Project Evaluation and Management

The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management

The Final Deadline

There are a lot of things you will never expect, but being a leader is a natural process and gives you the opportunity to jell with your coworkers. In some cases, they might become close friends. It’s easy to become a manager, but the real challenge is to become a good manager and a leader.…

The Last Changes

If I have to say something is that I’m kind of sad because the Deadline is almost over, I had a really nice time reading this book and I have to say that I was very surprised at the beginning of it. But let’s get down to business. Chapter 22 is an emotional rollercoaster, of…

Overstaff

Overstaffing is never a good option. Chapter 19 talks about the problems with overstaffing, in this case, we had the opportunity to learn that the problem with this is that you have to give all your staff something to do, which in some cases is not the most useful thing to do. For example in…

Sociology and Pathological Politics

If there is something you have to be sure about is that you always can improve your projects. In Chapter 20 we talked about how to improve your meetings. To improve them the best thing you can do is to keep them small since a humongous meeting is not a good option. All the meetings…

Overcoming Conflicts

A thing you cannot ignore is conflict. Conflict is everywhere! and in an organization is an important thing to tackle. Since conflict can be the difference between the success of your project or its own failure. Of course, there are ways to resolve conflicts. One way is the negotiation, but as the book says, “Negotiation…

The Specification Problem

Often things are not what we like. And this applies to everything, whether you are a project manager or a programmer this will happen. Of course, reading specification documents are not safe from this. On several occasions, you might find a lot of ambiguity in a document, this is a big problem at the time…

Think Fast (Or at least Try)

They are lots of ideas about thinking fast. One of the most common ideas is that to increase productivity is to implement a lot of pressure over your employees, but that is not a good idea. The Deadline: A novel about project management talks about that precisely, PEOPLE UNDER PRESSURE DON’T THINK FASTER. Actually, the…

The Numbers Man

Sometimes you really should take numbers into consideration. This chapter Mr. Tompiks had the opportunity to meet T. Jhons Caporous, described as a genial man with sparkling eyes who seemed to be running at an internal clock speed at least twice that of a normal human. Even if they were only four and a half…

Process and Process Improvements

Having a good process, or trying to improve your process is always a good thing to do. But even if it’s good you have to take into consideration lots of things. This Chapter of the book The Deadline: A novel about project management talks about it in a special way. Actually good technical workers will…

The Sinister Minister Belok

Sometimes you have to admit that not all the people during is useful. The problem with this is that maybe the problem can be your employer. Such is the case of the Minister Belok. He is an ambitious man that does not listen to reasons. He is not able to see the big picture, and…

Abdul Jamid

During this chapter, Mr. Thompkins had the opportunity to meet an interesting character, Dr. Abdul Jamid, for his surprise, Abdul is recommended by his old boss Jay, and finally, he had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Abdul. Abdul reached Mr. Thompkins with the purpose of teaching him an important tool for Project Management. This…

Dr. Rizzoli and Ex-General Markov

There is not an opportunity like the one that was before Mr. Thompkins, having a team with thousands of members. Of course, Project Management is something important, as well as having a good team, that is why Mr. Thompkins took the opportunity to speak with Dr. Rizzoli. Dr. Rizzoli is an interesting character that gives…

The World’s Greatest Project Manager

Thompkins is ready to hire his new employees, but he’s mind is blank. Waldo suggests him to search for a consultant, someone who can help him during the interview process, and that is how he discovers Binda, the world’s greatest project manager in her day. The only problem with it is that she is a…

Silikon Valejit

The Deadline: A novel about project management, is an interesting book. Not just because of how it’s written, but for what it teaches you. In this case for the third, fourth and fifth chapters of the book you learn lots of concepts about project management. During the Silikon Valejit Chapter, you can take Mr. Thompkins’s…

Opportunity Knocking and Standing Up to Kalbfuss

There’s always an opportunity, you only have to find it. That is what Mr. Thompkins did not expected. During the first chapter of The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management we see how Mr. Tompkins is a heavily prepared manager, but that’s not enough to keep his work, and he is drugged and kidnapped by…

Topics:

The End

This semester was not what I expected, actually, I think it was not expected from anyone. We started like any other semester and by the 15th of March, we got quarantined. We had no choice, it was something necessary for everyone, but the world has been changing since then. We opened the doors to the…

Conference over conference

Certainly, there are lots of things a human can do with its time, and during the past month, we spent it in a wonderful way. During the last period, we had the opportunity to meet a lot of important people. To name some of them, we met Dazia Pineda, Jorge Morales, Lucio and Calendario Gutierrez,…

From Physical to Virtual Project Management

During the first partial lots of things happened, and although it was difficult, I learned a lot of things. I would never end if I had to list them all, but at least I’ll try, here are some things I learned during this month: From Topics: Economics of Software Engineering Sincerely, this was the most…

Working Remotely

Thanks to the Covid-19 Epidemic we are all staying at home, there are works that are closed, and others that are working at home. Home Office has been a way to work for a long time, actually lots of software companies around the world have been using it for years, and thanks to the epidemic,…

Economics of Software Engineering

Economics is one of the key values in order to generate a truly successful project. The Software Engineering Economics is a complex subject, but it can be reduced up to five major areas: The Fundamentals, The Life Cycle Economics, The Risk and Uncertainty, The Economic Analysis Methods, and the Practical Considerations. The Fundamentals refers to…