Black Friday Shopping Strategies

Most of you are probably done with your shopping, and most of these strategies are probably well-known and no longer a secret--but I will write down my thoughts nonetheless:

1. Make a list,
2. Set a budget,
3. Pay with cash,
4. Use the latest tools to get the possible pricing, i.e., do your due-diligence,
5. Map out your route, get in and get out.

Call this a stretch but these tips do have a corollary Project Management principles:

1. Making a list is akin to having a project plan, and a WBS (work breakdown structure). Making a list helps one not to be dissuaded or side tracked by impulse purchases.
2. Setting a budget helps one to set a cap on how much one can spend, i.e., a project budget. This means the shopping spree is not an open checkbook deal. It will certainly help not getting depressed in January, not having to pay for the bills that come due in January (if one overspent using credit cards).
3. Paying with cash makes one feel the "pain" of the purchases. Business owner or sponsor, writing out the checks or payments to project vendors certainly keeps everyone in line to make sure project is within budget.
4. Using the latest tools such as RedLaser and pic2shop (allowing a consumer to scan the UPC code on a merchandise via an Iphone and comparison shop) are just one of the few apps that an informed consumer can use. There are a lot of tools (software such as MS Project or Earned Value) in the project management space. There are freeware as well that mimic MS Project.
5. Map out a route--there are apps that show mall maps, deals and coupons available for download on the Apple App store (am confident the Android store has the same or comparable apps as well) that can aid in mapping a shopper's route. This is actually an extension of #4, but the goal is to spend less time on the tasks and get home quicker, i.e., spend more quality time with family.
Which is what Thanksgiving holiday is about.

project milestone tracking

So for the past two months, I have been involved with larger scale, longer duration projects. I have been wrestling with our current project reporting and status reporting from the field. I have seen varied customer types. Some want detailed reporting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Some want just the end-result in a master database or spreadsheet. Some want daily detailed reporting. If the project reviewer is higher up the "food-chain" or "chain of command", typically the level of detail is looser or lost to some degree. The more complex the project (no, we have not been using Microsoft Project which complicates my situation even more), the more quantity of projects one is juggling at a given time, the lesser project monitoring is done.

This is just a function of capacity and human bandwidth. The dilemma then becomes, do you monitor a project status quantitatively or qualitatively. Being a melancholy by nature, I prefer the quantitative measurement of milestones hit and achieved. Instead of a descriptive text-type reporting of project status, issues log, project reporting, I have come up with a template (simple Microsoft Excel template) for the field engineer or field technician to populate. It is a simple yes or no, for specific milestones completed/not completed. This will be a weekly report to be submitted to the PMO. As a project manager for a different industry, what is your preference? What industry are you in, and what type of reporting do you prefer?

Ketsana's aftermath

Hopefully  by now you have read all the news and video footages of the recent flooding in metropolitan Manila and norther Luzon provinces. For comparison, the rainfall amount in 12 hours was a lot more (measured in mm and not in inches) than what we experienced with Katrina. I have not kept up with the death toll, and scores of people missing. The financial costs of this calamity is still to be determined. We do have to count our blessings in light of the recent earthquake, more lives lost in the recent massive earthquake in Sumatra (that just occurred this week, and flooding in American Samoa).

The easy part is finger pointing and doing the blame game. The following questions do need to be answered:

1. What happened to the study done by Urban Planner Palafox regarding the risks of flooding (I will get the reference page on this study, this was done years ago)?
2. How much of the damaged settlements, e.g., parts of Marikina Valley, or population actually built and settled in 20, 50, or 100-year floodplains?
3. Where was the Disaster Relief and Emergency Response System? Why is there no FEMA-like agency?
4. Why haven't local government units organized even volunteer or non government associations to organize Disaster Preparedness and Local Emergency Response Teams?
5. How much of the flooding caused, or indirectly caused by garbage-choke rivers and estuaries?
6. Are any of the private developments, or buildings insured when these are built on flood plains? Where did they purchase insurance, or were these properties insured, who insured them?

All of these questions are classic PMBOK questions and key project management input variables, or process groups:

• Risk management,
• Proper project planning,
• Risk mitigation,
• Project implementation,
• Budgeting,
• Disaster preparedness, and 
• Disaster response and recovery.

What project are you working on? What are the potential risks? What are the payoffs? Are you prepared for a major catastrophe? What are your risk mitigation plans, and disaster response systems? Easy to ask, very difficult to implement.

Taguibo Bridge, Agusan, Philippines

This is a bridge built by Alta Construction years ago by my dad Alfredo Taruc. We have photos of this bridge, including the inaguration ceremony by Department of Public Works and Highways at my dad's home office. I am amazed by the life span of this bridge--this still currently in use today. However, it is apparent (when I visited in 4/07) that water level is lower compared to when the bridge was under construction.

I am reminded that the parameters of building bridges, ERP deployment, software development or a small scale project are constant: manage scope, manage cost, and manage time line. (There is more to this obviously, from the PMBook or PMI Body of Knowledge, or project management principles.) Managing these key input variables are key to any projects' success.