December 29, 2009

Why waste time on Project management ?

Recently I came across some of the blog posts regards to Software Project management. It seems like Project Management is another project to Project Managers but so often they claim that they never able to do a accurate schedule or a budget, so the question arise − “Why do Project Management?”.

I’ve been working in Software Industry for the past 9 years and I have never seen a successful Project Manager although I’ve seen plenty of good technical people. I must admit that I have observed some of the successful projects are handled without a proper project plan, or should I say without a “Project Manager”. For a successful software project, the key factor is its technical people and I really don’t believe that’s anything to do with the Project plan or the Project Manager. How did Google products succeed ? Why did Windows Vista failed ? Was it because of the Project Managers or Project Plans? I doubt. In software, it’s a well known factor that the requirements change. Neither the Stake Holders nor the Project Managers are fully aware of the business requirement at the initial stage. So the next question − “What’s Agile ?”

Agile – one of the frequently used terms in the Project management these days. Agile is defined as to keep things simple and to move quicker. Two-thirds of the development time is wasted by the Project Managers for various meetings and requirement explanations. I strongly disagree the fact that every project needs a “Project Plan”, a simple plan would do for most of the projects. We need to understand the scale of the project while keeping the things simple. I don’t intend to talk about massive projects like in NASA or the other major companies, no doubt that they need Project Managers. But for 30-40 developer projects who would need to waste time & money just to create a larger scale project plan ?, A good technical leader is capable of doing the job. At last what matters is the outcome of the project, not how we manage the project. All my thoughts are based on the Software Development and this might not be true for other industries like Construction & Manufacture which are far more matured. Software development still on its way for a strong blue-print unlike Building construction, .

No offense meant to Project Managers, but comments are welcome − After all, Project Management is their Job.

www.twitter.com/ludmal - I've been using twitter for quick updates, Technology & cool stuff, please follow me if you're interested.

December 28, 2009

Know the font by uploading the image

I found this site very useful while searching for some fonts. You can upload an image and know the font.

http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

December 16, 2009

Google Wave future

I was anxiously waited for Google wave invitation from its initial preview release. When I finally got one, I wasn't really impressed with it. The only thing interested to me was the UI. Though they mentioned that the email system is outdated they must have been realized by now how hard is to kill the old email system.-- "Email" is the mostly used feature in Internet followed by "Search". I'm not criticizing it, but I feel Wave is too early. However, it's future is still a mystery.

December 9, 2009

Microsoft vs Google

This is interesting.. I just did a search in google trends. www.google.com/trends

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of microsoft company/google company in all years. Learn more

microsoft company, google company

Google Chrome extensions

Recently I've installed some of the Google Chrome extensions and I love It! specially the extensions like Google Tasks, Reader, Gmail & Chrome Touch. I personally like Google chrome because of its simplicity and performance.

In order to install chrome extensions, you must install chrome developer version. This isn't a very stable version but I haven't seen any bugs yet.

1. Installing Chrome Developer Version

a. Download and install the Chrome developer channel from the following location.

http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel

b. Then click on the "About Google Chrome" window, once it's fully updated, restart the browser. You're now running Chrome Developer version.

2. Installing Chrome Extensions.

At this point, all set to install the Chrome extensions. You can download the extensions from the following site. Just follow the installation instructions and are you're done.

http://www.chromeextensions.org

You can even check out the installed extensions by selecting Tools > Extensions as shown in the following screen capture.

Few cool Chrome Extensions:

http://www.chromeextensions.org/alerts-updates/gmail-checker/
http://www.chromeextensions.org/alerts-updates/google-reader-checker/
http://www.chromeextensions.org/appearance-functioning/chrometouch/
http://www.chromeextensions.org/appearance-functioning/smoothscroll/
http://www.chromeextensions.org/utilities/google-notepad/

Hope this helps!

www.twitter.com/ludmal - I've been using twitter for quick updates on Technology stuff, please follow me if you're interested.