Lessons Learned in Cloud Computing

Posted on 25 March, 2011 at 11:45 PM by with Leave a Comment

New technology appears every time and always be gearing towards enhancement.

Cloud Computing is the new trend in the IT industry.
What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic — a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access). Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

Clients will subscribe to the hosting service, thus reducing the capital investment.

If the trend is moving toward this direction, in fact, it IS right now.

There will be 2 angles at looking this technology.

From Business point of view,

  • Companies need not to engage much manpower to maintain the hardware, (especially the in-house team). Fewer manpower is required. Most of the services are hosted in the service provider.
  • It is a reduced expenditure on capital assets. The company will have little hardware to take care. Pay the hosted service and the business is on.
  • Justifiable to management that it is an Operating expense rather than Capital expense. Companies will need not to or reduced stress over the depreciation cost, maintenance cost, number of license count and so forth.
  • Company IT infrastructure are simpler, just direct , sufficient access to the service provider and need not worry about the equipment hats needs to invest.

From employees perspective

  • Many people will soon be out of employment, lesser manpower is required, because of the in-house works / efforts are outsourced to service provider
  • Lesser job opportunities are available in the company. Older workers will have to upgrade themselves in order to stay relevant in the job

Lessons Learned:

When technology automates, it does ease everyone by not capturing anything manual and even a manpower reduction.

The downside of it is, there will be a trade-off for manpower. Most of the services are outsourced to service providers. Thus, the unemployment rate will rise. Older staffs will need to upgrade themselves academically or technically in order to stay relevant in the job.

Looking at the other side, there is no requirement for more headcounts to service the internal assets.

With human around, there is always some kind of negativeness, such as low productivity, efficiency, performance and so forth.

How are you going to measure a person’s productivity, efficiency or other means. There are also intangible benefits like well versed process & procedures, internal security etc.

Articles, Employment, Lessons Learned

Is Age catching up?

Posted on 5 March, 2011 at 2:00 AM by with Leave a Comment

You are very sure you know the project processes. You are also very firm and understood the project procedures. However, you still commit the mistakes. Have you told yourself, what could have happen to you?

To kill my curiosity, I asked around to check and verify my findings. To my surprised, many peers of my cohort & aged group do have the same situations that I am facing. They also do not know what they are doing in their workplace. Some of them are professionals, highly sound professionals, Directors of companies etc.

Am I hitting the mid life crisis or into the old aged senile stage? I wonder why and what could have happen to me.

Lessons Learned: When you are tasked to do anything, quickly jot it down into your most accessible notes. Be it a jotter book, PC, laptop, iPhones, iPad, smart-phones or whatever things that can help you to remember.  Take necessary actions to fulfill the task quickly before you forget. Or else our performance will be wrongly judged. Always.

The young ones are catching up. Thus the old ones will be retire soon….

Articles, Employment, Lessons Learned

Project Manager Ethics and Personal Development

Posted on 21 January, 2011 at 11:45 PM by with 3 Comments

In the process of managing a project, there will be times that the project team members may not be able to deliver what they are supposed to deliver. Team members could be internal team, vendors, and relevant stakeholders.

As a project manager, you need to be tactful and not get emotional over the matter. You need to look at things from the different perspective. Of course, this member is accountable for the project delivery delayed schedule. However, you should instead understand the situation and know why is there a delivery delay? Is there any dependable event that causes the team member not able to execute the activity? Find out the reason before coming to a conclusion.

Be sensible when communicating with project member who is not able to execute the activity on time. I suppose this team member is already feeling bad for not able to deliver the task or activity. Do remember that human beings do have feelings. If a Project Manager will to blame the team member, there will be some percussion. For some people, they will turn the remarks to energy and come out a better result the next time round. On the other hand, some member will keep these remarks in their heart and bear grudges against the Project Manager, thus causing unnecessary conflicts.

Instead follow a simple saying. “Reprimand in private, Recommend in public”.

This way, the team member will feel energized to perform better so as to get recognition from the project manager in future when he indeed outperform. Obviously, the project manager should know when to compliment (give carrot) and when to criticize (issue a cane).

There are also come special case, that the team member is trying to delay the project. As a Project Manager, you should try and see whats the rationale behind all this? Is it because of the true situation that not able to move forward or there is some hidden obstacles that not able to clear.

Project Manager has to come in and resolve the situation. Thus ethics do come in and not many Project Manager can really handle such things, including myself.

Articles, Business Communication
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