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Meditations For Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

2025-12-28T00:00:00+02:00

At first, I thought about putting the book down after reading the first few chapters. There were many references to other authors, which disrupted the flow of reading and was annoying: it seemed as if the author had few examples and ideas of his own, so he had to borrow from other authors. In addition, the writing style seemed somewhat clumsy, although perhaps this is just my opinion, as English is not my primary language (at the same time, I have read many other books in English with greater ease).

Nevertheless, the book turned out to be useful. I can't say that there were too many insights for me. However, several chapters described experiences that were familiar to me: the desire to control life more, information overload, doubts, procrastination, or waiting for a certain stage in life when everything will be easier, and it will be possible to start living fully. I also liked the chapters on decision-making, distractions, attempts to hold on to fleeting moments in life.

Overall, the main theme of the book is that we must accept our finitude and limitations as a given, and not wait for a moment when we will have a lot of time and few problems. Therefore, we need to learn to accept life as it is right now, with what we have, no matter how little time we have, no matter how imperfect the current situation may be. In other words, we should not worry about the imperfection of our decisions, practices, habits, and life situations, but be kinder to ourselves and learn to be here and now.

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

2024-09-22T00:00:00+03:00

"Slow Productivity" by Cal Newport explores the flaws of modern productivity standards in knowledge work, which often equate visible activity with true productivity. Newport advocates for a slow productivity philosophy grounded in three principles: doing fewer things by limiting projects and daily goals; working at a natural pace by embracing seasonality and simplifying every days workload; and obsessing with quality by focusing on excellence and investing in yourself and tools. This philosophy aims to combat the superficial busyness driven by constant connectivity, fostering deeper, more meaningful work.

Foundations

Knowledge work is the economic activity in which knowledge is tranformed into an artifact with market value through the application of cognitive effort.

Problems with productivity criteria for knowledge work:

Vagueness of the criteria
Lack of clear metrics and concrete steps for performing tasks
Workers largely define for themselves how to perform a task.

Visible activity as a proxy for Productivity, that is pseudo-productivity (Always online, lots of email and chatting).

Mobile devices and ubiquitous internet have made things worse.

The slow alternative to pseudo-productivity consists of the following 3 principles.

Principle 1: Do Fewer Things

There's an administrative overhead to every project or initiative we're involved in (and hence, less focus).

Limit the Big:

Limit the number of missions (2-3 at most)
Limit the number of ongoing projects
Limit the number of daily objectives (ideally, focus on one project per day).

Contain the Small:

Autopilot for tasks: schedule certain categories to execute without thinking
Regularly synchronise with colleagues to avoid extra communication via email and chat
Get others to do more when it comes to burdening you with extra work - through forms and processes
Avoid projects that generate too many tasks
Outsource some work to consultants or buy software to reduce the number of tasks for yourself
Implement a pull system instead of a push system (basically, the Kanban system)
- Two lists: active projects and holding tank
- New requests: let the requester know what additional information is needed, how many tasks you currently have, and estimate when the new request will be done
- Maintain the system: update deadlines, remove outdated requests, etc.

Principle 2: Work at a Natural Pace

Seasonality, which was present in earlier societies (nomadic and agricultural) is now lost; as a result we have more monotonous work.

Take more time:

Make a plan for years ahead of what you want to achieve to establish baseline for how you assess your productivity
Double your estimates for your initiatives to allow for more natural rhythm
Simplify your days: schedule less work, avoid unnecessary meetings
Avoid procrastination by focusing on progress and next steps.

Embrace seasonality:

Work without changing intensity is not natural for us
You have more control over your workload than you think
- Don't take on extra work
- Finish work at strictly defined time
- Say No to extra requests
- Don't be online all the time answering emails and chats
Build small seasonal variations into your daily work
- Take days off 1-2 times a month in the middle of a week
- No meetings on certain days, e.g., Mondays or Fridays
- Finish work earlier to attend some cultural activities
- Intersperse periods of high intensity with short periods of low intensity
- Work in cycles (Basecamp: 6-8 weeks, then 2 weeks of low intensity)
Work "poetically"
- Don't work from home as home errands get in the way
- Follow rituals to get into the right state of mind.

Principle 3: Obsess with Quality

Cultivate a taste for quality in yourself by interacting with great works of culture.

Arrange a club of like-minded people to get their early, qualitative feedback on your work.

Invest money in expensive professional services and tools to imrpove the quality of your work.

Bet on yourself.

The Distracted Mind by A. Gazzaley and L. D. Rosen

2022-01-20T00:00:00+02:00

In their book, Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen explain that our cognitive control abilities required to accomplish goals have not developed to the same degree as our executive functions used for goal setting. We have limitations in distributing and sustaining attention, working memory capacity and fidelity, and in managing and switching between competing objectives. These constraints manifest themselves in our sensitivity to goal interference, which leads to the Distracted Mind.

The technological inventions of our time - the Internet, social media, and smartphones - have exacerbated the problem, as they exploit each of the limitations of cognitive control. Since we are information-seeking creatures, the availability of information at any time and place, and the increased anxiety of missing something important, cause us to jump from one Internet source to another. This behavior results in multitasking, task switching, and continuous partial attention. Unfortunately, our ancient brains have proven to be unprepared for the challenges of the high-tech world.

To aid the Distracted Mind, the authors suggest several practices to improve cognitive control abilities. Physical exercise, meditation, exposure to nature, and even video games are among those. They also offer some strategies for behavior change, such as limiting access to distracting technology, increasing metacognition, and minimizing boredom and anxiety. These can help us take control of our attention, avoid multitasking, and become less susceptible to goal interference.

If you read Russian, you may be interested to browse the mindmap I've created to outline the book.

On Goal Setting

2022-01-04T00:00:00+02:00

There are several problems with goal setting, especially when it comes to material accomplishments.

First, we mistakenly assume that achieving a particular goal will make us happier, once and for all. But, on the contrary, happiness level returns to normal not long after attaining the desired thing.

Second, we choose objectives - more often than not - that lie beyond our direct and complete control. Consequently, we condemn ourselves to dependence on circumstances. As Seneca wrote, we strive for what is in Fortune's hands, missing out on what is still in our hands. We trade the time of the present for the hopes of the future.

Third, in trying to achieve something, we tend to ignore other aspects of our lives. Behind this tendency are the natural mechanisms of our brain's prefrontal cortex and neural networks. As described in the book The Distracted Mind, which I am currently reading, goals affect not only our actions but also our perception - distorting it by inhibiting irrelevant information.

What should we do, then? Not set targets at all? We can't do that. The same book explains that we have goal-setting capabilities, thanks to our developed prefrontal cortex. It is what separates us from the animals. It is what determines how we affect the world around us. Without purpose, we fall prey to the impulses and challenges of daily life, reacting to external events, as our minds are very easily distracted.

Setting objectives is necessary, therefore. But I would offer a few suggestions on avoiding the problems mentioned earlier.

Goals should be balanced. In addition to career growth and material well-being, it is necessary to consider other areas of our life: self-development, family, social life, health, leisure, etc. Perhaps even prioritize these over other things.
The process of achieving something should bring satisfaction. What is the point of moving toward a goal if you feel utterly unsatisfied in the process? Someone will mention the delayed gratification. But I would answer that one does not prevent the other. We can move towards something serious, postponing a sizeable reward, but still receive small portions of the reward in the present. For example, learning a new language will bring tangible results only in a few years. But even now, one can learn to enjoy each lesson. If we are not satisfied now, then perhaps the target is wrong, or the way to achieve it is not chosen correctly.
Finally, however obvious it is, goals should be achievable and entirely under our control. Instead of setting a goal of doubling our income, as an example, it is better to set a goal of improving our professional skills. The latter is under our control, while the former can happen as a side effect.

To summarize, we need to set goals simply because the daily routines and information flows will take up all of our attention otherwise. But we have to be very careful in choosing each objective so that we don't go in the wrong direction, which can sometimes be worse than having no goals set at all.

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth R. Miller

2021-08-24T00:00:00+03:00

A molecular biologist and Roman Catholic at the same time, Kenneth R. Miller, sets out to answer the question: Can evolution and God coexist? To begin with, he explains the basic principles of the evolution theory and provides some scientific evidence in support of its validity. Then, he goes on to refute the three main anti-evolutionary arguments of creationists and Intelligent Design adherents. The violent attacks of those are provoked, to some extent, by scientists themselves, whose materialistic explanation puts down everything spiritual and of meaning. The conflict between religion and science rests on the presumption, shared by both sides, that if the origin of life can be explained by purely materialistic laws, then there is no place for God. The author considers this presumption erroneous; there is no logical or theological reason to rule out that God could have used natural laws to originate species. Moreover, the unpredictable nature of quantum events suggests that science is incapable of mastering absolute knowledge of the world in principle, urging to seek explanations beyond materialism. As the author attempts to reconcile evolution with a religious worldview, several logical problems arise. For example, how could the cruelty of evolution be consistent with the loving God, as presented in traditional religions? Or how does one make the indeterminacy of the evolution processes compatible with a divine will? These and some other philosophical issues are addressed in the last two chapters. Kenneth Miller concludes that although evolution is deemed to threaten the traditional view of God, it should not really; to the contrary, evolution is the key to understanding our relationship with Deity.

Mindmap

You can view the entire mindmap here.

Why We Do What We Do by Edward Deci

2021-07-11T00:00:00+03:00

In his excellent book Why We Do What We Do, based on empirical research, Edward Deci shows that intrinsic motivation is much more effective than extrinsic motivation. Contrary to the behaviorist dogma, self-motivation underlies successful learning, creativity, responsibility, healthy behavior, and long-lasting change. It comes from innate psychological needs. The first need is for autonomy, that is, the need to feel that you are the author of your actions. The second is for competence, striving to be effective in the world around us. The third need, for relatedness with other people, facilitates the integration of external values and makes us take necessary actions required by society. Of all the needs, autonomy is the cornerstone. That's because there is a strong connection between autonomy and responsibility and between autonomy and intrinsic motivation. Therefore, the author describes how to promote and support autonomy in others. He also suggests what people can do when they find themselves in an environment where there is a lot of external control.

Mindmap

The entire mindmap is published here.

Education vs. Training

2021-06-11T00:00:00+03:00

In book "Management of the Absurd", Richard Farson argues that leaders cannot be trained, they can only be educated. He points out to important distinsctions between training and education (in human relations, at least):

"Training, as we know, leads to the development of skills and techniques [which] don't work well in human relations. Education, on the other hand, leads to information and knowledge, which in the right hands can lead to understanding, even to wisdom. And wisdom leads to humility, compassion, and respect — qualities that are fundamental to effective leadership."
"Training makes people more alike, because everyone learns the same skills. Education, because it involves an examination of one's personal experience in the light of an encounter with great ideas, tends to make people different from each other."

Finally, Richard adds: "With the right kind of education, managers can gain better self-understanding, learn about their own interpersonal styles, their reactions to and impact on others, prejudices and blind spots, strenghts and weaknesses... Education gives managers new ways of thinking, new perspectives. It can enable them to see the interconnectedness of events, to go beyond the conventional wisdom."

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

2021-04-02T00:00:00+03:00

In this unusual non-fiction book, full of metaphors and insights, Steven Pressfield argues that each of us has a specific work to do. It might be writing, painting, starting a business venture, etc. The work can be recognized by the fear it causes in us. The greater the fear, the more important this call or action is for us. This fear feeds the insidious and relentless counter-force -- Resistance. It has many symptoms, such as procrastination and rationalization, and its chief task is to distract us from our work. To defeat Resistance, one needs to become a Professional. That is, unlike an amateur, to devote oneself completely to the work, and do it again and again, despite fear and obstacles. On this path, fortunately, we will be helped by unseen intelligence, invisible forces, that expect us to realize our potential.

This is a thought-provoking book that made me stop and reflect on what exactly my call could be. Also, it's encouraged me to work more on self-initiated activities, like writing this article, for their own sake.

Mindmap

The same mindmap can be seen on XMind gallery.

Pull Smartsheet data into Google Sheets

2021-03-15T00:00:00+02:00

This is a follow-up on this post. Since the time I published it, I've made a couple of improvements that I wanted to share here.

First, I've started using Smartsheet reports as the data source instead of sheets. It's because there might be occasional changes to the underlying sheet (like moving columns or adding new columns) that could disrupt the order of data. To avoid this undesired effect, I create a new report in Smartsheet which is used solely for synchronization. This warrants a more robust and stable solution except when a column is renamed in the underlying sheet. Due to a known bug or feature, a Smartsheet report doesn't pick up new column names. However, as renaming doesn't happen too often, we can live with that.

Second, I've added a custom menu in the Google sheet. This is helpful for those who want to pull data from the Smartsheet report on demand. Whenever they need to refresh the data, they just go into the Google sheet and select the "Smartsheet" -> "Sync up" menu option. This gets the sync-up process started.

Below is the updated code you need to copy into the script editor. Alternatively, you can make a copy of this google spreadsheet which contains the code inside (open "Tools" → "Script editor").

var smartSheetToken = "TOKEN"; //Fill in your actual Smartsheet token
var smartReportID = "Report ID"; //Fill in your actual Smartsheet report from which you want to pull data

function onOpen() {

  var ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();  
  ui.createMenu('Smartsheet')
      .addItem('Sync Up', 'sync')      
      .addToUi();
}

function sync() {

    var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("Sheet1");
    var url = "https://api.smartsheet.com/2.0/reports/" + smartReportID;
    var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(
        url, { headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer ' + smartSheetToken}}
    );
    var result = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());

    sheet.clear();

    var tab = [];

    for (var column in result.columns){ 
      var value = result.columns[column]["title"];
      tab.push(value);
    }

    sheet.appendRow(tab);

    for(var row in result.rows){
        var cells = result.rows[row]["cells"];
        var tab = [];
        for(var cell in cells){
            var value = cells[cell]["value"] == undefined ? "" : cells[cell]["value"];
            tab.push(value);
        }
        sheet.appendRow(tab);
    }  
}

The Data Loom by Stephen Few

2021-02-28T00:00:00+02:00

Stephen Few, who has written excellent books on visualizing numerical data, focuses on data sensemaking in this book. The author argues: mastering modern analysis tools is not enough to understand the data; we still need to train the thinking skills. Most important of these are critical and scientific thinking skills. He invites us to follow the scientific method, as well as question the data so that we have a better chance to get accurate, meaningful answers. At the same time, Stephen warns us about metric abuse and provides guidance on how to measure what matters, avoiding common measurement errors. Finally, the book describes thinking habits and general guidelines for how to develop a culture of data sensemaking in your organization.

This is a short book, so it covers all these listed topics very high-level. Nevertheless, this is a good introduction to data sensemaking as such. The book helps you see why it is important to invest time in the thinking skills. And it shows areas for further development in this direction.

Mindmap

This mindmap is published on XMind gallery.

Deep Work by Cal Newport

2021-02-16T00:00:00+02:00

In this book, Cal Newport shows that cognitively demanding intellectual work, that is deep work, is extremely valuable and rare at the same time. This includes rapid acquiring of new skills and gaining complex knowledge, as well as producing at a high quality level. If we prioritize this kind of activity over shallow work that does not require much effort from us, we will gain an advantage over most knowledge workers. That is because deep work is rare for good reason. Distracting office settings, internet centrism, finite amount of willpower, and exhaustiveness of such a work create obstacles. Fortunately, Cal offers many rules and strategies in the book that will not only help you develop the ability to immerse yourself in important work more often and for longer, but also give meaning to the activity itself.

Outline

Here is my outline of the book. This is based on a mindmap I created for this book.

Introduction

Deep Work Definition: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.
Shallow Work Definition: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.
The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.

Part 1: The Idea

Deep Work is Valuable

Three Groups Having a Particular Advantage. -- How to Become a Winner in the New Economy. -- Deep Work Helps You Quickly Learn Hard Things. -- Deep Work Helps You Produce at an Elite Level. -- An Example of Success Without Deep Work.
Deep Work is Rare

The Metric Black Hole. -- The Principle of Least Resistance. -- Busyness as Proxy for Productivity. -- Internet-centrism or Technopoly.
Deep Work is Meaningful

A Neurological Argument for Depth. -- A Psychological Argument for Depth. -- A Philosophical Argument for Depth.

Part 2: Rules

Rule #1: Work Deeply

Depth Approaches: Monastic philosophy / Bimodal philosophy / Rhythmic philosophy / Journalistic philosophy. -- Ritualize. -- Make Grand Gestures. -- Don't Work Alone. -- Execute Like a Business: Focus on the Wildly Important / Act on the Lead Measures / Keep a Compelling Scoreboard / Create a Cadence of Accountability. -- Be Lazy. -- Downtime Aids Insights. -- Downtime Helps Recharge the Energy Needed to Work Deeply. -- The Work That Evening Downtime Replaces Is Usually Not That Important
Rule #2: Embrace Boredom

Don’t Take Breaks from Distraction. Instead Take Breaks from Focus. -- Working with Great Intensity (like Teddy Roosevelt). -- Meditate Productively: Be Wary of Distractions and Looping / Structure Your Deep Thinking. -- Memorize a Deck of Cards.
Rule #3: Quit Social Media

The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection. -- The Law of the Vital Few, or 80/20. -- Quit Social Media. -- Don't Use the Internet to Entertain Yourself.
Rule #4: Drain the Shallows

Schedule Every Minute of Your Day. -- Quantify the Depth of Every Activity. -- Ask Your Boss for a Shallow Work Budget. -- Finish Your Work by Five Thirty, or Fixed-schedule productivity. -- Become Hard to Reach.

Deep Work - My Five Cents

2021-02-16T00:00:00+02:00

Cal Newport has made a strong case in his book for why deep work is valuable but rare. I was especially impressed by the arguments for why this type of activity is meaningful. For my part, I can say that when I manage to carve out several long blocks (at least 2-3 hours) for deep work on tasks during a day, I feel much more satisfied with my job at the end of the working day.

Working as a project manager, I can easily spend my day in shallow work. Numerous meeting calls, the need to be online to answer urgent questions from colleagues on various projects, chasing people to get something from them - all this strongly impedes the intention to work deeply. It even questions the possibility of deep work in the day of a project manager.

I believe, though, deep work can and should be present in the day-to-day experience of a project manager. For example, the following activities require a lot of cognitive efforts and are quite valuable:

Analysis of project risks
Scheduling a project taking multiple constraints into account
Taking courses and reading books for professional development
Mastering new software tools
Working on process improvements within the company
Automation of repetitive tasks
Data analysis

As such, I find the author's recommendations to be applicable to my work as well. I do try to apply some of them on a daily basis. For example, I use the built-in Kanbanflow feature to work in Pomodoro sessions. Thus, I follow a rule from the book “Don’t Take Breaks from Distraction. Instead Take Breaks from Focus”. Before starting the Pomodoro session, I turn off instant messengers and then, I will be working focused on the task for a while, without being distracted. Afterwards, I will turn on instant messengers again to make sure that nothing is urgently expected from me.

Kanbanflow also keeps statistics on the time spent in depth mode, which helps me understand how deeply I worked during the last week, for example, and generally understand the trend. This allows me to remain vigilant and not deviate from the intended strategy. Basically, this corresponds to the rule called “Keep a Compelling Scoreboard”.

I highly recommend this book to all knowledge workers. Browse the mindmap I've prepared to outline the book's structure.

Synchronize Google Sheets with Smartsheet

2020-08-06T00:00:00+03:00

Smartsheet is a powerful, spreadsheet-like tool. It helps to automate processes in your team. In my current company, we've been using it for years to support project management. Plans, issue logs, risk registers, project dashboards, task trackers - just to name a few examples of what we use Smartsheet for.

However, sometimes you need to have data from Smartsheet copied into Google Sheets. It might be because you already have some data maintained in Google Sheets and you would like to integrate data sets across both places. Or, you would like to leverage more sophisticated charts that are available in Sheets. Whatever the reason is, synchronization should be done automatically and regularly.

I've recently encountered exactly the case when I needed to be regularly copying data from Smartsheet to Google Sheets. Quick search on Github led me to this simple Google Appscript, which uses API to read the data from Smartsheet. The code is also listed below:

function run() {
    var smartSheetID = "ID_SMARTSHEET";
    var smartSheetToken = "TOKEN";
    var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById("SHEET_ID").getSheets()[0];
    var url = "https://api.smartsheet.com/2.0/sheets/" + smartSheetID;
    var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(
        url, { headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer ' + smartSheetToken}}
    );
    var result = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());
    sheet.clear();
    for(var row in result.rows){
        var cells = result.rows[row]["cells"];
        var tab = [];
        for(var cell in cells){
            var value = cells[cell]["value"] == undefined ? "" : cells[cell]["value"];
            tab.push(value);
        }
        sheet.appendRow(tab);
    }
}

What you need to do next is open Script editor (Tools --> Script editor) on a Google sheet where you want to store the data in. Paste in the script code to the editor. And then, change the following variables to your unique values:

ID_SMARTSHEET: ID of the smartsheet you want to synchronize with. You can get this ID from the smartsheet properties.
TOKEN: A secret token that allows the script to access your Smartsheet account. To get the token, go to Smartsheet's Personal Settings --> API Access --> Generate new access token.
SHEET_ID: ID of the Google sheet which you want to poplate with data from the smartsheet.

Now, you can run the script within the Script editor. For that, just press the "run" icon in the toolbar menu.

In a few seconds, depending how huge the original smartsheet is, the data will be copied over to Google Sheets. Notice that it's one way sync: Smartsheet to Sheets, not the other way around. If you make any changes in the Google sheet, they won't be synced back to the smartsheet.

If you want to run the script regularly, select in the Script editor: Edit --> Current project's triggers. That will lead you to another page, where you can create a new trigger and choose time-driven event source.

I've been testing this script for a few weeks now. It's been working like a charm. This integration has helped my organization to automate one of the critical processes. I hope it will help you too!

Making Gantt charts work

2020-06-16T00:00:00+03:00

Using Gantt charts as a form of project schedule for fixed-price IT projects, I’ve encountered the following problems:

To build a schedule, you have to put all the tasks in a specific order. It’s typically a finish-to-start dependency. However, this is not what happens sometimes. More often than not, it’s possible to start working on the next task even if you are not done with its predecessor (say, it’s blocked). As such, the schedule doesn’t accurately represent what is going on in reality.
When there are many tasks on the bar chart, it becomes challenging to maintain and update the schedule. To add a new task, for example, you will need to weave it into the existing structure of dependencies. It’s a pain in the neck most of the time.
Some tasks are iterative by nature. Where the chart says the task is done once, it is actually iterated several times before we can mark it as completed. As with point #1, we have a discrepancy between the plan and reality.

To solve the challenges listed above, I’ve decoupled the work packages from the tasks/activities. I’ve put on the bar chart only the work packages and built dependencies among them, which is easy to maintain. At the same time, all the tasks have been moved to a separate tracker, where I can add/remove tasks without hassle. In a tool like Smartsheet, the activities from a separate spreadsheet can be linked to corresponding work packages, so I can still monitor the percentage of completion in the main project schedule.

Using the task tracker on regular status calls with engineers is also very handy to track progress. Smartsheet has a Kanban view to visualize the task flow, which is quite cool.

I’ve been experimenting with this approach for some time, and it has drastically simplified project schedule maintenance for me. But I appreciate that in different contexts, with different types of projects, the same approach won’t always work out well. However, I believe building complex network structures and predicting each activity to the day is what drives people crazy using these bar charts and leaves them unsatisfied with the tool. Therefore, keeping the schedule at a high level while handling low-level tasks in a separate tracker should make life easier for many project managers.

The Median in Smartsheet

2020-04-08T00:00:00+03:00

If you needed the median function in Smartsheet, but couldn't find it, don't get upset. That function, indeed, is not present among supported functions; however, there is the percentile function available in Smartsheet. And the good news is that the median is just another name for the 50th percentile.

To calculate the median in Smartsheet, use this formula:

=PERCENTILE(data, 0.5)

Now as we touched on the aggregation topic, let me also talk briefly about the difference between an average and the median - just in case you didn't know.

Average, or the arithmetic mean, is a sum of all values divided by the number of values. Because it takes every value into account, it tends to be skewed by extremes. Sometimes this is exactly what you need. If your intention, however, is to express what's typical, the median does a better job because it's not sensitive to outliers in a data set.

Here is an example to show how the average differs from the median for a particular dataset:

Data visualization skills

2020-03-02T00:00:00+02:00

As IT professionals, we deal with quantitative information quite a lot — on a daily basis, literally. Many of us present numeric data to colleagues: be it a report, forecast, or information dashboard. However, only a few possess the basic skills to present numbers well. Most of us have never been trained to do this.

Despite tremendous progress in software applications that accelerate data sensemaking, visualization, and distribution, there is still the need for humans to comprehend the data and represent it to others. Software alone cannot do all the work for us.

When working with numbers, it is important to find and inspect meaningful patterns and pass them over to the audience so they could gain insights, too. To make this happen, we must acquire skills in numeric data presentation.

As Stephen Few concludes in his book Show Me the Numbers,

“The right numbers have important stories to tell. They rely on us to find those stories, understand them, and then tell them to others in a way that is clear, accurate, and compelling.”

Personal finance dashboard in Google Data Studio

2020-01-17T00:00:00+02:00

To better understand my expense habits and overall spending, I used to track my financial transactions in a mobile application. I would manually put data after each payment. I was doing it for a couple of years until I realized that it didn’t quite help me.

First, since most of my transactions started going via a bank card, entering them in the application became pointless. The bank allowed me to download statements and analyze them in Excel. There’s no point in duplicating the effort.

Second, the app that I used didn’t tell me enough about expense trends. It didn’t show month-to-month comparison and didn’t answer important questions about my financial status:

How much in average am I spending a month?
Am I spending less at restaurants over time?
Am I saving enough?

Other software solutions that I had evaluated didn’t help me answer those questions either. Some of them, in addition, used common but inefficient means like pie charts to show expense breakdown.

After I read the book Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few, I started thinking about building my own dashboard to visualize financial data. The book provided a number of good examples, though I didn’t know where to start the implementation. I needed to accomplish two huge tasks: (a) pull statements from my bank and (b) create a dashboard to show the data.

I started manually downloading transactions from the bank in a CSV form. This was a tedious routine that I quickly fell behind. Fortunately, my bank also provides API to obtain transactions on my cards, so I developed a simple and dirty script¹ that is running on a daily basis to download statements and put them into Google Sheets. The script also auto-detects expense categories based on predefined rules. Manual work has significantly decreased.

Here's how the resulting spreadsheet² looks like:

Then, I came across Google Data Studio (GDS). It turned out to be the missing piece to my solution. GDS eventually helped to build the dashboard I was trying to design.

Here’s the display (the data are fictional):

And this is the link to the GDS dashboard itself.

I believe this is not the final version, as I continue to work on improving it. However, even at this point, I’m totally satisfied with the solution. It helps me on a daily basis to comprehend my expenses and make better decisions regarding my spending. More often than not, it allows me to stay under budget.

You can check out the script here. ↩
Check out the finance spreadsheet. ↩

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

2020-01-16T00:00:00+02:00

In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport argues that, through sophisticated algorithms exploiting our psychological features, social media and Internet services have successfully grabbed our attention and made us dependent on them, forcing us to spend a huge amount of time there. The situation has been especially exacerbated with the advent of smartphones. It's said social media has become the new nicotine.

As a result, we have got several negative consequences: solitude deprivation¹; a lack of real, face to face communication; low-quality leisure (in a form of passive information consumption). All this, in turn, has led to increased stress, depression, and a deterioration in the quality of life of many people.

As a solution to these problems, the author offers us the philosophy of digital minimalism. By this, he means an adequate assessment of the benefits and costs of the technologies we use. Anything that does not bring tangible benefit to us must be eliminated. Here are the 3 main principles of this philosophy:

Clutter is costly: We easily accumulate things (i.e., connections in social networks, accounts in various online platforms), without thinking about what it costs us and what we are losing.
Optimization is important: We should get the most out of the technology used in a minimum of time.
Intentionality is satisfying: We should be asking ourselves the question, "Why am I doing this?" before spending our time with online applications.

When it comes down to applying digital minimalism philosophy to everyday life, Cal offers several practices in the second part of the book. Those will help regain control of our time and attention, I will list some of them:

Leave your smartphone at home - of course, when the circumstances allow - to practice full offline.
Take long walks alone to reflect, dream, and think.
Keep a diary, because this is a unique way to be in solitude.
Prioritize high-quality leisure: self-education, reading important books, physical activities, offline conversations with people, etc.
Remove social media, at least, from your smartphone to stop being exposed to the attention economy tricks.

To conclude, digital minimalism, of course, does not reject the innovations of the Internet age. But instead, it proposes to reconsider our attitude to technology, to look at it as a tool, but not an end in itself. Changing the way we use these tools can improve our well-being, which is the end goal. I think the practices and tips that the author describes in the book will help achieve that.

Additional reading

The author has referenced many other books. Here is a selection of ones that seem interesting to me:

Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.
Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.
Laurence Scott, The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World.
Adam Alter, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.
Frédéric Gros, trans. John Howe, A Philosophy of Walking.
Michael S. Erwin et al, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership through Solitude.
Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols.
Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.
Kieran Setiya, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide.
Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.
Gary Rogowski, Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction.
David Sax, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter.
Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.

Solitude Deprivation definition: A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds... When you avoid solitude, you miss out on the positive things it brings you: the ability to clarify hard problems, to regulate your emotions, to build moral courage, and to strengthen relationships. ↩

Цифровой минимализм

2020-01-16T00:00:00+02:00

Кэл Ньюпорт, профессор компьютерных технологий в университете Джорджтаун, написал замечательную, важную книгу "Цифровой минимализм". В ней он озвучил проблемы, связанные со злоупотреблением интернет-технологий в повседневной жизни и предложил ряд рекомендаций, как их избежать.

Социальные сети - новый никотин

Социальные медиа - представители экономики внимания. Они бесплатны для пользователей, но взамен мы расплачиваемся своим вниманием. Мы - продукт, который продают рекламодателям. Смартфоны стали рекламными щитами, которые всегда с нами. Чем больше времени мы там проводим, тем лучше для инвесторов и держателей акций. Наше время - их деньги.

Не удивительно, что в таких компаниях как Фейсбук или Гугл работают лучшие инженеры, которые изо дня в день трудятся над тем, чтобы завладеть нашим вниманием более эффективно, вызвать привыкание и заставить нас быть онлайн как можно дольше. И надо признать: им это хорошо удается. Социальные сети уже давно называют новым никотином!

Злоупотребление интернет-технологиями привело к ряду плачевных результатов.

Мы лишились уединения:

Впервые в своей истории, человечество столкнулось с исчезновением уединения. Моментов, когда мы можем побыть наедине со своими мыслями, стало меньше или в особо тяжких случаях совсем не стало. Мы перестали знать, что такое скука.

В то же время уединение важно для генерации новых идей, рефлексии, лучшего понимания себя и, как это ни парадоксально, более качественной связи с другими. Именно будучи наедине с собой, мы начинаем ценить и понимать, что для нас значат другие люди. Это укрепляет наши отношения.

Недостаток живого общения:

Социальные сети заменили живое общение. То, что нам дают интернет-технологии - это возможность оставаться на связи и эффективно обмениваться информацией. Что является большим достижением, конечно. Однако эту поверхностную связь мы приняли за реальное, физическое общение. В силу легкости написания электронных сообщений, мы выбираем их, а не живое общение, думая, что по-прежнему ведем социальную жизнь. В итоге, как подтверждают исследования, люди все больше чувствуют изолированность и депрессию, особенно подростки...

Низкосортный досуг:

Наконец, люди лишились качественного досуга. Прокручивание лент новостей, "приколов" и фотографий не могут заменить чтение литературы, рукоделие, физическую активность или хороший разговор с друзьями. Люди проводят досуг, потребляя низкокачественный контент.

В тему цитата Чака Паланика:

"Джордж Оруэлл ошибался. Большой Брат не следит за тобой. Он поет и танцует. Он вытягивает кроликов из шляпы. Большой Брат занят удержанием твоего внимания каждый момент, пока ты не спишь. Он обеспечивает, чтобы ты постоянно был отвлечен. Он обеспечивает, чтобы ты был полностью поглощен. Он обеспечивает, чтобы твое воображение увядало. Пока оно не станет таким же бесполезным, как аппендикс. Он обеспечивает, чтобы твое внимание было постоянно занято. И это даже хуже, чем быть под наблюдением. Когда мир в тебя постоянно столько пихает, никого не тревожит, что у тебя в голове. Когда воображение у всех атрофируется, никто не будет больше угрозой."

Философия цифрового минимализма

В качестве решения озвученных проблем автор знакомит с цифровым минимализмом. Это философия адекватной оценки пользы и стоимости цифровых технологий. Минималист с готовностью отказывается от малоценных сиюминутных выгод в пользу своих базовых ценностей. Далее описаны три главных принципа.

Хлам обходится дорого:

Мы накапливаем вещи (в этом случае - связи в социальных сетях), считая, что нам это может принести какую-то пользу в будущем. Но в итоге тратим времени больше, чем получаем выгоды. Например, социализируясь в реальности, можно завести более крепкие и интересные знакомства, нежели проводя многочисленные часы виртуального "общения" со знакомыми из сетей.

Важна оптимизация:

Если у вас существует необходимость периодически бывать в социальных медиа, делайте это с умом. Старайтесь оптимизировать свое взаимодействие с технологией, чтобы получить максимум выгоды за минимум затраченного времени.

Помните, что и в случае с социальными сетями действует закон уменьшения возврата на дальнейшие инвестиции. Чем больше времени вы проводите в социальных сетях, тем меньше получаете пользы от нее в конечном итоге.

Преднамеренность использования технологий:

Вместо того, чтобы безмерно пользоваться всеми новшествами и технологическими средствами, задавайте себе вопрос: зачем вы это делаете?

Осмотрительность поможет не повредить вашим базовым ценностям. Прежде, чем открыть приложение социальных сетей или месенджера, подумайте, что вы хотите получить в первую очередь. Не действуйте реактивно на то, что вам присылают приложения в виде уведомлений (лучше вообще их отключите).

Практики

Чтобы вернуть себе контроль над своим временем и вниманием, автор описал много практик в этой книге. Например, чтобы обеспечить себе больше уединения, автор рекомендует делать следующее.

Оставлять смартфон дома:

Когда этого позволяет ситуация, выходите на улицу без смартфона. Когда-то люди жили и нормально функционировали без необходимости постоянно быть на связи. Мы тоже можем иногда практиковать полный оффлайн. Возможно, это будет неудобно иногда (например, без навигации под рукой), но польза уединения перевесит такие несущественные недостатки.

Делать долгие прогулки:

Прогулки - отличная возможность побыть наедине со своими мыслями, обдумать какую-то проблему, порефлексировать, помечтать. Важно не нарушать прогулку прерываниями телефона (оставляйте его дома, или переводите в оффлайн режим), не слушать подкасты или аудиокниги во время таких моментов. Освободите свое сознание от внешнего влияния на это время и посмотрите, что произойдет.

Как сказал Ницше, только мысли, пришедшие во время прогулки, имеют ценность.

Писать самому себе:

Вести ежедневник, записывая свои впечатления, идеи, новые знания, размышления - это уникальный и продуктивный способ побыть в уединении.

...

Используйте технологию для обеспечения аналогового общения:

Что касается подмены реального общения виртуальным, автор рекомендует пользоваться преимуществами, которые дают нам технологии, но только для того, чтобы передать информацию и договориться о времени и месте настоящего разговора.

Также он рекомендует не «лайкать» чужие сообщения и не комментировать, а лучше позвонить и пообщаться.

Наконец, консолидируйте сообщения от других, а не отвечайте сразу, как только что-то пришло. Пусть телефон будет по-умолчанию в режиме "Не тревожить". Две пользы: 1) меньше отвлекает в течение дня; 2) мотивирует собеседника, который не получает мгновенного ответа по мессенджеру, перестать пользоваться низкокачественным заменителем разговора. Если ему действительно важно с вами пообщаться, он будет вынужден позвонить или встретиться.

...

Высококачественный досуг

Хорошая жизнь требует деятельности, которая служит никакой другой цели, кроме удовлетворения, которое сама активность и создает.

Несколько практик в этом направлении:

Приоритезируйте требовательные занятия, а не пассивное потребление. Пассивный отдых должен быть строго лимитированным.
Занимайтесь рукоделием.
Участвуйте в реальных социальных активностях (встречи, обсуждения, игры).
Планируйте свой досуг: план содержит цели и привычки, которые вы хотите ввести в свою жизнь.

...

Удалите социальные сети со своего смартфона

Чтобы перестать быть объектом экономики внимания, Кэл рекомендует совсем удалить приложения социальных медиа с смартфона. Именно мобильные устройства способствовали тому, что интернет проник так глубоко в нашу жизнь, заполнив все наше свободное время. Вы по-прежнему можете пользоваться социальными сетями на обычном компьютере, если вам важно поддерживать с кем-то связь. Как показывает практика, вы станете делать это куда меньше, чем в случае с вездесущим смартфоном.

Заключение

Минимализм не подразумевает полный отказ от интернет-технологий. Не обязательно удаляться и из социальных сетей. В то же время важно быть прагматичным и не попадать в ловушку технологических компаний. В этом помогут практики и советы, которые автор привел в книге «Цифровой минимализм», которую я рекомендую к прочтению в полном объеме!

Список дополнительной литературы

В книге автор оставил много ссылок на другие книги. Здесь я перечисляю то, что меня заинтересовало для дальнейшего прочтения.

Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.
Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.
Laurence Scott, The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World.
Adam Alter, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.
Frédéric Gros, trans. John Howe, A Philosophy of Walking.
Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership through Solitude.
Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols.
Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.
Kieran Setiya, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide.
Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.
Gary Rogowski, Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction.
David Sax, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter.
Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.

Визуализация личных расходов

2019-12-13T00:00:00+02:00

Проблема

Приложений и сервисов, помогающих вести учет и анализ личных финансов, чрезвычайное множество. Одним из таких и я пользовался несколько лет подряд, прилежно заполняя все транзакции вручную на смартфоне. Потом перестал.

Я был по-прежнему убежден в необходимости учета расходов. Но в один момент, осознав, что большинство моих трат осуществлялись через карту, продолжать вручную вносить данные потеряло смысл. Выписки проще скачать из интернет-банкинга и затем проанализировать.

Разумеется, некоторые современные приложения из категории личных финансов умеют синхронизироваться с банковскими счетами. Правда, не многие из них работают с украинскими банками, но еще меньше делают это стабильно и быстро (иногда синхронизация обрывалась после десятков минут ожидания).

Но более того, еще со времен ручного ввода мне не хватало целостной картины, общего понимания трендов моих затрат. Мне захотелось иметь информационную панель (dashboard), которая бы с одного взгляда давала мне общее видение расходов в этом месяце и сравнение с предыдущими. Те приложения и сервисы, которые я успел рассмотреть, предоставляли довольно скудные средства для подобной визуализации¹.

Так у меня появилась затея самостоятельно реализовать решение, чтобы визуализировать личные расходы.

Решение

1 - Электронные таблицы

Я не стал придумывать велосипед, а взял за основу электронные таблицы, именно: Google Sheets. Там я начал сохранять транзакции по моим картам Приватбанка, экспортируя из Приват24.

Ниже приведена копия такой таблицы с фиктивными транзакциями в качестве примера:

Сама таблица доступна по этой ссылке

2 - Автоматизация

Выгружать выписки каждый месяц вручную, конечно, вскоре мне наскучило. К тому же, хотелось более частого обновления данных. Поэтому я написал python-скрипт, который выгружает транзакции за меня ежедневно и затем записывает в Google Sheets. В этом мне помогают API Приватбанка и python-библиотека для работы с Гугл Таблицами gspread.

Еще скрипт присваивает категории всем записям по заранее определенным правилам, что очень удобно.

Скрипт запускается с помощью cron автоматически ежедневно в 2 часа ночи, выгружая транзакции за предыдущий день.

Код опубликован на Гитхабе здесь.

3 - Визуализация

Наконец, чтобы реализовать мою затею с панелью, я воспользовался Google Data Studio, подключив к моей таблице с транзакциями. Здесь видна суммарная информация по категориям расходов в текущем месяце; сколько потрачено в целом, сколько предстоит и сколько сейчас на балансе; а также тренд помесячно в общем и по нужной мне категории. Также я добавил бюджеты и кривую накопления по месяцам.

Вот что из этого получилось:

Панель доступна по ссылке.

Выводы

После нескольких месяцев пользования у меня только положительные впечатления. От меня не требуется фиксировать транзакции - все сохраняется автоматически. У меня всегда есть свежая информация, чтобы сделать более точное планирование будущих трат. Благодаря визуализации я понимаю структуру моих расходов более целостно; более часто чем нет, удается вписываться в бюджет.

На мой взгляд, главные преимущества этой системы — в следующих особенностях.

Гибкость. Электронные таблицы предоставляют значительную гибкость в работе с транзакциями, включая редактирование данных, сравнение расходов с предыдущими периодами, и расчет бюджетов.

Визуализация. Такой инструмент как Google Data Studio предоставляет большие возможности в визуализации данных. Можно построить отчет, используя различные графики, чтобы сфокусировать внимание на нужных вещах и сделать корректировку в дальнейших планах. GDS имеет функцию рассылки на емейл по заданному интервалу, если хотите получать на почту свежий отчет о ваших затратах.

Контроль. Данные о моих расходах принадлежат мне (ну хорошо, на пару с Google :), а не третьей стороне.

Интеграция. Помимо Google Data Studio, Google Sheets интегрируется с другими популярными сервисами по визуализации и автоматизации данных. Свобода решений, которой нет, когда используешь готовое приложение.

Если будут вопросы или отзывы, пишите мне на почту bogdan19@protonmail.com. Буду рад пообщаться.

В качестве примера, большинство из этих приложений для отображения категорий расходов до сих пор используют круговые диаграмы, что моветон среди специалистов по визуализации числовых данных. ↩

Project Manager's Dashboard

2019-10-28T00:00:00+02:00

When you manage several projects simultaneously, you have to switch context quite a lot. It's important to have a tool that helps update awareness of the current situation on a particular project. You need a dashboard.

Information dashboard, when well designed, is a good means to update situational awareness at a glance. It is able to quickly point out that something deserves attention.

In his book "Information Dashboard Design, Stephen Few claims that the effective dashboard must be designed to support the performance monitoring process, which involves 4 stages:

Update high-level situation awareness.
Identify and focus on particular items that need attention: a) Update the awareness of this item in greater detail; b) Determine whether an action is required.
If the action is required, access additional information that’s needed to determine a response.
Respond.

With that in mind, I built up a dashboard for myself to effectively monitor & control my projects within Smartsheet.

Here's a screenshot of the resulting dashboard (all data is made up):

(The image is clickable)

It includes the following important areas for rapid monitoring:

Milestone status: % complete and target end date
Critical issues
Actions overdue or due soon
High-impact risks requiring my attention
Useful links if I need to get more information

Each widget on the dashboard is linked to the underlying sheet. For instance, if I click on the milestone table, it leads me to the project plan. In that way, I am able to quickly navigate and update the data that appears up on the dashboard.

Now, whenever I go into meetings with a customer and with internal teams, I open this dashboard and quickly get myself up to speed with recent changes. It's easy to understand what requires attention and what the next steps are. And it's never a problem to provide a report on short notice.

Project Retrospective Data

2019-07-31T00:00:00+03:00

When you face a problem in your project, don’t get frustrated. Take another perspective: It’s an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to improve yourself or your team. Failure, however painful and stressful, is a resource, so embrace it.

Of course, in order for problems to benefit you, you should take time to review and learn from the experience. To simplify the learning process, start collecting postmortem data from the very beginning. Along with the project plan, set up everything to make gathering feedback as easy as possible.

Below is the minimum set of data I usually collect and review on my projects. I do it during the project execution while my and my team’s memories are still fresh.

Issue List

This list is designed to store all the issues discovered during the project execution. Every issue belongs to a defined category. When you start the analysis, you can easily identify some common patterns (for instance, which types of issues cause you the most trouble). Having this data handy not only helps prevent the same issues from happening in the future but also helps make positive process changes at the organizational level. It’s pure gold!

Risk List

Similar to the issues, the risks grouped by categories will give you insights. The next step is to collect data on the risks that became issues later on and try to understand why they turned into issues even though they were discovered early on.

Schedule Variance

Projects don’t always follow their schedules exactly, and it’s always interesting to see the variance between the baseline and the actual dates. For that, you need to define the baseline start and end dates. When the project is done, compare those dates to the actual start and end dates.

One step further is to match delays to the issues from the list above. A report like this will give you an understanding of which issues caused the timeline slippage.

Lessons Learned and Action Items

When you’re looking back at the issues, you typically form an idea of what you could have done better. For each issue, write down a lesson worth reflecting on. Sometimes it might require an action item for your team or a change request at the organizational level. Take action to really benefit from the lessons learned.

When the project is done, schedule a meeting with the internal stakeholders to review the collected data, have a good discussion, and think of ways of how to improve.

…

To conclude, I’ve written this note from a project manager’s perspective, but I do not believe retrospectives are something that only PMs need to do. All team members who are keen to learn from their experiences should do them to some extent. Simply journaling your thoughts and issues throughout your workdays will provide lots of benefits. Happy learning!

Schedules slip but are still helpful

2019-06-13T00:00:00+03:00

As well known, human beings are bad at predicting the future. Having worked on different kinds of projects, I can say that engineers who are supposed to do the project work are reluctant to schedules. Their attitude is rather skeptical. Why trying to predict if the schedule will slip regardless?

However, as Scott Berkun has put it in his book on Project Management "Making Things Happen", all schedules serve three purposes:

"The first is to make commitments about when things will be done. The schedule provides a contract between every person involved, confirming what each person is going to deliver over a particular period of time.
"The second purpose of a schedule is to encourage everyone to see her efforts as part of a whole, and to invest in making her pieces work with the others. Schedules force everyone to carefully think through the work they need to do.
"The third purpose of schedules is to provide a tool to track progress and break work into manageable chunks."

That's why it's still important to create and maintain the project schedules.

Как правильно учиться

2018-11-19T00:00:00+02:00

Когда-то я прошел на Coursera очень классный онлайн-курс "Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects". Его авторы, Барбара Оукленд и Терренс Сейновски, поделились действительно полезными инструментами и советами, как учиться более эффективно. Здесь я приведу основные положения.

Лучше учиться регулярно и понемногу, чем редко, но огромными порциями.¹
Делайте перерыв между учебными сессиями, чтобы заняться чем-то совершенно другим (например, пойти на прогулку). Это помогет эффективнее усвоить новый материал.
Разбивайте большой объём информации на порции и работайте с каждой из них.
Периодически смотрите с высоты птичьего полета на изучаемую тему, чтобы увидеть картину в целом.
Практикуйтесь в изученном, чтобы закрепить материал и получить обратную связь.
Уделяйте должное внимание сну.
Вспоминать материал — это лучший способ учиться, более эффективный, чем перечитывание материала.
Самопроверка дает чуть ли не больше, чем обучение. В идеале, задавать себе вопросы после каждой порции материала.
Физические упражнения помогают новому материалу лучше усвоиться.
Учитесь с самого утра - до того, как рутина начнет поглощать ваше время и внимание.
Учитесь в тихом месте, исключая раздражители и отвлекающие моменты.
Чтобы бороться с прокрастинацией, сфокусируйтесь на процессе, а не результате.

Напоследок, нельзя считать, что вы что-то выучили по-настоящему, пока не можете научить этому других.

Вообще, интервальные повторения отлично помогают запомнить информацию на долгое время. Мозг придает больше значения повторяемой информации, что подтверждают некоторые исследования. И странно, что мы не используем интервальные повторения в школах. В большинстве своем, в классах учат единственную тему за одну сессию, и не повторяют ее до теста. Единожды прослушанный урок оставляет в головах почти ничего, особенно если учитель скучен, а урок долгий. В результате, многие приходят к зубрежке как единственному, но плохому, способу подготовиться к тестам. ↩

Reviewing interim project outcomes

2018-09-13T00:00:00+03:00

We failed to review one piece of the project with a customer before proceeding to the next step, not believing it to be necessary since the project was just beginning and actual deliverables were yet to come.

The customer took some time to inspect a deployment model we prepared, because they wanted to understand everything we were going to deploy for them. As a result, we lost several days waiting for feedback. This delay could have been significantly reduced with adequate planning.

The following lessons were learned.

Always keep the customer updated on your progress, even if you think the piece of work you have completed is not important.
Demonstrate or review interim outcomes of the project as it progresses, or at least offer this option to your customer.
Plan for customer review in advance to avoid wasted time.

Reviewing interim project outcomes should secure acceptance of the final deliverables.

How to Make Meetings Work!

2018-09-05T00:00:00+03:00

UPDATED: 12 Oct 2020

Here's my mindmap on the very helpful book "How To Make Meetings Work!" by David Straus and Michael Doyle. Click the image to open a mind map hosted on the XMind website. Or save the image as a file on your local disk.

Steps to a better meeting

Also copying an appendix from the book, slightly updated for the online reality.

Before the Meeting

1 - Plan the meeting carefully: who, what, when, where, why, how many.
2 - Prepare and send out an agenda in advance.
3 - Come early.

At the Beginning of the Meeting

4 - Start on time.
5 - Get participants to introduce themselves and state their expectations for the meeting.
6 - Clearly define roles.
7 - Review, revise, and order the agenda.
8 - Set clear time limits.
9 - Review action items from the previous meeting.

During the Meeting

10 - Focus on the same problem in the same way at the same time.

At the End of the Meeting

11 - Establish action items: who, what, when.
12 - Review the group memory.
13 - Set the date place of the next meeting and develop a preliminary agenda
14 - Evaluate the meeting.
15 - Close the meeting crisply and positively.
~~16 - Clean up and rearrange the room.~~

After the Meeting

17 - Prepare the group memory.
18 - Follow-up on action items and begin to plan the next meeting.

Lisbon 2018

2018-08-14T00:00:00+03:00

I had never been to Portugal before this travel. I knew little about the country, and had no clue what to expect. As a result, my expectations were easily exceeded. I really liked what I saw and experienced there: places, nature, local food, and people!

In this post, I'll share some details, photos, and my commentary. Hope someone will find it useful.

Day 1. Lisbon: Navy Museum, Coaches Museum, Belem district

Both museums, Navy and Coaches, will reveal the former greatness of Portugal. Some of the vehicles are really works of art, but at the same time they are examples of mindless waste of money. Why would one need to carry a statue along with oneself other than to show one's own status?

Day 2. Lisbon: Jeronimos Monastery, St George's Castle

These are standard tourist attractions in Lisbon, part of any travel guide, so I don't have much to add.

From the castle itself, a great view is open like this.

Day 3. Evora

Had it been possible to change the past, I would have replaced visiting Evora with another day in Sintra. However, if you would like to see the famous chapel adorned with the bones and skulls of dead monks, you should definitely go there. You may also want to climb the roof of the Cathedral of Evora like we did.

Day 4. Cascais Beach, Cabo da Roca, Sintra (Pena Palace)

We arrived in Sintra in the evening, after a quick stay at the Cascais beach followed by several hours contemplating on the view of the Atlantic Ocean at Cabo da Roca. We should not have mixed all that in one day! Only Sintra parks alone deserve a separate day, if not two or three. We then saw just the Pena Palace, and we returned the next day to see Quinta da Regaleira (see below).

Cabo da Roca is an extraordinary place, really, - especially if you dare to get down the ocean like we did, though there wasn't an easy track. At the base of Cabo da Roca we lost count of time. So tremendous it was!

We had little time left, unfortunately, for the Pena Palace, so we didn't bother ourselves with taking lots of photos. We just enjoyed being there.

Day 5. Mafra: Royal Palace, Tapada Nacional

In Mafra, we visited the former royal palace, the vastness of which is amazing. Nearby, also, there is a national park created for royal recreation and hunting. Nowadays, it holds different species of deer, wild boar, and many others coexisting in natural habitat. We had only an hour for walking around, but we managed to run into some species. Would have spent some more hours there. You can get to the park by taking a taxi from the palace for 10 euros.

Day 6. Sintra: Quinta da Regaleira

This is a gorgeous park with a nice palace and chapel. The park also contains a mysterious system of tunnels. You should listen to the audio guide that they lend at the desk: you will know a lot of interesting facts about the former host and get intrigued by this place even further. Try to get there early in the morning to avoid lots of visitors.

What was left beyond this trip

We didn't manage to visit cities of Coimbra and Tomar, Obidos Castle, Batalha Monastery. In addition, there is a number of art museums in Lisbon worth attending. We keep all that for (hopefully) next time.

Avoid pie charts

2018-02-20T00:00:00+02:00

Pie charts are overly popular and widely used in the business world. However, as Stephen Few puts it in his book “Show me the numbers”, this kind of graphs is not efficient communication tool. He jokes that the author of pie charts, William Playfair, was probably under the weather when invented it.

Accordingly to Few, here’s the reason why pie charts poorly convey quantitative information. The human visual perception is not designed to accurately assign numbers to 2D areas. Therefore, we have hard time discerning quantitative values encoded with sections. Especially in case the values are close to each other. In the best scenario, we only can see that one slice is bigger than the other, but it’s hard to assess how much.

Example of a pie chart

The same information can be presented in a more clear way with using bar charts. So that we can compare and interpret the data with ease.

Same data encoded with bar chart

That’s why Stephen strongly advises excluding pie charts from our repertoire. Because the true purpose of quantitative display is to efficiently give the readers important, useful and meaningful insights. Pie charts don’t help with this, despite their visual appeal.

Additional reading:

Publish Gantt chart from OmniPlan into Confluence

2017-12-27T00:00:00+02:00

As many of us would agree, a project manager is responsible for a realistic project schedule. And Gantt chart is a tool that allows PMs to manage schedule in addition to coordinating a team's work.

However, here's the challenge I encountered in my work: only PMs are the ones who use special software for managing Gantt bars. Like MS Project, or OmniPlan in my case. Therefore, to keep the team and other stakeholders updated, the PM needs regularly to export it in a commonly readable format and broadcast it.

Of course, that's not convenient. So I've found a better approach. Instead of sending a schedule snapshot manually on a regular basis, I can publish the schedule seamlessly on a Confluence wiki page. There, everyone concerned can be added to a watch list to receive a recent version each time it's updated. Sounds good? All that can be done through integration between OmniPlan, Google Drive, and Atlassian Confluence.

Here's 5-step instruction on how you can do that too.

Step 1. First, you need to install Google Drive application, and set up a folder that's synced to the cloud.

Step 2. In OmniPlan, which is my Gantt chart software, there is a feature called auto-publishing (go to menu Project -> Configure Publishing & Subscriptions...), depicted on the screenshot below.

Below is what you should do on it:

Press "+" to add Export item.
Choose a format (e.g. PNG) in "Export As" dropdown.
Choose a file location (it should be the Google Drive folder).
Enable the checkbox "Perform publishing actions automatically when saving".

Step 3. Once the exported image is synced to the cloud, you then share it for public access (locate the image on the web Google Drive -> Right click -> Share (advanced) -> Choose "On - Public on the web")

Step 4. To form a direct download URL ready for Confluence, you need to do this trick: on the web Google Drive, right click the image and select "Get shareable link", then copy a value that follows "id" parameter, and paste it into the following template:

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=<ID>

This way, you'll get a direct link to the image that you can view in a browser.

Step 5. Finally, you just need to insert this link into a Confluence wiki page, to which you want to give access for the stakeholders.

That's all! Now, share the Confluence page with everyone who should be aware of the schedule, or add them to watch list of the page. From now on, they can always get the latest version of the schedule from you even without asking. Just keep it up to date.

Additional resources:

If you're using Dropbox instead of Google Drive, you could find this article useful.

PMP Exam Prep by Rita Mulcahy

2017-05-31T00:00:00+03:00

Below is my summary on the "PMP Exam Prep - Eight Edition" book by Rita Mulcahy. I didn't read this book to pass the exam (still in my plans). I read it to understand the principles of the Project Management. And it helped a lot.

Project Management Process

Project life cycle - what you do to do the work. PM process - what you do to manage the project.

Understand the business case. Projects should satisfy the business needs when completed. Understand why the project was selected, and manage it accordingly.

Why iterations go after risk identification process? Because additional work may be added to the scope. E.g. Perform additional testing to avoid risk.

The focus of executing actions is to manage people and work to accomplish the project as planned. The focus of M&C is to make sure the project is progressing according to plan, and to approve necessary changes to the plan to meet the organization's strategic objectives.

The PMs are supposed to think about things before they do them.

The occasions when the team gets together are too important to just focus on collecting status. How about reviewing risks and upcoming contingency plans?

Change requests:

corrective actions
preventive actions
defect repair

Submitting a change request should be the very last resort and only used if there is no other way to make up the deviation.

Executing, not planning, takes the most project time and resources.

Integration Management

What's a PM’s main role? To perform integration management - putting all the pieces of the project together into one cohesive whole. The pm is always integrating.

The project charter:

The project charter must not change as the project progresses. Any change should call into question whether the project should continue.

Developing the project charter requires the following actions:

Identifying stakeholders
Meeting with key stakeholders to confirm high-level requirements, project scope, risks, assumptions, and issues
Defining product scope
Defining project objectives, constraints, and success criteria
Documenting risks

All projects should have charters.

Having a single project sponsor is not necessary.

Sunk costs should not be considered when deciding whether to continue with a troubled project.

Exam questions:

Project charter sign-off: having one project sponsor is not necessary.
If a project manager is not familiar with technology behind the project, it's still his responsibility to lead processes of Develop Schedule, Estimate Costs, Define Activities, and Estimate Activity Resources.
If the promised resource is not available when executing, you better explain the impact and consequences of it rather to saying "but you promised me".

Project management plan:

Baselines:

scope baseline
schedule baseline
cost baseline

Together are called the performance measurement baseline.

If a deviation, assess whether adjustments can be made to the project to deal with a problem. If doesn't help, a change request to baselines might be necessary.

Changes are much more costly than if the work had been included from the beginning. Changes should not be undertaken lightly.

Product scope, project scope, and project management efforts must be monitored and controlled.

M&C means measuring against the project management plan.

If a work activity takes longer than estimated, request corrective action to make up for the delay.

A change to one of the project constraints should be evaluated for impacts on all other constraints.

Someone wants to make a change to project scope. What is the best thing to do first?

Evaluate the impact to all aspects of the project.
Identify options. E.g. cut other e activities, compressing the schedule, other.
Get the change request approved internally.
Get the customer buy-in if required.

Scope Management

Collect requirements, which could relate to:

how the work is managed (no downtime on weekends)
product capabilities
quality
business processes
compliance
or even project management.

Resolve competing requirements by accepting those that best comply with following:

the business case
the project charter
the project scope statement
the project constraints.

Unrealistic schedules are the project managers' fault because they have not done planning in an iterative way. They must reconcile the scope to schedule and other constraints to resolve the problem before work begins.

WBS is deliverable-oriented, work refers not to an activity, but to the work products or deliverables that result from an activity.

Exam questions:

if project sponsor denies , stakeholders requests should be rejected
work package can be completed by more than one person
the project team is responsible for developing the scope baseline

Time Management

A project schedule must be realistic before project starts.

If the estimator has many unknowns and info is not available, the potential need for additional time or funds should be addressed with reserves through the risk management process.

If given a choice between crashing or fast tracking options, select the choice with the least negative impact on the project.

The first and best choice for shortening the schedule is to look at risks and then reestimate. By eliminating the risks, the estimate can be lowered.

Controlling a project:

Project managers are measuring, measuring, measuring against the plan and taking actions (corrective or preventive) as needed to control the project.

Exam questions:

Milestones chart are more effective for reporting to upper management
When network diagram cannot be changed, it means the fast tracking option is not an option
To complete the schedule, gain approval of the management
Analogous project estimate is high-level (top-down), so not detailed enough for team to understand what’s required
The schedule is not finalized until after schedule compression

Cost Management

If a project estimate exceeds the management constraints, the PM has to meet w/ mgmt, explain why their cost cannot be met, and propose options to decrease costs.

Oversight and control are essential for the success of both the project and your career as a PM.

How to determine project progress:

Using earned value measurement
Measuring deliverable completion

Reserve analysis:

if the risk does not occur and is not longer a treat, the contingency reserve can be removed from the cost baseline;
if new risk identified, it may lead to a decision to increase the contingency reserves

Both of these options result in a change request being submitted through integrate change control.

Exam questions:

Say a customer asks to reconsider your estimate to the bigger edge. Presenting anything else than your original estimate is accurate. Instead, ask for risks related to your low estimate.
Training a team is direct cost
Value analysis seeks to decrease the cost while maintaining the same scope
Analogous estimating is a form of expert judgement
Identified risks are both an input to and an output to the Estimate Costs process
If costs must be decreased, you can look to cut quality, decrease risk, cut scope, or use cheaper resources.

Quality Management

The PM should recommend improvements to the performing organization’s standards, policies, and processes.

Marginal Analysis. Sometimes added attention to something such a quality does not produce added value. When that point is reached, you should stop trying to improve quality.

The costs of conformance to quality should be lower than the costs of non-conformance. Otherwise, why spend time improving quality?

Quality control results in change requests, including recommended corrective and preventive actions and defect repair.

When a product or service completely meets a customer’s needs, quality is achieved. Quality is the degree to which the project meets requirements.

Gold plating. You should provide only what the customer asked for. The team does not know if their change will provide benefit to the customer. The team should focus their efforts on fulfilling the requirements.

Lessons Learned with Exam questions:

In a just in time environment, supplies are delivered when you need them and not before. Therefore, you little or no inventory.
If the previous PM didn’t not finish planning, continuing to execute the PMP should not be next.
A good PM will find the root cause and deal with that, even if it means attempting to improve the company’s policies.

HR Management

Projects are planned by the team and coordinated by the project manager.

HR responsibilities increase as the size of the project team increases.

(Senior) management must serve as a protector of the project (so long as the project continues to meet the organization’s strategic goals).

HR management plan states when and how team members will be added, managed, and released from the project. And also:

roles and responsibilities;
project organization charts;
staffing management plan:
- plan for staff acquisition
resource calendar
staff release plan
staff training needs
recognition and rewards
compliance
safety

A recognition and reward system involves asking what your team and stakeholders want to get out of the project (on a professional and personal level).

People perform better when they have input, rather than simply being told what to do.

Team-building activities can include:

Taking classes together;
Milestone parties;
Holiday and birthday celebrations;
Outside-of-work trips;
Creating the WBS
Getting everyone involved in planning the project.

Ground rules are especially important when the team is managed virtually.

On a properly managed project, the project team helps to create the PM plan.

Problem-solving method:

Define the real or root problem
Analyze the problem
Identify solutions
Pick a solution
Implement a solution
Review the solution, and confirm it solved the problem.

Exam questions:

The project schedule remains preliminary until resources assignments are confirmed
The job of the PM includes providing or obtaining project-specific training for the team. This kind of training may be a direct cost of the project.
It’s the sponsor role to precent unnecessary changes and to set priorities.
Recommended corrective or preventive action can come from the team or stakeholders in addition to the project manager.

Communications Management

A basic concept of communications is that they should be efficient (providing only info needed) and effective (providing info in the right format of the right time).

To make a project successful, you need to keep managing the project, rather than just reporting on it.

There are different types of performance reports:

status report (performance measurement baseline)
progress report (what has been accomplished)
trend report (performance is improving or deteriorating)
forecasting report (future status and performance)
variance report (compares actual results to baselines)
earned value report
lessons learned documentation

Exam questions:

Communications are often enhanced when the sender shows concern for the perspective of the receiver.
The progress report summarizes project status, and is the most helpful for a quick review.
Including functional managers in communications planning, requirements gathering, risk management, and other areas of project management helps make the project better.
The only report that compares results is a variance analysis.

Risk Management

Uncertainty - lack of knowledge about the work that needs to be done, the cost, the time, the quality needs, the communications needs, etc. The investigation of uncertainty may help identify risks.

Risks categorization is to group risks by cause to know which work packages, processes, people, etc. have the most risk associated with them. It can be organized in a risk breakdown structure.

Contingency reserve:

A contingency reserve may only be used to handle the impact of the specific risk it was set aside for. For the other problems occurred, the PM must take preventive or corrective action, fast track, crash, or otherwise adjust the project to accommodate the impact of the problem.
If the risks do not occur, the associated time or cost reserves should be returned to the company, rather than used to address other issues on the project.

The approved project management plan and baselines are not static while work is performed, but changes to them must go through Integrated Change Control.

Stakeholder Management

Why is it essential to identify all stakeholders on the project? Any stakeholders who are missed will likely be identified later. When they are discovered, they will probably request changes, which may cause delays.

Stakeholder group can include:

the sponsor,
team members,
senior mgmt,
SMEs,
end users of the product/service,
other departments or groups within the organization,
functional or operational managements,
vendors, consultants, customers, financial institutions, and many more.

Exam questions:

if PM wants to more extensively involve the stakeholders on the project, the best choice is having the stakeholders periodically review the list of project requirements. It helps discover errors and changes.
stakeholders help to determine the project constraints and product deliverables
the role of each stakeholder is identified by PM and the stakeholder. It's important that stakeholders have input into what they will be contributing to the project.
you need to consider the needs of all (not only the most influential) your stakeholders as early as possible, to create a better organized project.

The ethical application of Project Management

It's unethical to:

provide a project schedule that you don't believe to be accurate
waste company resources because you have not properly planned a project
manage a project without a project charter or a WBS

My 2016 Annual Review

2016-12-29T00:00:00+02:00

This is my attempt to reflect on events of the year 2016. For that, I'll answer three questions:

What went well this year?
What could have been done better?
What am I working toward?

This is a format I decided to use being inspired by the annual reviews by James Clear.

What went well?

Project management experience. The year of 2016 I began in a new role. After a switch from QA Engineer position in the end of 2015, I've been evaluating my choice throughout the whole year. At this point, I can definitely say that I don't regret about my move to project management. I like my new role and responsibilities, and find myself satisfied with what achieved so far. I'm getting the hang of it, although there is a plenty of room for improvements, as always.

Learning. Being a newbie to project management, I wanted to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. And took several online courses explaining the basics of project management and management as a whole. Also I wanted to improve my English, as communication is a key of the subject. That's why I took a few courses at Coursera focusing on Business English.

So, here is a list of the courses I completed in 2016:

Reading fiction literature. Although I read only a dozen of books last year, I'm glad that half of them were fiction ones. There are so many professional and self-help books in my reading list that it's hard to find time for reading fiction. It's easy to think that fiction books don't bring much of value to your life. However, they can teach you such important things as empathy, leading, being better at decision making, just to name a few. Not to mention that I really enjoyed reading classics like "Crime and Punishment", "451 Fahrenheit", "Othello".

Travel with my family. The highlight of the year was definitely the travel to Rome. My old dream came true at last. What's more, I did it along with my wife and the kid. Traveling with a 10-month child is never easy, but being with him far away from home and having photos of the kid in front of Colosseum are something special, and it was worth any inconvenience. Anyway, the Eternal City made a great impression on us, and we eagerly want to come back to there some day.

Last year, we also traveled to Lviv and Barcelona, which both left good memories too.

Writings. I started writing articles, most of which are here, on this website. Besides, a couple of my posts in Russian were published on other sites. I feel really good about writing, although I procrastinate a lot on it. However, once done, it makes my day.

Improved my English-speaking skill. Subjectively, I feel I've got better at speaking English. A manager role involves a lot of meetings, where you have a chance to practice it. Thus, no surprise I made some progress and got confidence in speaking English. In addition, I practiced the skill on my own with such services as Cambly and ABA English.

What could have been done better?

Focus on what's in front of me. Being distracted by a bunch of books, podcasts, articles, courses, and ideas swirling in my head, I was feeling stressed for most of the year and making a slow progress on what matters most. Wanted to take courses, and read books, and improve English, and write articles, and start off a side project, and so on and so forth. All that was in addition to demands of my work and family. I wanted it all, I wanted it right then. But it doesn't work that way, so I have to make a choice and stick to one thing at a time.

Shouldn't have rushed learning. As a consequence of the previous, I wanted to take as much courses as possible, and read books faster. The pace was high, and I didn't have enough time to properly absorb the learned material or summarize it. Moreover, I completed only a part of course assignments. This is a poor way of learning.

What am I working toward?

Moving to another city. I and my wife consider changing the environment and living in other place. We've been always living in the native city, so it's worth getting new experience, and opening ourselves to new opportunities. This is a primary objective of my family for now.

Continue learning and getting experience on PM front. I need to improve my understanding of PM processes and practices, so I've already ordered the book "PMP Exam Prep" by Rita Mulcahy. Although I haven't decided whether I want to go pass the exam, reading this through should help me regardless.

Another improvement I plan for is to get an experience driving a project with more than 3 people involved. So far I've been managed relatively small projects, with 1-2 people. More people mean more dependencies, interactions, communications to be managed, and it may be a challenge for me.

So, this is what my annual review looks like. Of course, that's not the comprehensive list of what I had in the year 2016. For instance, I could tell a lot about my experience as a father, the joy of watching your kid grow. First steps, first words. But it's hard for me to put in words what it feels like, so I left it out of the review.

Pairwise testing

2016-11-03T00:00:00+02:00

Problem:

Imagine you're a managing a project where the constraints like scope, time, cost, and quality have been already negotiated and approved. At some point before the project start, it turns out that a customer wants to change the scope so that a number of test combinations goes significantly up.

Example. A project is about developing a flight booking website. On the home page, there is a form with the following dropdown lists:

From: country1, country2, country3
To: country1, country2, country3

Now, the customer is surprised that the form doesn't contain a dropdown with Class options. I don't go into details why it could be missed, but from the customer's point of view the form should look like this:

From: country1, country2, country3
To: country1, country2, country3
Class: coach, business, first

Adding that dropdown shouldn't add development efforts; however, it is going to increase a number of combinations to cover with tests. If initially we were thinking of nine combinations (3x3) to test, now the number of test cases equals to twenty seven (3x3x3, right?).

Apparently, we cannot test 27 test cases in a time supposed for 9. The customer doesn't want to pay for additional test efforts. And we cannot skip testing of the additional cases either. What can we do, then?

Solution:

Instead of testing all the combinations for all the variables, test all pairs of the variables. This approach is called pairwise testing, and it lets significantly reduce the number of tests.

In the above example, it's possible to cover all pairwise combinations in only 9 tests. Triple effort reduction. How does it work?

Studies have shown that either single input parameter or an interactions between pairs of parameters cause most software defects. Thus, fewer tests and almost the same coverage are the benefits of using this technique.

NB: Nevertheless, be aware of that there is no guarantee it won't miss an important combination that may reveal a bug. You should review the generated combinations and add any important or risky case that's missed.

How to:

There are several ways to generate all the pairs, including so called Orthogonal Arrays and numerous tools based on the AllPairs algorithm. The following tool called pairwise helped me once.

After installing, create yaml file with the lines as follows:

from: [country1, country2, country3]
to: [country1, country2, country3]
class: [coach, business, first]

Then run the tool in command line:

pairwise input.yaml

The output would be:

| class    | from     | to       |
| coach    | country1 | country1 |
| coach    | country2 | country3 |
| coach    | country3 | country2 |
| business | country1 | country3 |
| business | country2 | country2 |
| business | country3 | country1 |
| first    | country1 | country2 |
| first    | country2 | country1 |
| first    | country3 | country3 |

These are now the nine cases that can be used for testing purpose.

Conclusion:

The pairwise testing may help you out when the number of test combinations is very large. This reduces the test efforts while keeping the quality expectations at the high level. However, don't trust it blindly and include additionally the combinations known to be risky.

Against multitasking

2016-10-19T00:00:00+03:00

Multitasking is a feature of the microprocessor not a human's.

In the world surrounded by computer technologies, multitasking is something quite natural. Opening multiple tabs with different resources in a browser. Chatting with several people at a time. Sending an email when on a web conference call. Does it sound familiar? I observe it every day at work. My colleagues do multitask. So do I.

But let's see what we know about multitasking.

We don't actually multitask. We rapidly switch our attention from one task to another and interrupt our productivity.
Our productivity may go down by 40% when we attempt to focus on several things at once¹.
It's not only counterproductive, it is also stressful².
People who are constantly breaking away from tasks to react to email or text messages suffer similar effects as losing a night's sleep³.
Multitasking may be effective though when combining physical and mental activities. E.g. listening to a book while running. In terms of mindfulness though, it's still better to do one thing at a moment.

Given all that, it's quite funny to see job descriptions containing a requirement like “ability to handle multitasking activities”.

Here're some guidelines I try to follow to avoid multitasking

I use Pomodoro sessions so that I'm focused on a particular task for at least 25 minutes.
When focusing on a task, I disable all messengers and notifications on my computer, and mute phone and other devices.
I don't want to be interrupted by incoming messages. Therefore, I use Inbox When Ready Chrome extension when composing and sending emails or searching information in Gmail without getting distracted.
In web meetings, I try to focus on a meeting, and not to send emails, chat with co-workers, browse web, etc.
I batch small similar tasks into one task that I take on later.

One last thing. If you're a manager, try to relieve your directs - as much as you can - from being distracted, too. Be responsible for others focus. Otherwise you're in charge of their productivity slowing down as well as stress level increasing.

My website: why and how

2016-10-02T00:00:00+03:00

In this post, I'm going to describe why and how I built my personal website.

I'll begin with why. Here are several reasons that motivated me in the first place.

Improving my writing English skill
Enhancing communication
Writing about what I've learned should help me understand it better
Showing my qualifications, experience and competence
Letting others know me better
Sharing solutions and other useful things came across in my work and life

Now, here is how I've built my website.

I've been using Pelican, a static site generator. I write and keep content in markdown, and the tool generates HTML files out of it all. I've chosen Pelican because it's written in Python, which is familiar to me.

Why not using one of many content management systems?

Some time ago, I actually had experience with websites built with a CMS. The worse thing about managing it was technical overhead of merely keeping the website up and running. Maintaining would take a lot of time, which I could spend on writing new content or marketing it.

Here are some good reasons why I'm fond of static site generators (SSG).

Performance. The static pages were what the Internet had started with. Just flat HTML pages. You don't need a server running database, interpreter, or something like that. A client requests a web page, and they get it immediately without a need for processing the request on the server side.
Reliability. Because of fewer server-side dependencies, the website built with SSG is much more reliable as opposed to CMS. You're not going to struggle from database failures, or PHP running out of memory. And you ain't afraid of another server upgrade by your hosting provider, which sometimes bring in unexpected issues.
Security. If a server doesn't run a database, or contain script execution environment, there's merely nothing to hack. So you don't have to maintain security patches just to avoid your site being defaced or something.
Cost efficiency. Hosting static pages is fairly cheap if not completely free. A static site is lightweight, and can be hosted by any server able to return HTML files. I use Gitlab.com for both hosting and building pages from the source code. And it's free.
Version control and Markdown. The source code of a static web site is just a collection of Markdown text files, templates, and possibly some JS files. Everything can be stored in Git repository, which simplifies backup and makes easier to undo any change. In addition, for creating and editing content I can use a favorite text editor instead of writing in clumsy WYSIWYG web editors.

That's why I'm convinced that if you need a content-based website like blog or news portal, you definitely should not go with any kind of a typical CMS. Take a look at a static site generator that could turn out to be an ideal tool for you.

Principles of PM: Project Execute and Finish Phases

2016-06-22T00:00:00+03:00

My summary of the module 4 of the course "Principles of Project Management".

The Execute – or doing – phase overview

Basically the Execute phase of the project’s life cycle is where the Project Management Plan is put into action.

18 of 42 PMBoK processes fall into the two process groups of executing and monitoring & controlling.

The monitoring & controlling processes happen in parallel to executing processes and are used to assess how accurately the baseline matches the project progress.

Conducting Procurements

Inputs: Project Management Plan, Procurement documents, Source selection criteria, Qualified seller list, Seller proposals, Project documents, Make or buy decisions, Teaming agreements, Organisational process assets.

Tools & Techniques: Bidder conferences, Proposal evaluation techniques, Independent estimates, Expert judgement, Advertising, Internet search, Procurement negotiations.

Outputs: Selected sellers, Procurement contract award, Resource calendars, Change requests, Project management plan updates, Project document updates.

Make sure you thoroughly evaluate seller proposals using the T&T described for this process.

HR management processes

Acquiring the Project Team

Inputs: project management plan, enterprise environmental factors and organisational process assets.

Tools & Techniques: Pre-assignment, Negotiation, Acquisition and Virtual teams

Outputs are: Project staff assignments, resource calendars, project management plan updates.

Resource calendar documents availability of each team member, including any pre-booked leave or commitments. This info may have an impact on other processes such as task durations and activity sequencing; thus, these should be adjusted accordingly.

Developing the Project Team

Inputs: project staff assignments, project management plan, resource calendars.

Tools & Techniques: Interpersonal skills, Training, Team-building activities, Ground rules, Co-location and Recognition and rewards

Outputs are: Team performance assessments and updates to enterprise environmental factors.

Once the project team is assembled and the project management plan is ready to execute, a kick-off meeting should be held for the execution phase.

The benefits of running a kick-off:

Everyone to be on the same page in regards to understanding the project goals
Roles and responsibilities will be clearer
Opportunity for people to ask questions and get answers
Process and procedures the team should follow to be outlined
Communication plan
Everyone to know where important documents can be found
Building team ethos

Another way of building a team is to involve them in planning processes.

Manage the Project team

Inputs: Inputs: project staff assignments, project management plan, Team performance assessments, Performance reports and organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques: Interpersonal skills, observation & conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management and an issue log

Outputs are: Change requests, organisational process assets updates, project management plan updates and enterprise environmental factor updates.

Communications management processes

Distributing information

Inputs: Project management plan, Performance reports and Organisational process assets.

Tools & Techniques: Communication methods, Information distribution tools

Outputs are: Organisational process assets updates.

Avoid overloading people with information as there is a risk they start ignoring all communications which can be dangerous as they may then miss information critical to their work tasks.

Managing stakeholder expectations

Inputs: Stakeholder register, stakeholder management strategy, Project management plan, Issue log, Change Log and Organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques: Communication methods, Interpersonal skills and Management skills

Outputs are: : Change requests, organisational process assets updates, project management plan updates and project document updates.

Managing stakeholders, including the team members, means keeping the right people supporting your project.

Monitoring and controlling execution

Verify Scope

Inputs: Project Management Plan, Requirements documentation, Requirements traceability matrix, Validated deliverables

Tools & techniques: Inspection (product review, audit)

Outputs: Accepted deliverables, Change requests, Project management documents

Inspection is after checking that the work and deliverables meet the requirements documented at the project start.

The sooner you can actually verify scope is being met during execution, the more confident you can be that you will be meeting the customers’ requirements at handover.

Scope Control process

Inputs: Project Management Plan, Work performance info, Requirements documentation, Requirements traceability matrix, Organisational process assets

Tools & techniques: Variance Analysis

Outputs: Work performance measurements, Organisational process asset updates, Change requests, Project management plan updates, Project document updates

If there is a difference between planned and actual work, then either corrective or preventative action may be required.

Control schedule

Inputs: Project Management Plan, Project Schedule, Work performance info, Organisational process assets

Tools & techniques: Performance reviews, Variance Analysis, Project management software, resource levelling, what-if scenario analysis, adjusting leads and lags, schedule compression and scheduling tool

Outputs: Work performance measurements, Organisational process asset updates , Change requests, Project management plan updates, Project document updates

Variance Analysis, like when controlling scope, is used to look for difference between the baseline and actual execution.

Schedule compression is conducted by either fast tracking (activities were to be performed sequentially are changed to happen in parallel == risk of rework) or crashing (shortening timeline by overtimes or involving additional resources).

Control of costs

Inputs: Project Management Plan, Project funding requirements, Work performance info, Organisational process assets

Tools & techniques: Earned value management, forecasting, to-complete performance index, Performance reviews, Variance Analysis, Project management software

Outputs: Work performance measurements, Budget forecasts, Organisational process asset updates,Change requests, Project management plan updates, Project document updates

EVM helps PMs to track and forecast project performance by combining measurements of scope, schedule and costs in a single system.

Report performance

Inputs: Project Management Plan, Work performance info, Work performance measurements, Budget forecasts, Organisational process assets

Tools & techniques: Variance Analysis, forecasting methods, communicating methods, Reporting systems

Outputs: Performance reports, Organisational process asset updates, Change requests

Performance reports (Status Reports) should show the following:

Work completed for the last period
Work scheduled for completion for the period ahead
Notification / explanation of variance
Summary of any changes requested
Current status of any risks and issues
Currently forecast project end date (and possibly cost)

Monitor and control risks

Inputs: Risk register, Project Management Plan, Work performance info, performance reports

Tools & techniques: Risk assessment, risk audits, Variance & trend Analysis, technical performance measurements, status meetings

Outputs: Risk register updates, Organisational process asset updates, Change requests, Project management plan updates, Project document updates

Quality auditing, control and continuous improvement

Perform Quality Assurance

This is execution process.

Inputs: Project management plan, quality metrics, work performance information, quality control measurements

Tools & Techniques: Plan quality & perform quality control tools and techniques, quality audits, process analysis

Outputs: Organisational process asset updates, change requests, PMP updates, project document updates.

Perform Quality Control

This is monitoring & controlling process.

Inputs: Project management plan, quality metrics, quality checklists, work performance measurements, approved change requests, deliverables, organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques: Cause & effect, control charts, flowcharts, histogram, Pareto charts, run chart, scatter diagram, statistical sampling, inspection, approved change requests

Outputs: quality control measurements, validated changes, validated deliverables, Organisational process asset updates, change requests, PMP updates, project document updates.

Integration processes for the PM

The following processes represent day-to-day PM work when managing a project.

Directing and Managing the Project Execution

This process, which belongs to integration knowledge area, is about executing all the work contained in the Project Management Plan to achieve the project’s outcomes.

Inputs: Project management plan, approved change requests, enterprise environmental factors, organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques: Expert judgement, project management information system

Outputs: Deliverables, Work performance information, change requests, Project Management Plan updates, project document updates

Deliverables include not only results but also project docs such as project charter, PM plan, etc.

Monitoring and controlling project work

This is about tracking, measuring, reviewing and regulating the actual progress of the project against the project management plan baselines.

Inputs: Project management plan, performance reports, enterprise environmental factors, organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques: Expert judgement

Outputs: Change requests, Project Management Plan updates, project document updates

Performing integrated change control

This process, which belongs to monitoring & controlling process group, is about reviewing, assessing, approving necessary changes that a project requires, and integrating them back into the project documentation.

Also, it's about rejecting change requests that are not going to add value to the project and will only delay or complicate this.

Inputs: Project management plan, work performance information, change requests, enterprise environmental factors, organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques: Expert judgement, change control meetings

Outputs: change requests status updates, PMP updates, project document updates

Change request assessment. It should be evaluated for cost, time, risk, work considerations, product and technical specifications.

A way of planning for change is to appoint a Change Control Board with key decision makers who should assist in making the right decisions. However, it makes sense to approve small changes on own and take only significant requests to the CCB.

Finishing phase & getting handover right

The Closure phase has only 2 processes:

Close procurements
Close project or phase.

Put simply, as long as your project scope was well defined in the Concept stage, stakeholder requirements correctly identified and meaningful, measurable success criteria and quality standards agreed to, finishing the project should run smoothly as the deliverables are verified and accepted as meeting the customer requirements and the needs of the project objectives.

Closing project or phase

This is integration management process.

Inputs: Project management plan, Accepted deliverables, Organisational Process Asset

Tools & Techniques: Expert judgement

Outputs: Final product, service or result transition, Organisational Process Asset (O.P.A.) updates

A proper finishing phase involves updating O.P.A., which are basically the archives of the past projects, that help any project running after this one.

Also note that carrying out this process does not necessarily mean that the project handover of its final product, service or result was carried out. If the project has been beset by problems and has drifted off course, or if the environment that the project was being carried out has changed so significantly that it can no longer meet other key stakeholders that need to be consulted – agree to close the project down.

Closing procurements

Inputs: Project management plan, Procurement documentation

Tools & Techniques: Procurement audits, Negotiated settlements, Records management system

Outputs: Closed procurements, Organisational Process Asset updates

By conducting this process, every contract used in procuring needs to be checked for terms & conditions, and made sure that everything has been delivered as per the contract.

Project Closure Report

It's important to write a Project Closure Report for every project, successful and terminated, with lessons learned and knowledge gained.

The purposes:

To review the successes and failures of the project
Assess how successful the project has been in meeting its outcomes
Outline any hand-over procedures that are needed for the transition of a project to becoming an on-going operation
Provide details for any outstanding issues that need dealing with after the formal closure of the project.
To document important lessons that have been learnt throughout the project
To make recommendations on how the project may have been better managed
Highlight best practise
Formalise the closure of the project (and get sign-off that it is closed)

The content:

The project title
The author(s) of the report
A Table of Contents
Background overview of the project
Reasons and methodology for closing the project
Highlights and best practise
Assessment of performance, compared against original objectives
Lessons learnt
Hand-over tasks for those that will be using/managing the project deliverable
Post-closure issues for anyone taking on the managing of the project deliverable
Recommendations for future projects

Principles of PM: The Develop Phase

2016-06-21T00:00:00+03:00

My summary of the module 3 of the course "Principles of Project Management".

The Developing or Planning Phase Overview

Why bother about planning?

Potential risks, constraints and assumptions are identified allowing to smooth the project execution
Helps measure the progress towards the outcome
The better planning has been conducted, the less changes will be required when executing the project
Keeps everyone focused on the project goal

The developing phase includes the following:

Writing the Project Plan
Defining the Project scope
Estimating the time and resources in detail
Estimating costs
Establishing quality objectives and planning how to implement and assure them
Setting up a Communications plan so all stakeholders are kept informed and aware of the project's progress
Determining and assessing the risks the project has and planning response to negative risks, as well as exploiting positive risks
Planning how procurements to be handled
Establishing integrated change control system

Developing a Project Management Plan

Essentially, the Project Mngmt Plan answers why, what, how, who and when of the project.

Inputs:

The Project Charter
The outputs of the 19 other planning processes
Organisational process assets
- previous project management plans
- lessons learned
- existing policies and procedures
- templates
Enterprise environmental factors
- the company culture and structure
- infrastructure
- existing human resources
- any existing PM software that can be used
- existing Government or Industry standards

Tools & Techniques:

Expert Judgement (not only your own, but SMEs, Pg Managers, team leaders, stakeholders)
- to tailor process to suit the project
- to workout needed resource and skill levels
- to develop technical and mgmt information
- to decide areas that require change mgmt
- to estimate how much change control mgmt, i.e. conf mgmt

Outputs:

The Project Management Plan

By the time the PMP is put together, it's appropriate to seek authorization for the plan from stakeholders. With all details gathered, the project may need to be reevaluated against its original business case.

Define Scope

3 Planning Processes:

Collecting requirements
Define Scope
- specs (of the project deliverable)
- project scope (i.e. work required to deliver the above)
Create WBS

Collecting requirements

Inputs:

Project Charter
Stakeholder register

Tools & Techniques:

Interviews
Focus groups
Facilitated workshops
Group creativity
Group decision making
Questionnaires, surveys, etc.
Prototypes

Output:

Requirements mgmt plan
- outlines how reqs will be analyzed, documented and managed
Requirements documentation
- documents the analyzed reqs and how they meet original business need, according to Requirements mgmt plan
Requirements traceability matrix
- table showing the origins of the documented reqs and also providing a way of tracking reqs

Define Scope

Inputs:

Project Charter
Requirements documentation
Organizational process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Expert judgement
Product analysis
Alternatives Identification
Facilitated workshops

Outputs:

Project scope statement
- product scope description
- product acceptance criteria
- deliverables
- exclusions (i.e. out of scope)
- constraints
- assumptions
Project documentation updates

Create WBS

One of the most important parts of the project planning. The main project goal is split into levels of deliverables (not the work activities!).

Inputs:

Project scope statement
Requirements documentation
Organizational process assets (any historical WBS, templates or guidelines)

Tools & Techniques:

Decomposition
- breakdown the project scope into work packages
- use hierarchy to define level of decomposition
- engage a team to building the WBS

Outputs:

WBS
WBS dictionary
Scope Baseline
- equals: Scope statement + WBS & dictionary
Project documentation updates

Estimate Duration and Resources

5 planning processes:

Define activities
- all the work to be done to create each work package
Sequence activities
Estimate activity resources
- materials, people, equipment, supplies
Estimate activity durations
Develop schedule

Define activities

Inputs:

The scope baseline
Enterprise environmental factors
- e.g. existing OM software tools (MS Project)
Organizational process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Decomposition of the WBS to work activities
Rolling wave planning
Templates
Expert Judgement

Outputs:

Activity list (with identifier for easy reference)
Activity attributes
- additional info
- e.g. WBS ID, Activity ID, name, descriptions, predecessor/successor activities, relationships, constraints.
Milestone list (significant events, 0 duration)

Sequence activities

4 commonly defined relationships:

Finish Start
Start Finish
Finish Finish
Start Start

Inputs:

Activity list
Activity attributes
Milestone list
Project scope statement
Org. process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Precedence diagram method
Dependency determination
Applying leads & lags
Schedule network templates

Outputs:

Project schedule network diagrams
Project documentation updates
- may include Activity list and attributes
- Risk register

Estimate resources

Inputs:

Activity list
Activity attributes
Resource calendars
Enterprise environmental factors
Org. process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Expert Judgement
Alternatives analysis
Published estimating data
Bottom-up estimating
Project mgtm software

Outputs:

Activity resource requirements
Resource breakdown structure
Project document updates

Estimate durations

Inputs:

Activity list
Activity attributes
Activity resource requirements
Resource calendars
Project scope statement
Enterprise environmental factors
Org. process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Expert Judgement
Analogous estimating
Parametric estimating
3-point estimating
Reserve analysis

Outputs:

Activity duration estimates
Project documentation updates

Develop Schedule

Inputs:

Activity list
Activity attributes
Project schedule network
Activity resource requirements
Resource calendars
Activity duration estimates
Project scope statement
Enterprise environmental factors
Org. process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Schedule network analysis
Critical path method
Critical chain method
Resource levelling
What-if scenario analysis
Applying leads and lags
Schedule compression, scheduling tool

Outputs:

The Project schedule
Schedule Baseline
Schedule database
Project document updates

Developing the Cost baseline

Estimating costs

Inputs:

Scope baseline
Project Schedule
HR plan
Risk register
Enterprise env. factors
Org. process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Expert Judgement
Analagous estimating
Parametric estimating
Bottom-up estimating
Three-point estimates
Reserve analysis
Cost of Quality
PM estimating software
Vendor bid analysis

Outputs:

Activity cost estimates
Basis of estimates
Project doc updates

Determining the budget

Inputs:

Activity Cost estimates
Basis of estimates
Scope baseline
Project Schedule
Resource calendars
Contracts
Organisational process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Expert Judgement
Cost aggregation
Reserve analysis
Historical relationships
Funding limit reconciliation

Outputs:

Cost performance baseline
Project funding requirements
Project document updates

Establishing Quality Standards

The only planning process about quality is Planning Quality.

Inputs:

Scope baseline
Stakeholder register
Cost performance baseline
Schedule baseline
Risk register
Enterprise environmental factors
Organisational process assets

Tools and Techniques:

Cost-benefit analysis
Cost of quality
Control charts
Benchmarking
Design of experiments
Statistical sampling
Flowcharting
Proprietary quality management methodologies
Additional quality planning tools

Outputs:

Quality management plan
Quality metrics
Quality checklists
Process improvement plan
Project document updates

Establishing Communication

Plan communications

Input:

Stakeholder register
Stakehlder mgmt strategy
Enterprise env. factors
Org. process assets

Tools & Techniques:

Communication reqs anaysis
Communication technology
Comm-n models
Comm-n methods

Outputs:

Communication mgmt plan
Project document updates

3 communication methods:

push
pull
interaction

Determining risks & planning procerements

5 risk planning processes

Developing a risk management plan
Identifying risks
Performing qualitative assessment
Performing quantitative assessment
Planning risk responses.

Overview of all the risk processes

The main output is a Risk mgmt plan. It should include the following

Method(s) for performing risk mgmt
Roles & responsibilities
Budgeting (contingencies and estimates for risk mgmt)
Timing - when and how often risk mgmt should occur
Risk categories and sub-categrories
Probability and impact
Tracking - how risk to be tracked

There are 4 approaches to dealing with negative risks: avoid, transfer, mitigate and accept.

The responses for “positive risks” are exploit, share, enhance and accept.

Plan procurements

Inputs:

Scope baseline
Reqs documents
Teaming agreements
Risk register
Risk related contract decisions
Activity resource reqs

Tools & Techniques:

Make or buy analysis
Expert judgement
Contract types

Outputs:

Procurement management plan
Procurement SOW
Make or buy decisions
Prourement docs
Source selection criteria
Change requests

Planning for Change

There will always be unexpected events. Also, the further you work through the project the better you understand the project reqs. As a result, changes may be required because of the following:

there are aspects of the project that require more work than planned
other technology options become available
regulatory or legislative changes occur during the project
newer processes or equipment become available
trying to avoid or mitigate a risk

One of the reasons of the project failure is uncontrolled change.

Scope creep is a change to the project scope. However, changes may be required to any aspect of a project.

A change management plan, a part of Project Management Plan, can include the following:

The approach that will be used to manage change
How to evaluate change requests
- Assess cost, time and risk implications, work considerations, product and technical specifications
How project change will be implemented during the project
How changes will be managed during implementation
What sorts of change will be considered
The change control board if one exists
Roles & responsibilities of team members involved in change management
How the change control process will work from start to end

Principles of PM: The Concept Phase

2016-06-20T00:00:00+03:00

My summary of the module 2 of the course "Principles of Project Management".

The Project Manager Role

PMs are NOT the project owner that is the person or organisation paying for the project. Carrying out the day-to-day management of the project is what the PM is responsible for.

3 essential characteristics of a Project Manager:

knowledge
performance
personal traits

Project Stakeholders

PMBoK defines as “persons or organisations (e.g. customers, sponsors, performing organisation, the public) who are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project.” PMBOK ,Ed 4.(2008)

Work out - as early as possible - who your stakeholders are and assess exactly what their stake in the project is.

Make sure the right people have input to the planning
Identify project champions who will help you to promote and implement the project
Be aware of stakeholders that may cause problems

Project Concept life-cycle phase

Identification of the goal
Evaluation of the goal
- SMART analysis, or
- Analysing the SoW, or
- Writing a Business Case
Investigate the project's feasability
- Study --> Report
Consider the suitability of the project for the organization
Prepare formal doc to authorize the project's start: Project Charter
- Integration knowledge area
Identification of stakeholders
- Communication knowledge area
Move to development phase

Setting your goal(s) and justifying them

Perform SMART analysis
Build a Business Case
- background & objective
- need/problem to be solved
- cost benefit analysis
- preliminary requirements & estimates
- analyze options, make recommendations

If necessary, investigate project goal feasibility via Feasibility Study and Report. The Study traditionally assesses:

Technological feasibility
Operational feasibility
Legal feasibility
Schedule feasibility
Financial feasibility aka Cost Benefit Analysis
Market potential

Writing the Project Charter

Inputs: Statement of work, business case, any contracts / tenders used and should also consider enterprise environmental factors and any organisational process assets (information the organisation holds from the past).

Tool and techniques: "expert judgement".

Output: Project charter, which may consist of:

project title
description of project purpose (from business case)
high-level project/product description
summary schedule (start/end/milestone dates)
summary project budget
measurable objectives related to success criteria
summary of the planned approach, i.e. high-level requirements
roles and responsibilities including who authorises the Charter and who signs off on the project deliverables
assigned project manager w/ contact details

Purposes of writing the charter include:

Getting buy-in and authorization
Defines project and goal posts for planning
Helps ensure project has been properly assessed
Establishes line of authority
Delegates responsibility for planning to PM
Promotes good PM practices from start
Primary verification tool to assist eventual handover
Great initial communication tool for all

Identifying success criteria & measurable outcomes

The success criteria identify (in high-level) at the project start-up how the project will be measured to be successful at the project finish.
To measure success criteria, you need to have measurable project objectives (assessed with SMART)
Time, budget, scope, and quality - along with their estimates - are common success criteria
Success criteria may include project criteria as well as product criteria
Ask client/sponsor to understand the criteria better:
- how will you know the project complete?
- how will you identify success?
- how will measure it?
2 ways to measure the criteria:
- Discrete success criteria: deliverable ‘x’ is supplied on ‘date’
- Continuous success criteria: achieve a 25% rise in customer satisfaction ratings

Project assumptions, constraints and risks, plus roles & responsibilities

To identify high-level assumptions, list anything that can be considered reasonable for the planning purposes, but that if they don’t come true will have a major impact on the project.

Assumption examples:

There is an assumption that PMO - which is being considered for closure - will provide support throughout the project.
If there is something related to legal consequences, an assumption may be that we'll have an access to legal advice to be provided on sensitive issues.

Constraints (or limitations). Besides already mentioned scope, costs, time, quality, risks, and resources, there might be own unique constraints. E.g. limited access to remote project's client.

Risks are directly linked to assumptions and constraints. If you assume a particular resource will be available for project purposes, you're also identifying a potential risk that has an impact on the timeline and scope.

In Roles and Responsibilities, provide a table/matrix with people who will have authority over the project running. Contact details to be recorded, too.

Identifying stakeholders

This is a second initialization process and a part of Communication management area.

Inputs:

The Project Charter
Procurement documents such as contracts, suppliers
Enterprise environmental factors such as Government regulations, standards, company culture and structure
Organizational process assets such as stakeholder register templates or stakeholder information from previous projects.

Tools and Techniques:

Expert judgement
Stakeholder analysis:
1. identify all potential stakeholders and info about them
2. classify their influence and interest - low to how
3. consider how to influence them to either build their support or reduce their negativity.

Outputs:

Stakeholder register
Stakeholder management strategy

Appoint the team and kick off the project

Project kick-off should help you:

Introduce the Project Manager (and possibly sponsor) to the team
Get the team to start building a team ethos
Make sure everyone understands what the project is about
Discuss the key points for the project’s success identified from the business case, SOW, Project Charter including thinking about assumptions, constraints and risks to the project
Outline how the team will communicate and
Establish primary roles and responsibilities from the start.

Another meeting can be held to kick-off execution phase and explain the assembled team where to access the Project Plan, its key elements, and overview of the project.

Key point: as a PM, don't plan without having a team to help you with technical consultation and guidance.

Principles of PM: Project Management Overview

2016-06-19T00:00:00+03:00

My summary of the module 1 of the course "Principles of Project Management".

Project vs Ongoing operations

Projects are:

one-off, temporary
have specific start and end dates
have limited resources
involve uncertainty
will implement change
and create something unique – whether it is a new product, a new service or a result.

Ongoing operations are:

ongoing,
repeat tasks staff are already familiar with
have resources permanently assigned to them
and are the day to day duties of a workplace.

Project management

Managing a project from its beginning to a successful outcome is short definition of Project Management, and may involve the following actions.

Project outcome is to be agreed by the stakeholders (Project Sponsor, Project Manager, Project Customer).
Clear allocation of resources, time and budget.
A Project Management Plan must be written that outlines what will be built (scope) in which sequence and time durations (time) using what resources (cost and procurement) and by whom (human resources), to defined standards (quality).
Considering assumptions and constraints that may affect the project (helping to identify potential project risks).
Maintaining a balance between key constraints: scope, time, cost, resources and risk and quality.
Maintaining good communication so that stakeholders have their requirements, concerns and expectations listened to and addressed.
Monitoring and controlling are important throughout execution to check the execution of the project against the plans early agreed to.
The continuous improvement of knowledge and information regarding the project, and the resulting refinements to the plans
At the end there needs to be closing processes to make sure all work on the project has been completed, the deliverables formally verified and handed over, lessons learned documented and all documentation archived for use and reference by future projects.

Below are the key success factors for projects.

Processes:

Having a clear project scope and objectives
Using good project management processes
Planning well and then tracking and reporting progress well

People:

Having well trained, experienced Project Managers
Having Stakeholder & management support
Involving end users at the concept and planning stages

Attitude:

Realistic expectations
Communicating well
Emotional Maturity

The project life cycle

Concept -> Develop -> Execute -> Finish

Concept is a phase when a project is thought, investigated for feasibility. The document, e.g. contract or project charter, that describes the project and agreements between stakeholders is an outcome of this phase.

Develop is where the project scope, time, cost, quality, resources, communication, risk and required procurement procedures are developed. At the end, Project Management Plan containing information about all above should be produced.

Execute is where we put Project Management Plan into action. To avoid project becoming stuck, we should monitor and control the work during this phase. If there is any variance between the plan and the actual progress, that could be a trigger for action. Either agree on changes being made, or bring the execution back into alignment w/ the plan.

Finish is where formal verification and acceptance of the project (i.e. hand-over to the customer). It also involves identifying lessons learned, closing procurements, and archiving project documentation.

Typical project life cycle figure:

Nine knowledge areas

According to PMBoK, knowledge areas are the areas necessary for a PM to manage projects effectively.

The four core areas:

These are the principal functions of project management and the main constraints of a project.

Four facilitating areas

The main purpose of the four facilitating areas is to manage the core functions effectively.

Integrating

This is where the main work of the Project Manager lies, as it is where all the 8 separate threads of knowledge are drawn together in a cohesive manner and documentation created to manage the project.

Five Management Process Groups

There are 42 management processes that PMBoK recommends and that have been listed in nine knowledge areas. For simplicity, these 42 processes are placed in 5 groups:

Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring & Controlling
Closing

Visualisation of processes and their knowledge areas and path through project:

Don’t confuse the five process groups with the four life-cycle phases (Concept, Develop, Execute, Finish). The life-cycle covers the period of time from the very start of the project (its inception) through to its eventual close. The five process groups are how you manage the project, and can be iterative and may be repeated and actually applied across phases of the project rather than its entire lifecycle.

Main Project Constraints

Traditionally, projects have been referred to as having a “Triple Constraint” of scope, time, and cost. Changing in any of these affects the other two. And balancing of these constraints is an essential part of managing a project properly. Quality is likely affected by the Triple Constraint, so it is referred to as the fourth constraint.

According to newer definitions, risks and resources are also recognized as common constraints.

Using constraints can be useful when explaining to stakeholders how a change they request may have consequences elsewhere.

Balancing proportion depends on the nature of the project. E.g. in projects where people life involved, there should be emphasis on the Quality and Risk constraints.

Benefits of Project Management

Improved customer relations
Shorter development times
Lower costs
Higher quality and dependability
Better control of internal resources
Higher worker morale
Provides a competitive advantage in the market place

Learning Rules

2016-06-14T00:00:00+03:00

Theses:

It's better to learn on a regular basis in short sessions (30-60 minutes) than 3 hours long once a week.
Take short breaks between learning sessions, it will improve your concentration and enhance overall productivity.
Divide overall learning material into chunks (chapters), and work on one at a time.
Take a helicopter's view at the learning subject so that you can see the bigger picture.
Practice what you've learned so that you master the material and get the hands-on feedback.
Sleep well, otherwise learning is not effective.
Recalling the learned material is the best technique of learning, even better than rereading it.
Self-testing is highly effective step in the learning; therefore, ask yourself questions after each completed chunk.
Exercises (running, gym, yoga, etc.) can boost your learning abilities.
Explaining to others what you've learned helps you understand the material even better.
Schedule a time slot for learning, ideally in the very morning.
Learn in a quiet place where no distractions can prevent you from giving full attention to the subject.
To fight procrastination, focus on the process not the outcome.

Additional resources:

The course "Learning How To Learn" at Coursera.
The article "How to study smart: 20 scientific ways to learn faster"
My article at DOU.ua in Russian: Как правильно учиться

The Phoenix Project

2016-05-05T00:00:00+03:00

I added this book to my reading list after attending a talk by Matt Moore, chairman of TEAM International, when he was in Kharkiv. He recommended that book. Into a month or so, my colleague suggested "The Phoenix Project", too. As such, I decided to listen to audio version of the book.

Synopsis

From Amazon:

The novel tells the story of Bill, the IT manager at Parts Unlimited. The company’s new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow, streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited.

My take-aways

Development and IT departments should cooperate with each other to establish Continuous delivery.
IT people should understand the business goals so that they can help achieve those.
In terms of workflow, there is a bunch of parallels between IT and manufacturing plant.
Wait time is proportional to percentage busy of a resource.
There are four types of IT work: business projects, internal projects, changes, and unplanned work.
Any improvement either before or after a constraint (bottleneck) is an illusion.
A work center, which is an analogy from a plant, is made up of four things: the machine (the tool), the man, the method, and the measures.
The Three Ways (see the quote below for explanation).

Some quotes I liked the most

"Being able to take needless work out of the system is more important than being able to put more work into the system."

"Improving daily work is even more important than doing daily work."

"Until code is in production, no value is actually being generated, because it’s merely WIP stuck in the system."

“Practice creates habits, and habits create mastery of any process or skill.”

"If you are not improving, entropy guarantees that you are actually getting worse."

“Remember, outcomes are what matter—not the process, not controls, or, for that matter, what work you complete.”

“You’ve helped me see that IT is not merely a department. Instead, it’s pervasive, like electricity. It’s a skill, like being able to read or do math.”

"Remember, unplanned work kills your ability to do planned work, so you must always do whatever it takes to eradicate it."

“In ten years, I’m certain every COO worth their salt will have come from IT. Any COO who doesn’t intimately understand the IT systems that actually run the business is just an empty suit, relying on someone else to do their job.”

“If you think IT Operations has nothing to learn from Plant Operations, you’re wrong.”

“The First Way helps us understand how to create fast flow of work as it moves from Development into IT Operations, because that’s what’s between the business and the customer. The Second Way shows us how to shorten and amplify feedback loops, so we can fix quality at the source and avoid rework. And the Third Way shows us how to create a culture that simultaneously fosters experimentation, learning from failure, and understanding that repetition and practice are the prerequisites to mastery.”

Books I added to reading queue

There are some other books referenced in The Phoenix Project I'd like to read in the nearest future:

Continuous delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation by Jez Humble and David Farley
Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software by Michael T. Nygard
The Visible Ops Handbook: Implementing ITIL in 4 Practical and Auditable Steps by Kevin Behr, Gene Kim and George Spafford
Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results by Mike Rother
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

All in all, The Phoenix Project is worth reading by all who is anyhow related to IT; it teaches us good business and IT practices.

A project manager test report

2016-02-22T00:00:00+02:00

When you prepare a test report, think a bit of why you're doing it. Is this test report for your eyes only? If so, you probably don't need to read the rest of this article. Otherwise, ask yourself who the "end-user" is.

In my example, the main consumers of test reports were project managers (PMs); and these people were complaining about the following:

Lack of a unified template approved within the organization.
The consequence was not only that testers needed to reinvent it each time, but also that PMs had to get used to different styles, formatting and content structure from project to project.
The test reports didn't contain what had actually been tested.
There was no information about components of a solution and their versions, API versions, configuration settings, etc.
Listings of failed tests contained no explanation of what was the reason for failures.
Or contained description unclear for people out of testing context.
All test artefacts like test case results and automation tool output were a part of the test report.
Because of that, some reports were extremely bloated and hard to get through.
Missing information of how automated tests had been run.
So successors might not have the required information on how to re-run the same tests.
It was unclear from a first sight whether a solution is ready for release.
PMs didn't want to study the whole test report to understand the readiness of a software under test.

After several iterations of refining a test report template, we have come up with the following content structure.

The test report begins with conclusion, one-sentence statement, saying whether a product is ready for release or not.

I know, some software testing experts like James Bach suggest testers not sign-off to approve the release of a product. According to them, a project manager decides when to release, while a job of a tester is to provide the best data for making that decision. I rather agree with that approach, but our PMs requested that a test leader writes also his/her opinion about readiness for release.

Then, we list solution's unfixed defects and issues found during the testing phase. There are explanations given to support the conclusion: whether these issues are showstoppers, or they don't affect significantly the work of a system.

Next we describe a software under test so that the readers can understand what was tested, what components, versions, deployment details, and any 3d-party software integrated with the solution.

PMs aren't usually interested in comprehensive test result details, so we start here with numerical stats (how many tests passed, how many failed or skipped). Afterwards, a list of bug IDs for the failed tests is provided along with explanation for the skipped tests. This section is done for each type of conducted testing (e.g. smoke, functional, or performance).

Although test environment and test tools may not be so important to a manager, it is still worth including in the test report. So we can capture essential information about test environment (both software and hardware parts), test framework and tools that were used during the testing. In addition, it would be useful to provide details of how each testing tool was used, with which configuration. Later this information would be important for people wishing to reproduce the testing in another environment.

Finally, appendixes section contains links to external documents which the testing team have used. These may include test plan, traceability matrix, test tool configurations, test listings, etc.

Do you find this structure meaningful? What does usually your test report look like?

Test automation pyramid

2016-01-13T00:00:00+02:00

As you might have heard, there is a test automation pyramid that shows multi-layered approach to test automation.

I've always considered that picture as an end goal, while an inverted pyramid has always been a bad example.

But what if you just joined a team that already developed an app, but has got no tests? Or if it is a startup? Which tier would you start automating? The test pyramid doesn't answer this. It shows the number of tests we should push to each level, but nothing about where to start.

My opinion may be counter intuitive, but start automating few high-level UI tests that accept essential business-facing cases. It could be several Selenium tests executing scenarios like sign up, opening an app page, etc.

The thing is that a customer doesn't care about unit tests, he wants an application to work as expected. Once you make sure most important things are covered, you can go down automating the lowest levels.

The end goal is still the test automation pyramid.

bgdn.me

Meditations For Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Foundations

Principle 1: Do Fewer Things

Principle 2: Work at a Natural Pace

Principle 3: Obsess with Quality

Further Reading

The Distracted Mind by A. Gazzaley and L. D. Rosen

Further reading

On Goal Setting

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth R. Miller

Mindmap

Further Reading

Why We Do What We Do by Edward Deci

Mindmap

Further Reading

Education vs. Training

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Pull Smartsheet data into Google Sheets

The Data Loom by Stephen Few

Mindmap

Further reading

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Outline

Further Reading

Deep Work - My Five Cents

Synchronize Google Sheets with Smartsheet

Making Gantt charts work

The Median in Smartsheet

Data visualization skills

Personal finance dashboard in Google Data Studio

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

Additional reading

Цифровой минимализм

Социальные сети - новый никотин

Философия цифрового минимализма

Практики

Заключение

Список дополнительной литературы

Визуализация личных расходов

Проблема

Решение

Выводы

Project Manager's Dashboard

Project Retrospective Data

Schedules slip but are still helpful

Как правильно учиться

Reviewing interim project outcomes

How to Make Meetings Work!

Steps to a better meeting

Lisbon 2018

Day 1. Lisbon: Navy Museum, Coaches Museum, Belem district

Day 2. Lisbon: Jeronimos Monastery, St George's Castle

Day 3. Evora

Day 4. Cascais Beach, Cabo da Roca, Sintra (Pena Palace)

Day 5. Mafra: Royal Palace, Tapada Nacional

Day 6. Sintra: Quinta da Regaleira

What was left beyond this trip

Avoid pie charts

Publish Gantt chart from OmniPlan into Confluence

PMP Exam Prep by Rita Mulcahy

Project Management Process

Integration Management

Scope Management

Time Management

Cost Management

Quality Management

HR Management

Communications Management

Risk Management

Stakeholder Management

The ethical application of Project Management

My 2016 Annual Review

What went well?

What could have been done better?

What am I working toward?

Pairwise testing

Problem:

Solution: