I think you're confusing goals with the process. Yes, the goal is timely completion within the budget while meeting quality requirements. But how do you approach that?
I'll stand by my assertion. I've managed projects with budgets of 10,000 man days and more, and brought them in on schedule, as contracted for, and under budget (sometimes). I've managed agile projects with 5 developers. I've managed system integrations, data center moves, packaged software installations, and office moves. It's all lists, of deliverables, dates, requirements, issues, change requests and such. Of course I'm being simplistic above, but I'll challenge to show me much in the PMBOK that doesn't essentially devolve down to a list.
I also think the PMI certification process is a joke. At least in the software/IT world, there is no surer indication that a PM is of the useless variety than a PMI certificate on the wall. Good project management is a skill, not a job title, that is possessed by a person with domain knowledge of the project being undertaken. The good project managers are called development managers.
A lot of good suggestions above. I'll add the following: Project management is the art of creating lists of tasks and getting them done. It's really as simple as that, and it's also more complex.
You need a list of your requirements. What are the things your system needs to do?
You need a list of things you'll develop to meet the requirements. These include the pages, the back end modules, the database schema/tables, etc.
You need a list of the tests you're going to perform.
You need a list of the steps to move into production.
The act of creating these lists will force you through the process of thinking through your project. Assigning elements from these lists to other people is how you get the project done. Understanding the dependencies between the items on the list identifies your path through the project. Watching how items get added to these lists lets you know whether your project is under control (high addition/change rate is bad).
The process of formal project management just codifies certain documentation approaches to the above. You can do everything you need in Excel/word, or use tools like MS-Project. The fancy tools are overkill for a small team/project.
Many of the disciples of project management lose sight of the fact that a project plan is not the end goal, it's a visualization of the work to be done. When you have enough detail in the plan so you can understand the work to be done well enough to estimate it, assign it, understand the dependencies you need to manage, and report your status to yourself and interested parties, you're done.
That's my take. I have 20+ years of project management experience, sometimes while being called a project manager.
A debit card and credit card are two sides ot the same coin. They traverse the same networks, banks, etc.
Well, only sort of. They may (or may not) navigate the same phone line/connection out of the store, but the transactions are routed to and run by completely separate systems.
So, by your logic, Linux sucks since the shitty wifi drivers crash my year old Toshiba laptop. Because users shouldn't have to care who writes the drivers.
I'm responsible for about 2 dozen linux machines, and a dozen windows machines (7 servers, a couple of laptops and three desktops). The windows machines give me less trouble. None are trouble free. I've had more driver/device issues with Linux than with windows over several versions of each.
I imagine the project process load for requirements capture and review probably exceeds the technical work by at least a factor of two. Working the process to get to an agreed implementation approach likely takes longer than the technical work. Contract management and project management also probably exceed the technical budget. That's just a fact of life dealing with selling work to a government.
I'm quite familiar with the area in question. I've used the overpasses on either side of the proposed location, and drive through the area about 8 times a month. The Microsoft campus is right there, but so is Nintendo and literally dozens of other businesses.
MSFT is paying literally more than their fair share of the expected cost for the expected use. The bridge will reduce traffic on other arterials, and likely will help traffic on the 52 freeway a bit. Locally, we feel like the deal is fair, so you bashers can go screw off.
CO2 from the alcohol industry is on a wholly different scale from CO2 emissions from industry and transport.
Not to mention that all the CO2 released from alcohol fermentation was just recently captured from the atmosphere by the grain plant. It's not net new CO2. The CO2 worth thinking about in this equation is that produced by the tractors and transport involved in farming, and any in the production of fertilizers and chemicals used in the farming.
The point is that positive reinforcement for correct behavior is usually more effective. Kids misbehave because they want something you don't. Punishment is a perhaps necessary consequence. The best punishment removes the benefit of the misbehavior. Spanking doesn't do that, per se.
Observe a three year old for any lengthy amount of time, and you'll observe this. They are pretty unsophisticated about their evasion of being caught, and it becomes pretty clear that they persist in their wants even in the expectation of punishment.
The concept of picking the illegal photo from a lineup of legal ones is a good one, but it will inevitably lead to a slow migration of the legal standard to an ever more permissive definition of provacative. In order for a photo to be consistently selected from the lineup it would have to be significantly more provacative that the legal ones. Any photos that were only sligthly more provacative would not be identified and would therefore become part of the suite of photos that had been determined to be legal.
You say that like it's a bad thing. IMHO, if it isn't clear that a picture is over the line, then it's not. Just because a 19 yr old with little boobies might be confused with a 14 yr old should not be a reason for banning her pictures.
Pedophiles like pics of kids that are pre-pubescent. They are KIDS. This whole situation is mucked up because a lot of teens are biologically adult. Men like pictures of young women because they are hot young women, in the biological prime of their life. There are all sorts of evolutionary reasons why we might be this way, but that is really besides the point. We have lost sight of the reality the true, real, abusive kiddie porn is sex shots of kids, not randy teenagers with no sense taking upskirt shots of themselves.
Second the motion. My kids went through a Montessori program. They entered elementary school (1st grade) reading at a third grade level, and have done fabulously well so far (they are 13 and 16). My younger brother and sister went through the program now 40 years ago, and did far better than my other brother and I in school.
A good accredited Montessori program is a great thing to do for your kids.
While I am not avidly anti spanking, the weakness in your theory is that the toddlers are smarter than you give them credit for. Kids quickly associate spanking with getting caught, rather than the behavior you are trying to prevent. It's also difficult to spank hard enough to change behavior, without crossing a line into damage. I can vividly remember figuring out that spankings didn't hurt that much. Withholding privileges is more effective, in my experience.
There is nothing wrong with treating your kid like a dog. A good dog owner controls their pet when control is needed, provides freeedom when it is safe and acceptable, and provides sufficient loving care and attention. Many parents would have been well served by learning how to care for a dog first.
I don't understand why some folks look down on leashing a toddler. This reduces the need for the parent to yell at the kid, keeps the kid out of trouble, and generally makes for a more relaxed time for everyone concerned.
Hm-m-m. I don't see you offering your own experience with your own children. Allow me to suggest that until you've raised children, your studying is just so much academic bullshit.
"... the parenting they will disperse is based on the parenting they received. Children trigger countless issues in parents, resulting in all kinds of child abuse."
First, people vary wildly in their levels of self awareness about themselves and their history, and are influenced in varying degrees. Broad statements like this are simply meaningless bullshit. Second, it demeans real abusive situations to label, as you seem to do, any parenting practice that differs from your ideal as "abusive". Meet up with some kid who has bones broken, or who has lived with an end stage alcoholic who abuses her sexually, and then come back and tell me that it's abusive to swat a toddler on the rear. I'm not defending spanking, as I don't think it's effective, but your declaration simply paints a picture of you as ignorant and strident.
Calling a tantrum a 'nervous breakdown' is putting the child up on a bit of a pedestal. Kids have tantrums because they get frustrated that they aren't getting what they want. In many cases, it's a chosen and controllable behavior. If you had been around kids, you'd know this. In some situations, they learn that the behavior indeed gets them a positive result. A nervous breakdown, whatever that is, is a more persistant and unhealthy condition that indicates a problem with the person having the breakdown. Tantrums, on the other hand, are healthy, age appropriate behavior. You may not like them, but they are entirely normal. If whatever you are studying is comparing tantrums to adult nervous breakdowns, I think you should question your source. -Every- toddler has tantrums. Very few people have nervous breakdowns.
I'm reluctant to proclaim too much on what "must" be done as a parent. What worked for my wife and me was clear definition of boundaries, consistent enforcement of transgressions of boundaries, and age appropriate communication with the kids about why the boundaries existed. Age appropriate discussion with a screaming 2 year old is picking him up and carrying him out of the grocery store and strapping him in the car seat.
You sound pretty willing to proclaim what "most parenting education" is and does. I wonder if you have any experience that would make such a statement meaningful. After 17 years as a parent, your statement does not fit my observations. Further, your apparent belief that parenting should not involve dominating the child at least at times seems naive. Do you recommend not dominating your toddler when he tries to run into the street? Should we not control our child's willfulness and make them wear a bicycle helmet?
I think you should get a dog, and learn how to live with it, before you try to have children. You're reading some stuff that is going to give you trouble. Living with a dog will teach you the error of your ways, and when you end up with a neurotic and misbehaving dog, you won't do as much harm as when you do it with a kid.
My kids and I just had a talk at the dinner table about how to react to something like this. I told them to tell the school authorities that that they needed to call me immediately before proceeding, and that my kids were to physically resist and leave the premises if possible if that was not done. I also told them to tell the school authorities that they should expect to be charged with rape and assault if they continued with any searches without me being present.
Then I told my kids that there better not be anything to find.
Most of the programming jobs will be for vendors, if the whole "cloud computing" fad turns out to be more than a fad.
Not really, we're doing a lot of work on EC2 now. The impact is that our server management is outsourced to Amazon, but our developers are still employed, our ops staff is still employed. Cloud computing only affects the people who are managing the racks and storage, and doesn't completely eliminate them.
And from my experience with internal teams that manage those functions, they need to have a bit of the fear of god put into them. EC2 costs me almost 2 orders of magnitude less than what the internal transfer cost was at my former employer.
Well, you're making my point. A man with a 30 inch waist is not, shall we say, common. You are probably well outside of the population norms, and therefore aren't profitable to stock for.
I just wish those darn kids would stay off my lawn. (True -- I live near a middle school and the bastards keep cutting through yards to walk to school...)
Get a motion activated sprinkler. Or one of the gadgets that emit high pitched sounds that people over 25 can't hear.
I wasn't asking for the moon. Just one simple change that would guarantee them sales. They couldn't be bothered to listen tot their customer, I can't be bothered to spend my money there.
While I understand your response, I don't think hostility is warranted. You asked a question, and got an honest, no-bullshit answer. It isn't economic to stock all permutations of size/sytle/color. If you're a rare size, it may not make economic sense to serve you.
Having a common size can almost be worse. I'm a 44 regular suit size. By the time clothes go on sale, there is never anything in my size left.
You can also buy ammonium nitrate and diesel, by the truckload. Black powder is for pikers.
Field and Stream, the hunting and fishing magazine, once published an article showing how to build duck ponds to support duck populations. There, in black and white and color, in the library of my junior freaking high, was an article teaching you how to build bombs. It was great.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're confusing goals with the process. Yes, the goal is timely completion within the budget while meeting quality requirements. But how do you approach that?
I'll stand by my assertion. I've managed projects with budgets of 10,000 man days and more, and brought them in on schedule, as contracted for, and under budget (sometimes). I've managed agile projects with 5 developers. I've managed system integrations, data center moves, packaged software installations, and office moves. It's all lists, of deliverables, dates, requirements, issues, change requests and such. Of course I'm being simplistic above, but I'll challenge to show me much in the PMBOK that doesn't essentially devolve down to a list.
I also think the PMI certification process is a joke. At least in the software/IT world, there is no surer indication that a PM is of the useless variety than a PMI certificate on the wall. Good project management is a skill, not a job title, that is possessed by a person with domain knowledge of the project being undertaken. The good project managers are called development managers.
A lot of good suggestions above. I'll add the following: Project management is the art of creating lists of tasks and getting them done. It's really as simple as that, and it's also more complex.
You need a list of your requirements. What are the things your system needs to do?
You need a list of things you'll develop to meet the requirements. These include the pages, the back end modules, the database schema/tables, etc.
You need a list of the tests you're going to perform.
You need a list of the steps to move into production.
The act of creating these lists will force you through the process of thinking through your project. Assigning elements from these lists to other people is how you get the project done. Understanding the dependencies between the items on the list identifies your path through the project. Watching how items get added to these lists lets you know whether your project is under control (high addition/change rate is bad).
The process of formal project management just codifies certain documentation approaches to the above. You can do everything you need in Excel/word, or use tools like MS-Project. The fancy tools are overkill for a small team/project.
Many of the disciples of project management lose sight of the fact that a project plan is not the end goal, it's a visualization of the work to be done. When you have enough detail in the plan so you can understand the work to be done well enough to estimate it, assign it, understand the dependencies you need to manage, and report your status to yourself and interested parties, you're done.
That's my take. I have 20+ years of project management experience, sometimes while being called a project manager.
Oergon does not have a sales tax. Or they didn't last week, when I was there.
A debit card and credit card are two sides ot the same coin. They traverse the same networks, banks, etc.
Well, only sort of. They may (or may not) navigate the same phone line/connection out of the store, but the transactions are routed to and run by completely separate systems.
So, by your logic, Linux sucks since the shitty wifi drivers crash my year old Toshiba laptop. Because users shouldn't have to care who writes the drivers.
I'm responsible for about 2 dozen linux machines, and a dozen windows machines (7 servers, a couple of laptops and three desktops). The windows machines give me less trouble. None are trouble free. I've had more driver/device issues with Linux than with windows over several versions of each.
I imagine the project process load for requirements capture and review probably exceeds the technical work by at least a factor of two. Working the process to get to an agreed implementation approach likely takes longer than the technical work. Contract management and project management also probably exceed the technical budget. That's just a fact of life dealing with selling work to a government.
ou can't get that kind of rich without being a crook, and every one of them are.
Care to tell us who JK Rowling stole from? How about David Beckham? George Lucas has done OK, who did he rip off?
I'm quite familiar with the area in question. I've used the overpasses on either side of the proposed location, and drive through the area about 8 times a month. The Microsoft campus is right there, but so is Nintendo and literally dozens of other businesses.
MSFT is paying literally more than their fair share of the expected cost for the expected use. The bridge will reduce traffic on other arterials, and likely will help traffic on the 52 freeway a bit. Locally, we feel like the deal is fair, so you bashers can go screw off.
CO2 from the alcohol industry is on a wholly different scale from CO2 emissions from industry and transport.
Not to mention that all the CO2 released from alcohol fermentation was just recently captured from the atmosphere by the grain plant. It's not net new CO2. The CO2 worth thinking about in this equation is that produced by the tractors and transport involved in farming, and any in the production of fertilizers and chemicals used in the farming.
But how does that work in a bad economy?
I dunno, let's look at history. See this
The point is that positive reinforcement for correct behavior is usually more effective. Kids misbehave because they want something you don't. Punishment is a perhaps necessary consequence. The best punishment removes the benefit of the misbehavior. Spanking doesn't do that, per se.
Observe a three year old for any lengthy amount of time, and you'll observe this. They are pretty unsophisticated about their evasion of being caught, and it becomes pretty clear that they persist in their wants even in the expectation of punishment.
The concept of picking the illegal photo from a lineup of legal ones is a good one, but it will inevitably lead to a slow migration of the legal standard to an ever more permissive definition of provacative. In order for a photo to be consistently selected from the lineup it would have to be significantly more provacative that the legal ones. Any photos that were only sligthly more provacative would not be identified and would therefore become part of the suite of photos that had been determined to be legal.
You say that like it's a bad thing. IMHO, if it isn't clear that a picture is over the line, then it's not. Just because a 19 yr old with little boobies might be confused with a 14 yr old should not be a reason for banning her pictures.
Pedophiles like pics of kids that are pre-pubescent. They are KIDS. This whole situation is mucked up because a lot of teens are biologically adult. Men like pictures of young women because they are hot young women, in the biological prime of their life. There are all sorts of evolutionary reasons why we might be this way, but that is really besides the point. We have lost sight of the reality the true, real, abusive kiddie porn is sex shots of kids, not randy teenagers with no sense taking upskirt shots of themselves.
Second the motion. My kids went through a Montessori program. They entered elementary school (1st grade) reading at a third grade level, and have done fabulously well so far (they are 13 and 16). My younger brother and sister went through the program now 40 years ago, and did far better than my other brother and I in school.
A good accredited Montessori program is a great thing to do for your kids.
While I am not avidly anti spanking, the weakness in your theory is that the toddlers are smarter than you give them credit for. Kids quickly associate spanking with getting caught, rather than the behavior you are trying to prevent. It's also difficult to spank hard enough to change behavior, without crossing a line into damage. I can vividly remember figuring out that spankings didn't hurt that much. Withholding privileges is more effective, in my experience.
There is nothing wrong with treating your kid like a dog. A good dog owner controls their pet when control is needed, provides freeedom when it is safe and acceptable, and provides sufficient loving care and attention. Many parents would have been well served by learning how to care for a dog first.
I don't understand why some folks look down on leashing a toddler. This reduces the need for the parent to yell at the kid, keeps the kid out of trouble, and generally makes for a more relaxed time for everyone concerned.
Hm-m-m. I don't see you offering your own experience with your own children. Allow me to suggest that until you've raised children, your studying is just so much academic bullshit.
"... the parenting they will disperse is based on the parenting they received. Children trigger countless issues in parents, resulting in all kinds of child abuse."
First, people vary wildly in their levels of self awareness about themselves and their history, and are influenced in varying degrees. Broad statements like this are simply meaningless bullshit. Second, it demeans real abusive situations to label, as you seem to do, any parenting practice that differs from your ideal as "abusive". Meet up with some kid who has bones broken, or who has lived with an end stage alcoholic who abuses her sexually, and then come back and tell me that it's abusive to swat a toddler on the rear. I'm not defending spanking, as I don't think it's effective, but your declaration simply paints a picture of you as ignorant and strident.
Calling a tantrum a 'nervous breakdown' is putting the child up on a bit of a pedestal. Kids have tantrums because they get frustrated that they aren't getting what they want. In many cases, it's a chosen and controllable behavior. If you had been around kids, you'd know this. In some situations, they learn that the behavior indeed gets them a positive result. A nervous breakdown, whatever that is, is a more persistant and unhealthy condition that indicates a problem with the person having the breakdown. Tantrums, on the other hand, are healthy, age appropriate behavior. You may not like them, but they are entirely normal. If whatever you are studying is comparing tantrums to adult nervous breakdowns, I think you should question your source. -Every- toddler has tantrums. Very few people have nervous breakdowns.
I'm reluctant to proclaim too much on what "must" be done as a parent. What worked for my wife and me was clear definition of boundaries, consistent enforcement of transgressions of boundaries, and age appropriate communication with the kids about why the boundaries existed. Age appropriate discussion with a screaming 2 year old is picking him up and carrying him out of the grocery store and strapping him in the car seat.
You sound pretty willing to proclaim what "most parenting education" is and does. I wonder if you have any experience that would make such a statement meaningful. After 17 years as a parent, your statement does not fit my observations. Further, your apparent belief that parenting should not involve dominating the child at least at times seems naive. Do you recommend not dominating your toddler when he tries to run into the street? Should we not control our child's willfulness and make them wear a bicycle helmet?
I think you should get a dog, and learn how to live with it, before you try to have children. You're reading some stuff that is going to give you trouble. Living with a dog will teach you the error of your ways, and when you end up with a neurotic and misbehaving dog, you won't do as much harm as when you do it with a kid.
Or you and I will have a discussion that ends up at best with you missing teeth and not being able to see clearly.
I have a 16 yr old daughter and a 13 yr old son. Anyone strip searches them without clear cause, and I will not be accountable for my actions.
Yeah, I know I will, go with it.
My kids and I just had a talk at the dinner table about how to react to something like this. I told them to tell the school authorities that that they needed to call me immediately before proceeding, and that my kids were to physically resist and leave the premises if possible if that was not done. I also told them to tell the school authorities that they should expect to be charged with rape and assault if they continued with any searches without me being present.
Then I told my kids that there better not be anything to find.
I've been to Omaha too many times. To paraphrase someone, "It's a great place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there."
Most of the programming jobs will be for vendors, if the whole "cloud computing" fad turns out to be more than a fad.
Not really, we're doing a lot of work on EC2 now. The impact is that our server management is outsourced to Amazon, but our developers are still employed, our ops staff is still employed. Cloud computing only affects the people who are managing the racks and storage, and doesn't completely eliminate them.
And from my experience with internal teams that manage those functions, they need to have a bit of the fear of god put into them. EC2 costs me almost 2 orders of magnitude less than what the internal transfer cost was at my former employer.
Well, you're making my point. A man with a 30 inch waist is not, shall we say, common. You are probably well outside of the population norms, and therefore aren't profitable to stock for.
I just wish those darn kids would stay off my lawn. (True -- I live near a middle school and the bastards keep cutting through yards to walk to school...)
Get a motion activated sprinkler. Or one of the gadgets that emit high pitched sounds that people over 25 can't hear.
On a side note "Small minority" is redundant.
I beg to differ. 49% and 1% are both minorities of a population. 49% wouldn't be a small minority.
I wasn't asking for the moon. Just one simple change that would guarantee them sales. They couldn't be bothered to listen tot their customer, I can't be bothered to spend my money there.
While I understand your response, I don't think hostility is warranted. You asked a question, and got an honest, no-bullshit answer. It isn't economic to stock all permutations of size/sytle/color. If you're a rare size, it may not make economic sense to serve you.
Having a common size can almost be worse. I'm a 44 regular suit size. By the time clothes go on sale, there is never anything in my size left.
You can also buy ammonium nitrate and diesel, by the truckload. Black powder is for pikers.
Field and Stream, the hunting and fishing magazine, once published an article showing how to build duck ponds to support duck populations. There, in black and white and color, in the library of my junior freaking high, was an article teaching you how to build bombs. It was great.