Is there a rope holding you in managing a Project, Program or PMO?

As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

As a project manager, program manager, portfolio manager or someone managing PMO, we all have our cycles of uncertainty and a fear of failure when a belief overcomes us that we cannot possibly do something, simply because we have failed at it before. During those uncertain times, its very important to remind us that failure is part of learning and we should never give up the ability to believe in ourselves. Personally, the best managers with whom i have crossed paths are those who have been fearless in going after goals without carrying the overhead thought of failure because in their mind there is nothing as failure. If a project has not delivered desired output or a program has not delivered planned outcome or a portfolio or PMO has not delivered laid out strategic objectives, we always end up learning how to manage it better the next time.

Always remind yourself that people judge us by what we have done till date and we judge ourselves by what we are capable of doing. Even though we all get it but seldom practice the art and science of learning from our past failures and making the most use of the lessons learned or retrospections for future success. With social media becoming a big part and parcel of our daily life, networking with professionals while sharing lessons learned and learning from each other’s experience, does go a long way to always challenge the status quo and help you keep raising your bar. As Charles Darwin famously quoted, "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Is there a rope that is holding you back today? Please share your thoughts.

Is there a rope holding you in managing a Project, Program or PMO? was originally published in LinkedIn

Maryhill Stonehenge, Washington State, United States

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and a perfect timing to be back to Portland, Oregon after a year.  These snaps are of Maryhill Stonehenge in the Washington State of United States. 

Referring wikipedia, Maryhill Stonehenge is a replica of Stonehenge located in Maryhill, Washington. It was commissioned in the early 20th century by businessman Samuel Hill and dedicated on July 4, 1918 as a memorial to those that died in World War I. Driving on Historic Columbia River Highway, it was a beautiful scenic drive all along Columbia River to reach this place. On a clear day with Mt. Hood looking majestic in the backdrop, this place is simply gorgeous to enjoy natural beauty.  

Inside and Outside Project Comparison and Prioritization

We understand the needs of a Project Management Office (PMO) to help drive IT efficiency, cut costs and improve the quality of project delivery in terms of time and budget. In my earlier blog 7 Questions to Ask Before Establishing a Project Management Office (PMO), I shared three types of roles a PMO plays in an organization in terms of supporting, controlling or directing. A PMO can boost productivity while ensuring that priority projects get the most attention, but it is important to perform the right comparisons between projects to prioritize them. The PMO should not be comparing 'inside' of a project in terms of which department/business unit the project belongs to with 'outside' of another project in terms of goals it's achieving. While reviewing projects, the PMO should go over the project charter or SOW, which includes:

• High-level scope of the project 
• Goals and objectives 
• Cost 
• Schedule
• Critical measures
• Potential gains
• Risks
• Assumptions
• Issues
• Dependencies
• Constraints
• Identification of key stakeholders
• Project's impact on the entire organization

Use a common basis for comparing projects while prioritizing them. One way of prioritizing projects is to group them in terms of:

• Business critical, strategic objectives or initiatives of the organization
• Business unit/department critical (one or multiple)
• Business unit/department need (one or multiple)
• Internal process improvements or exploring long-term growth by adopting new technologies and/or business models 

Note that the above mentioned grouping of priorities can change according to the strategic goals of an organization. After grouping priorities, there might be a potential need to do project sequencing for execution within each prioritized group. Harold R. Kerzner in his Project Management - Best Practices: Achieving Global Excellence book shares key decision criteria for project sequencing, which includes:

• Strategic priority
• Window of opportunity
• Project interdependencies
• Resource availability

Share your thoughts on how you compare and prioritize projects within your organization.

Inside and Outside Project Comparison and Prioritization was originally posted under Prokarma blog on Feb 26th 2015.

Why Active Listening is Key for Successful Delivery of Agile Based Projects

A man realized that he could not hear very well and that he had to buy a hearing aid, but did not want to spend too much money on it. So he went to the store and asked the clerk...

"How much do hearing aids cost?" The clerk responded "It depends, they run from two dollars to two thousand." "Let me see the two dollar model" the man said.

The clerk hung a string around the man's neck.

"Just put this button in your ear and stick this string in your pocket." "How does it work?" asked the customer. "It doesn't work, but when people see it on you they'll speak louder."

Actually our communication problems are not due to people speaking softly but mostly due to the fact that many of us are not good listeners. The biggest communication problem is that we do not listen to understand but we listen to reply. Presently you see more organizations acknowledging the importance that people want to be listened to, hence one company's motto: "We listen better” and another stating, "We hear you".

Agile development is more of an iteratively incremental approach in which requirements and solutions evolve through communication and collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams. Agile promotes ‘building the right thing’ through customer involvement, adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement and encourages rapid & flexible response to change in delivering high quality product or service.

Now since Agile encourages team to be cross-functional, most challenging aspect of a cross-functional team is the functional or technical silos, which often results in team deliverables ‘thrown over the wall’ between Architects, BAs, SAs, Designers, Developers and Testers. The problem here is not due to lack of coordination, but more due to lack of collaboration in which teams are not syncing on overall shared objectives. So for a cross-functional team to work as a collaborative unit, ‘Active Listening’ is the key in which each team is ‘listening to understand and not listening to reply’. Practicing the basics of ‘Active Listening’ includes:

• Focusing your complete attention to the speaker.
• Asking open-ended questions to gather elaborative information.
• Documenting gathered information in tool or a document.
• Getting the summarized information reviewed.

For any project, Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (RAID) are very critical for its successful execution. Instead of making a lot of assumptions, ‘Active Listening’ helps us clear up many of the gaps when we detach emotions and instead pay focused attention to the speaker. Please share your thoughts on ‘Active Listening’ and how you think it's key for any project, but more for an Agile based project.

Why Active Listening is Key for Successful Delivery of Agile Based Projects was originally posted under Prokarma blog on Feb 12th 2015.

Incredible India - Falaknuma Palace

As part of Incredible India series, this post is for Falaknuma Palace located in Hyderabad, India.

Referring wikipedia, Falaknuma Palace is one of the finest palaces in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It belonged to Paigah Hyderabad State, and it was later owned by the Nizams. Falak-numameans "Like the Sky" or "Mirror of the Sky" in Urdu.











Falaknuma Palace provides a splendor atmosphere to host corporate dinner events. Dinner in one of the open gardens, which provides a view overlooking Hyderabad city from 2000 feet above ground level, listening to sufi music and a specialized menu just designed right for the occasion, truly makes it a memorable experience. 

As part of Incredible India series, I had earlier shared blog posts on Karnataka Road Trip, Qutub Minar, Golconda Fort, Humayun's Tomb, Temples in Delhi, Bird Watching, Gwalior Fort, Gwalior Palace Museum, Temples in Gwalior, Agra Fort, Tomb of Akbar & Taj Mahal - A Dream Made in Marble

Are You Providing 'Right' Status of Your Project, Program or Portfolio?

A class teacher was posing questions to her second grade students as part of an assessment. She asked Tom, "Can you tell me a name of an animal that starts with the letter 'e'?" Tom replied "Elephant". The teacher asked him again but this time to name an animal that starts with letter ’t’ and Tom replied "Two Elephants". The teacher asked him the same question again and this time Tom responded "Ten elephants". Annoyed, the teacher asked him to name an animal that starts with letter ‘m’ and Tom replied "Mother elephant". By now, the teacher was getting very angry and repeated the same question. With a calm demeanor Tom responded "Maybe an elephant".

Syntactically it can be argued that Tom was giving the ‘right’ answers but they were technically wrong and certainly not the answers the teacher was expecting. Similarly, when stakeholders are asking for the ‘status' of a project, most often they are looking for how, when and at what cost (business value) the project will be delivered. The status report should not be just about status of scheduling, cost or scope but should be more of a report on business value. It is important to understand respective stakeholders objectives regarding the project, program or portfolio and the status report should be targeted accordingly. A dashboard summarizing the status on business value with respective links to elaborate on the specific status of scope, schedule and cost can be shared.

For instance, while executing Agile based projects it is important to understand the overall business value of the project. To understand business value it is important to first identify key stakeholders, respective goals, how to measure the goals and understand the relationship between various value drivers. Prioritized business value can then be mapped to respective themes or milestones, which helps in quantifying the requirements of overall business value while breaking them down in terms of incremental value. Overall status of the project can then be measured for each theme while sharing supporting status on:

• Velocity (actual vs. planned)
• Story Points (accepted vs. planned)
• Number of Defects 
• Percentage of Unit Test Coverage
• Number of Test Cases
• Number of Test Cases automated
• Percentage of New Test Cases Added
• Percentage of New Test Cases Automated

In my earlier post on 10 Ground Rules on the Right Metrics for Your Business, I discussed on how to select the right metrics. These posts can be used as guidelines for selecting metrics, which can then be included in future status reports showing progress on the business value of a project,  program or portfolio.

In summary, a good status report is an effective communication and transparency tool, which shares the progress on the business value of a project or a program or a portfolio mapped with objectives. What are your thoughts on providing the right status?

Are You Providing the 'Right' Status of Your Project, Program or Portfolio? was originally posted under Prokarma blog on Jan 27th 2015.

Comments: Some comments to the blog post are shared in google+  under https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JakeRahnerS/posts/62Es4z7rpm3

Incredible India - Taj Mahal, A Dream Made In Marble

As part of Incredible India series, this post is for Taj Mahal, A Dream Made In Marble, which is located in historical Agra city of Uttar Pradesh, most populous state in India.

There is so much written about Taj Mahal but possibly the best way to describe it is the way Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize winner in Literature (1913) did. 
You knew, Shah Jehan, life and youth, wealth and glory, they all drift away in the current of time. You strove, therefore, to perpetuate only the sorrow of your heart... Let the splendor of diamond, pearl, and ruby vanish like the magic shimmer of the rainbow. Only let this one tear-drop, this Tajmahal, glisten spotlessly bright on the cheek of time, forever and ever. 
O King, you are no more. Your empire has vanished like a dream, your throne lies shattered... your minstrels sing no more, your musicians no longer mingle their strains with the murmuring Jamuna...Despite all this, the courier of your love, untarnished by time, unwearied, unmoved by the rise and fall of empires, unconcerned with the ebb and flow of life and death, carries the ageless message of your love from age to age: ‘Never shall I forget you, beloved, never.’ 
- By Rabindranath Tagore
Taj seems to display varied shades including pinkish in morning, milky white in evening, golden when the moon shines and intermediary variants during different hours of the day and during different seasons in a year. So one can enjoy and appreciate beauty of Taj at all times and never get enough of it in a single visit.





Taj is without a doubt, a masterpiece made in marble, beauty personified, widely recognized as "the jewel of art in India" and one of the universally admired monuments of the world's heritage.
Taj Mahal translates to "crown of palaces", is a white marble mausoleum built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1658 A.D.), grandson of Akbar the Great in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died during the birth of their 14th child. 
The mausoleum is located on the right bank of the river Yamuna. Red sandstone mosque on the western, and Mehman-Khana on the eastern side of the tomb provides aesthetically a clear colour contrast. 
Taj Mahal is regarded by many as the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian architectural styles.
The Gate Way of Taj, Royal Gate is an octagonal entrance hall, surrounded by small rooms on both the sides in the floors having beautifully ornamented gates on both sides. The Royal gate has 22 domes to symbolize the amount of years it took to build Taj.


Taj is a perfect fusion of Indian and Persian Architecture. The four minarets are built to slightly tilt outwards to save the main structure from any earthquake or disaster.



As part of Incredible India series, I had earlier shared blog posts on Karnataka Road Trip, Qutub Minar, Golconda Fort, Humayun's Tomb, Temples in Delhi, Bird Watching, Gwalior Fort, Gwalior Palace Museum, Temples in Gwalior, Agra Fort & Tomb of Akbar