9/19/2009One of my former Leadership Lexington classmates, Diana Doggett, is coordinating Fayette County’s participation in Second Sunday, a program designed to increase people’s awareness of and participation in physical exercise. Goodness knows that one of the greatest gifts we can pass on to our children is a legacy of health. Please see details below…while this call is directed to businesses, you can participate as a family or individual. To: Fayette County Businesses Re: Second Sunday – a day for families to participant in physical activity! Second Sunday is a state-wide campaign that will serve as a catalyst for improving Kentucky’s health status and can become a template for nationwide awareness. As of today, 102 counties across Kentucky are planning to simultaneously close a roadway from 2-6 p.m. on the second Sunday of October (October 11, 2009) so that residents can walk, bike, run, play and participate in fun and healthy activities. In March Governor Beshear joined the General Assembly in a statewide endorsement of Second Sunday 2009. They noted how Second Sunday is not just one afternoon of physical activity, but a vehicle to raise awareness of the need for local infrastructure that promotes a healthy lifestyle in an otherwise sedentary population. With their support, the goal in 2009 is for thousands of Kentuckians to collectively send a state-wide and national message of the need for safe and accessible places to be active. In 2008, seventy Kentucky counties and over 12,000 citizens participated in Second Sunday. Mayor Jim Newberry and community partners selected a one mile street closure on Limestone Street where over 2,500 local citizens engaged in physical activity events. Lexington’s Second Sunday organizers are planning for the event to return this year with an even bigger bang, and family fun activities that will attract hundreds more participants. On Sunday, October 11, Lexington will close 1 mile of roadway for Second Sunday – Main and Short Streets between Mill and Deweese. From 2-6 p.m. families can walk, run, skate or bike on these closed streets. In addition, there will be over 60 informational booths and health-related activities. UK College of Agriculture Extension, UK Healthcare, Windstream, LFUCG, the Kentucky Blood Center, and the Downtown Lexington Corporation are local sponsors with many additional community partners. The day will include group exercise, an inflatable fun park, ‘49’ yard dash for kids, martial arts, yoga, volleyball, rock wall, exhibits, adrenaline rush, bungee run, senior physical activities, cycling classes, dancing, bike polo, the Big Maracas Band, food demos, dog walks, biking, skating, strolling, bike polo, floor hockey, street tennis and so much more. School PTSAs with the most students present will be competing for prizes as well. This is a call for your participation in a Fayette County’s Second Sunday. Second Sunday is a platform to showcase community businesses that are positively affecting the community’s health, economy and environment. The Second Sunday coalition will coordinate the event and street closure, which will provide the opportunity, audience and space for your business to host an informational booth or health-related activity. We are asking that you be there and be counted as a business committed to the Second Sunday event. Collaborative alliances amongst businesses, organizations, and the community are an effective and efficient way to achieve growth objectives, stimulate the economy, and create synergy. Affiliating yourself with Second Sunday will help mobilize an effort to show our local community some fun, simple ways to incorporate physical activity into everyday life and build a compelling inexpensive case for investment in trails, sidewalks, smart streets, parks, etc. We sincerely hope that you will take the opportunity to join hundreds of other locally in support of sending a compelling message of change - from being a state of spectators to one of active participants. Several communities have had similar events, but Kentucky is the first state! Sincerely, Diana Doggett, Second Sunday State Coordinator, University of Kentucky FCS Extension 9/16/2009There are a whole range of improvements and new features announced today for the upcoming release of Microsoft Project. In this article, I will show you these five new features that exist in the Microsoft Project 2010 desktop client: - The Ribbon
- The Timeline
- Manually Scheduled Tasks
- Team Planner (Professional only*)
- SharePoint Synchronization (Professional only*)
There are a range of other features—such as Inactive Tasks, the Task Inspector, Top-Down Summary tasks, the Slider Bar, and the Outspace—that I will cover in future posts. 1. The Ribbon The first and most obvious change is the replacement of menus with the “Fluent User Interface (UI)”, more commonly known as The Ribbon. Since I first used Project in 1996, we’ve had a range of features that were hidden in menus. Now, this interface—already in place for core Office 2007 products—provides more graphical and contextual information by combining the menu and toolbars. Compare this snapshot of a common Project 2007 menu, with toolbars. 
With this view of the Fluent UI, which shows those commands used most often with a larger icon. The UI shows only relevant commands depending on what you’re viewing, such as the Gantt Chart Tools tab that appears at the right because of the active Gantt Chart view. 
Compare the Format menu for the Gantt Chart… 
with the Format menu for the Network Diagram. 
You can even customize the Ribbon so that it contains exactly what you want to see where you want to see it.  Yes, it took me a while to get used to this new interface, and I’m still working to find some of my old friends. Nonetheless, after a brief period of adjustment I am finding that I’m able to use a lot more of the tools more quickly (and, most of my old Keyboard Shortcuts work in the same manner). 2. The Timeline The Timeline area displays in a simple view the key phases and milestones associated with a Project Schedule. This feature, though simple, is remarkably beneficial for quickly showing everyone the high-level view of the project and its deliverables. 
You can easily add to the Timeline by right-clicking a Task or Milestone, and choosing Add To Timeline. In addition, the Timeline shows the time frame shown in the Gantt Chart, as shown below. 
3. Manually Scheduled Tasks When first planning a project, it’s likely that you will have some dates associated with your phases (represented by Summary Tasks), specific tasks, or milestones. Now, rather than Project always assigning a default date and duration to tasks and milestones, you can create Manually Scheduled Tasks. Observe in the picture below: - Task 1 is Automatically Scheduled: the Task Mode property (which now appears as a column in the default Gantt Chart view) is set to Automatically Scheduled. This mode is what you’re used to from previous versions of Project. It is, however, no longer the default mode.
- Task 2 is Manually Scheduled: the Task Mode property defaults to the Manually Scheduled, which prevents the scheduling engine from acting on the task.
- Task 3: You can change this Task Mode property using the drop-down field, or by selecting the Manually Scheduled checkbox in the Details (formerly Split Screen) view.
While we may argue about when or whether one should use the Manually Scheduled task mode, or set it to the default mode, I personally feel that it provides a needed tool that Projects Schedulers can use when it is appropriate. 4. Team Planner (Professional Only*) How can you tell whether your resources are working more hours than they have time available? When will your resources work on tasks? When are they available? In Project 2007 and could to use assignment views, such as Task Usage and Resource Usage. With Project 2010, you can use the newly minted Team Planner. This excellent view focuses on the resources, and the tasks to which they are assigned. 
In this view, you can see that the Programmer is overallocated: we know this because he shows highlighted in red. However, unlike previous versions we can see not only that he is overallocated, but where he is overallocated in the Gantt Chart view. Notice the red lines show the overallocated time. 
Now, we have several options for resolving this issue: - Use the Leveling tools, which were available in previous versions of project
 - Use the Move Task menu, and choose the When Resources Are Available entry
 - Manually drag and drop the task from the Programmer
 ….to the Tester (not that we’d want to do that in real life). 
This graphical view of resources can help Project Managers visualize the allocation of resources to activities, and more easily work to resolve issues of overallocation. 5. SharePoint Synchronization (Professional Only*) Project Managers who have the 2010 versions of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Services running will be able to synchronize project schedules with SharePoint-based Task Lists. In the new Outspace’s Share area, you can connect to the SharePoint site, and then configure the fields you with to synchronize. Most exciting: the synchronization is bi-directional and will allow you to update fields from either the Project client or the Task list on the server; and, you can synchronize custom fields. 
Conclusion The new features of Microsoft Project 2010 desktop will make developing and managing a project more intuitive for Project Managers new to the tool, and will provide many new tools that will enhance the experience for existing Project Managers. Please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. *Note: There are two versions of the Microsoft Project desktop client, as with 2007. The Standard version can not connect to a Project Server installation, and does not have some other features that the Professional version will.
I love this picture. It reminds me of what happens when project managers go wild with overwhelmingly complex schedule indicators. Simplicity of communication on the most important metrics prevents confusion (and crashes).
9/11/2009Since PMI released version four of the PMBOK® Guide in December 2008, I received a lot of questions from people who want to know the differences from version three. Note that Appendix A of the PMBOK® Guide conveniently lists all the changes for you in detail. We’ll break it down into smaller chunks. This post is the first of several that discuss the differences. We’ll start with an overview of the Project Management Processes. You’ll recall that in version 3, there were a total of 44 processes organized into five “Process Groups” and nine “Knowledge Areas.” The good news is that the Process Groups and Knowledge Areas remain the same. The better news is that PMI refined the overall Processes down to 42 total. We will explore the differences in the Processes in another post, but trust me…the changes are for the better. Below, you’ll see a matrix that shows all 42 of the Version 4 processes. Please notice a few things: - They are numbered from 1-42 for your convenience: In our classes, we provide additional charts and bookmarks that help you to remember all the processes, their Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs (ITTOs).
- Each Knowledge Area is color-coded: for visual learners, we also provide materials that help you associate the different processes with different colors, which provides another clue to help you remember which processes and ITTOs go with different Knowledge Areas.
- The matrix shows the process numbers listed by Process Group and Knowledge Area:
- The Process Groups are listed across the top (the X axis)
- I = Inititation
- P = Planning
- E = Executing
- MC = Monitoring & Controlling
- C = Closing
- The Knowledge Areas are listed on the left side:
- I = Integration
- S = Scope
- T = Time
- C = Cost
- Q = Quality
- H = Human Resources
- C = Communication
- R = Risk
- P = Procurement
We hope that this matrix is helpful. In our next article, we’ll talk in a bit more detail about the differences between the processes in Version 3 and Version 4 of the PMBOK. 8/25/2009
I recently was admitted into the Leadership Central Kentucky Program ( www.leadershipcentralkentucky.com), and attended the two-day retreat held at the Hilton Suites.
Six years ago, while going through the Leadership Lexington program, I found a group of people who were energetic, purposeful, and talented.
With this opportunity, I am again surrounded by people who challenge the norm, and who really want to make a positive difference in this community--I'm energized and looking forward to the rest of the year!
3/8/2009Announcement: Brown Bag Lunch and Learn When: March 12, 2009 11:30 am-1:00 pm Where: Commonwealth Office of Technology Fair Oaks Training Room, 100 Fair Oaks Lane, Frankfort, Ky. Why: To organize an IIBA Chapter that will serve the Frankfort and Lexington areas. A local chapter will provide opportunities for professional development, networking and raising awareness of the professional role of the business analyst and the skills they possess, both IT and non-IT related. This meeting is open to any individual interested in organizing and participating in a local IIBA chapter. It will be a brown bag lunch. Vending machines are available for water and soft drinks. Please RSVP to Millie Crawford, millie.crawford@ky.gov, 502-564-6802 This session will include a teleconference at 12:00 pm with Kathleen B. (Kitty) Hass, Director at Large for the International Institute of Business Analysis (www.theIIBA.org ) who will describe the organization and its benefits. Kathleen Hass is the Senior Practice Consultant for Management Concepts. Ms. Hass is a prominent presenter at industry conferences, author and lecturer in strategic project management and business analysis disciplines. Her expertise includes leading technology and software-intensive projects, executive coaching, building and leading strategic project teams, and program management for large, complex engagements. Her more than 25 years of experience includes project portfolio management implementation, project office creation and management, business process re-engineering, IT applications development and technology deployment, and requirements management. Ms. Hass has managed projects in the airline, telecommunications, retail, manufacturing industries, healthcare, financial services and in the U.S. Federal Government. Ms. Hass serves as Director at Large, IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis), and member of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge committee, contributing to several chapters and lead author of the Enterprise Analysis Chapter. Ms. Hass has a B.S. in Business Administration (summa cum laude) from Western Connecticut University. She is a certified Software Capability Examiner based on the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model (SEI CMM), a certified Malcolm Baldrige Total Quality Award Assessor, a certified Zenger-Miller Facilitator, and a certified Project Management Professional by the Project Management Institute. Ms. Hass previously served as Assistant Vice President and Senior Consultant with Provant Project Management, Program Management Office Director for American Stores Company, and IT Manager for UNISYS Corporation. For my birthday this year, my wife bought me--on my request--a new Kindle. For those of you not familiar with a Kindle, it's essentially an electronic book reading device. When I first heard of this sort of gadget, I was a bit dubious as to the value of such a device. After talking to people, and traveling more and more, I found that it was definitely worth trying, especially since with my Amazon credit card reward points, I could have one for half the normal price. As an English major and major bibliophile, I won't ever be able to give up the visceral joy of a "real" book; however, these features of the Kindle2 are amazing... - It talks to me: when I would normally have to put down my book and drive, I can now turn on the "Text-To-Speech" feature, and continue reading.
- Content is automatically delivered to the device: I receive the newspaper without having to brave the cold, or worry about my daughter dunking it in her breakfast, or recycling it.
- It's small, lightweight, and carries an incredible amount of information: I have The New York Times, The Atlantic, Microsoft Project texts, my courseware, the latest Malcom Gladwell, and a ton of other books available all at once.
- I can send any material in PDF format to a dedicated email address and it will automatically convert and download the material to my device. There appear to be some size limitations related to the email, which I am working to address.
- I can resize the text: in different lights, it's harder for me to see some text. I can read these books, and decide to resize the text to meet my needs.
- The built-in dictionary will look up words, and I can drill down into the etymology of a particular word or phrase.
There are a few challenges, beyond the PDF size limitation, but they are really more annoyances to which I quickly adjusted. - The joystick would probably be better if it were a trackball, along the lines of a BlackBerry. I was able to learn to use it with some practice, and it's much better than the old scrollbar in the first version of the Kindle.
- The Kindle isn't backlit, and relies on light. This condition causes it to be hard to read in dimly lit areas (which is also a condition of "real" books). The benefit is, however, that the battery lasts a LONG time.
In short, I would wholeheartedly recommend the Kindle to anyone who is a dedicated reader. I think you will find that you soon wonder how you lived without it. Other Kindle owners criticisms or praises? Comment below. 3/7/2009 I’m just back from the Microsoft MVP Summit in Redmond (which I’ll detail in another post), and looking forward to the next opportunity to meet with my fellow Project practitioners and the Microsoft Project Product team in September.
The Microsoft Project Conference is a wonderful opportunity for all people interested in Project to choose from a large range of interesting, relevant, and practical sessions. Of course, there are always a few sessions that are not so interesting, relevant, or practical, but they are usually pretty rare. Right now, there’s a $150 discount for the first 500 people to sign up. To learn more, visit http://www.msprojectconference.com/ and read the text, pulled from the MS Project page, below: Microsoft is pleased to announce the 5th annual Microsoft Project Conference being held September 14-17, 2009 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ. Join us to celebrate the successes of Microsoft Project and to see what’s coming, as we exclusively unveil the powerful capabilities included in the next release. At this year’s conference, you will learn how Project is helping customers today to save money, enhance efficiency and drive growth, as well as obtain unique insights into how the next release will continue to support your business tomorrow. Project Conference 2009 is the global event to attend. It’s sure to be one of the most exciting and valuable Project Conferences yet with high-impact keynotes, 75+ in-depth breakout sessions, hands on labs, demonstrations and many opportunities to connect and collaborate with your peers, industry practitioners, certified partners and the Microsoft Project team. In the current economic climate, it’s vital to keep both your individual skills and organizational capabilities moving forward – don’t miss the opportunity! LEARN what can be achieved today and what’s coming tomorrow with the next release. CONNECT with your peers, industry practitioners, certified partners and the Microsoft Project team to share experiences. GROW your skills and investments to realize remarkable cost reductions, enhance efficiencies and move your business forward. |
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