Friday, February 27, 2009

Computer Hardware in Plain English

Friday, February 20, 2009

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Investing Money in Plain English - A common craft video

Monday, February 09, 2009

Risk Mitigation

Risk mitigation actions reduce the chance that a risk will be realized and/or reduce the seriousness of a risk that is realized. The costs of these actions should be identified as part of the EVALUATION activities. There are two broad types of risk mitigation or treatment activities:

  • Preventative - planned actions to reduce the LIKELIHOOD a risk will occur and the SERIOUSNESS if it does occur. In other words, what can be done now? For example, if a risk were identified that the project’s major clients will not have the technical expertise to utilize adequately the technology the project is implementing, an appropriate preventative action would be to provide technical training. Preventative actions for Grades A and B risks should be implemented before the project progresses very far into the MANAGE Phase.
  • Contingency - planned actions to reduce the SERIOUSNESS of the risk if it does occur. In other words, what should be done if? For example, a possible action in response to the previous risk might be that ongoing technical support and advice is provided to the client organization once the technology is implemented.
Risk mitigation actions should be cost efficient and effective in that they help reduce the risk exposure of the project. Conscious decisions need to be made regarding the wearing or transferring of certain risks as opposed to the costs of mitigation.

For serious risks, an extremely effective risk mitigation strategy can be justified more easily in terms of its cost. Mitigation strategies to reduce the likelihood and seriousness of risks should be built into the budget and activities of the project. Mitigation strategies should be measured, comparing cost and benefits.

RECOVERY actions are those subsequent actions that allow you to move on after a risk has occurred. They include management of residual risks. Hopefully, the seriousness of a risk’s impact on the project will have been reduced due to the planned contingencies being implemented. These recovery actions should be built into the work breakdown structure for the project. In other words - what should be done and when.

Reference: Tasmanian Government Project Management Guidelines Version 6.0

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Road skills Hyderabadi must have
  • Drive 4 wheelers like 4 wheelers and not like 2-wheelers. Most of the RTC buses are driven like 2-wheelers, specially in the Kukatpally route.
  • While driving at night use normal headlight mode and not high –beam mode. Guys you need to understand that driving in high-beam mode is dangerous not only for the person who is driving in the opposite direction but also you.
  • While crossing roads, use zebra crossing (this is applicable throughout India). In case you are not doing that, atleast develop a sense of understanding the problem driver faces in case you jump right in front of him while attempting to cross the road. Andhra Pradesh is one of the states in India with very high number of road accidents.
  • And finally, follow traffic rule, at least the basic ones ( stop at red light, don't race on roads..etc)

Friday, February 06, 2009

Top 10 Qualities of a Project Manager

  • Inspires a Shared Vision
  • Good Communicator
  • Ability to Delegate Tasks
  • Problem Solving Skills
  • Integrity
  • Enthusiasm
  • Empathy
  • Competence
  • Team-Building Skills
  • Cool Under Pressure


This list was compiled after surfing through the Internet.
Channel Created on Google SMS Channels. This is a test post.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Powerpoint - best practice by Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki' n addition to being a good author/blogger, was one of the very early Apple employees and more recently has been a venture investor. At Garage (http://www.garage.com/), probably he has seen countless Powerpoint presentations. Presumably because he is tired of seeing poor Powerpoint presentations, he spends many pages in his book, Art of The Start talking about Powerpoint best practices.

His mantra is that Powerpoint should follow a 10/20/30 Rule (check out The Art of Pitching section in the book). There should be no more than 10 slides in the presentation as very few people take away much more than one concept from a presentation, so all that other stuff is extra. The slide presentation should be designed to last 20 minutes, leaving room for ample questions between slides or after the presentation. He says the font should be size should be no smaller than 30 (Arial font). Guy says that audiences read faster than you can talk, so that while you are up there talking, they are trying to read your slides and not listening to what you are saying.

He says that there are something like 60 animation features within Powerpoint and he recommends the less use of it the better. His advice is to use your voice & body to emphasize when a point is important, not some fancy Powerpoint trick. The only place he recommends using any of this is in going through bullet points on a slide, presumably to avoid having people read ahead. Speaking of bullets, Guy suggests that bulleted slides should have one point with bullets and only one layer of bullets (lest you violate the 30 part of 10/20/30).

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Warangal Fort


Warangal Fort
Originally uploaded by Anandarup
The Ruins of a majestic fort