Goals

By Dr. Shree Nanguneri • April 20th, 2012

Part III – Predictive Modelling for Collegiate Academic Excellence – An Ongoing Case Study! Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Co-Author and Project Lead Contributor, Ms. Reethika S. Iyer*   Background: In Parts I and II, we touched upon the value proposition in understanding the impact of high school on final examination performance.  We concluded with results [...]

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence Part III (Final Part of Series) Viable Lean Six Sigma Solutions to Validate Project Timelines and Increase KPI Linkage for PMP leaders Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg   Meandering in a World Swayed by Certification: In Part I, we addressed the vitality of the linkage of a [...]

Enhancing PMP with Business Process Excellence Part II (of an III Part Series) Validating Project Timelines against Expected Changes in Customer Requirements Dr. Shree Nanguneri and Mr. Gustav Toppenberg Background for “Changes in Customer Requirement:” In Part I we initiated discussions on how the KPI needs to link with the business goals and objectives.  In [...]

Beliefs, and by extension, belief systems, are powerful energy magnets that shape our inner and outer worlds … and they can be innocently (or not so innocently) misleading. For example, in the 1500′s, authority figures believed that the world was flat as a pancake; in the 1940’s doctors appeared in ads advocating the health benefits [...]

AMP = Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose. Now this is a power-packed acronym! These three words power the engine within us that takes us to greater heights, and help us achieve self-actualization in the personal and professional environment. Located at the peak of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy, self-actualization is described in the following way: “What a man can [...]

In the first and second blog posts of this series we talked about heavy stuff. I shared some thoughts about disappointment and forgiveness, two key human conditions that I’ve observed in my practice that consistently drain and distract people from reaching their full potential (and enjoyment) in the workplace. Now I’d like to shift gears and to [...]

Happy to be here … let me introduce myself: My name is Mildred Lynn McDonald. I hail from the bonnie shores of Nova Scotia, Canada and this is my first post as part of the UCSC blog community. Last month I moved to Los Altos, so as you can imagine, skipping The Great Canadian Winter [...]

I am part of the generation that has been told from birth that “as long as you have your college degree, you can grow up to do anything you want.” Realistically speaking, this concept is flawed, or at least overly general. I can’t become a Brain Surgeon with a degree in Social Behavior, and I [...]

I was speaking to a fellow speaker (who was a developer from Germany). He was sharing that his company will be sending him to 15 conferences this year. I was amazed and impressed at the expense his company was investing in him. “Wow! Share with me what you are bringing back to them, that makes it worth their investment to continue to fund all these trips for you?” He looked confused. “I mean, what is there ‘return on investment’. What are they getting out of these funded trips. How are your trips accomplishing their business goals?”

One of the more challenging aspects in any career is quantifying your achievement during your performance evaluations or job interviews. How can you most effectively and easily do this?

Most of us associate being compassionate, nonjudgmental, and allowing the other to be and do as they please — as laying the foundation to “being taken advantage of”. It’s very natural to assume this. But, I’m suggesting, to allow the steam roller to be the steam roller – doesn’t mean to place oneself in its path.

If all you are planning on doing at the next conference you attend is to learn something from the sessions and the exhibits, my advice would be to save your money, focus on your work, and ‘get the dvd’. As we all know, attending conferences isn’t just about the sessions, the keynote speakers, or the product demos. The values you attain from attending conferences are all in the periphery, they are about the ‘X Factors’, those that help you , your team and your company get ahead professionally.

Did you know Project Management is having a birthday? Well, sort of a birthday. It was 100  years ago, in 1911, that Frederick W. Taylor published Principles of Scientific Management. Early pioneers of project management, such as Henry Gantt, were followers of Dr. Taylor. Now, for historical accuracy, it should be noted that Dartmouth College [...]

I was recently asked what is the best morning ritual to save time for busy singles and parents. How to get dressed and out the door without misplacing and redoing things. And for those with children: How to get your kids from forgetting 2,591 things back in their bedrooms. How to NOT have a
last-minute scramble for sports equipment or library books.

We’ve heard saying like “It’s not what you say, but how you say it”; “Actions speak louder than words”; “It’s not what you way, but how you feel when you say it.” After an incident this past week, I totally agree with all of those statements more than ever. Why?

If you are managing a project to deliver a new product or service, you’ll be making lots of decisions.  If you are doing a good job of keeping your stakeholders involved, there will undoubtedly be scrutiny about those decisions. Most companies are filled with smart, highly-trained managers who make it their job to be critical [...]

Last time, I talked about status reporting, which is commonly required but whose power as a multitool is often overlooked. Today I am going to talk about a tool that is frequently overlooked altogether – the contingency management plan. Projects are initiated for a reason – in a business setting, to create something of business [...]

Project managers work on various projects, sometimes traveling to various clients’ sites. You juggle many emails, calls, faxes and meetings during the week. When do you find time and how to prepare yourself mentally to learn something new like a foreign language? You’re on the road and you think you can’t learn a foreign language [...]

Unfortunately, in many countries, especially English-language ones, foreign languages have not been taken seriously by educational institutions, parents and children. People who learned to speak a foreign language were few and far between and sometimes couldn’t use their languages professionally. This is changing. More and more students are learning “hard” languages like Mandarin and Arabic [...]

A common culprit behind schedule slips is adding up estimates for building subunits and not accounting for verification and integration.  In software, a piece of code may pass unit testing, but fail when integrated with other blocks. The code may work on one operating system, but not the four that the product declares it supports.  [...]

I tried not to sputter as the young, no-grey haired, highly-respected PhD sporting engineering manager told me my suggestion did not have merit, because I was non-technical. My experience in this challenge was relevant, and keenly pertinent. Our company needed to make this change, we couldn’t afford to do things the old way, but the [...]