To be or Not to be Appraised...

I did learn about Maslow's theory of need and motivation, and other relating theories of motivating individuals to work and perform under given parameters, during my graduation and post graduation days. I along with others did attempt to apply that theory in many of the stints we've done, and seen it work at places. If you want to learn more - google for it.

But when you come to organisation life - this changes a bit; reason - age (for the more technical reader - maturity). As, we grow old in life our needs increases - it's not the other way round - ofcourse we are looking at cumulative need of recognition and money. And then, comes mid-life crisis - where virtually most of the things are either going too good or the inevitable becomes reality.

Where I work, it's not about old people, but about young talented individuals who have suddenly been exposed to the concept of relative grading and percentile (this does not goes in saying that I also understand the concept or I am on the higher level of the intellect scale or I am old, we'll never talk about that).

On the absolute front we all are talented individuals - what makes our talent vanish or deplete is the whole funda of comparison, productivity figures, and others questioning the ability of a creative person. But that's how business functions - procedures, policies, productivity and people. It's just that procedure and policy effect the people productivity (now count the number of "p" in this paragraph).

That's what appraisals are all about - a policy which initiates a procedure to help people improve their productivity (competitively). What you actually see at the end of it is some smiling faces and some facing inevitability.

And, life goes on...

Tweaking Numbers

Today, I write almost after a month. This does not goes to signify that I had lot's of work to finish, so I couldn't write about the exciting life of PM's. Well, actually it was more of work away from work.

Lives of many PM's around me haven't changed a bit, some when I returned looked thinner with the colors of their skin almost turning to white. It was not about projects, but a annual epidemic called "quality check". It happens every year just to ensure lives of many people will be better (probably), systems will function (hopefully), and the cash register will ring when the next cheque arrives (affirmative). Stuff which I again read during MBA.

Many companies strive to achieve the SIXth sigma, it's a zone of nirvana for the operation guys - who dream of producing only 3.4 error(s) amongst a million productive units. Many individuals who get smarter in tweaking productivity numbers get belt's in different color - just like in karate. Just that you are practicing a discipline of improving processes.

Trust me, it is yet to make the lives of the people working in that process better, I like karate over six sigma practices.

Untill then - practise self discipline :)

Million Dollar Resource

I don't intend to market the recent flick with the similar name, but as a project manager your resource (individual) on the project is worth a lot of money in terms of the bills you pay to your shrink (depression, anxiety and fear of loosing the resource.)

I always thought that guys in sales or marketing face a lot of action, but to my new experience a lot of action also takes place in operations - this time more to do with people you already have and should be working for the organisation - surprisingly many of them are the rope in a tug-of-resource-war.

Management terms it as "organisation dynamics", let me term it "bull****"*. It's hard to say who works and doesn't, you can choose to apply the pereto theory of 80:20 or your own grandma recipe, bottomline this is where you are and this is what you have - "manage"

Another million dollar resource is - time. In project management we estimate time based on number of people working simultaneously to get the job done technically time gets classified as man-months, man-days, man-hours, etc. but later the man-is-not-found. In reality time remains time, no human can defy it; not even project management.

But just like the movie, a PM is very close to his team/people; some team choose to work along, and some the PM needs to drag along. This relation creates a strong bond between people, it overlooks the management-scientific measurements involved in calculating efficiency or defects - what it results is in a creation where all of them worked together...and achieved something.

Which is worth much more than a million dollars...

* No offense to any management guru's or lectures I've attended. I still strongly want to test many theories I've read in the classroom.

Zzzzzzip...

I wish I could share ordeals of other PM's then of my fellow PM, who always manage's to ask for some event in his life. This time it was not his team member but the client.

Most of us will pray once a week or once in a bluemoon, a PM prays everytime he sends a delivery to his client, actually the prayers never ends, it plays at the back of many minds.

So, on the fateful night my PM just like any other honest and supporting one, uploads a zip file (know more about zip files later) on the file server for the client to download and review the works. Tada, the zip file zips it's way to the client...

Now...

A conversation begins between my fellow PM and the client's participant* (CP).

PM: Hi.

CP: Hi, thank you for uploading the file. But this is a zip file.

PM (Thinking - "so???"): Yes, it is.

CP: How do I use this file???

PM (Scratching his head, willing to shoot the questioning person at sight): Just simply unzip the file.

CP: How can you unzip the file?

PM (Visualizing pressing the trigger): Use Winzip...

CP: No, no, no...please upload seperate files again.

PM (Visualizing shooting multiple bullets) : there are over 100 files, it'll take me a lot of time to upload.

CP: I understand the effort you are putting in, please upload all files.

PM: Give me a moment...

In the meanwhile, he calls up the client manager and ask for help, his response "the customer is always right"...

Irony, is for real :)

*PS: The CP has 10 years of experience in this line of business !!!

Note: No human, animal or computer was harmed in this event.

Sleeping with estimation...

[Rated R - Explicit Content, Parental Advise Recommended]

Never in my wildest of dreams I'd thought I'll be sleeping with estimations in my dream. Hmmm...yeah, I'll term this syndrome as estdreamation (dreaming about estimation sheets) and am sure that's the new word that oxford needs to consider for their next dictionary release apart from sms meanings.

I mean, I am not that comfortable with numbers and I land up spending most of my day juggling with numbers. To top it all, I really haven't seen any of my numbers come to life; this of course is because I am yet to go live on a project. So, whatever I do today must mean something tomorrow. It's more or less like planning for how hard, how long and how much will the axe hurt, when it hits your foot. (Yikeees!!!)

Am, sure I'll have more episodes of "Sleeping with estimation" than the episode count of "Kyunki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi" or "Sex, and the City"...