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Questions

Administrator — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:54:05 +0000

It isn’t difficult to spark a heated discussion between project managers, particularly when the subject under discussion is the level of technical specialization required to do our job.
A project manager needs to be recognized by his team as having a high level of expertise in at least one area. It doesn’t really matter whether that expertise is directly relevant to the current project, so long as the manager can demonstrate ability and within some specialized subject. I knew a much respected IT project director who had never cut a line of code but who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the underlying issues, absorbed over years of working with some highly adept programmers. Another individual was a former psychology student who had an almost scary gift for “reading” what people on her team were thinking.

For example, I know a lot about image processing algorithm design. I also have some experience in the development of effective user interfaces and a couple of other unrelated subsets of graphics specialization. My knowledge of the latest developments in Java 1.4 or of the minutiae of many of the C++ class libraries is decidedly scant. This shortcoming is not such an important drawback as some people might imagine because my team members are happy that I’m at least capable of undertaking technical work in some narrow specialties. This acceptance gives me the status of `associate techie’ but without challenging anyone else’s hard-won specialist knowledge. I’m honest about my technical strengths and weaknesses, and I’m not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. In these days of extreme technical specialization, it’s important to accept that no one person knows everything anyway—even within a particular technical niche.

Why you should admit your weaknesses
The upside of publicly declaring my technical limitations is that I get to leverage my weaknesses. You may wonder how that could be possible.

People expect me to deliver value to the project in ways that are qualitatively different from how they do. In my case, it is in reporting, checking the fine detail, coordinating their work, injecting a measure of fun/challenge, maintaining a `heads-up’ view…tasks that, in my experience, developers really don’t relish.

When I ask for help in understanding some technological subtlety that underpins a project management decision, the experts on my team know that I trust them to explain things. They very much like being questioned as this gives them a special status, allows them to demonstrate their knowledge, and provides them with a way to contribute to the project in a novel way. They also begin to learn about where my technical understanding is weak, and this helps them to be aware of, and highlight, any issues of significance that I might not spot at first sight.

Having technical limitations means that I can usually diffuse any competition or egotism that may crop up between my team members and me. I can defer to other people’s technical expertise without losing any respect…but they know that they must then back their viewpoint by delivering according to my planning requirements.

So how do I deal with the situation when there’s a difference of technical opinion between individuals on the team? I listen closely to the different arguments, which I encourage my experts to outline in a short team meeting. If there is no compromise approach that seems feasible, I acknowledge that I understand the implications of the decision and tell everyone when it will be made. I’ll ask the team to trust me and to back me up, even if I choose an option with which they disagree. Finally, I take responsibility for the consequences, so that no one is left carrying the can for something that was flagged as a potential problem.

One particularly interesting advantage of having restricted knowledge is that I get to learn a lot of new stuff—at the right level of detail (i.e., I can see and steer a path through the “woods” without having to become an expert in the individual “trees”). Another related benefit is that I’m not even tempted to have code built based on the latest features of the latest release. I won’t allow experimentation to get in the way of project elements on the critical path and the process of creating deliverables.

Stupid questions that aren’t so stupid
Perhaps the biggest benefit to having clearly limited technical knowledge is that I’m free to ask seemingly stupid questions. This freedom is one of the most useful tools in managing software development (some would argue that it’s central to all forms of management). Some examples of “stupid” questions worth asking are:

· Why are we still using this tool?

· Can you remind me why we decided on this approach?

· How much does this procedure actually cost us?

· Can anyone explain this problem to me in simple terms?

· Who’s our best person at dealing with this kind of problem?

· What does that acronym actually stand for?

· If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

· Why is your idea better than the way we usually do things?
Don’t be afraid to look at established tasks, procedures and “received wisdom” completely afresh. You can inject a lot of fun by asking `stupid’ questions. You know you’re on exactly the right track when someone says, “I really don’t know. I never thought of that. Good question. I’ll find out”.

You need to be very careful in extending this approach to the customer or to senior management within your organization. Not surprisingly, someone who is paying large amounts of money for your services will not take kindly to being given a demonstration of your apparent lack of knowledge. If you genuinely need to understand a specialized issue, it’s always a good idea to preface your questions with, “I’m no expert in your business, so excuse me if this question seems naïve.”

Rather than pretend to be an all-encompassing technical expert, learn to turn your limited technical expertise to your advantage. The trick for effective project management is to really listen to the answers—and never ask the same “dumb” question twice.

What Is Love and Marriage

Administrator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:02:23 +0000

A student asks a teacher, “What is love?”

The teacher said, “in order to answer your question, go to the wheat field and choose the biggest wheat and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick.”

The student went to the field, go thru first row, he saw one big wheat, but he wonders….may be there is a bigger one later. Then he saw another bigger one… but may be there is an even bigger one waiting for him.

Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he start to realise that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he know he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.

So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand. The teacher told him, “This is love… you keep looking for a better one, but when later you realise, you have already miss the person….”*

“What is marriage then?” The student asked.

The teacher said, “in order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. Butthe rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick.”

The student went to the corn field, this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake, when he reach the middle of the field, he has picked one medium corn that he feel satisfy, and come back to the teacher.

The teacher told him, “this time you bring back a corn…. you look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get… this is marriage.”

Life Is Cruel

Administrator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:59:44 +0000

Life is cruel, mean, wonderful, painful, short, too long for some, not enough for others, a blessing, a curse, a joke, a fleeting moment, a terrifying experience, the most joyous gift ever, a beautiful suuny day with your best friend or spouse, a day filled with laughter, a moment spent in anger. A night filled with tears.
Life is for some, punishment, a nightmare that they can’t wake up from. For others it is something that they take for granted and are all too willing to let go of. For some it is the end of a long journey, one in which they are weary from and wish to take leave of. Life is supposed to be what we make of it, but for those who have tried to make it better and it hasn’t seemed to work, keep going. For those who have made it work, look back and help someone else: it will certainly make yours that much better. For those who have had a life taken away from a loved one, take heart, at least they were here to bring joy, even if it was just a small amount. For those that have had the freedom to lie life as freely as others taken away; find a way to rejoice and know that you are still thought about. For those who willingly gave their freedom away, you’ve made your choice so you have to live with it. Life is being able to look at yourself and laugh. To hug yourself when no one else will and to be able to open your arms to others. Life is a all the things I said, every day of our lives and we must be able to be flexible and adjustable. Live, love and laugh every day like it’s your last.

Khalil Jibran~

Windows Explorer Shortcuts (XP)

Administrator — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:51:17 +0000

ALT+SPACEBAR – Display the current window’s system menu

SHIFT+F10 – Display the item’s context menu

CTRL+ESC – Display the Start menu

ALT+TAB – Switch to the window you last used

ALT+F4 – Close the current window or quit

CTRL+A – Select all items

CTRL+X – Cut selected item(s)

CTRL+C – Copy selected item(s)

CTRL+V – Paste item(s)

CTRL+Z – Undo last action

CTRL+(+) – Automatically resize the columns in the right hand pane

TAB – Move forward through options

ALT+RIGHT ARROW – Move forward to a previous view

ALT+LEFT ARROW – Move backward to a previous view

SHIFT+DELETE – Delete an item immediately

BACKSPACE – View the folder one level up

ALT+ENTER – View an item’s properties

F10 – Activate the menu bar in programs

F6 – Switch between left and right panes

F5 – Refresh window contents

F3 – Display Find application

F2 – Rename selected item

Your Day Is Coming

Administrator — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:32:15 +0000

Yesterday morning I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the front verandah table that I brought up from the letter box earlier, just after the mailman had been.I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I put my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage bin beside the
table,and notice that the bin is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on
the table and take out the garbage first.
But then I think, since I’m going to be near the post box when I take out the garbage anyway (and the mailman picks up the mail at noon) . I may as well pay the bills first. So, I take my cheque book off the table and see that there is only 1 cheque left. My spare cheque book is in my desk in the study room, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke I’d been drinking earlier this morning.
I know I going to look for my cheque book, but first I need to push the Coke can aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. The Coke is warm, so I decide to put it in the refrigerator to make it cold again. AsI head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the dining room table catches my eye — they need water. I put the Coke on the dining room table and discover my reading glasses that I have been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to put more water in the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the table, go to the kitchen sink to get a jug and fill it with water and suddenly spot the TV remote on the window sill. Some-one left it there.I realise that tonight when we go to watch TV, I’ll be looking for
the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the window sill, so I decide to put it back in the lounge room where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers. I pour some water in the jug, but spill some on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the kitchen bench, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day
The car isn’t washed.
The cheque’s aren’t written for the bills to be paid.
There is a warm can of Coke on the dining room table.
The flowers don’t have enough water.
There is still only 1 cheque in my cheque book.
I can’t find the remote.
I can’t find my glasses.
The garbage hasn’t been taken out.
And I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I’m really tired. Now do me a favor. Let me sleep and don’t laugh cause Your day is coming !!!

What Happens in Heaven?

Administrator — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:06:21 +0000

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels.

My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, “This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.”

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, “This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them.”

I noticed again how busy it was there.

There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was
seated there, idly doing nothing. “This is the Acknowledgment Section,” my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed “How is it that? There’s no work going on here?” I asked.

“So sad,” the angel sighed. “After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back
acknowledgments.

“How does one acknowledge God’s blessings?” I asked.

“Simple,” the angel answered.
“Just say, “Thank you, God.”

“What blessings should they acknowledge?” I asked.

“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world.” If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

“And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity.”

Also…..

“If you woke up this morning with more health than illness …. you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.

“If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation … you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.

“If you can attend a prayer meeting without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.

“If your parents are still alive and still married … you are very rare.

If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you’re unique to all those in doubt and despair.”

Ok, what now? How can I start?

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you want, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.

Attn: Acknowledgment Dept:

Thank You God! Thank you God, for giving me the ability to share this blog and for giving me so many wonderful people to share it with.

A Difference at The Beach

Administrator — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:42:27 +0000

A friend of mine was walking down a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean.

As my friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had washed up on the beach, and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water.

My friend was puzzled. He approached the man and said. “Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing.”

“I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it’s low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the sea, they’ll die up here from lack of oxygen.”

“I understand,” my friend replied, “but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And don’t you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast. Can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference?”

The local native smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied, “Made a difference to that one!”

There are millions of little things we can do, without taking much effort, to make this world a better place.

‘Aisha (radiAllahu anha) narrated, that the Prophet was asked,
“What deeds are loved most by Allah?” He said, “The most regular constant deeds even though they may be few.” He added, ‘Don’t take upon yourselves, except the deeds which are within your ability.”
[Sahih al-Bukhari, 8:76:472]

The Strength Of A Man

Administrator — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:00:47 +0000

The strength of a man isn’t seen in the width of his shoulders.
It’s seen in the width of his arms that circle you.

The strength of a man isn’t in the deep tone of his voice.
It’s in the gentle words he whispers.

The strength of a man isn’t how many buddies he has.
It’s how good a buddy he is with his kids.

The strength of a man isn’t in how respected he is at work.
It’s in how respected he is at home.

The strength of a man isn’t in how hard he hits.
It’s in how tender he touches.

The strength of a man isn’t in the hair on his chest.
It’s in his Heart… that lies within his chest.

The strength of a man isn’t how many women he’s loved.
It’s in how he can be true to one woman.

The strength of a man isn’t in the weight he can lift.
It’s in the burdens he can carry….

Feelings Change

Administrator — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:56:36 +0000

By : Abdul Waheed Noori~

It’s funny. You can care so much about someone and they hurt you. Quite a few times. You wish and pray and hope that one day you’ll either stop being hurt, or you’ll stop caring. Then something happens. One day, they hurt you just enough… just good enough that you wake up and find you really don’t care anymore. You don’t go out of your way to be around the person or to talk to them. You don’t care what’s going on with them or if they’re okay. You just don’t care anymore. You don’t hate them. You don’t avoid them or not speak. You just don’t care anymore at all. For one, it’s a truly wonderful thing. For the other, a huge mistake.
So, my friends, I’d just like to say this. Be careful how you treat people. You never know what you may lose when you turn selfish and mean just because you can. I know I have a lesson to learn from this as well, so I’m certainly not pointing fingers, lol. And don’t worry, I’m not being mopey. I’m actually feeling quite well. Just thought I’d share my thoughts.
Note: I’m not talking about anyone.

Trust Your Heart

Administrator — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:02:06 +0000

Trust your heart don’t be afraid to reach out to something new. Go ahead get you hopes up even if things turns out differently than you have imagined. You will have tried, you will have learned, you never have to live with regrets. It seems to me what wears us down the most in life are not the chances we take but the ones we don’t take, the dreams we put aside, the adventure we push away. So what ever you want in life go for it and always remember no matter what trust your heart.

Khalil Jibran~