Archive for December, 2009

Plan to produce Digital Magazine

In: Personal Waves

25 Dec 2009

Hey guys, before few months I decided to run online magazine, featuring technology articles and stuff. I got domain, I hosted and applied blog based magazine concept like livetechpro, redmondpie, smashingmagazine and many more.

I installed wordpress and configure on my hosting server. I choosed Microsoft, Apple, Google, Reviews, Mobile Arena, Blogging, Project Management as my main categories. With the help of Google Analytics, I got a traffic based report which was clearly saying me to focus on “APPLE” category, there was a 70% of traffic on Apple category and other 30% traffic on different categories.

Anyways, I am more stable financially and technically, So I think to convert this blog based magazine to digital based magazine (PDF, Flash) with same categories and contents. Currently I am stick to release my magazine issues on monthly basis may be change frequency after sometime.

What I want to know from you that producing magazine on monthly basis could be sucessfull? Do you want to share some tips with me in this business. Although I am looking for some examples. I appreciate your comments and suggestion. Currently you can visit my magazine here.

You can also follow me on twitter or on facebook for further progress and concepts, or simply drop me an email for suggestion and comments.

How to implement a Change Management Process

In: Project Management

24 Dec 2009

Projects are typically undertaken within changing business environments, so it’s inevitable that during the life of your project, there will be some element of change required. Whether a customer requests a change to their requirements, management request a change in priority or team members request a change in roles, you will need an effective Change Management Process to minimize the resulting impact on your project. So here, we have described:

Change Management is the process of monitoring and controlling changes within a project. By managing the implementation of change, you can:

  • Reduce the impact of changes to the project
  • Identify new issues and risks as a result of changes raised
  • Ensure that changes do not affect the project’s ability to achieve its desired objectives
  • Control the cost of change within the project

Change Management is comprised of the following processes:

Step 1: Identify Change:

The first step in the change process is to identify the need for change. Any team member can suggest a change to the project, if he or she believes it is needed to keep the project producing deliverables to the customer’s specified requirements. After identifying a need for change, the team member records relevant information on a Change Request Form (commonly called a CRF), describing the change, and identifying drivers, benefits, costs and likely impact of the change on the project. The CRF is forwarded to the Project Manager for review and approval.

Step 2: Review Change:

The Project Manager investigates the change to identify the reason for it and its impact. Then he or she decides whether it is critical to the successful delivery of the project. Changes which are not critical to project delivery should be avoided whenever possible to prevent “scope creep” (i.e. the gradual increase in scope throughout the Project Lifecycle).

If the change is deemed critical to success, the Project Manager either approves the request or seeks approval for the CRF raised. In some cases, the Project Manager has the direct authority to approval minor change requests; however, in most cases the Project Manager needs to seek CRF approval from the Project Board.

Step 3: Approve Change:

The Project Board reviews the details in the CRF to determine whether or not the change should be implemented. Based on the level of risk, impact, benefits and cost to the project, it may decide to decline, delay or approve the change request.

Step 4: Implement Change:

The Project Manager approves all changes, which are then are scheduled and implemented accordingly. After implementation, the Project Manager reviews the effects of the change on the project to ensure that it achieved the desired outcome, when the change is then closed in the Change Register.

Throughout the Change Management Process, the Project Manager can monitor and control changes to the project by keeping this Change Register up-to-date.

There you have it. By completing these 4 steps, you can carefully monitor and control project changes, to increase your likelihood of success.

By following above rules you can deliver your project successfully. These are the basic but Golden rules in Project Management. You can contact me on my facebook page or on twitter for further information.

Shipping and Forwarding – Web Based Solution Project

In: Personal Waves

20 Dec 2009

During April 09 on saturday night of second last week before having new fiscal year we had a call of our friend regarding new project. Yes this was our another attempt to do project with in 20 days time span. This time Nayab Agency, a shipping and forwarding agency situated in Karachi, Pakistan.

Project Overview:

Nayab is small agency related to shipping and forward type of work in local market of Pakistan. They are based on 5 number of employees who use traditional MS. Excel for their external and internal reporting. Mr. Sikandar was a stakeholder from Nayab in this project. We internally called this project as “NAYAB ONLINE BILLING”.

Now let me explain you our experiences by each phases of our customized process to make a project.

Situation Analysis:

Mr. Sikandar is a responsible to handle external reporting area in Nayab. But he normally lives outside the Office premises and sometimes out of city. Due to not coming office punctually he used to miss all reporting deadlines stated by Pakistan Law.

Mr. Sikandar sketched a simple requirement, He said that “I want to complete my reporting work within time from anywhere in the world”. He also explained that he wants this project before 1st of June 2009 (new fiscal year). That’s it, actually that was enough for us to accept or reject a project, and guess we accepted the project with the constraint of time limitations.

Acquisition / Financial Procurement:

After having analysis we asked Nayab to reserve domain and hosting first for project. Our analyst suggested domain name should cover corporate not only this application and then NAYAB21C means Nayab in 21 century discovered.

According to our policy we also asked Nayab to submit our advance payment. It sometimes hurts our clients but really we can not go without it. Hope you understand.

Wiremapping / Sketching:

In intial stage Mr. Sikandar mentioned us the future program regarding Nayab, he wanted Nayab also for client, He stated that client should be able to track their bills,profiles and taxes. But this requirement is still under discussion and will be part of phase 2.

We sketched a basic requirement on paper, we consider four functional modules of this application which was manage bills, manage clients, manage agents and reports. In each functional module we consider basic features like searching, adding, editing and deleting a record.

Except these four functional modules we also proposed some basic modules like change passwords, manager profiles, secure login area, and etc. We came up with basic sitemap and proper requirement specification and made it sign off from Mr. Sikandar.

Layout Design / User Interface:

As our creative nature, we did user interface design very sepratley from all other phases. We gave a very simple and user friendly look for Nayab. Orignally Nayab was using a traditional navy blue color but we decided to give it greenish look as owner of Nayab was some patriotic.

We used a very simple approach where user can find all stuff easily in the front of screen. We consider single color and statistic typography in Nayab due to no fancy requirement from user, although it looks like a web 2.0 interface but its not Web 2.0.

We used traditional font Arial, Verdana, and used simple CSs. We used a simple icon based navigation. Thanks for Smashing Magazine Freebies Icons for particular job. After second attempt we got a final approval from user regarding interface design.

Technical Design / Coding:

Now everything was a very clear to us regarding Nayab, we had requirements, approved sitemap and approved layout from Mr. Sikandar. We just started a database design on MySQL we used simple and optimized approach in database to avoid any extra load and time consuming. Although it is going to be large database till june 2010 but it will be greatly accessible due to our effort in optimization.

We also started writing technical code in PHP, used very simple logic to perform every complex operation. Coding  structure was also very simple everything is modular based and seprated from main file.

We used xhtml transitional standard to write interface pages, transitional standard because we used tables as data grid to display records.

Configuration / Pilot Run:

We configured Nayab on web server and had a 5 days pilot run based on Nayab’s original work situation. We collected some bills from Nayab and processed in our web application to check website on high level basis.

Testing / Inspection:

After having a application we came to test it, our testing team had a several test cases which were produced parallel with design phase. We performed unit testing first and the went to integration testing. Obviously we faced issues in testing and that was a reason to keep testing phase before submitting to user.

Anyway we had a great test run with approximately 20 number of issues related to design, database and reporting formats. We also tested some minor but important stuff such as loading time of web, database optimization, security checks, and others.

User Acceptance / CRP:

Now we had converted Mr. Sikandar’s requirements into real web application. We presented an application in conference room of Nayab. Mr. Sikandar was fully happy with out effort and welcomed our application as live application.

We also asked Nayab peoples to run application here as testing with different test cases and scenerios. Due to our strong effort in Inspection / Testing stage we cleared User Acceptance / CRP stage very easily.

Go Live:

Its time for party, before went to party we recieved our balance invoice from Nayab and send Nayab web application on live. We refreshed database, reset all agents accounts with dummy passwords and activate printer settings according to Nayab’s printer.

Around 10:00 pm on 20th May we mark Nayab as live website and had a successive smoke of Benson with Mr. Sikandar.

Maintenance:

According to our terms of references with Nayab, We decided to provide 6 months free maintenance and after Go Live phase. Mr. Sikandar gave us some minor maintenance issues such as having one more field on Billing report, Calculation approach in Bill Statement and etc.

Phase Out / Project Closure:

After six months of GO LIVE we closed our project successfully, and asked Nayab to give us feedback through our Project Assessment document. Which had a fabulous remarks by Nayab team.

Summary / Conclusion:

Client Name: Nayab Agencies.
Project URL: http://www.nayab21c.org
Total duration of project: 20 days!
Total number of human resource from our side: 1 analyst, 1 developer and 1 designer.
Tools used in project: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver for PHP+XHTML+CSS, MYSQL (PHP MYADMIN).
Cost of Project: 20000 PKR with domain and hosting.

Screenshots from Live System:

Top 5 Rules to deliver your project successfully

In: Project Management

16 Dec 2009

Time Management is Critical

To deliver your project on time, you need to manage time carefully. To do this, make sure every task is listed in a Project Plan and that they are scheduled to occur precisely when they need to.

Every week, update your plan with the time spent completing tasks and identify whether each task is ahead or behind schedule. Track the % complete of each task and if it’s behind schedule, then get it back on track by assigning more resource or reducing the scope of the task. Don’t let tasks slip. Be vigilant.

Track Costs and Manage Finances

Every element of your project incurs a cost. You need to identify all of the planned costs upfront and get them approved by your manager.

Then record every expense as it occurs – including people, equipment and materials. Check that your actual expenditure does not exceed your planned expenditure. And if it does, then you need to cut back. If you’re running over budget, tell your Project Sponsor early.

Ensure Quality Targets are Set

You need to specify upfront exactly what it is that the project will deliver (i.e. the “deliverables”). Then set targets for the quality of these deliverables. Get your quality targets agreed by your customer.

Then every week, review the quality of each deliverable produced by the project. If it’s not up to standard, fix it immediately. Never wait until the end of the project before fixing up quality issues.

Control Scope at the Micro Level

Your scope is defined as “the set of deliverables that need to be produced by the project”. So make sure that you know what your scope is, try not to let anyone change it.

Check every week that your team is working on “just” the set of deliverables agreed, and nothing more. Check that every deliverable being produced exactly matches the specification you’ve defined for it. Note: An increase in the scope of your project will make it harder to deliver.

Resolve Issues Early

If issues arise during the project, then resolve them early. Pounce on every issue before it delays your project. Record it formally and then track it until it’s resolved. Unresolved issues lead to delays which lead to project failure. Stay safe – resolve issues early.

By following above rules you can deliver your project successfully. These are the basic but Golden rules in Project Management. You can contact me on my facebook page or on twitter for further information.


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