What is Project Management?

There would be plenty of academic definitions available for this, but I will try to define it as I see it.
Most of us think that Project Managers do not have any real "work" to do and they are just there to make the life difficult for those who actually work.

I believe that a Project has many contradicting "forces" acting on it. Here are some examples:

• Everything must be finished on time and there is never enough time.
• The requirements always keep changing and the end date for the project does not change.
• The project team members must have experience in the technology and domain, but unless people work in projects they will not have the experience.
• Every project wants good people, but experienced and good people will always try to find a better job.
• The "processes" are supposed to help the project, but they take so much time to follow.
• The manager does not himself do the "work", but is completely responsible and accountable for it.
• The IT industry is growing that means the quality of people is decreasing, whereas companies are expected to keep increasing their quality.
• The companies are increasing salary to retain people, but people are leaving companies for better salaries. This is decreasing the cost advantage of Indian IT firms.

The job of a Project Manager is to balance all these catch-22 situations and make sure that the project achieves its objective.

It does not matter if the manager has no clue about the technology or domain. If his team achieves the objective, he is successful.

On the other and, the manager could be an expert in technology and domain, but if the team does not meet the objective even if the manager is fantastic, he is still a failure !

Negotiation

First of all, a big Thanks to all those who read my blog.

Coming to the topic of the week for me - Negotiation. I had the opportunity to be involved in a lot of serious "negotiation" meetings this week. I have always believed that negotiation is an art and we cannot put it into a set process.

There were two negotiations in which I had to try and convince my business competitors. In both the cases, the competitor was clearly losing out. My boss(who BTW is a master negotiator) was of the opinion that there is no scope of them accepting our proposal. I told him, "Lets see, I am taking it as a test of my negotiating skills".

In both the cases, here is what I did:

• Started the discussion by stating the most important objective of the project. Given that it is an external compliance project, timelines were of utmost priority.
• Then we mentioned the problem(cannot be reproduced for confidentiality) and the impact it has on the most important aspect of the project. Gave a 5 minute boring talk on history of the project and the root cause of the problem.
• Then we listed the possible options for the project. Till now we were not talking abt the individual vendors but only abt the larger project.
• As one option, the project could take a rigid stand and decide that we cannot compromise on quality and hence increase the timelines.
• The second option was to "bend" the quality procedures to meet the most important objective of the project. Then we put across a list of hard facts -- the nature of project, the kind of test cases and what is the risk in "bending" the procedures.
• It was quite clear that it is in the benefit of the project that we choose the second option, but it was not easy to convince the other vendor.
• Then we came to the benefits that I had listed down for the competitor. This part took the most time as it they were not willing to accept. We did not even once get into an argument- - the whole discussion was pretty professional and I must also commend my competitor for that.
• After a while, I went into a "friendly" mode and said, " See, I agree what we are discussing is not what you are supposed to do, and frankly what I am doing is also not what I am supposed to do. But we are both trying to be flexible in the interest of our customer. I am sure they will be very appreciative of this".

And guess what, they relented -- not once but in two occassions in one week !!!

Lessons for me from these two negotiation experiences:

1. Believe in what you are doing and do not give up till the end.
2. Be as simple and as straight forward in your approach.
3. Do not try to act smart or trick the other party.
4. Talk about the larger picture and what is most important for the larger objective.
5. Talk abt various alternatives and then come down to the alternative that you are sugesting.
6. Come down to the specifics on how the alternative helps the other party. Quantitative figures are very important.
7. Never get argumentative or emotional during the discussion(I have a lot to improve here).
8. Do not spoil the goodwill and relation with the other party.

Kick-Off Blog

Ok.....So I have my own blog......The first time I thought of having a blog of my own was exactly 5 mins ago.....and I have one already!!
The inferences from my first sentence in the blogging world:
1) This is the first attempt in my life to "write" something. Why now, you may ask...Well, coming to that point in a moment, first let me finish off the inferences.
2) I am a complete novice in the blogging world, who had no idea that creating a blog was as easy as breathing!!
3) I just created this blog due to sudden rush of blood, but it would require some effort to keep it rolling.
4) Maybe this is one of those fly-by-night blogs which do not see more than 5 posts.
5) Maybe I got inspired by someone to "have" a blog of my own.

Ok, Enough of digressing......lets come to the point.......Like any good "Project Kick Off" meeting, lets define an agenda:
1) Introduction of author
2) Why this blog
3) Expectations - short term and long term

1) Introduction of author

Well, as you all know by now, I am not an author -- just trying to be one. So please forgive my inexperience and any mistakes that I may make.
I am Rohit Nalgirkar. Working for Tata Consultancy Services in Netherlands. Currently managing multiple projects for ABN-AMRO. I have an obsession with anything related to "Management", anything related to "Cricket" and anything related to "Personal Finance". You would know more about me if you manage to visit this blog regularly.

2) Why this blog

Here are a few reasons I can think as of now:

a) My management obsession implies that I need to have an outlet for my thoughts.

b) These thoughts would serve me as an archived knowledge database.

c) Maybe Someone would actually "like" my blogs.

d) I dream of teaching in Harvard or at least in IIMA someday. Till that materialises, I can find solace in this blog and pretend that I am talking to a large crowd !!

e) I have got inspired by a few blogs that I read. Please give a big hand to my "Blog-Gurus":

Bharani -- http://way2top.org/

Ashlesha --http://aparadoxicalworld.blogspot.com/

Vijay --http://itheabsolute.blogspot.com/
f) As Ashlesha put it very nicely in one of her posts, maybe this blog would help me discover myself more, explore myself more.

3) Expectations - short term and long term

Hmm.......This is always the most tricky part for any manager. Here's my first management funda(with copyright permission from Shri Krishna):

One should always do the "Karma" and not "expect" any results. The expectations from self should be as high as possible and the expectations from others should be as less as possible.

So expectations from myself are:

a) to maintain highest degree of integrity in my posts.

b) to do some out-of-the-box writing

c) to make the posts entertaining and amusing

d) to regularly keep blogging -- lets start with a target of once a week and then we will revisit.

Expectations from readers:

a) to try and be patient while reading my blogs

b) to forgive my mistakes, spelling mistakes and possible incomprehension!

c) A target of 5 readers(visitors to my blog) by March 2007, 10 readers by June 2007 and 20 readers by Dec 2007.

Enough for the first blog --- Signing off for the day,

Rohit