Communication is important. If you don’t handle it correctly on your project then you’ll get into all sorts of problems very soon, and the number of problems goes exponentially high as the number of people on your project increases. Communication is a large area in project management, and you’ll use many tools and techniques to communicate. Email is one of them.

Lifehacker has a nice article on how to email busy people when you need to ask them for something. A project manager will need from time to time to ask sponsors, stakeholders or his own manager for help – though I prefer to use verbal communication, sometime email is necessary.

It’s called the 3-B Plan and I like it. You can read the original at Sparringmind.

Apple just released iOS6 with a bunch of new features, including a new Maps application powered by Apple + partners itself and not by Google anymore. Just like Siri released last year Maps is a beta product. However there are some differences, first of all Apple never said- to my knowledge – that Maps was a beta product when they introduced it whereas they made it clear Siri was; second, Maps really does not work well [well, I am in France right now and the data looks OK to me so far, maybe because Apple partnered with IGN in France which has a good database].

This is surprising because Apple removed the old Maps application that was Google powered (or Google did not want to licence it anymore) and they should have come up with a decent alternative. The new Maps is not a decent alternative. Period.

What’s surprising with all that is that Apple is now FIREFIGHTING on this issue, reportedly hiring loads of developers to fix Maps, this is worrying because a company like Apple should have in its DNA to release impeccable software. More worrying is that’s it is not a the first time, they had this issue with Mobile Me in the past, iCloud mail is at times not available, and Siri still not working as expected by many.

So, did Apple lost it’s way on building software?

…the tyranny of Gantt Charts, a nice piece about the challenges of “% complete” – typical tracking KPI used by Gantt Chart Tools:

In conclusion, ‘percent (%) complete’ is one of several health factors used for a program, a project or its sub-elements. Your communication of this metric (or KPI) should be based on the sum of several areas or project/program metrics such as schedule compliance (SPI), cost compliance (CPI), risk overall average, scope compliance (no planned changes with respect to the schedule), and team and a PM’s overall trending assessment.

That’s it. Gantt Chart is not your only tracking and reporting tool, it’s not your plan.

People are still using Excel to create Gantt Chart, I wonder what’s the point when the web offer free options such as Gantter or  even Zoho Projects.

The riskiest thing a supplier can do is to NOT involve project management into the sales process. I wrote about it here and got reminded of it by reading this article by Mike Cunningham.

Have a read and try to convince your colleagues!

Off topic, but then again maybe not. A great read about Over The Top vs Mobile Carriers/Operators:

But most of this will come to nothing and the OTT guys will triumph until carriers realize that having software DNA is a necessary condition for innovating in the world of digital services that many carriers believe they occupy. This too, is an inescapable fact.

Paul Golding nailed it. I have worked with Mobile Operators for years and I always regret never seeing an operator building a software stack aimed at creating unique, differentiated services for their customers. That DNA is almost extinct in mobile carriers now.

Apparently there are 3 questions to be asked for Job Interviews:

1.  Can you do the job?
2.  Will you love the job?
3.  Can we tolerate working with you?

It’s that simple.

A nice article on Project Closure, Lessons Learned:

As in all aspects of Project Management, it is essential that you involve your team in your end-of-project analysis. They will have different perspectives on the project, and will also have noticed problems which you, and others in the team, have not. Further to this, it is important that the team understand any changes you instigate for the next project.

Sounds obvious but it does not hurt to repeat it.

A good article on Lifehacker On how to share bad news.

Interesting survey about IT and the business its supports misalignment from ComputerWeekly.com:

Only 3% of CIOs believe IT and business strategies are fully aligned despite 35% of boardrooms recognising IT’s critical role in the businesses performance.

The article does not explain the root cause for those results, there are probably a number of them including: separated budgets, business units silos, power struggles, lack of programme management at CEO level, etc.