iPhone 4 not sounding off on the New Year day

Posted on 7 January, 2011 at 11:45 PM by with 6 Comments

What lessons have you learned from the recent iPhone 4 not able to sound off alarm on the New Year day?

It is the same scenario that it happened on the year 2000. System time is not able to transit the current time to the next period. system has to be manually manipulated the system. Many applications that depend on this timing feature are not able to function properly. Multi-million of dollars were lost then.

Backup your data at the end of the year. Diligently.

I know it’s a holiday season especially in December and everyone is off guard on all these critical items during year end. They were busy shopping for present or gifts for friends, relatives. However, if you have backed up your computer data regularly, you can really then safely go and play to your heart content anytime.

Once the data is gone, you are literally lost in your own world. No one can really help you.

Core computer applications can be re-installed anytime but the data is priceless and not retrievable once gone. All the brainstorming and hard work are gone down to the drain. Your old precious documents are lost, photos are deleted forever. If anything happens to your machine such as virus attack, system corrupted, there is no 2-way back and retrieve the old data.

Lessons Learnt: Backup your precious computer regularly. Have a back-up routine schedule. Do conduct the backup exercise diligently. Either backup your data once or twice a month. If you are cautious over your masterpiece, then you can practice to backup your data once a week. No matter what, information is the key to your business or operation.

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Project Financial Closures

Posted on 24 September, 2010 at 11:45 PM by with Leave a Comment

Ensure the supplier understands what the requirement is while making outstanding payment.

I got a Philippines I.T. supplier who supplies most of the I.T. equipment for the project.
It is a huge 6 million project consists of PC machines, servers, gadgets and other IT equipment.

At the end of the project, I had seek the supplier to provide the outstanding invoice balance.
I would like to pay the ALL the pending outstanding invoices and clear all the debts.

Had made several calls, communicate through mails. Yet the supplier is not aware of the actual requirement.

So I decided to have the last approach by giving them a visit together with their management.
Communicated the requirement that I would like to make the final payment face-to-face.
After which we would not like to see any financial matter for this project.

So the supplier had shared the outstanding invoices after we left.
My project financial advisor had also stated clearly that the outstanding invoices
will be final and should not have any more finance matter after this exercise. The supplier had also agreed.

After my financial advisor made the payment, the supplier then sent out a message stating that the payment we had made was the outstanding for the last quarter.
It was not the final invoice as yet.

I had specifically informed the supplier that I would like to clear all the outstanding payment for this project.

Thus the supplier should share all those outstanding invoices that had not been made.
This should be an delighted activity for any supplier.

Yet the supplier kept making the wrong assumptions.
It is not the project does not want to clear financial matter.
It is the supplier that cannot understands and enjoys the payment activity.

Lessons Learned: Be specifically clear with the supplier on financial matters.
State clearly on the terms and conditions. If the supplier is not aware of the situations.
Give simple understood language so that the supplier understands.

If need be, seek for a translator / interpreter.

Any feedback or suggestions, please add in your comment.

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Inexperienced Project Manager

Posted on 17 September, 2010 at 11:45 PM by with 3 Comments

What would you do if you had engaged an inexperienced project manager?

Recently, I had engaged a new project manager. For anonymous, will call him Jimmy.
During the interview, Jimmy had presented many good project management experiences.

However, after bringing Jimmy on board, discovered his interview speech does not match his actions.

To name a few,

He is not communicative to the stakeholders.
He is not able to manage stakeholders, team members and vendors. Weak leadership.
He over-promised and under-delivered in terms of schedule and project cost.

My senior team member and I had discussed what to do with him.

We decided to pass Jimmy some simpler projects but he managed the project from simplicity to a highly complex state.

We provide regular

  • PM training and guidance
  • Show him the past project files
  • Share ideas
  • Brain-storming together

Nothing comes to his mind.

The team is having a hard time to pass him some bigger projects because I am afraid Jimmy will messes up the project. This will cause the Project Management image to be ruined.

Lessons Learned:
Need to carefully scrutinize each candidate during the interview phase.
Give actual provide scenarios and determine how he reacts and responds to the situation.

If the candidate is not up to the mark, straight away go for the next better candidate. Even though the candidate may be your friend, don’t sympathize. It will hit your team morale in the long run if you engage him.

The team and I are still discussing what to do about this.

What is your suggestion? Please share your comments.

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