May 2009 – Thái Anh Đức

HPM-Project charter and Scope statement

Process groups and Process knowledge areas

5 process groups:

Initiating process
Planning process
Executing process
Monitoring and Controlling process
Closed process

9 process knowledge areas:

4 areas to identify the goals and scope of the project: Scope, Time, Cost, and Quality
4 areas to achieve those goals: Human resources, Communication, Risk, and Procurement management.
And the final is project integration management.

Project Charter

It is the first process in the initiating process group which helps you initiate the project properly and gets all stakeholders into account.

Input:

Contract: The first thing to take into account.
Project statement of work ( SOW): Specify the needs of the company, scope of the project and the customer.

It should follow this form:

Statement of Work

Scope: Describe work in detail: Hardware, software and the mature of work.
Place of work: where the work is taken placed.
Time: Start date, finish date, working hour, and other time scheduling.
Schedule for transferring result: Specify clearly task name, detail and period as well.
Standard being applied: Mention about any company or industrial standard will be used to do the project.
Standard to justify the result: Describe how the customer will accept the result. On the other hand, it means that you must define: how is it called DONE.
Special requirements: Any things other than above, for instance, license.

Enterprise environmental factors: Take your company environment into account: culture, structure, standard, resources, infrastructure, information system,…
Organizational process assets: Rule and regular of the company, standard process, financial procedure and risk management. The paper work is important for the PM since you might in a situation where your member did something, like customer relationship, and then gave you a receipt of 100$. However, in the paper of the company. He only has 50$ maximum for that action.

Output:

Here are what you should achieve after processing the input. The result will be presented to everybody involved in the project including stakeholders.

Project name, sponsor name
Relationship between project objectives and company objectives. Why is it important? Being a project manager you must be responsible for the development of the company. Therefore, the relationship must be taken into account. If they are in opposite side then we should reconsider.
Estimated time for the project.
Authorization of PM: As a project manager of the project, you should know what you are allowed to do what are not. IMPORTANT!
Other functional departments and how to get them in a meeting.
Budget, Resources
Describe in short the goals of the project.
Sign of sponsor: in fact, all must be signed, however, we should pay attention on sponsor.

Here is the paper form which will hand out to everybody. It makes sure that everyone understands the project.

Project Charter

Project title:

Start date: End date:

Budget information:

Project Manager:

Name
Phone
Email.

Project objectives:

Approach:

Roles and Responsibilities:

Role	Name	Organization/ Position	Contact information

Sign-off: all member and stakeholders

Comments: Comments from stakeholders if applicable.

Scope statement

To have a preliminary project scope statement.

Input: Pretty much the same as project charter plus with the output of the project charter.

Output:

Project justification: Give points of view about the possibility of the project.
Short description of the project: Tell in general what the project is about.
Summary product characteristics and requirements.
Project success criteria: define when and how the project is done. It is very important.
Project constraints: constraints on budget, time and other if applicable.
Assumptions: depend pretty much on the experiences of the PM, information.

Finally we have a form of scope statement:

Project title:

Date: Prepared by:

Project justification:

Product characteristics and requirements:

Summary of project deliverables:

Project management-related deliverables: business card, charter, team contract, scope statement, WBS, schedule, cost baseline, status reports, final project presentation, final project report, lesson-learned report, and any other documents required to manage project.
Product-related deliverables: research reports, design documents, software code, hardware, etc…

Project success criteria:

It is quite a lot theory. Depending on the type and weight of project you are working on, you can omit some of them. The important thing is that there are some final result on papers.

How am i going to practice this? Imaging one simple project, like making a website and then apply the process. No need to really implement the website.

Next PMM course – HPM at FMIT

I just got a good news from the company to join the next course from FMIT – hard skills in project management – HPM. I am really looking forward it since when i was at SPM course, there was a friend, wow a superman really, he took 2 classes at the same time, told me that the course was so greate both in agenda and the lecturer.

The institute promises providing 44 models about project management. It is quite alot really. With the limitation of time in one month, exactly 12 lessions, 3 hours for each. I wonder how can they transfer those knowledge and how do we use them in reality? So, personal thinking, the course requires cooperation alot from the students. And those will make the lession much more interesting.

With the SPM course, it has changed my life, my way a little bit. Now come with the HPM, do it will help me changing my working way? of cource, in better way 🙂

The class will start on 25/05/2009.

Hope i have something to post here after each lession.

AjaxPro – first try

As i mentioned in the previous post, i now start with my code base for stories of version 1.0. In general, it contains 3 layers as other software. Data access, Business, and Presentation. Let see what i have in my mind:

Data access: wow i can do all the stuffs with NHibernate. So just ignore it for now. I have tried NHibernate before, so it is not so difficult to get started.
Business layer: As you can see all user stories in this version. Simple, right? Yes, it is. So just build the objects i need first, however, no need to say them here.
Presentation: I want to keep it as simple as possible. However, it should be a rich web page which means that there is no real postback. Yeah THIS IS THING I TALK IN THIS POST.

AJAX! sure i should use AJAX to communication between client and server. The thing is which one? There are some options:

ADO with data service: implement as webserver when you want to ask something from server.
AjaxPro: Call method in the current page without posting back. I vote for this.

Basically, this technique was not new to me since in the company i have been working with a technique called ServerMethods, developed by our talent developers, except me. It has been there sine i went in. However, AjaxPro is much better which many types supported and it is constantly developed by the community, go in ajaxpro for more detail.

All you need to do to get it works is:

Add ajaxpro.dll into web reference.
Register type of class you are using ajaxpro.
And then call it from the client site.

Here what i did, simple:

Server side:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using AjaxPro;
using AnhDuc.BookStore.BusinessLayer;

namespace AnhDuc.BookStore
{
   public partial class Default : Page
   {
      protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
      {
         AjaxPro.Utility.RegisterTypeForAjax(typeof (Default));
      }

      [AjaxMethod]
      public Book GetResult(string searchKeyWord)
      {
         return new Book() {Name = searchKeyWord};
      }
   }
}

And from client side:

   function startSearch() {
          try {
             var _book = AnhDuc.BookStore.Default.GetResult($("#_txtKeyname").val()).value;
             alert(_book.Name);
          }
          catch (e) {
             alert(e.message);
          }
       }

That’s enough! I am going to finish the user story 1 soon.

Old book store website

Introduction story:

Last night while i was talking with my little sister about her exercise: Making a website to sell old/unused book. She is studying business matter. Wow a good idea! Suddenly i came up with a site doing nearly the same thing. It is for Sharing books. Basically it is quite different since i am not making any business here or gain any money from that action.

Let start with the story. When i was at the university, every semater i spent lots of money on books. Event though the true was not 🙁 since i was not so interested in those books at all. And then when it came over, where those books went? They became garbage; a waste of money. And the cycle begins with new comers. So what can we do? Instead of buying the new ones, we can ask for them with lower price or even free ( if you meet a generous guy).

What is the obstacle in that solution? The communication: how do you know where/who to ask for? Therefore, the site i am going to build is a meant to solve that issue. Of course it needs help from many people especially the ones who have old books.

Let summary the process:

Book owner publishes books into the site.
People needing book go in and search for them.
He, then, contacts with book owner for a deal.
Book owner updates the available number of that book or remove them if out of stock.

Simple 🙂

Version 1.o:

The very first version should be simple and supply enough functionalities: search, upload, manage books. Below are stories in this version. The search GUI should be something like google. As simple as possible.

User stories:

Story 1: Seeking for books

As a normal user who is looking for a book without registered

I want to look for books by name

When i enter the name

Then the system should return to me list of books with having that name in their name and i should know the author as well as the description.

Story 2: Registration is required when uploading book

As a normal user having some books

I want to share or sell to others

When i ask for that task

Then the system requires her/him to register into the system. When done, redirect them to the upload page.

Story 3: Register user

As a normal user

I am required to register in.

Then the system show me form to fill in information: Name(required), Email, Phone, Address(required)

Story 4: Upload book

As a registered user

I want to upload book i have into the site

When i ask for it

Then the system should show me the GUI to allow entering book details: Name, Author, Type, Description, Available amount, Price

Story 5: Display my books

As a registered user

I want to see all books uploaded by myself

When i log in and want to see them

Then the system should list them out

Story 6: Remove books

As a register user

I want to remove some books since they have been bought or free-given

When i am in my display books

Then i should be possible to remove them and they no longer appear in the site.

Story 7: Added/changed book displays immediately

As a registered user

I want to see my added book shown immediately in the list

When i finish adding one book

Then the book should appear immediately on the list.

Story 8: Only me or addministrator can remove/change my books

As a registered user

I try to remove or change info of books which are not mine

Then i have no way to do that.

Story 9: Show total visitor so far and today

As a user goes in the site

I want to know how many people has visited the site so far

When i am in the home page, the page to search books

Then the system shows me that number and the number of today.

30-4 vacation BMT

So great! I have not been on vacation for long time. Usually, when having vacation days, i go to my hometown, staying with my family, It was fine. Thing changed! I took a vacation for 4 days going to Buon Ma Thuat City.

The very first word, i want to say thank you to my friends in Buon Ma Thuat: Van Anh, Her boyfriend, Le Vi, and his friends. They are soooo nice and guide me visiting many places. We really had happy time staying there.

Back to the trip, it took about 7 hours to get there, about 350KM far from HCM city, 150K/person for the ticket. The bus stopped at Bu Dang station for upping your power and toilet as well.

After 30 minutes at Bu Dang, Got in the bus and drove straightforward to Buon Ma Thuat city. Even thought, it was a long trip, we did not get tired since sleeping all the time on bus.

Bravo, Welcome to BMT, the first feeling was: the fresh, cool atmostphere. Checked in the hotel, took a rest and started with first day.

Day 1: Buon Don, 40km from Buon Ma Thuat city

We decided to target at Buon Don. My friend, VA with his boyfriend, took us for breakfast and morning coffee. Driving on the road to Buon Don york, suddenly i felt something strange: Hic the after tire broke. No problem, i got the nouvo one from his brother :). From that on, i got it for the left days:

motobike

Eventually i got to Buon Don, ticket costs 20/person.

bamboo chain-bridge

The bamboo chain-bridge used to navigate there. Wow, it was a little bit worry for the first time. However, it was exciting :). There were not much sight seeings here. The interesting things were that i knew it and felt like it. It is best for outdoor activity. You can bring food, beer, water or whatever to eat, drink in and enjoy with your friend. Here are some pics taken there:

tree updown