers I had to report directly to so far in my career have not made such an unreasonable demand as the aforementioned manager. Even if deadlines are tight and cannot be moved, there are kinder and gentler ways to bring the message across.
It’s appraisal time now for people at many companies, so it’s also better to be nice rather than naughty. Don’t get your hands caught in the cookie jar, especially now!
However, sometimes the appraisal process may be given too much credit than its worth (hmm… sounds like subprime borrowers…) From many anecdotes that I have heard, the appraisal process is just a paper-play process to appease HR that a proper appraisal is being done. Too many people have complained that appraisals were conducted AFTER the employee ranking exercise was already done. This greatly devalues the appraisal and increases distrust in management.
Appraisal is not a one-time event but it should be a continuous process. Managers should not wait for a certain date on the calendar to give feedback and inform their subordinates that they are not satisfied with their work and progress. Problems should be arrested as early as possible to benefit all parties: the company, the manager and the subordinate. The appraisee should not be caught by surprise and thinking “WTF?” during the appraisal exercise. Ideally, it should instead be a review of the comments and feedback that were exchanged between appraisals. I’m sure the ideal cannot always be achieved, but it should be something that we all strive for.