Thursday, October 25, 2007

What happened to my paradigms?

What happened to my paradigms?

Everyone has paradigms. What is a paradigm? A paradigm is a very clear pattern or typical example of something as per Longman English Dictionary. But here it is referred to a thought pattern to the things existing and happening around us.
Our paradigms are not still. They are changing from one pattern to anther. This happens when things are viewed one way, then new information comes in and the way things are viewed changes in response to the new information. For example, the discovery of that the world is round greatly changed the view of the world from the one when people thought it was flat. Same rules apply to the personal paradigm shift when new information obtained, such as a learning experience. Learning Project Management for past 10 weeks has greatly changed my paradigm of project management. Before taking the course, I thought information technology project management was the job of somebody else, who would organize a group of technical staff to finish an IT project. It was far away from my role in an organization. I thought it was a task of purely technical, mysterious and with a lot of difficulties. If I were asked to join a team, I would like to accept a certain duty, of which I would be capable, to focus on it, and to complete it. By this way, I would fulfill my role in a team. But now I have a quite different view of information technology project management. When I think of information technology project management, I would see a larger picture from the organization’s perspective; I would analyze and assess benefits and costs of the project; I would consider human resources and tools needed for the project; I would consider outsourcing and performing procurement; I would consider the cost budget and time frame of the project; and I would consider the overall quality of the project including meeting the requirements, user friendliness, integration and security issues. These changes are positive and beneficial to future career and personal life. I feel they have brought in quality and energy to me. So basically, I have switched my role in a team from a team member to a team leader (or at least I could see farther and wider). This is because my paradigm has shifted from one pattern to another.

I believe that learning, training, working, and interacting with environment in other ways are the sources of getting new information, which will trigger the paradigm shifts. On the other hand, human beings don’t like change. There is often a battle between “need to change” and "don’t like to change”. So we are the owners of the changes. If we believe that our paradigm shifts in positive way, we should let go of the old thought pattern and make it happen.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm
http://www.learntovisualize.com/Articles/How%20Change%20Occurs%20I.htm

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

XBRL

XBRL stands for extensible business reporting language which is a language for electronic communication of business and financial information. XBRL is based on XML which is developed by a non-profit international organization with an open standard and free of license fees. As it offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability, many organizations are interested in implementing XBRL in their financial and business reporting.

XBRL can be adopted by all types of business. It can save costs and improve efficiency in processing business and financial information. Flexible and extensible characters make it easy to adapt all sorts of requirements for business and financial reporting.

As a public company, our company will certainly benefit from many of the advantages XBRL can provide. First, it can be used to improve our internal and external business and financial reporting. The financial data from different departments can be integrated on simple, cost effective and accurate basis. Second, it can improve our business reporting to all types of regulators, such as tax and financial authorities, central banks and governments. This can meets the requirements of standardization and simplification for data transferring to external parties. Third, it will play a very important role in providing information exchange and analysis. The data can be assembled, selected, re-used, analyzed, and validated efficiently. Analysis results, decision making, data transfer and communication can be less time consuming.

We could consult local XBRL consultant for selecting the software. There are accounting software supporting XBRL format available and software for converting into XBRL format. We could have a purchase or make decision to make. We should also do the cost-benefit analysis to see if it is feasible for our organization. We could join the membership of as XBRL members to get updated information of XBRL latest technology and trend. We could also join local XBRL group for updated information.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

BP1 – Week 2 – Activity 3: Why do so many managers fail at BPR?

Business process reengineering (BPR) started in 1990s in America. This new concept was spreading so widely that as many as 65% of the Fortune 500 companies claimed to either have initiated reengineering efforts, or to have plans to do so. There were many successful stories of implementing BPR such as Dell and Ford, while many organizations failed on the other hand. There are reasons for both success and failure. What caused failure? I would like to discuss the factors behind a failed implementation of BPR.

In Module 2 of BP1, we learned a number of factors that caused failure of BPR as the following:
1. Flawed or incomplete reengineering strategy - a company who conducts a BPR should align its BPR project goal to the organization’s strategic objective. The organization should demonstrate this alignment in all aspect of activities, such as financial performance, customer service and employee values. Without such a strategic alignment, the project may not get supports from all levels of the organization, especially from top management, which is critical for success of a project.
2. Inappropriate use of outside consultants – this could cause project failure by cost overrun, technical failure, delayed project. So choosing an appropriate consulting firm is very critical at the beginning of the project. This part of the project management skills should be executed with guidelines of choosing a consulting firm. Poor management, incompetent consultants, inexperienced team all contribute a failure of a BPR project.
3. People tied to old technologies with poor training programs – an organization culture and the level of technical skills are also important to implementation the BPR project. If employees in an organization will not or cannot accept or operate in the new process, no matter how wonderful the BPR design is, it will not bring any benefit to an organization. So communication and proper training through the whole BPR process is necessary to prevent a failure.
4. Legacy systems not easily changed and effort to do so underestimated – how to transfer the data from legacy systems and how to start the new system is a big challenge to an organization undergoing BPR. Parallel, pilot, or divisional method can be adopted in the transition from legacy systems to new systems. But the costs for extensive training and overlapping work could be underestimated which would lead to a BPR failure.
5. Lack of ES integration tools not acted on – BPR is about integration and improving the performance. Proper ES integration tools are necessary. An organization can either have an ES program or have a best of breed to implement BPR. Imagine what would be the outcome if an organization insist on using end-user systems?
6. Attainment of objectives not validated to determine if attainable – BPR objective setting must follow the rules of SMART, that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-framed. Objective should be validated for its attainment. Blueprint can only benefit an organization when it turns to reality.
7. Organization not properly prepared for the degree of change – BPR always involves change, sometimes it is tremendous. So change management is among the key factors to success or failure of BPR project. Most people don’t like change, change means stress, adapting, training and possible job loss. When implementing a BPR project, proper communication and training throughout the process will ease the resistance of training.
8. Inadequate planning or inadequate resolve to follow the plans – Planning part is the crucial for the success of a BPR project. It involves project goal setting and alignment with business objective, cost budgeting, time budgeting, project team formation or outsourcing options, project executing and change management, project implementing, monitoring and evaluation. Any oversight at the planning stage may cause serious problem in later stages.
9. Management lacking long-term commitment – business world is changing constantly. An organization should picture itself in a long run, say three or five years from now. A long-term strategy will support achieving this goal. When executing BPR, management should align BPR project with organization’s mission statement. As BPR project is time consuming and costly, it is only beneficial to an organization if long-term commitment is taken into consideration.
10. Project management skills underestimated – project manager plays an important role in the BPR project. As we discussed in previous blog, project manager is required to be an excellent communicator, great bargainer, problem solver, team player and motivator, well experienced and educated. So project management skills are a key factor of success.
In the process of BPR, some large industrial companies tend to adopt clean-sheet change program in order to get rid of the straightjacket of the past. I don’t think it is a good approach to start BPR with a clean-sheet. It sounds good to many large companies in thought of that they could start like a brand new company and have escaped the problems from the past. This is not the right way to deal with the problems. They may get rid of the old problems, but they will face even more new issues in the redesigned the process. The new system may not work as well as anticipated. Problem solving and improvement may be constant issues. And in reality, business is on going, a company can’t really cut off the past completely. This would make management struggle between the legacy systems and new systems. Clean-sheet means big change, which will affect the effectiveness and efficiency both internally and externally for a period of time due to adapting to new system. This impact may offset the benefit clean-sheet may bring to the organization.

Reference:
CGA/SAIT lesson notes
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/01/reengin.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_reengineering#Successes

Friday, September 21, 2007

PM1 – Week 2 – Organizational Structures

Organizations are consisted of groups of people playing different roles in the organization to achieve organizations’ goals. For each organization, there is an organizational chart, sometimes it’s not on the paper but it does exist. This chart shows how an organization is structured in order to function efficiently and effectively. As we have learned from Module 2 of Project Management, there are a number of organizational structures existing nowadays to be adopted by different organizations. They include major organizational structures such as functional organizational structure, project organizational structure, matrix organizational structure and other structures such as divisional organizational structure and network/virtual organizational structure.

Complexity, formalization and centralization are important part of organizational structure which focus one control and coordination. Organizations differ in size, strategy, technology, environment and etc. All of these determine the complexity, formalization and centralization of an organization. Thus the level and degree of control and coordination vary from one organization to another. So different organizations have need different organizational structures to support its strategy and to achieve its goal. That’s the reason why there are so many different types of organizational structures. For example, a product manufacturer has very different strategy, technology, environment from a university does. It will not work perfectly well for both if you have share the same organizational structure. Besides the obvious differences, each of them needs its own level of complexity, formalization and centralization. A matrix organizational structure may be suitable for a manufacturer because it uses human and physical resources more efficiently and increases technical quality and product integrity simultaneously, while a functional organizational structure is a good fit for a university because it allows task specialization and expertise to develop and it doesn't have redundancy of functions across groups.

As we know organizational structures are about control and coordination which are consisted of various degrees of rules, policies, direct supervisions. They are designed to drive and enhance an organization’s performance. But it is possible that sometimes it works oppositely. For example, under the functional structure, a project manager has little or none authority, while functional manager has the project budget control. In fact, the project manager has the first hand knowledge of the progress of the project and its budgeting. The functional manager’s control may impede the progress of the project. For example, in my previous job, when we process accounts payable, we matched every invoice with purchase order and actual receipt, this process involving verifying invoice, purchase order and actual. After the matching, our controller would review it, and then documents are sent to the president to authorize. Actually the president did no more than providing signature. Due to that he was so busy. The payment often missed the deadline.

I would prefer work in a matrix organizational structure. A functional structure and a project structure are two extremes. However, a matrix is in between the two extremes and it is adjustable as weak matrix, balanced matrix and strong matrix. The project manager’s authority and functional manager’s control are more or less balanced. Working in such a structure will be most rewarding due to its flexibility and functionality.

Reference:

Information Technology Project Management by Kathy Schwalbe

CGA/SAIT lesson notes

http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/scholl/Notes/Organizational_Structure.htm

http://www.sbea.mtu.edu/smgoltz/ba3700/OrgStructure.html

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

BP1- Week 1- Question 2

In 1990, Michael Hammer, who was a former professor in computer science, wrote an article on information technology’s impact on business process. At the time, information technology was mainly used to automate existing work. But he Michael saw it from a different view. He believed that information technology could be used to eliminate non-value adding work in the existing work process. He classified all the work in the process in value adding work and non-value adding work. If a work in the process didn’t add value to customer, it should not be accelerated or automated, it should be removed from the process instead. At that time, some other scholars and studies revealed a similar idea. This idea, known as business process reengineering or business process redesign (BPR) later on, was soon adopted by a large number of companies. This was driven by the fear of being left behind by global competitions. This new concept was widely accepted and practiced by many companies.

After a few years of implementation of BPR, there were many criticisms on BRP besides those successful stories, because BPR focused only on efficiency and technology and disregard people in the organization. It caused massive lay-off of employees, which was lack of humanity. Criticisms also include that over trust in technology solution, under estimation the resistance of change, exaggeration of potential benefit and limited strategy alignment. By mid 1990s, some of the early BPR proponents including Hammer and Davenport published article of critiques on BPR. And there are some cases that BPR concept were abused and missed by others. All of these events cooled down the fever of BPR. BPR concept is still used as a start point of business process analysis and redesign, but it is not widely recognized as before in early 1990s.

Currently, business process management (BPM) is the focus of business world. BPM focuses on the combination of management and information technology by using information technology as a tool to analyze, design, control business process. It is not one-time revolutionary change like BPR, but a continuous improvement of business process.

PM1 - Week 1 - Do I want a career in Project Management?

Do I want a career in Project Management?

This is a very interesting topic. I had never thought about being an IT project manager before taking project management course. Perhaps most of us may not think that we are anywhere closer to this position. However, we are living and working in the information times and changing is constant. Who knows what will happen to our future careers? I believe there a large probability that we are going to be involved in project management as an accountant, or a team member or maybe a project manager. Personally I would like to try many different new things. So I would certainly like to be open to an opportunity working in project management.

After studying Module 1 of Project Management, I realized that IT project management plays a very important role in the whole process of a project. The success of a project largely depends on the project management, which includes integration management, scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human resources management, communications management, risk management and procurement management. Thus, a project manager should have all of these management skills to fulfill his or her duties. This means that a solid knowledge of management and practical skills are needed for project management.

Further research of qualifications from the job of project manager at www.monster.ca reveals the following specific requirements in common:

Education
All the positions I searched required a diploma, degree or formal training certificate, or professional certification in computer science or related discipline. So post secondary education is mandatory for project manager.

Work experience
Most project manager positions need minimum 5 to 10 years of related work experience. Project management is not about theory; it is a combination of knowledge and practical skills.

Communication skills
Project manager needs to possess the ability to speak and write clearly and concisely in a variety of settings, listen effectively and get message across effectively.

Time management skills
Project manager should the ability to prioritize work, multi-task and keep up with the schedule.

Strong analytical, interpretive, and problem solving skills
These are basic skills for project manager because part of project managers’ duties is to help team member to identify and solve problems encountered.

Technical skills
Possession of appropriate technical knowledge and skills can help to ensure project quality and team high-level performance.

Negotiating skill
Negotiating skill plays an important role in project management, outsourcing and procurement.

Creative thinking
Project manager should have the ability to think creatively in order to meet busniness solutions for clients.

Leadership
Project manager should have the ability to motivate the team to work together in the most efficient manner and mitigate team conflict.

Managing change
Project manager should have the ability to embrace new technologies, meet emerging market demands, respond effectively to changing conditions, apply continuous improvement techniques and create new business opportunities.

From the above qualifications searched, we can conclude that educational background and work experience are the foundations. Without basic knowledge in IT and related fields, it would be impossible to perform other skills properly. For example, if a project manager doesn’t have sufficient knowledge on IT, how could this person perform other skills like communication, problem solving, negotiation and creative thinking? Working experience is extremely important for a project manager. The project itself is a practical experience of putting ideas into reality and it is usually expensive and critical for an organization. A failure of a key project may cause a failure of an organization. Without successful project management experience, a project manager may put an organization at high risk. So get sufficient knowledge on IT and get involved in project management is the start point for those who are interested in project management career.

The following is a list of job titles searched in getting information on qualifications of project management:

Project Scheduler
Assistant project manager
Project manager
Project management consultant
Business analyst
Senior program manager
Change realization manager