The Hindu Business Line : Pulling off projects

`The simpler your view of what you do, the more power and focus you will have in doing it.' For more such gyan on the art of project management, don't miss this book.

SCOTT Berkun donned different titles such as usability engineer, program manager, lead program manager, and training manager for almost a decade till 2003, in Microsoft Corporation. He has worked on Internet Explorer 1.0 thru 5.0, "leading the design and development of many major feature areas," as www.scottberkun.com informs.

He has spent "two years in Microsoft's Engineering excellence group, consulting with teams across the company, lecturing at public industry events at conferences, and evangelising better software development and product design practices," working with "ideas on instructional design and how to entertain and educate people at the same time".

But then he quit a cushy job to pursue `a life goal' - that of "filling the bookshelf near his desk with books he's written". One that's now on the shelf is The Art of Project Management, from Shroff Publishers (www.shroffpublishers.com) , packing in "ten years of hard earned lessons on leading teams and managing projects, applied to the core situations you deal with every day."

Berkun addresses his book for the general business world because "the processes involved in making toaster ovens, skyscrapers, automobiles, Web sites, and software products share many of the same challenges" - of `organising, leading, designing and delivering work'.

Three key lessons that the author mentions are: One, `project management and software development are not sacred arts,' coming as they do `in the long history of making things'. Two, `the simpler your view of what you do, the more power and focus you will have in doing it.' Have shoshin (Japanese for `beginner's mind'), advises Berkun, because "staying curious and open is what makes growth possible". And three, `simple doesn't mean easy'. The best athletes, writers, programmers, and managers tend to be the ones who always see what they do as simple in nature but simultaneously difficult, points out the author.

A major pitfall that project managers (PMs) may slip into is the confusion of processes with goals. "Some PMs in this situation resort to quantifying things that don't need to be quantified," writes Berkun about how `charts, tables, checklists, and reports' may preoccupy more than the team. Meanwhile, `the gap between the PM and the project grows', quite tragically. A line that you can make a poster of is: "When processes are required to manage processes, it's hard to know where the actual work is being done."

The chapter on `a brief history of project management (and why you should care)' concludes with this mantra: "Make good stuff happen". Because "project management is about using any means necessary to increase the probability and speed of positive outcomes". Despite `power and politics' that get discussed in the final chapter!

An essential read is a discussion on `how not to annoy people: process, email, and meetings'. Do you know that e-mail is `the most annoying system people on projects deal with'? The sheer volume of mail makes most of us "read and respond to new messages as quickly as possible, often sacrificing good reading and writing skills". Managers should compliment good e-mails, advises Berkun. Take responsibility for your own bad e-mail habits, he urges. "The more senior you are, the harder it might be to get honest feedback about your e-mail etiquette." While awful mails are often very long, poorly written, and have many attachments, the `really dangerous' ones "look like well-written communication but are, in fact, ripe with distractions, half-baked thoughts, and ambiguities".

Imperative read, to increase the probability of turning your project into a success.

Outsourcing is not a question of `if' but `how'

IT outsourcing accounts for a third of IT spending, informs the introduction to the third edition of Managing Business Support Services, edited by Jonathan Reuvid, from Kogan Page (www.vivagroupindia.com) . "Around one-fifth of FTSE 100 companies have large outsourcing contracts (worth over 3 per cent of their market capitalisation), and research shows that these companies often outperform their sector indices." We may need a similar study of the Sensex companies. (FTSE 100 is `an index of blue chip stocks on the London Stock Exchange,' informs www.investopedia.com.)

The top three reasons for outsourcing that Capgemini (www.capgemini.com) and IDC (www.idc.com) identified are: "To focus on core business; to reduce costs; and to adapt to market conditions". Three `key types of outsourcing' that the book outlines are conventional, problem solving, and transformational. The first (the conventional type) aims to do the same task at lower cost, "through economies of scale, spreading resources and assets, and by applying best practice tools and processes". Non-core or `chore' activities get shed.

The second, that is, problem solving outsourcing "allows organisations to gain control, in terms of cost and operations, of certain troublesome business or IT functions", such as where there are `workload backlogs'. And the third, transformational outsourcing, is about `deep, broad and enduring partnership' to bring about `a step-change in the organisation'. To achieve this, `technology, consulting and outsourcing' are bundled in an affordable commercial package, notes the book.

A chapter that dispels the myths around automation of desktop support explains the `Shift Left' strategy. This provides `more skills and empowerment throughout the support chain', even while improving customer experience and lowering costs. Key elements of this strategy are `the service desk, self help, and self heal'.

According to `Shift Left' theory, "support costs more the further it moves to the right of the support scale model." The ultimate aim is to shift the resolution "so far to the left that there is no need for human intervention at all", but this needs the development of "repeatable processes based on experience, knowledge and industry standards", and ensuring that more problems are resolved "as early as possible in incident lifecycle."

Accountants may like to know that there are `five stages of cost management' in outsourcing: The first stage is when costs are reduced, while maintaining the same operation. The second is the radical review of needs to strip out what is not required. "For example, does a finance department really need the company's standard flowchart software on every desktop?" Integration-savvy companies spend 11 per cent less on applications maintenance, services and headcount, notes a statistic cited from AMR Research.

The third stage, in which most enterprises are now, leverages TCO or total cost of ownership, factoring in both direct and indirect costs. Services are consolidated, and programmes reengineered to achieve lower costs. The fourth, TCS or total cost to serve end-customers "against revenue generated and quality of service". And the last stage is to improve cost to value ratio, that is, "the ratio between the direct value to the business as a whole and the investment, including ongoing costs, in delivering part or all of a service or product".

The book then asks, `Where in the world?' to map `a successful mix of outsourcing locations', driven by three key principles, viz. cost, flexibility, and risk profile. "Gartner predicts that by 2007, China will account for $27 billion in services, including call centre and back-office activities, reaching parity with India." Poland is emerging as `the BPO centre for Europe', says another study, quoted in the book. Capgemini's model is called Rightshore, "to produce results that work". This is how, for instance: "Nearshore, a team of consultants located in France and Germany can fly out at a short notice to support critical show-stoppers and provide close support to end-users, while farshore, the main service delivery team is based in India."

Well-written guide.

Tailpiece

"They got a non-bailable warrant to arrest him."

"Was he caught?"

"Yes, then they released him, but not before implanting a radio tag to track his movements!"

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in

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