What are your values?

Your values are the things that you believe are important for your life and work. They should determine your priorities. A values is also something that help decide what is right or wrong in moral term. There are different kinds of values such as social, personal, universal, moral, spiritual, cultural, etc. (The cultural ones allow us to situate ourselves in relation to the society we live in.)

I am considering the following:
  1. A smile always makes the difference.
  2. Respect for people and land.
  3. Trust is my best friend.
  4. Communication is key factor for understanding. Listen before speak!
  5. I am a winners. (I may fail, but always I am learning the lesson.)
  6. I take every opportunity to learn.

What are yours?

Deploying a New Enterprise System

Deploying an enterprise system is an expensive proposition, not just in terms of costs (development, implementation, licensing and maintenance), but also in terms of dedicated resources and time. In every domain, there are many vendors promising that the business will instantly run smoother and increase profits if using their systems,  but they fail many times to come up with a viable long-term (or even short-term) road-map.

Here are 10 recommendations to increase the odds of a successful system implementation:

1. Make a clear and extensive list of requirements before start looking for solutions (with focus on specific business processes).
2. Carefully evaluate your options before selecting your system. Better is to find a partner that specializes in your industry.
3. Run a POC (proof of concept) as close as possible with your real business processes.
4. Get references by asking the vendor for at least three happy customers.
5. Consider the amount of customization required to configure and deploy. (A turnkey solution may offer less flexibility but more stability, and less initial and ongoing cost.)
6. Factor in organizational change management. This is pivotal for the project success.
7. Don't forget mobile users.
8. Appoint an internal product champion.
9. Provide the necessary time and resources for training on the new system.
10. Get upper management support. (Despite that is the last point in the list, probably it is the most important one.)

Current software engineering process: 6 topics for improvements

From my experience I see the following areas that need changes:

• Despite using high-end technologies we should not forget that we are (still) working with people. (I should think not at two AWS resources in my team, for example, but at two teammates with the same skills, one of them just having a fight with his girlfriends. Each should be treated in a different way.)
• Sometime software development is done without any communication with the end-user; functionality has more priority than usability.
• Missing business knowledge: with elementary business knowledge it will be easier to develop IT systems to support the business and not to change the business to comply with IT.
• No standardization (for example, simple rules to make code understandable not only by the person who wrote it); missing code reviews.
• Documentation is not kept up to date.
• Testing is not considered from the beginning; software engineers are not doing unit testing.
• No analysis is done after finishing a project, no lessons learned are taken.

Do you know them?

Good Manager is recruiting teammates is working with colleagues is integrating difficult people has time for small chats is working in (and with) the team does mistakes corrects you if you do mistake is accepting critics the rules can be changed is leading by own examples gives you advice take every opportunity to learn in case of conflicts, talks with anyone involve

vs.

Other Manager is hiring subordinates is working with resources is getting rid of difficult resources is always very busy owns a team is always right you had bad intentions takes it personal the rules should be obeyed is commanding and controlling teaches lessons knows everything in case of conflicts, only listen to those who support them

2019

2018 a trecut și el în amintire. Să avem un 2019 cu bucurii, sănătate, zile senine și realizări frumoase!

Cum a fost 2018:

Doamna Procedură și domnul Regulament Intern Într-o cușcă cu tot confortul (confort în captivitate!?) și cu mâncare din belșug, opt maimuțe. În vârful unei scări, un ciorchine imens de banane...	Pisica și hiena Darwin spunea că în evoluţia naturii n-a supravieţuit nici cea mai rapidă, frumoasă, mare sau feroce specie, ci cea care a reuşit să se (re)adapteze cel mai repede. Superioritatea spirituală a pisicii...	Multi-cultural Environment Working in multi-cultural environments requires the project leader to appreciate that things will be done, seen and understood differently. Project leaders need to...
Echipa Suntem unici şi motivarea pentru acțiune a fiecăruia este … personală. A separa complet activitatea de la serviciu de viața familială este doar un mit. Oamenii cu ...	Succes Ce înseamnă succes? DEX-ul ne dă o explicație simplă: rezultat favorabil, pozitiv (al unei acțiuni); reușită, izbândă. Deci, dacă reușesc în ceea ce mi-am propus...	Destroying the past We are talking about new technologies, digital life, virtual reality and augmentation, and so on. Changes are drastically. But what about our parents as they are used with the real world, face-to-face...
5 Steps for Process Optimization In theory it is simple...	Prin standardizare spre mediocritate Odată ca niciodată, animalele au hotărât că trebuie să facă ceva pentru se adapta la problemele lumii noi. Așa că au înființat o școală și ...	Does size matter? What is better for a project: a small team or a big one...
Just start! Being an entrepreneur does not mean you have more free time and more money. Being an entrepreneur does not mean you have more free time and more money. There are more responsibilities, more problems, but ...

Just start!

Being an entrepreneur does not mean you have more free time and more money. There are more responsibilities, more problems, but the satisfaction of your work is greater.

The earlier you start, the better! Maybe you lack the experience, but the enthusiasm is bigger. Also, family obligations are probably lower and you do not have too much worries for your future. An eventual failure can be more easily managed.

To start your own business is a jump from being not responsible for the daily time management to be responsible for it. You are alone looking for your work, not knowing (at least at the beginning) of what will happen the next day. Finding the first client is the most difficult task. Try to focus on an industry that you have connections in. It will shorten the time to get an order.

You have to consider about 30% of your time as overhead marketing: you have to show yourself at conferences, lectures, give a lecture here and there, meeting many people, mingling at business parties, making useless phone calls just to let people remember you exists and so on. If you enjoy it, it is OK. If not, you still should do it.

You have only one question to answer yourself before starting: what is the main goal? (It does not have to be a single one, but one must be the ONE.) Possible ones:

• make a lot of money in X years
• make a successful professional career
• see the world
• be able to choose only the work you enjoy
• others (sky is the limit!)

Decide your main goal (and put it as the opening statement in your business plan)!

Do not forget also the first set of starting questions (you need to give as detail answers as possible):

• What step I can do NOW? (For example: create a blog, or a Facebook page, where to write, at least weekly, an article on the topic of the business.)
• When do I want to start? What do I need to start?
• How much am I willing to lose? When I will decide that the business does not work?
• Is there competition? Who is the strongest competitor? Explore it!
• What platforms/media are frequented by potential customers? Did they have a web page? Subscribe to their newsletter!
• How do I attract my first client? Make an attempt to attract the first customer (check if the assumption is correct).
• Where do I want to be in the first year? What do I need to get there?
• What ads channels are most business-friendly?
• Can I spend for my dream at least 4 hours a week, every week?

Start your journey with courage and optimism. Do not be afraid about unknown: if you trust your vision, you will learn on the road how things work.

Does size matter?

What is better for a project: a small team or a big one? There are pros and cons for both.

For a small team:

• Pros:
• High exposure of team members to several methodologies, tools, tasks, resulting in a rapid increase of experience
• Not a complex task management required, project tracking is more accurate and easy to manage
• Work with a bigger variety of people can bring some benefit in developing communication skills
• Cons:
• Difficult ramp-up: Always there is an extra-time needed to understand the required methodology, tools availability, what could be reused. The deadlines for such shorter projects are usually very strict and may be more difficult to fulfill the initial learning
• High mental cost as people need to adapt to work environment very fast
• Despite the fact that small projects may not involve high complexity, they have a short development and verification time and there is sometimes no room for task management, which can result in stressful deadlines
• Small visibility on overall project - tasks are usually punctual, well targeted, with limited understanding on how the entire system is working
• Difficult to integrate into client teams, establish close work connections, trust and confidence
• Difficult to manage vacations
• Changing often projects and teams can lead to people burnout
• Needs rather experienced people, which some times are hard to find
• Instability after project end

A big project can be:

• Long – a long period of time working in the same project, usually covering many releases
• Complex – larger team working on the same project. In this case, higher level of experience is required inside the team; the interactions between team members and client are more frequent. The management of such a project is more complex, but offers more space for tasks planning and people management in order to avoid stressful deadlines.

For a big team:

• Pros:
• It's easier to place juniors on side tasks
• Sharing knowledge is easier (you can consult with more members and share the knowledge)
• It creates necessary conditions for specializing on a specific domain
• More training can be planned and followed within the project
• Cons:
• Team members may become bored from doing the same repetitive task for a long time
• If not properly planned and tracked, projects are easier to slip, due high complexity and far deadlines
• Communication is more difficult

Irrespective of the project, without specific managerial skills and proper planning and tracking, as big as team is, the individual output and quality are decreasing and average costs (per active team member) is increasing.

So, what is you preference?