A Project Charter is a document that officially declares the onset of the project and specifies important information necessary to carry on further project tasks. Ideally, this document is issued and validated by the Project Sponsor only.

Benefits of Project Charter

A Project Charter:

1. Formally authorizes a Project in the company. Resource Managers, for instance, may start discussing resource requirements internally within their functional units to make sure they can meet the project’s resource needs.

2. Authorizes the Project Manager to spend approved funds required to start project activities.

3. Provides high-level requirements of the project.

4. Identifies important assumptions and constraints that may affect project activities.

Why is a Project Charter Necessary?

Many companies start projects without preparing well-defined Project Charters. When that happens, the Project Manager in charge finds it difficult to:

1.  Approach anyone for resources because the project is not officially recognized at the company.

2. Spend any funds required for initiating activities because the accounting/finance department is unaware of the planned activities.

3. Find the ‘right’ personnel, stakeholders, or primary decision makers necessary for project success (behind/on schedule, within budget, and according to the expected quality).

Does the Project Charter Change?

The simple answer is ‘No’. A project charter is usually broad enough that it does not need be changed throughout the course of a project.

A Sample Project Charter Outline

- Project Title and Description
- Project Manager Assigned and Authority Level
- Reason for the Project
- Pre-Assigned Resources
- Project Stakeholders
- Stakeholder Requirements
- Deliverables or end-result of the project
- Constraints and Assumptions

The moment you receive an email from: order-update@amazon.com with the subject: Amazon.com – Your Cancellation(‘order#’), you start wondering: when did I last order a product through Amazon?

Cancelled Order from Amazon 'Scam'

The next question you might ask: what if someone used my credit to place an order? Maybe I should just follow through with this email to make sure no one is actually placing orders through my credit cards.

This is what this email is designed to do. It is fabricated to scam you and entice you to click through until all your private information is passed on to the scammer.

Notice the content of the message and specifically the link to the order. When you see this message, you’ll naturally want to find out what this order is all about. So you hurry and click on that link and you’ll surely get to another site, which is surely not Amazon. Here’s where it really takes you to:

Amazon Cancelled Order 'Scam'

So you wonder, what is going on? What just happened? Has someone really placed an order using my credit card? The simple answer is NO. No one has! And the sad news is you have already been scammed and some of your confidential information (possibly the username and password of your email) has already been compromised.

What should do if you really did click on that link? You should immediately delete the received email from all the folders on your computer. You should then reset all the passwords you normally use to access private information (including your email).

For more information on this from Amazon, please visit this site.

Amazon Cancelled Order 'Scam'

You’ve probably heard about it and only know that it stands for Near Field Communication (NFC). And you may wonder: is this another ‘bluetooth’ type technology? What’s all the fuss? I’ll try to explain this as simple as possible.

NFC is basically an ISO standard that defines wireless communication (by radio signals) over a very short distance – or approximately 4 inches. So if you have two devices A and B and you’d like to have them ‘talk’ (one way or two ways) with each other, all you have to do is bring those devices to a distance of less than 4 inches and the wireless communication link is on.

NFC powered devices can operate with existing RFID powered devices. Basically think of RFID as tags or small labels attached to parcels or pallets, which are used to store information about merchandise or goods being transferred. Having said, think of the myriad applications possible in the transport section (DHL, Federal Express, or other major transport carriers).

NFC powered devices can also communicate with un-powered tags or labels (e.g. basic credit card or even an un-powered mobile phone ) or with another powered NFC device (another active card reader or NFC powered mobile phone ).

To illustrate further use of NFC applications, take these three scenarios:

1. You’re shopping at your local 7/11 and instead of paying cash, you flash your mobile phone on an RFID card reader, which then aut0-debits the total amount due. This amount is debited from a payment card you had previously stored on your mobile phone using a designated software.

2. You notice a recent advert on a billboard or shop menu and decide you’d like further information on that product or food promotion. Again, you bring your mobile to a close proximity with a tag on that NFC enabled billboard, which then transports detailed information to your mobile phone for further examination.

3. You’ve loaded a payment card on your mobile phone for NFC payments. Your friend would like to borrow some cash from you after forgetting his wallet at home. You realize you’re not carrying any cash and so you again bring your phone to a close proximity with his and transfer cash to his NFC powered device (or mobile phone). Here we have a case of 2 NFC devices communicating or what is more commonly referred to as the P2P mode (peer-to-peer).

NFC provides a a decent way of communicating with objects in our environment for different purposes including: payment, advertising, reservations and bookings, and others.

And finally, NFC is another reason for you to upgrade your mobile phone to an NFC powered one.

Yes the ultimate Truth implies that we should listen to their teachings but not observe their deeds as they do not always execute their proclamation. But how simple is that? How simple is it to share an honest discussion with someone who threatened to throw your mother out of her house if she does not stop wearing make-up? Or with someone who threatened to fire your mother  because she was seeing someone she loves but who was not of her same religion? Or more interestingly with someone who designed a weekly schedule for your mother to go grocery shopping in the college van so she would not have to hitchhike her way back home? I can go on and on with examples that may even shake your faith in God when you witness self-proclaimed evangelists at their best at making other peoples’ lives miserable.

Petros, Jane, and Parents

So they ask me: do you still believe in God and do you still follow your religion’s teachings? How easy it is for them to ask these questions? Do they really care about me? Did they really care when they hurt  me and the ones I love? What’s the whole purpose of these questions anyway? Yes, they want to “save” me. How do you expect me to believe that?

Religion is nothing but a personal experience of oneself with his/her God. Nothing more nothing less. Don’t even try to convince me that it should be based on a community with an organized discipline of teachings. Then again, you might say: religion is not only about yourself – it should be about others too. It should be about those who do not know the Truth and who should be exposed to it. That is very true and that is why I sometimes feel selfish about focusing on my inner feelings only. Should I just throw away those thoughts and forget them?

I don’t think the ultimate Truth should be about teaching people an organized method of life. It should not be about what we shouldn’t do in life. It shouldn’t be about what makes certain people more special than others. Because they aren’t. We are all one in God’s view. So why should we focus on differentiating ourselves? I don’t think we should because we are not different.

The only thing people can do is guide others to the “knowledge door” and when that door opens (and it surely will), they should let them be. They will then learn to experience the Truth themselves without anyone else’s involvement. Because whenever anyone else gets involved, they taint the truth with their own interpretations of it, which then shakes that person’s journey to finding their peace with the One and Only.

So if you ask me: should we stay away from the organized method of thought and find our own way through self-study? I say yes and no. While you surely need to study your way through to finding the ultimate Truth, you still should find time to communion with others because that enriches your learning experience and gives you better tools that help you grow more spiritually. These others can be anyone because we are all One in God and our learning experience can only be enriched by the diversity of people around us – the diversity of their thinking methods, their cultures, and their upbringing. Do not be afraid to mingle with others of different thought because that will only enrich your experience and help you build a better foundation that can only scratch an inch of what is about to come.

Yes actions speak louder than words! Believe it.

Yes we should be exalted. Exalted that we have survived the uncertain and that we are still healthy and alive. This is a letter to myself and so I just want to express my inner feelings of desertion. You think of payback all your life. But when the time comes for it, you wonder whether it is really worth it. And so you let it go but those sad feelings – the feelings that provide the urge for payback never leave you. They’ve left a permanent mark on your inner soul. Forgiveness is a virtue and surely it helps treat unilaterally. You forgive because it is the right thing to do. But does it really heal you? Not me.

Baptisms of fire! Yes that’s what we really went through. Yet I wonder how much I owe my God and feel guilty again about these feelings. Am I permitted to think of this? Should I be raging a war against myself? Why not? Perhaps it is the only way to fight the negativity. We try to be positive because nothing comes out of a negative outlook. But thinking positive does not mean negativity has left you. It’s always there – deep inside your roots. It’s taken time for it to grow and nothing is going to remove its roots. Yes you can deny its existence and overshadow it by pretending it does not exist but it is still there.

Someone hurts you deep and hurts the ones you love. Then when hurt and pain hits them or the ones they love, you sympathize with them. You cry for them and feel bad for their pain and then again you think: this person hurt me and the pain is still in me and it’s not leaving me anytime soon. It just grows deeper every day because nothing will take it away.

Life can be many things for different people. For me, it has been different baptisms of fire.

Should I blame you for leaving me? It wasn’t even your fault. And then whose fault was it? Was it mine? You just can’t seem to find someone to blame. People rage wars against one another but then who’s to blame? They were all fighting for their right.

A young boy feeling anxious about destiny and whether tomorrow will come and if it does come, will he still be alive? Can he stand up for the right? What right? People look at it now and say: that is normal. This is what life brings. You’re thinking negative. Be positive! Be positive! So perhaps we should just learn to adjust to the pain. Maybe we should make pain our friend and happiness our enemy. Because it seems our efforts to push it away have so far been fruitless. So we should embrace it. Embrace the pain that never leaves. The pain that’s meant to haunt our lives.

Will I ever see you again? I can’t blame you but yet I feel like you’ve abandoned me. Every thing would have been different hadn’t you done so. And then how can I blame you? It wasn’t even your fault. You did not enjoy the moments that I’m enjoying right now. You didn’t enjoy me and you didn’t enjoy my accomplishments. And I couldn’t rejoice in my own achievements. But what can I change? Nothing. Tears won’t take these sad feelings. Nothing ever will! So might as well just write about it and hope that one day the pain bids me farewell.

Where are the genuine?

‘Wunderlist’ is a great solution to this great dilemma. Visit ‘Wunderlist’ and register free for an account. You can then:

1. Create New Tasks
2. Search for Tasks
3. Organize Tasks for different activities by categorizing them under ‘Lists’.
4. Check Tasks to mark completion.
5. Share Tasks or Lists with your staff or Project members for better collaboration on activities.
6. Receive daily reminders (by email) of tasks that are outstanding for the day/week/month/year.

This is only a subset of what this great tool has to offer. The best advantage to all this is you can view these tasks anywhere using many digital media. You can download ‘Wunderlist’ on your iPhone, iPad, Android-based phones, Blackberry, and even Windows powered phones. And with a basic Internet connection, you can monitor or assign tasks on the road, in meetings, or anywhere you are.

This is not just another Project Management tool. It is rather a great free tool for Project Managers to better monitor, manage, and control project management activities.

The lack or prevalence of multiple non-standard processes in Thai companies (and perhaps other South East Asian countries) makes it almost impossible to arrive at a central cloud-based standard solution that fits expected user requirements. In addition, the proliferation of multiple solution offerings through products like Google Apps or Amazon Web Services makes it even more difficult for companies to match offerings with business challenges at hand. Given the differing business structures in South East Asia countries and with various companies following different processes that are custom to their particular requirements, it seems unlikely that Cloud Computing can turn around strategies in technology.

It’s more likely that SMEs benefit from services like Salesforce.com and Google Apps then for conglomerates to transform legacy applications given the cost of the transition. These are some of the challenges I can think of:

‘Islands’ of Disparate Systems

The ‘islands’ of information currently prevalent in many traditional companies with ‘different departments’ makes it almost impossible to transition to a centralized standard cloud system. If departments/subsidiaries operate and utilize IT systems and processes that are different within a central organization, then how would they unify such standards and transition to a cloud-based system? The challenge here is the instigation of a standard process and not the tools used to make such processes possible.

People Management

Users are resistant to change. Unless they are technology enthusiasts, many users prefer to stick to the ‘old ways’ of doing things. The application of new technologies that require users to ‘change’ their traditional routine bares significant challenges. And these challenges are more pronounced when users learn they have ‘no control’ over where the data resides. Tell an accountant that their general ledgers and profit and loss statements are processed on a virtual server somewhere outside their department and  you’ll know what I mean.

Standard Packages Not as Flexible

If you choose to use Google Calendar as a standard solution at your company, you would still have to subscribe to the Google Apps suite before you can do so. This is a show stopper for some companies that prefer to continue using their legacy applications while utilizing only a ‘portion’ of what they figure is lacking on their systems.

Training

The proliferation and rapid upgrades involved in cloud-based products makes it more difficult to train users on utilizing newer features. Sometimes the main user interface changes significantly and other times users are required to use a new product/service altogether. This is given cloud-based products evolve while customers are using them. And not all customers are technology enthusiasts and not everyone is passionate about learning new things.

Google, Amazon, and all the major ‘cloud’ players today should focus on better packaging their solutions so they are easily ‘adopted’ in Thai companies (or others in this region). The demand is large and the offerings are even larger but the ‘bridge’ that connects those two has not yet been built.

The template separates Project tasks into five different phases:

1. Planning
2. Team
3. Prototype
4. Implementation
5. Closure

The template may have been designed by a Software Project Manager hence the ‘Prototype’ and ‘Implementation’ phases. But then again these phases may be used in other industries as well. You may choose to replace these phases with ones that are more suitable to your project or job function. For example, you may choose:

1. Initiation and Planning
2. Design and Execution
3. Control Activities
4. QA and Support
5. Pre and & Go-Live Activities
6. Closure Activities

This template is also useful because it can be treated as a high-level Project Timeline report shared with senior executives. I do not think executives care about the 100s (or maybe even 1000s) of tasks that we have set up neatly as a Project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The latter primarily serves as an instrument for the Project Manager and his team to control and monitor scheduled tasks. Executives or senior managers on the other hand prefer a simple high-level view of the project timeline and this template does just that.

]]> http://www.petrosrigas.com/pubs/a-sample-project-timeline-template/feed 0 http://www.petrosrigas.com/pubs/facebook-loading-issues-in-google-chrome http://www.petrosrigas.com/pubs/facebook-loading-issues-in-google-chrome#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:39:44 +0000 petachilles http://www.petrosrigas.com/?p=295 Facebook Loading Issues!

Have you had issues with opening the Facebook page from your Google Chrome or even with Mozilla Firefox? Let me illustrate the problem further.

You browse to http://www.facebook.com and the page loads and loads and loads…yet nothing comes up. You notice a message on the bottom status bar that says: “waiting for static.ak.fbcdn.net”. And this goes on forever. You try various things:

1. Clear your browser’s cache.
2. Re-start your browser.
3. Attempt to use other browsers.
4. Re-start your computer.
5. Re-start your network router.
6. Flush your DNS settings.

Still, the problem presides. What should you do?

This is what worked for me.

1. Run Notepad as an Administrator: it is crucial that you run the Notepad application as an Administrator. Otherwise you will not be able to write certain changes to a file (indicated later).

2. Make sure all your browsers are closed. Make sure they are by checking the processes in your Task Manager. Sometimes Chrome runs various applications (or extensions) in the background. You need to make sure all these processes are closed.

3. Using Notepad, open the following file: %systempartition%\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

4. Add the following line and save: 159.148.86.199  static.ak.fbcdn.net. Note: you may first want to make sure ‘static.ak.fbcdn.net’ resolves to the above-mentioned ip address. To do so, browse to ‘iwebtool‘ and ‘ping’ static.ak.fbcdn.net and make sure it’s the same. If not, then replace it with the ip you get a response from).

5. Open Google  Chrome and browse to http://www.facebook.com.

Problem solved!