Expert Judgement Tool

ProjectManagement Assignment 5 : What is the best tool use in expert judgment?

It was been discussed before that in order to organize a project, the project team is required to split or break the main project to several phases. These phases are composed of unique processes, and it is constructed with prerequisites. Some or most of these phases will encounter a technique called the Expert Judgment. To handle some risks, generate ideas and decision makings on the project, expert judgments are being conducted to guide the project team.

Expert judgment is mostly used in developing project charter, direct and manages project execution, perform integrated change control, define scope, estimate activity resources, estimating costs, identifying stakeholders, perform qualitative risk analysis, plan risk responses, conducting procurements and etc.

Defining what expert judgment is about: Expert judgment is a common technique used in estimation methods. Most judgments are based on expertise being acquired from specific areas and knowledge, which concludes that this method merely relies on factors such as gained experience from past projects. Which reminds me of something, having students consulting to a mentor for an approval or changes is also a practice of this expert judgment! LOL! Expert judgment is often used to assess the inputs needed to develop the project charter. Through this, gaining an edge using historical data is no more an issue. Inaccurate estimation definitely leads to failure, that’s why accurate data are important to set a mark for those estimations.

Through observations, I had managed to come up with a disadvantage regarding to the matter of having this expert judgment. Yes it is true that through this, the project team could have the advantage of securing the outcome of their project, hence giving them the assurance for a better quality. But using this technique or approach, the project team would spend a large time especially when taking the path of having the interviews and consults. Thus, the project team should be well prepared for consequence of using it or simply its drawbacks.

Any individual who has the knowledge and experience relating to the project could be considered as an expert. It could be a member of the team, an individual with same project in the past, and the project manager. But to avoid having biases, it is more appropriate to have an expert who’s outside the project, an individual or a group who’s not related to the project itself. Through this, the team could have an assurance of having the judgments straight, clear and real.

Expert judgment is a technique right? Where in this expert judgment is an approach to secure the quality of the ongoing project. Tools are being introduced to support this approach or rather the technique. Some tools that could be employed in this technique are the following:

Interviews – Interviews are common to us, this is a tool we had been using specially when we are in doubt or we do not have knowledge on something, it can go to a one-to-one or a many-to-one basis (which is compose of the expert and the apprentice or the project team). Interviews are conducted by asking a series of related questions to an expert or an individual whose knowledgeable that will increase your knowledge of the project or a particular project activity.

Brainstorming – Brainstorming is basically about sharing related ideas, knowledge and solution as an approach for a specific problem. This works by getting a group to focus on a problem and then coming up with as many ideas as possible to determine an absolute solution. The goal of brainstorming is to achieve a broad list of project risks and solutions to terminate further damages to the project.

Consulting – Another tool of expert judgment, in which the project team will come for an expert to have a consultation regarding to the risk and progress of their project. An effective approach, for it could give the project team the path that they must take and a consultant that will test and neglect some options.

Historical Data – Historical data uses the knowledge gained on a similar past project activity to obtain duration estimates for each activity associated with a current project. With the proven data, the team could compare and come up with a better approach or implementation for the project.

Using these tools and techniques, the project team could expand their knowledge about the projects’ risks control and on how to deal with the several options and additions for the developments and progress of their project.

Below are some techniques that still comprise the expert judgment (innovations made to cover the weaknesses of the said technique.):

Another technique that can be applied to handle risks and conclude ideas and solution is the analogous estimating. Analogous estimating is one form of expert judgment and it also known as Top-down Estimating. This approach or technique is mostly reliable when the previous activities are similar in fact and not just in appearance, and the project team members preparing the estimates have the needed expertise. This estimation technique will be applied to determine the duration when the detailed information about the project is not available, usually during the early stages of the project.

Another technique for judgment is the Delphi approach or Wideband Delphi technique attempts to gather the opinions of a group of experts with the aim of producing an accurate unbiased estimate, as mentioned earlier that having expert judgments with the project manager or anyone involved with in the project could or might result in bias for they might not see the abnormalities or severe risks in the project. Delphi technique is a structured technique of expert judgment and is essentially a form based technique involving a multi step procedure and these are: The experts are issued the specification and estimation form by the co-coordinator, a group meeting is held to discuss the product and estimation issues, experts produce an independent estimate, estimates are returned indicating the median estimate and the expert’s personal estimate, another group meeting is held to discuss results, experts prepare a revised independent estimate, steps 3-6 are repeated until a consensus is reached by the panel of experts.


http://www.ecfc.u-net.com/cost/expert.htm
http://project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/e/expert-judgment/
http://www.ecfc.u-net.com/cost/delph.htm
PMBOK of Knowledge

Project versus Other Works

ProjectManagement Assignment 4: How is a project different to any other work? Is Project Management relevant to me? cite examples.

Consider this one: Before you can effectively manage a project, you must first define and understand its projects’ nature (base on the lesson of making meaning, which would result to a good project) - its purposes, objectives, scopes, and budgeting. Some people would define the project as not existing until it has a sufficient definition, because it is impossible to start a project without the thorough examination about it.
scratch scratch scratch

How could I differentiate a project from any forms of work when even I myself am puzzled from it? I was blinded by the word “update” which I usually hear when talking about projects, and the term which states that “there is no such thing as a perfect project or a 100% completion on projects for it involves continuous progress as time passes”. I was puzzled about these factors until I had a little reading and found a missing important part of it. A project is limited; I had disregarded the fact that a project has a bounded lifecycle which has a definite start and an end. Basing in this words, I was been enlightened, and had figured out that these factors are just components of it which means a project is composed of updates and maintenance to deliver its services properly. What I am saying is, a projects’ life ends upon its submission, but its service which needs updates and maintenance still goes on, for a project is not a continuous process but the service it caters is the constant one. That’s what I had concluded from that mind bugling phrases (I suppose) and am hoping I got it straight and right.

Let me elaborate more about these so called projects. A project must be punctual (time is crucial for a project is temporary and has a definite end), must be passed in its deadline and must meet its requirements.
Temporary – a project is said to be temporary because it has a specific due date. It has a definite beginning and an end. And projects must be punctual at any cost. A project is a temporary activity with a starting date, specific goals and conditions, defined responsibilities, a budget, a planning, a fixed end date and multiple parties involved. Therefore, a project has a limited time and the members involved in the said project must cooperate to comply and meet its requirements before the time surpass them.

A continuous process is not a project. An ongoing task in considered as another form of work, for as I had stated earlier a project has a limited lifecycle. Most projects uses top-down cycle (started with a planning, analysis, design and implementation) this comprises updates after the project be presented to a test, and after all of this the cycle will never go backwards. Like any form of lifecycles, there is no turning backs but instead several changes may occur within it not unless you start on building another one. An example of a project is the creation of a certain system, which is upon completion, will be considered as a candidate for maintenance. Its subsequent updates and maintenance are no longer being considered as a project but still a part of it. In hands to this let me again stress out the “project end”. At the very end of certain projects, updates, maintenance and testing are considered to determine and ensure the services that certain project generates; to determine that the project had achieved and met all requirements, and to identify its weaknesses. Another example is all about chores, as we all know chores are done almost every day which I conclude that it would not be appropriate to call it a project, for it is ongoing or continuous if we based it from a lifetime process. But if we consider it as a task for a day, then we could say that it is a project for it will later come to an end (for the day). A project is composed of several objectives, a project could be divided to several tasks which they termed as project decomposition or breakdown and the proponents must works on each of the refined tasks in order to reach their goals and the goal of the project. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business operations, which are repetitive, continuous, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to present their products and services. To make it more clear, projects are commonly different to businesses operations which needs a flow of development (which are considered as some of the other forms of work which contradicts the definition of project as a task). Projects are vulnerable to failures, if a team has failed to follow the decided run of the project time-line, then it would surely become a candidate for failing. The project’s success relies on the team itself and also the effectiveness of their project management. Thus, for it to succeed, a project must deliver to cost, to quality, and on time (which refers to the basic characteristics of a good quality project); and it must deliver the benefits presented in the business case, it must be productive, worthy or should we say cost effective.

The second question is “is project management relevant to me?”… Defining project management based on my learning, it is a key or tool used to have an organized project structure. To have a preliminary view or make certain of the projects outcome, a team should use some project management tools. Project management has been a useful tool in many operations, leading to better innovations that had change the world and had changed the people’s lives. Project management tools can make sure of the projects great foundation, for its quality and standard basis. We had already deal with these things couple of assignments ago, but to rest assure to explain its importance (or rather to be true, just for the word count! LOL) I had provided this terms. Project management is a carefully planned, analysis and organized effort to accomplish a successful and high quality projects. A project is a one-time effort that produces a specific result (or rather takes a limited time), for example, a building or a major new computer system. This is in contrast to generating a program because program as what I had research takes a continuous processes, also comprises with managing series of related multiple projects together, and as I had defined earlier, projects are not continuous thus programs are not projects. We had almost widen the meaning of project management, now how is this related to me? Simple, in our tasks especially on a student like me, project management is a helpful tool or method to organize things such as common school projects. For in a student’s life, there is no way of escaping a project not unless you have the plan of failing a certain subject because of specific projects to make. If you have been given a specific job to complete then you should consider using the principles of project management. This is one of the many things to apply the project management to my life. Let’s take it in another scenario or let’s have some literal examples; project management involves planning for the projects objective and goals, evolution of project through thorough analysis and updates to maximize a projects capabilities and budgeting a projects limited resources; at my certain age I could relate myself through this by simply basing on my lives processes as a whole, like project management, I am also oblige to plan several things for my future and to plan for the achievements of my goals in life; like project management who makes projects evolved to a well developed one, I also have my own evolutions, from being a child who wanders everywhere to a matured one and hopefully for a full maturity as the years surpasses. Evolution had started after I was blown out form my mothers’ womb! Like the first step of the project management, the planning for my life had started and generated there which has been leaded by my parents. And also, I had gone through several processes to gain some knowledge like as having a project through several processes to ensure its service via the tracking of project management. And one last thing! About the phase of budgeting within the project management method, for years I had been forced to budget my allowance to fit it in to my needs (isn't this a good sample of the relationship?).

Just bare in mind that those works with a continuous process could never be considered as projects, for projects has a planned due or is limited. If a task has a definite end, then we could call it as a project. And to assure the project development, must use a project management tool to have project more organized. To settle things within projects, there are lots of project management tools that can help you organize your project elements or tasks one good example of this is a Gantt chart, which is capable of giving the users tracking capabilities for them to be more oriented in the happenings inside their projects.

http://www.epmbook.com/projdefwhy.htm
http://www.spottydog.u-net.com/guides/faq/faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management

Project Management as a Method

ProjectManagement Assignment 3 : Is Project Management the best method of implementing change?

Project management by its meaning is the organizing, securing and managing resources; basically it is the foundation of having a high quality and well delivered project outcomes. As you can see, project management (via the use of project management tools) are essential in planning for a good head start, with this you can achieve a higher success rate rather than having it the other way around. Project management helps us to define several things, such as the scope of the project, its elements, the critical things we must consider, the budgeting, its weaknesses, what must be needed to modified, inserted or deleted to enhance the operational process of a project. By breaking a whole project into several milestones into a simplified and refined one, you could simply determine those elements that must be considered and this is done through project management methodology. If you force change on people (without considering their nature, aspects, needs and etc.) normally problems arise for it will create a chaos between the project outcome and the people (which are basically the users of the project). Change must be realistic, achievable and measurable. These aspects are especially relevant to managing personal change. Before starting a project change, you must consult to several people such as the: owner of the project or the client, some expert who will judge those changes and project fairly and better ask yourselves: What do we want to achieve with this change, why, and how will we know that the change has been achieved? Who is affected by this change, and how will they react to it? Project management is the key on answering all of these questions.

To start with, I had mentioned the words modify, insert and delete in which project management are capable in doing to. Clearly, project management is one of the best methods to implement changes inside your projects. I’m not saying that it is totally the best for I am sure that I haven’t met all those implementing changes methods yet, but to assure you that project management is also effective if used properly and abide according to the planned time-line. Remember that as your scope changes, several things will change and that must be considered. As scope changes, the time-line or span of the project, the budgeted cost, and even its quality would be altered. For scope planning specifically comes first before any of those mentioned components. Through this, you can possibly work over changes in a more organized manner, so that you will have a guide or tracking to identify the specific problems ahead as the changes undergoes. Typically, project management is also a useful tool in budget managing, for you could identify if you still have enough resources to be considered to operate some changes and modifications on a project, if there is still an appropriate amount of money to be allocated for some enhancements on it. Considering you are the project administrator or proponent, having enough resources a client could ask for changes on the project to satisfy their basic needs, so you will go through updates on almost all aspects and this project management (tool / method) is a functional way to help you analyze and synthesis a concrete way of meeting them.

Project Management is a methodology and a discipline which can bring significant benefits to organizations by:-

• Ensuring limited resources are used on the right projects – as I had said earlier, project management involves budget planning in order to determine the project limitation and secure its quality.

• Managing complex changes in an organized way – because all elements had been broke down to several structures, changes would easily be applied and the things it will affect will easily be managed or determined, thus making it easier for the project developers to have certain changes on the said project.

• It could also assess some risks as changes occur – certainly there is always a risk inside a project specially in putting up changes. Prevention is better than cure, by engaging in this method you could assess some risks and convert those risks into a useful tool to optimize your project.

In order to have a high quality project outcomes, changes or updates such as deletion and inserting (adding) within a project must be always present. These are some of the several important components to be considered to meet the clients’ standards. Consider a project without this tool or methodology that has undergone several changes to be enhanced; would the resulting project outcome a success? Probably no! Especially when we are talking about huge quantities of projects which are merely composed of several elements and these elements are all having prerequisites, which are the foundation of the project, its core or its major components. Without these project management methodologies and tools, how will you keep track of the issues within a project? And if changes occur, how will you trace the area of effect of the specific changes? How will you determine the changes on the scope and manage the limited resources? Would it be possible to manipulate it easily? No, no, no. Remember, project has a limited time with a definite start and end; you cannot manage changes without these tracking provided by project management methods.

See the difference of not applying and importance of having the project management in terms of including some changes within a project? It will surely help you to manage all of those changes and ensure you the quality of it. Changes are made to suit for the quote “Quality over Quantity”, preferring quality for it would surely satisfy you, than having several functions of quantity but is not satisfying at all. Similarly we could talk about the cost-benefit of a project, wherein lots of benefits are aquired at a lower cost. The usefulness of this specified tool had already been discussed and proven, wherein without this you could not manage changes in just a bunch of time. With this tool and method in hand with several changes, you would surely gain the best quality of the project, assuring that it would give a big impact on the clients’ satisfaction.

http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm
http://www.spottydog.u-net.com/guides/faq/frameset.html

Reasons for Project Failures

ProjectManagement Assignment 2: Why do project/s fail? Cite some example

In the previous meetings, we had discussed the lessons about projects, management, and what do project management is actually all about. We had gathered and had shared several taught to expounds the given words and basically come up a better explanation on these specific things. I am happy and so thankful for the things that they had shared and moreover had clarified which had given me some knowledge which is in contrast to what I really think about.

As an introduction for this, let me review and perhaps add some details on the lessons which our professor taught us couple of meeting ago. Projects are tasks given to a group or even on an individual that must be done and submitted in a specific time; primarily, it involves being punctual (or the time-span of the project itself), for a project is limited (meaning a project has a due or passing date, and in order for it to secure a good quality result, it must possess the basic or fundamental characteristics of a good project). A project is a sequence of unique, complex, and connected activities having one goal or purpose and that must be completed by a specific time, within the budget and according to specifications. Talking about management, it takes the place of organizing, as said in the discussion, a manager is the person that has the authority when it comes in terms of management or managing, he is the one who carries the responsibility of making vital decisions, in organizing sequence of (related)events, and some other things. The characteristics for a good manager and the comparison between it and a leader had also been discussed. Furthermore, management comprises planning, organizing, directing, and controlling an organization (PODC). Management is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired their objectives effectively. It indicates the process of planning, leading, organizing and controlling people within a group in order to achieve goals. And lastly, project management (which is the core of the discussion). Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project managing involves planning, identifying specific resources, and identifying the limitation of the budget. This engages the triple constraint which involves the project Scope, time, and cost.

I could say that projects or tasks are some of the effective ways to learn several things. In a form of giving a project, students (like us) can enhance and expand their learning. Even if projects are really a pain in student’s butt, but then they some take the tasks because as I said, it is a more effective way to learn via your own self. They could also use their own skills and come up with a better idea themselves. An example of this (just to clarify what I was really trying to point out): this article is a form of task or project which is really a requirement to pass the subject, this articles are gathered together to form a compilation of several tasks. These articles as I said is one of the effective ways to teach a student in a form of giving a project, for students are forced to have their reflections on a specific lesson which includes an amount of words. Think about this, what if a student had already putted his or her reflection about a lesson, but then he or she lacks the required amount of words, so basically he or she would be forced to have a self study which is via the internet; through surfing, he or she could expand his and her knowledge about the lesson, hence giving lots of information to put up on the on going article. Through giving a project as a task for a course, I could say that it is one of the effective ways of training or teaching a student. Unleashing their sleeping abilities, developing and enhancing bought their knowledge and skills.

Why do projects fail? In most cases, there is a huge percentage of failing in a project than having it the other way around. Its logic is simple, it just need a proper management. It fails due to some specific reasons such as: it failed to meet specific requirements (requirements which are essentially needed for services for example) that it must have in order for it to be satisfying, worthy, and even for it to render a good and high quality services (as said earlier); it failed to be completed in the given or requested time (for as I said, it is temporary), the quality of a project also depends on its punctuality, on the time spent to finalize it and even the time spent on doing it. And most of all, if the project doesn’t possess any of the main characteristics that a good project must have. A project may be considered as a failure when it has not provided what was required or assumed to be on a part of it as it finished (example: some expected features that it had stated on a specific proposal but then failed to deliver it to the clients), in line with expectations. Thus, for it to succeed, a project must deliver to cost, to quality, and on time (which refers to the basic characteristics of a good quality project); and it must deliver the benefits presented in the business case, like in my given example enclosed in the parenthesis or rather it must be productive, worthy or should we say cost effective.
Here are some bulleted reasons of why and how do certain projects fail (self-explanatory reasons which are more expounded for the sake of word count):

• Late submission – when the project had been surpassed by its due date, when it had failed to be passed on the given time. For all projects are temporary and has a definite end. For students like us, late submission of entries of projects could cause to a deduction of grade; but putting it in a more unfortunate way, there are tendencies that a mentor or rather a professor would not accept the project anymore for the dead line had already passed by. Applying it to our daily living, being tardy (even if due to several reasons) could result into a punishment or could drive into a big loss. See how big being punctual is? Even in everyday living, we could apply and have a good use of it.

• Failed to meet requirements – expected output from different projects are anticipated, that in the end of the project, it must deliver the required things that it must have. Failing to meet a requirement would surely degrade a presented project. Take this as an example: based on my experience, we were asked to develop a web game in which we were divided into a group of 3 members each. We had stated in our proposal some features that we presumed our game could have, but then due to difficulty and time issues (basically lacking of management), we had failed to deliver a stated feature, although some of the features were deliver but unfortunately that said lacking feature was the one our professor was interested to. It had affected the rating of our project and seemingly had affected our grade for the course. Now, see the importance? (Several reasons are still on the line, sit back and enjoy reading the article).

• Quality problem – the quality of the project as I was saying, involves its punctuality and approach. The quality of the project depends on how in renders a certain service just for example. Quality of a project also considers it uniqueness, some involves it durability, effectiveness and on how useful it is. Example of a quality problem is: let’s say a car that has a poor performance and durability; that could not even boost itself to a higher speed.

• Financial management – a good manager also must have the skills of a good talker, which involves convincing powers or strategies to encouraged sponsors to put some as an add-on to their resources to start a project (but this kind of things could only be applied in big transactions which also involves big time projects). Organizing the resources especially when it comes to financial is also vital. Must control the flow of the money until the last penny if you want to fit a given budget for a specific project. Most projects especially when we are talking of infrastructures are left, abandoned being unfinished because of the failure in financial management. These infrastructures might have been completed if only they had controlled the flow of the budgeted money (I am talking about taking corruption out of the way). If only they have controlled the flows, then people of our generation might have been wandering around the structures. A lesson to all that is remarkable.

• Poor architecture – poor architecture of the project, it may not be presentable or might have some defects within its architecture. When talking of systems, it may had failed to give good services due to its poor architecture; and going to the example of being an engineer, let’s take a house for it is a good example, i.e we had a house, built but still not continued due to the issue of having a poor architecture which led to numerous of defects and an outstanding failure. Quality and performance of projects do always refer to its architecture.

• Poor schedule estimation - poor schedule estimation will always result in cramming, which later result in failing to pass the project on time or failing to meet the requirements of the schedule due to the lack of time. Example of this is a given assignment was introduced couple of days ahead, but then students are doing it a day before the deadline. This sometimes results in missing to pass the given assignment. Having a proper scheduling of the tasks helps you to avoid having the tasks being filed up. Practicing a good scheduling helps prevent the missing of any projects and also helps to maximize the working time.

• Conflicts – Several conflicts may be present in doing a project. As far as I could remember, somebody had said that there are no group projects without fighting. For me there are three conflicts that could happen in a project. Conflicts between the creators of the said project, conflicts between the creators and the client, and most of all conflicts between the creators and the project itself. Fighting if always present in a group project because everybody aims for the better result of their project. First is the conflicts between the creators or proponents, in a negative way proponents may conflict because of their behaviors and characteristics (example: one of the members may be lazy which caused them several delays), and in a positive way of thinking, proponents might have conflicts between each other because they want to enhance the project in a different way which is contrast to the other idea. Second is the conflict between the proponents and the clients, clients might have several requests or demands which the creators of the project might seen it a little hassle and could even give them redundancy of functions. In some cases, proponents might fail to deliver the project to the clients at the expected time. They might have some troubles in finishing it or they might not meet the requirements given or asked by the clients. And the last one is the conflicts between the proponents and the project itself; this involves the critical moments within the project. The proponents or creators might be having a difficulty on it, they might have a poor budget estimation on it, or they might have missed plan the sequence of the project. These conflicts are generated based on what I understood about the word conflict itself. Having without any basis, these ideas had just pop out of my mind, and hope that idea was right.

• Inadequate communication, including progress tracking and reporting – having a good communication skill is really applicable especially when involving business. Earlier I had mentioned that a good manager needs to have a good communication skill, for him or her to easily approach several investors for his or her proposed project, to gain some investors to start up his or her idea. Having good communication skills is also needed to deliver properly several reports or tracking of the project. It is proper to have a reliable source of reports and tracking of the project. Having fake reports for the sake of other agendas could result in a major problem. For example: a project proponent or leader had presented a false tracking and report of the on going project because he wants the client to be impressed or he wants to show the client that there is nothing to be worried about. Although he had convinced the client but still the real evolution of the project is in delay which makes it to be finished in delay. This action would lead to a bigger problem, because first he had lied to the client (which makes his professionalism questionable) and he had to catch up on the progression of the project as what he had presented on the claiming client.

• Poor effort had been applied – effort to the max! A phrase that a cartoon character had been always saying. He always puts alls his effort on everything that he do, so that in the end (whether it is a battle or not) he will not regret anything for he knows that he had invested their all he got. Going back, poor effort had been applied, the members or maybe a member had show laziness and had failed to put all his skills and knowledge in the project, this will result in a failure, as usual failure in meeting requirements, its quality and the limited time. It is right to take a step ahead and put all your effort on the development of the project. Projects must be considered as masterpieces, and masterpieces are made to standout! And for it to standout, it must have the right quality.

• Poor plans and planning processes – in the top of this, planning is basically the first key that must be considered for the success of a project. Poor planning of the budget, time, costs, and even the sequence of the elements within a project would have a poor result; it would surely fail, and I could even say it before the project had started. This conclusion could be done even if I had only a minute to think over it. Planning is the foundation of all projects. Having it in a proper way would take the project to the possibility of success, not a 100% but would surely not lower that 60%. So clearly, it is an advantage to take!

• Failure to identify the scopes of the project – Identifying the scope of the project in the first place is an ideal thing to do, to identify the budget, cost and specific time of delivery of the project, its scope must be first analyzed. The scope of the project relies on the request or requirements of the task.

• A manager without a good experience – a group might have difficulties when their leader lacks the experience in controlling the situation. I am not telling that all managers must have an experience, what I was trying to stress out is that a manager must be responsible enough to handle the group, to control the decision making and come up with a nice strategy towards the project.

• Change of Scope - Scopes Changes can also lead to project failure. To Control and to manage scope change is critical to the success of any projects because scope changes can significantly affect the cost, schedule, hazards and quality of the total effort. Affecting all of these is like starting up a new project for you must adjust on all of them. It could also be difficult on the project team to lack direction or to change scopes. They must work hand on hand in order to solve this kind of uncertain event. They must unite to get back in the line of business.

A project is considered to be a failure when it has not delivered what was required or had failed to meet them, in line with expectations. Therefore, in order to succeed, a project must deliver within its budgeted cost, to its expected quality, and on the limited time; and it must deliver the benefits presented in the business case. For a project to be successful, it's not enough simply to manage your project competently, and deliver a good quality product. As was they had been always saying, always put your heart on the things that you do. To avoid failure, make sure you have identified the right business requirements and scopes, created an achievable business case, put strong project governance into place, managed a high-quality implementation, focused on benefits, and monitored your changing environment. And most of all, always aim for the development and not for the money, for money will always comes next after a great development had grown.

As you can see, these are all the reasons of the projects with failed results, basing on it one-by-one you would notice something… As a general conclusion for these, a group manager or even the members must be responsible enough and must commit them selves into the project. Proper education on project management must be learned before indulging into a real project in order to secure project efficiency and to have enough knowledge to solve possible project risks that may occur. The project is there masterpiece which needs effort to be applied. Discipline on the proponents is needed in order for them to achieve their main objectives and ultimate goals. The proper use of project management could give them the opportunity of success. Planning each phases of the project and identifying the scope is some of the basic keys to start the project properly. DISCIPLINE a word that must be noted for this topic!

http://www.adaptivepartners.com/projfailb.htm
http://www.gantthead.com/article.cfm?ID=187449

Definition of Terms

ProjectManagement Assignment 1:

What is a project?
What is management?
What is project management?
(your reflection/learning's on the first day of class)


When probability is not at 0.0%, it's too soon to quit! Effort is always the key to a great success. Starting this one, “Project management” is a subject being introduced to us to learn the art of organizing the elements of a project, to apply it to our upcoming projects and to avoid failure. Most of the cases, a project haven’t being properly organized results to failure. On the first or second day of class, we had already taken a quiz about the given question, where in it was a time pressured and to admit that after the lecture I had realized that partly of my answers was quite wrong. Sharing of ideas and experiences had been added to clarify the importance of the course subject, and hearing all of it, I could conclude that failure always accompany the time. Time is really crucial and must be considered. Deadline is always a deadline, that’s what my professor said through a joke, but taking it seriously he is typically right about that! And to stress out that pin pointing somebody instead of our selves have been usually done in several cases as a project fails. Now let’s start defining some terms, the project, management and even the project management itself.

So, what is a project?

-Project, a word that is so known to all individuals, not only for the working individuals but also for students like us. For working individuals, projects are given to generate several applications for the use of the company they were in. And for students like us, projects are given to apply the learning and test the capability of a student. Project is a task which is a temporary or has a given due that must be considered. Projects undergo in several steps. A project is consisting of several elements; these elements are those tasks that are needed to be accomplished inside a project. Within a time line, elements of a project are specified and are sorted together to manage the whole project. It is also said that a project is a set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations. A project is an undertaking requiring concerted effort, undertaken by a student or group of students to apply, illustrate, or supplement classroom lessons.

-A project must be punctual (time is crucial for a project is temporary and has a definite end), must be passed in its deadline and must meet its requirements. As what I have learned in our first meeting and by reading the given soft copy of a book, a project is consist of some characteristics, it has mainly three (3) major characteristics and these are the; Temporary; Unique products, Services and Results; and finally it is a Progressive elaboration.

-Dealing with these characteristics, let me elaborate it one by one:

oTemporary – a project is said to be temporary because it has a specific due date. It has a definite beginning and an end. And projects must be punctual at any cost. A project is a temporary activity with a starting date, specific goals and conditions, defined responsibilities, a budget, a planning, a fixed end date and multiple parties involved. Therefore, a project has a limited time and the members involved in the said project must cooperate to comply and meet its requirements before the time surpass them.

oUnique products, Services and Results – relating this one on our technopreneurship one (1) last semester, where in we were oblige to make our proposals as our main project for the subject. As far as I could remember, we were ask to have a business proposal which are unique and could serve and render a good quality of service. This is a definite example of a project having this type of characteristics being stressed out. A project must be unique to ensure or certify its quality. It must have the capability of performing and rendering good service. And most of all, a project must have a good outcome or a satisfying result. The projects result must meet the certain demands and qualifications and it must be on time to show a good result.

oProgressive Elaboration – as what I had said earlier, a project is composed of elements and these elements are performed in steps. Once more a project is a set of related tasks which have a specific goal. A project is a progressive elaboration or in other words, it undergo in several steps of progression. A project is a set of interrelated tasks to be executed in steps to have its coordination. It is a characteristic of a project that has the concept of temporary and unique; to elaborate it more; it has the concept of temporary in a way that each steps of its progress has a definite beginning and an end. And the concept of being unique for each of its progress of steps must be unique, so that the project will be more competitive against any other projects of its kind.

-A project is done with several individuals in a group. Now, these projects may fail or succeed depending on the performance if the member within its group. The unity of each member and the eagerness to finish a certain project might be one of the basic keys to its success.

ProjectManagement Assignment 1: Now, what is a management?

-In our lesson, or what I had understand in their sharing’s: management is the organizing and maintenance of a specific thing or task. A manager is the one responsible for organizing or controlling other people to have an accomplishment or to make things or decisions for the efficiency of a desired goal.

-As what I had learned on the first meeting of class, we had clarified the great difference between a good leader and a good manager. Anyone could be a leader but not a manager, and a having a leader is much more effective than having a manager. Directors and managers who have the power and responsibility to make decisions. Manager is the one who controls the members, giving some orders that must be applied on a progression of a project or something. Before, I thought that leading and managing are two similar things, but then I had realized that they had a great difference especially when applied in managing a project. Directors and managers who have the power and responsibility to make decisions to manage (they had the authority to control things that any regular employee couldn't make). As mentioned in the sharing, a leader unlike a manager can lead his or her members in a proper way, not by instructing or dictating them what they should do, but instead being a good model for his team mates and showing them a bunch of efforts for them to have a motivation and start doing things to reach their goals. The ideal project manager does whatever it takes to ensure that the members of the software project team can do their work. This means working with management to ensure they provide the resources and support required as well as dealing with team issues that are negatively impacting a team's productivity. The project manager must possess a combination of skills including the ability to ask penetrating questions for further informations, and resolve some conflicts along with more systematic management skills. A team with a leader not a commander or a manager which leads them properly will surely have the success for doing their tasks.

-Also for the first meeting, I had learned that management comprises planning, organizing, directing, and controlling an organization (PODC). Management is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired their objectives effectively. The process of planning, leading, organizing and controlling people within a group in order to achieve goals.

oPlanning – planning is a part of managing; it is where the proponents or the manager plans the idea and concept of a task or project. This is where they randomly put several ideas for a proposal, which is why it is called a plan. Planning is an act of formulating a program for a definite course of action. Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year, over the next 5 years, etc.) and generating plans for action.

oOrganizing – or simply the implementation of the random plans. Here, ideas from planning are being arranged and “organized” to have a lead of the desired goal. In organizing, we must also consider some factors such as resources. We must also consider resources such as tools or money for the progress of the project or in short making optimum use of the resources required to enable the successful carrying out of plans.

oDirecting – is having a command with authority. Determining what needs to be done in a situation and getting people to do it. Having the authority to conduct or rather to give several instructions. Having a part of leading and conducting. To immediately finish a work, the manager must direct his own followers or members to make it stable.

oControl – another part of managing which only managers can apply, for leaders could not put a control over his members because of the authorization matters. Controlling was being associated to leading, but in further studies both of them have different meanings depending on how they were applied as what I had explained earlier. Controlling is also concern in checking the progress against the plans.

-To manage is to be in charge to secure all tasks and things; managing something is not as easy as it looks for it takes to be allotted a huge time to master it, but being a leader only needs skills to pursue. Effective utilization and coordination of resources such as capital, plant, materials, and labor to achieve defined objectives with maximum efficiency. I think I had already sited the differences between a manager and a leader, so far that’s a part of what I had learned that day.

-For example: in a company or let’s put a bank as the center of our example, in a bank there is a manager who manages all the transactions, it is him or her who controls all the transactions and is the center of the decision making beside the owner. He or she is the one who directs the business.

And finally what is a Project Management?

-Project Management has been described in the book as the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Now think about this, having a big project without any project management, can someone guess the sure result? Yes! Probably it would result in failing; it is somewhat like cooking a viand without even planning what goes first and what goes next. Imagine that you are making a project without having any organization of the stuffs or rather the elements that must be done; it would surely result in a total disaster for you will not know when you’ll be having a critical times. They say that project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives to meet their common requirements.

-Several applications may be used to serve as the medium in performing a project management, these applications caters several fields to help in planning a project. These applications have time-lines that have its beginning period or the start and the due date or the end. These applications can also define the critical parts, and could also help the user guide his or her way to finish the project in the said time.

-At the first meeting I was also introduced to the three important details that could affect a project, it was also known as the triple constraint which forms like a triangle of important details that must be needed to consider inside a project management. The triple constraint involves the project Scope, Time, and Cost. These three must be balance for the quality of the project. A project must be within its budget, and must consider the time which is known as a temporary. The proponents must plan the scope of their desire project to define or know the specific project requirements. The project scope is the definition of what the project is supposed to accomplish, its goals and requirements, and the budget of time and money that has been created to achieve these objectives. It is absolutely unavoidable that any change to the scope of the project have a matching change in budget, either time or resources. It is unavoidable to leave the resources and time exactly the same as the older planned limitations as the scope changes, for the reason that when a projects scope changes, it is expected that it involves the evolution of it or rather widening its scope which deals more time and budget. A project must not surpass its limited budget and most of all, must not surpass the given time. In short it must be punctual and in budget. All these elements are interrelated. Each must be managed effectively. All must be managed together if the project, and the project manager, and the project proponents are aiming a good success.

-And also, managing a project includes: identifying the requirements; establishing clear and achievable objectives; balancing the competing demands for quality, scope, time, and cost; and adapting the specifications, plans and approach to the different concerns and expectations of various stake holders. In a project, identifying its requirements is basically an important thing to do; the proponents must know its requirements for its quality and service purposes. As mentioned earlier, the triple constraint could merely affect the quality of a project, its time, budget of cost and the scope of the project must be considered to reach the projects objective and goals. And most of all in managing a project, planning the sequence of the project elements is a must, to avoid heavy duties and lessen the critical times. Planning and knowing the further solutions that must be needed to apply in the coming challenges or problems inside the said project.

-The term project management is sometimes used to describe something, such as an organizational or managerial approach to the management of projects. And indeed having project management is a real big thing with a real big help in establishing a good quality project.

-Project management as what they had said is carefully planned and organized, and had putted an full effort to accomplish a specific and usually one-time objective, for example, construct a building or implementing a major new computer system (where in making a system needs to have a proper managerial or project management, the whole project must be broken to several elements to avoid errors or conflicts or anything). Project management includes developing a project plan, which includes defining and confirming the project goals and some of its main objectives, its targets, identifying each tasks and how the goals of the project will be achieved, and determining budgets and time-lines for completion. And by the way, in planning a task, it is not always about doing things one at a time, sometimes having two or more things can also be considered depending on the availability of a worker or the toughness or difficulty of a given task, and also depending on the tasks pre-requisites of the said common elements within a project.

An abbreviation was also included in our lecture, it was the S.M.A.R.T. which literally means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reliable, and Time bounded. Five basic keys needed to be considered for the great progress of projects. Most of these basic keys are already discussed above except the part of being reliable. I wonder why I had missed this one important thing, but anyway back to business; reliable, a project must be reliable especially when we are talking about a project consisting of a system. The outcome of the project must be reliable and could handle or produce a good quality performance for several users will surely rely on it.

As I go for a deep research (with a little help from a source for the copy of the file) about the project management as a whole, we had found a file which is an interesting one, which states the Law of project management. These are:

oProjects progress quickly until they are 90% complete. then they remain at 90% complete forever – as what I had understand, it means that a project similarly takes steps of procedures and progress as time passes, that is why we couldn’t get a 100% project completion because of the several changing demands as the technology evolves.

oWhen things are going well, something will go wrong. When things just can't get worse, they will. When things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something – expect the unexpected, that’s the term they usually connect on these situations, which basically means never let your guard down, possibilities do come even in the smallest percentage of it. A project needs effort, and you’ll never avoid challenges to come in any projects.

oIf project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress – lots of changes but still not conquering the main objective of the project, before any changes we must first consider our project objectives, the aims and goals of the project.

oProject teams detest progress reporting because it manifests their lack of progress

For now, I think that’s all what I have learned on our first meeting and on my own researching. The importance of having a project management, the difference between a leader and a manager, the basic keys and elements that must be consider to have a good, satisfying and high quality result of a project, the main characteristics of a project, the things that managing is involved into and etc.. That’s all for this topic and always remember “Only those who endure defeat become stronger. The most elite are those who stand right back up and keep working. The average ones hesitate a moment, and take longer to rise. And the losers are content to stay flat on their backs.” Always put a 100% effort on the things you do and never plan or aim of failing

Death of Consumers

Techno2 Assignment 5: Your understanding about "DEATH OF THE CONSUMERS" .

In the previous task, I had managed to discuss the convergence, its trend and the opportunity it brings. And as mentioned, this trend has a huge scope since there are lots of evolutions that had been gone through within the market, and in hand to this evolutions are the opportunity it had opened among the people. Making these people change their lives, the way they act and the way they think, thus later making a change to the world for people are the basis of its change. This task’s topic is a part of the previous task. Actually I had included a part of this to that text, introducing the part of consumers against prosumers, their death and most of all on how they had evolved and their main differences. I guess I’ll just have to elaborate it further more to make it through the word count.

As we all know, market is about the producers and consumers (aside from the products they were involved in), producers by its name are the one who produces products for the benefit of the consumers. And consumers are the core of the market. Basically without them, market would not live for they are the one who uses and bought the products. These consumers and producers together with the market are all altered by the convergence, wherein convergence is the part where the market had adopted technology to bring a great development and changes. The eagerness of the consumers to have the new trend of technology (which is offered by the market) is mainly the cause of the evolution, for these people crave for more. The contentment of these people is really hard to meet, forcing the development for knowledge and technology, which is also a good thing. The adoption of technology by the producers had been also a way to create a battle and to show their competitive skills against the growing market standards and their competitors, which also leads for a healthy competitors that makes the balance out of it. As a result to this, producers are pushed to engage in several ways to cater their products, thus making the costumers secured about the benefit they can assure for the cost they had paid (simply the cost benefit – lesser cost of a certain product of service at a higher value of performance given).

Again what is convergence? What is thing really about? How we had come up with this exotic idea and grabbed the opportunity of playing with the flow out of it… convergence as what we had discussed on the previous meeting is the union of the old fashioned market with the advance technology. Pulling the best of it, this convergence had mainly change the world through the use of market and technology, giving birth to a new trend of marketing. This had cleared several ways for entrepreneurs to involve technology on their businesses, having a different technology to offer and satisfy clients’ needs and wants. As the trend of conference expands lots of marketing ideas and techniques had been generated to deliver company products. . Internet technology is totally re-defining how businesses are being modeled and how business strategies are being implemented. As this convergence over the market had developed, the people’s quality of life style or their way of facing the market has changed. Having this evolution, it is a more convenience way of facing the market rather than going back to the old one which offers less service and just a bit of the cost – benefit factor.

Before going on the part of consumers and prosumers, let’s first discuss the evolution of the market. At the present time, market had been changed, basically in the means of trading, paying, and etc. at the late century, the market is all about trading with the use of barter to exchange for the good, and as the evolutions come, barter had been deleted and the start of paying by coins (silver or gold) had been a way (as far as I could remember in my elementary lessons ), and that practice had continued until now with the use of money to pay for the goods. Formal marketing as we all know it today had began in the mid of 1970's with the birth of the marketing orientation. By funding up capitals to start a business in the market (in early days), business at that point was merely concerned with their construction, manufacturing, production, and efficiency issues to satisfy their costumers. Years had past and several changes in the market had been granted. The improvement of such services had changed to fit the changing needs and lifestyles of the consumers. Because of this a new stage for the development of the market had arrived, where in the main input is that the business's prime concern was to sell what it produced. The main plan of this is to secure the production rate of the business. They must specialize on something to optimize the categorization and quality of the products they sell. And then later, a new trend in the business marketing had emerged as businesses came to recognize that consumer’s needs and wants drove the whole process. They should dwell or base more on the costumers’ concern and value it. And this is the start were marketing research became popular and important and also the time were marketing competitions had became large and tough. Businesses realized it was futile putting a lot of production and sales effort into products that people did not want. And this was the start were the convergence or the technology had taken place in the field of marketing. They believe that the technology is available today to market to people on an individual basis. They had felt that it is no longer essential to think in broad comprehensive terms like market segments or target markets. The behavior of the market now most rely on the consumers or rather the prosumers, they had stop the believe of giving the people the overall result, but instead they had started a new approach which dwells more on having the products being personalize to achieve a higher satisfactory. The behavior of the said costumers had changed for they themselves are willing to participate in that certain evolution for they had found it better. The coin has been tossed and is now flipped, having them as the ruler of the market and the producers as the servant of their own game. Interesting and effective, that’s all I could say, for they had attracted huge percentage of the costumers by making that big innovation. Could it be possible for a new trend to enter the market and dominate it as what the present market form does?

Death of consumers and the rise of prosumers…

In the later part of marketing, the costumers are rather termed as consumers. Relating it to science, consumers are the one who consumes (considered by its name) the producers, these consumers is a part of the food chain, wherein several cycles where form and being studied. An example of these consumer and producer is a grass and a goat, on how the goat seeks for a living grass to consume it for the mean of survival. Going back to the topic, these consumers in the food chain are also related or have the same meaning on the consumers of the market, for they are the one who consumes the products being produced by the producers and helps the market grows to offer much more several items and services. The only thing that separates this two scenarios are the part of having the consumers as the predators who hunts for prey to survive the nature and the part of having the consumers as the buyers who buys the product and uses the services of businesses to have convenience and some are for savings. Consumers by their nature and behavior, they bought things over the market by simply picking and choosing the items they want, which takes lesser interaction between the market itself and the consumers of the market who takes the products and services. With these, it has been coined that the market had been ruling against the people or (much appropriate) the consumers, for they are the one who dictates the products and the consumers are just the ones who consume them. Where is the sense of having consumers’ rights? As the population of the people around the world changes every day, until now where it comes to billions of them, the demand for the supplies and services in the market increases, the behavior of these consumers had also been changed because of their population and distinct personalities, behavior occurs either for the individual, or in the context of a group (e.g., friends influence what kinds of clothes a person wears) or an organization (people on the job make decisions as to which products the firm should use). Consumer behavior involves the use and disposal of products, the kind and quality of the product as well as the study of how they are purchased. Products use is often of great interest to the marketer, because this may influence how a product is best positioned or how we can encourage increased consumption. Since many environmental problems result from product disposal (for example: motor oil being sent into sewage systems to save the recycling fee, or garbage piling up at landfills and scraps on the junkyard) this is also an area of interest. Prosumers has their distinct behavior which demands more and more, and for this they were considered too annoying and crying for better services which could handle all of them and could give them a lot more satisfaction of the payment they had been giving. For these matters, the market where oblige to find a way to offer these crying costumers what they want, basing on what they yell, what they do, considering their personalities and needs. Thus the evolution of the market together with the technology and the consumers within its scope had changed to a better one, which considers the consumers designs, wants and desires. Internet technology is totally re-defining how businesses are being modeled and how business strategies are being implemented. The excesses left behind by this large rate of innovation however are small businesses and entrepreneurs who are not equipped and unwilling to grip on the new technologies, mainly attributed to the fear of the unknown. Technopreneurs has provided the latest information on new, emerging Internet technology trends, sifting the hype from business reality. You will get the inside track on all things Internet technology that will impact your business tremendously. Business and technology are almost always entwined. The evolution of technology had led to the evolution of business. The one who spots technological trends and learns to use it, gains an upper hand over their competition. Because Technopreneur makes it a point to stay ahead of the game, you will receive the freshest, most relevant hindsight ahead of time. This will save you time, which you would better spend at what you already do best at – making money, the people involved in the market nowadays had been using the internet as the medium for shopping. Despite from being demanding, this new form of market users are intellectual and are technologically knowledgeable. Then these consumers where termed as the prosumers, for in this evolution the costumers somehow they had started it. This is now where the death of consumers had begun, for they had been replaced along with their behaviors, style and trends with a new one which fits the form of the growing society and fast changing technology. A good thing about this market is it considers having a lot of interaction between the business and the costumer, to ensure what they really like, desire and want, for them to be satisfied in short. To have a clarity and purity on what these prosumers are really about and what are they, on how they had been evolved and been described, here is a meaning from the Wikipedia - Prosumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or producer with the word consumer. The term has taken on multiple conflicting meanings: (and several people among the internet had been discussing and debating about it, but for me it is about one thing, innovation and development to change our behavior, our lifestyle and probably the world), the business sector sees the prosumer (professional–consumer) as a market segment, whereas economists see the prosumer (producer–consumer) as having greater independence from the mainstream economy. It can also be thought of as converse to the consumer with a passive role, denoting an active role as the individual gets more involved in the process. More recently, in the mental health field, the word "'prosumer'" has come to mean "consumer/provider," also known as a "peer provider," such as a peer support specialist or other mental health consumer who also provides peer support mental health services (background on peer-run mental health services). The word "Prosumerise" has been coined by Widality to represent the merging of the IT and mobility requirements of the prosumer, consumer, and enterprise. Prosumer as professional consumers which is all about the marketing and marketing segments; prosumer as the producer consumers which are about the independence of the consumers from the economy. Combining this, we could have a result of having these prosumers as the one involved in the market which has the independence of having what they desire and love. They completely have the power over the market, for they are the one who dictates what to do and what they would like to have. As the trend of conference expands lots of marketing ideas and techniques had been generated to deliver company products where in it is one way of calling the attention of the costumers or consumers. They had been widely using the technology to commercialize their products through using the internet as the main medium or other broadcasting tools and strategies. As the said convergence had changed, the people’s quality of life style and behaviors or their way of facing the market had evolved. People nowadays are much more called prosumers than consumers. There is what they state as the death or consumers and the rising of prosumers. In most cases on the market, people or the clients are the one who dictates the result (outcome) of the product. They make changes on specific products to personalize it and make it their original stuffs. Now this is still a way of engaging through costumer’s right? Giving them what they exactly want and need. It is rather much more interesting than having those readymade products, which you cannot manipulate the designs and features of it. And all of these make up what they call as prosumers. The involvement of technology within the market had really been putted up something fascinating for the prosumers and the business. It had opened several ways to come through the clients and make a deal with them. However, to reach a high degree of customization, consumers would have to take part in the production process especially in specifying design requirements. In a sense, this is merely an extension or broadening of the kind of relationship that many affluent clients have had with professionals like architects for many decades. Prosumers are considered as elite type of customers who have their own mind to think for specific fashioned styles which fits there need, wants and personalities. Prosumers would have rather spend their time on stressing what they want, that’s why they were called as professional consumers. With customization focused on leisure pursuits, this has been largely supplanted by a second pair of blurring roles: that of the professional and consumer. In particular, hobbyists have become ever-more demanding in the pursuits of their hobbies, often rising above the level of dilettante to the point of commanding skills equal to that of professionals. Pursuing on what they really want and need, these professional consumers would request a thing to satisfy their needs and demands.

Prosumers versus Consumers…

Prosumers versus consumers. What are their differences? This section was covered at the paragraph of the death of consumers and the rise of consumers. I had stated there their descriptions and differences. But again, in the era that the market has the control over the people, they termed the costumers as consumers who consume their products. And at the time of the convergence, where in the technology have merged with the market processes, peoples’ demands had grown and in this specific period they had been taking the control over the market and hence they were called the prosumers. Prosumers take the part of being participative in the field of marketing as the user or consumer of the products and services. These prosumers are more interactive. They demand for what they want and need to the producers for the market to produce it. Prosumers are veteran form of consumers who deal and interact with the market for services, unlike the consumers who used to buy or consume the goods and services in the market without any demand or suggestions, prosumers are more skillful that’s why they were termed as professional consumers.

The evolution of the market from having its simple form to its complex and interesting form had been a great change that affected the quality of services and had largely contributed for the change of the world. The behavior and lifestyle of the people from being a consumer to a higher structure of being a prosumer had increased the quality of life. The start of having so called prosumers which emphasizes the meaning of giving the clients the trend to apply modifications, enhancements or requests on the purchasing product. Through the influence and behavior of the market prosumers, they had been changing the structure and scope of the market in a large percentage every now and then. Who knows, the evolution still continuous and there might be a more dominant form of market users (the producers and consumers to prosumers). Several concepts are still up to be discovered, but the thing is, is it as good as the other one? Be waiting for the next evolution of these market professionals.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer
http://techcrunch.com/2007/06/15/the-rise-of-the-prosumer/
http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/
http://technopreneur.wordpress.com/about/

The Convergence

Techno2 Assignment 4: Identify and discuss Trends and Opportunities in convergence.


Several changes had been done after some developments. The lifestyle of the people, and even the marketing ways had evolved to a more efficient one. Markets several centuries had past are merely ordinary shops, providing people readymade materials and some choices to choose from. And think over this, will it always be satisfying for the costumers to have readymade products which are not changeable according to what they really like? Maybe sometimes, for it offers variety of products to choose from when their confused on thinking for a better one. As developments occurred, markets now are well-organized and competent, giving people the opportunity to create and match their own fashion. Thus, making them satisfy for they could just request on how things will look like. One of the best innovations in the world as the technology enters the field of marketing.

Had you ever tried having some personalized stuffs? Maybe several of us do, now are you satisfied with the result? Basically it is, for it is your design; your way and fashion; your creation. Just disregard the fact of having an ugly design which came up as unsatisfactory for your part. It is really fascinating to see your design come to life and make use of it. Though I myself is not an artist or rather a good designer, but making my desired or preferred things in reality and seeing the uniqueness of them is really worthy.
This article is about Convergence, its trends and opportunities, seeing the advantages of it and maybe some of its disadvantages; the evolution of the market as the technology collides through it. Convergence as what we had discussed on the previous meeting is the union of the old fashioned market with the advance technology. With this, they had optimized their services; offering and giving or ensuring clients the guarantee for more satisfaction. This had opened new businesses, new opportunities, new trends and new lifestyles for the people. It had totally made a great change trough out the world. As we all know, nowadays technology had been widely used for several purposes (it may be personal or job purposes). This had opened a chance for the entrepreneurs to involve technology on their businesses, having a different technology to cater clients’ needs and affection, enhancing their products through this, thus gaining their edges against their competitors.

As the trend of conference expands lots of marketing ideas and techniques had been generated to deliver company products where in it is one way of calling the attention of the costumers or consumers. They had been widely using the technology to endorse their products via the internet or other broadcasting tools and strategies. As the said convergence had developed, the people’s quality of life style or their way of facing the market had evolved. People nowadays are much more called prosumers than consumers. There is what they state as the death or consumers and the rising of prosumers. In most cases on the market, people or the clients are the one who dictates the result (outcome) of the product. They make changes on specific products to personalize it and make it their original stuffs. Now this is still a way of engaging through costumer’s right? Giving them what they exactly want and need. It is rather much more interesting than having those readymade products, which you cannot manipulate the designs and features of it. And all of these make up what they call as prosumers. The involvement of technology within the market had really been putted up something fascinating for the prosumers and the business. It had opened several ways to come through the clients and make a deal with them.

New services, new technologies, new market structures, new business models, and less stringent regulations. Convergence has brought change not only in the way we live, but also in the way we think and the way we act on our lifestyles. Since the trend of convergence had been rapidly evolving, lots of businesses had been starting to run giving many individuals the chance to take some benefits (such as: to land a job, to generate their own business, to make their own adventures or explore and etc.). Therefore, this convergence had catered several opportunities to many individuals. Let’s pin point some of the convergence field. Through the internet, people had started to create their own businesses, advertising their businesses or even in simple blogging or making their pages (which are paid via the ads). With this as the medium, they had found an easy way to earn money. Job opportunities had been widely expressed via the internet, you just have to take advantage of it, grab it and put some effort to it. So let’s express it like this, people had been surfing the internet almost two (2) – three (3) hours a day. At the start, only several individuals had been using these as a medium of communications or anything else, but it had rapidly boosted its user as the time passes by making it up to millions of specified users or individuals. They are so vulnerable on the things that are on the net. You could put up a topic on your page (just for an example) and add ads to it, arrange it, have a thorough research on it to make the description and content clear and understandable and make it more presentable. So here is my point, over these millions of users over the internet who surfs for about an hour a day perhaps, you could find even a hundred of them who shares the same interest as you are. As they surf, they would come to visit your page and have a little fun and enjoyment reading your posted topics. So you can earn some penny by doing this. Add all those hundreds of users who shares your interest, make them satisfied on the information you created and they will surely come back to visit your page again. Another example is the online shopping, through the convergence, people had preferred to stay on their houses, shop along the internet and make use of the provided technology. For example you are on the business of padlocks (it could be a key and lock, combination padlocks or etc.) wherein several people wanted to have them to ensure the protection and security of their assets or belongings. They would surely surf the net and search for an online shop that caters the business. Let’s say about thousands of that users wanted to have some of your products, they would surely drop by your business and make some orders. Which is as you can see, is a win – win basis or situation. Both the costumer and the vendor takes the good side of it where in the vendor had gain because of the product sold and the costumer had purchased the said product with an ease (putting away the hassle of going outside searching for hardware manually which results in a stressed body and a feet full of dusts). Hence you as the vendor had been granted the opportunity to earn money through the use of the technology and via the internet.

To discuss the advantages of convergence over the old fashioned one, here is some of it on a list:

• Convenience – let’s put again the online shop as an example for this. Convenience simply because it is less hassle. Clients or prosumers rather may surf through the internet, finding for what they want and purchase them. Less effort, in a much more service. Skipping the idea of going outside to search and canvas for a product. Another example of this is some specific products, which had evolved into a convenient one which are handy or instant, wherein people would surely prefer them than having the odd way.s
• Saving – for the clients’ side: time is a deal here, as what they had been always saying, “Time is gold”. Maximize your time and save more money, that’s the thing! Commonly, people would waste their time in shops, but now they could save it through proper use of technology. For the company’s side: having fewer workers to be paid, for they would surely need some who will maintain the site and the business.
• Security – lots of tragedy might happen as you where roaming on the street, let’s say a car accident, a thief might stole the purchased product or some burglar businesses, through using the online shops you could easily avoid these plus they will provide you the security you would surely like such as; confidentiality, avoiding those said tragedies and etc.. Although things like eavesdropping or theft might be present, but just secure your information at any cases.
• Accessibility – this came after convenience, to avoid web traffics clients on the shop have intervals in purchasing items but to sure you that it is not as time consuming compared on waiting for your turn on the market to bought items over the cashier. One of the conveniences the technology could offer among us is the accessibility of these shops which. And note that accessibility is also a component of saving – time saver.
• Income – for businesses, they would certainly grow their income rates after applying such changes.

To interpret or discuss further, here is a topic about the new trend of business modeling and technopreneurs, which had caught my attention while searching for an idea: Internet technology is totally re-defining how businesses are being modeled and how business strategies are being implemented. The residues left behind by this rapid rate of advancement however are small businesses and entrepreneurs who are not equipped and unwilling to embrace new technologies, mainly attributed to the fear of the unknown. Technopreneurs has provided the latest information on new, emerging Internet technology trends, sifting the hype from business reality. You will get the inside track on all things Internet technology that will impact your business tremendously. Business and technology are almost always entwined. Evolution of technology inadvertently leads to evolution in business. The one who spots technological trends and learns to use it, gains an upper hand over their competition. Because Technopreneur makes it a point to stay ahead of the game, you will receive the freshest, most relevant hindsight ahead of time. This will save you time, which you would better spend at what you already do best at – making money. Technopreneur is your blog, so make the best use of it by posting your comments or thoughts, exchanging ideas and airing your doubts. And by the way, to read the whole topic, here is the link of the page 

http://technopreneur.wordpress.com/about/ .

The next thing is, is there a disadvantage about the evolution of the marketing lifestyle? Is there a disadvantage over these convergences? I had been searching but failed to found something, but had generated this idea: since these convergences had simplified some of the things to help people change their lives, having too much of it would result on laziness… they would much prefer having these shortcuts than being stressed. How would it all end up? Hence, making balance would do the measurements. Sometimes being neutral is a good way of exercising an individual’s creativeness, so don’t rely too much on these technologies because old ways had just evolved and had never been replaced. They had been proven through the years, and the basis of all what we got today.

To summarize it, convergence on the marketing processes or the merging of marketing ways (applying the technology through marketing strategies to enhance or develop the way of engaging to the clients) and the technology had change the world, had made several changes over our lifestyles and also, had opened some opportunities to be grabbed. The start of having so called prosumers which emphasizes the meaning of giving the clients the trend to apply modifications, enhancements or requests on the purchasing products (to ensure a satisfaction guaranteed). Having numerous of advantages, we could conclude that the said convergence is really successful, and as the technology arises, people would grasp on the upcoming changes over the developments.

Make Meaning by Guy Kawasaki

Techno2 Assignment 3: Your reflection/learnings/thought on the video clip of Guy Kawasaki: MAKE Meaning

Nowadays, several businesses had been generating which conducts several services for the people. Starting from small enterprises to large scale enterprises, where in (SME) small – medium enterprise had the most numbers in terms of population. These businesses have their guidelines, goals, and objectives in creating their businesses. Some of these businesses are intended basically to earn a living and create their own better lives, and some are generated for the purpose of a great innovation. Regardless of the two, still a business could open job opportunities for those needy ones, but the thing is until when could that certain business survive the wrath of the growing competition? And for that simple matter I could suggest that better think more than twice in each milestone you take.

The evolution of the technology is indeed too progressive; a massive part of developments today are most consisting of the technological developments. We could merely maximize the concept of developing it by simply aiming for the good of the others and not ourselves. To change the world; make it a better place; show a valuable meaning in all aspects; and sustain a better life for the people.

Guy Kawasaki, a known venture capitalist had shared some talks regarding the concept of an ideal nature of the desired business, emphasizing the deal of making meaning on your company.

To begin with, we were presented by a video of Guy Kawasaki entitled “The Art of the Start”, this video last for just (2) two minutes. Just two minutes of your life, but could even make a whole change out on the remaining ones. His practical lesson was about having or making meaning as the center of your desired business, which states that the business must be founded to change the world, to make the world a better place, to make meaning and make difference. Clearly, in starting up a business, you must aim for development and not for the money that it will return. Despite of having it as you love or interest, you must also consider the fact that it has been created to make innovations and change the world to make a more interesting one. Making meaning as the center of the business could promise a big difference, not only for the company but also for the world itself. He stated that “if you make meaning you would probably make money, but if you settle out to make money you would probably not make meaning and you won’t make money.” For money always comes next after the development. Let’s put this as an example: a cell phone, generally it was created to improve the quality of communications between several people. As they had said, there is always a meaning behind anything. Behind these highly evolved phones are the improvement of technology, communications and lifestyles. By these thing, people now can communicate wherever they maybe (as long as there is a signal of course), via this, people can now have their conversations without having it mailed or having it as a fax (which takes time compared to this phone that could send texts messages over the network.) see the results of innovation?

Do you remember the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? As I could remember, Steve Jobs had been always up to developing something new and Bill Gates was merely after the money that will be collected out of his projects. Steve Jobs who’s always up to a large innovation had started inventing and discovering specific things which made him popular and rich (see how money will come after you when you aim for the development and making a meaning on your business?) and In contrast, Bill Gates with his superb abilities had came up to the part of having the technology, had introduced it and had taken the fame of it. The fruit of Steve Jobs work had raised the era of technology, where in computers had started it evolution, making it more powerful and designed to conduct specific tasks for the people, giving them the ease of taking the difficult chores. And now, computers had been widely used for studies, works, and other things.

People are craving for developments isn’t it? Make meaning and money will come, generally because if you make your developments, people will surely appreciate it and would surely grab the opportunity of having it. As you make your meaning and objectives in your company, you must also consider the keys of it. First is to have the increase of the quality of life, as you start generating your business, you must also consider on how it would help the people on their everyday living. It is about giving them the boost on the quality of their lives; giving them the ease out of their troubles; giving them the satisfactory on their needs. Is that what people are looking forward to? Yes it is! The next part is right a wrong. A wrong is still wrong regardless of the impact of it; it must be changed in order to see things clearly; it must be modified and prohibited to be tolerated for it to be useful as time goes by. You must find something wrong in this world, change it and be a part of its progress; to end those wrongs and change the world to a better place. For simple mistakes could lead to destruction, connecting it to the environment and business, failure to prevent and kill the mistake would lead to a chaos. In any problem there is always a solution, you must see through it, take a specific solution and make it as your own opportunity for development. And lastly is to prevent the end of something good, even if it is already settled for now, a business must still undergo to several operations and progressions to ensure that it will not come to an end. Continue the progress of the innovation and make some difference.

Head start or a perfect start is one basis of having a good business. The development and innovation of the technologies had been conquering the market selling different goods and services. Ensuring the costumers higher satisfactory rates for the item or service she or he had brought. The innovation and evolution of the technology had ensured us the quality of a better life among the people.

Anyway, who is Guy Kawasaki? (a brief introduction for Guys Kawasaki, taken from his page / blog site). He is one of the famous venture capitalists. He has been famous for his good books that give lots of meanings. Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures; it is an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start (where in we had been discussing about), Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. His books are ideal for those who had been starting businesses, for them to be inspired and to have a path to f He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1954. His family lived in a tough part of Honolulu called “Kalihi Valley”. He attended Iolani School where he graduated in 1972. Currently, he is founding partner at Garage and co-founder of Alltopollow. Anyone who likes to have the same or somehow at most of his achievements, just visit his page, here is a provided link for the benefits of the readers:
http://www.guykawasaki.com/

As we were tackling the self mastery phase of the SEED structure, I had remembered that we were task to have a unique business’s proposal. Relating it to this topic, we were task to have a unique proposal to help on the progress of the technology, for us to generate some kind of idea which would help the innovation. (I think, somehow a part of it had been intended to generate several innovations)

How to change the world and make things happen? Let break it down to pieces. To change the world you must start by improving the quality of the people’s life; and to improve the quality of life, we must start in innovating the technologies. There, we had our first and the base of all happenings. We had to start by developing our technologies; through this we can secure people the ease of almost everything. For example, through technology, all the stuffs (whether a food or a service) had become instant (instant coffee, instant noodles, and etc.). And because of this, we had been given the opportunity to stand along the development of technology without any constrains. People had started to crave for more development, for they had seen the improvements in their lifestyle which later on will result in a much more progressed environment, thus making a big change to the whole world.

Here are some of the talks that Mr. Guy Kawasaki had introduced: Innovation and product development (were in he lay out the strategic steps to create new products and services, for the starting companies to have their lead on their new standards and innovations. To aim changes for a better world) – we should not focus on the technology we already have (we could just support it in its progress to prevent it from falling apart) but instead put a big effort on those things we don’t have, to make things happen and contribute in the side of technology. Entrepreneurship (in which he provides the fundamental knowledge needed to start a new organization). Intrapreneurship (illustrates the benefits of treating every company as a startup. Were in he challenged the managers to show out their capabilities and skills). And etc. As you could notice, his books were always about the innovations and for the benefits of other and not for the money that it would pay him for his works. To have this kind of mind set is more likely to become a hero on technologies. If all managers had this kind of mind set, the technology would prosper more and more people would surely benefit on it. Isn’t it?

The competition in the field of technopreneurship had opened a path to showcase different technologies. Inventors were forced to develop specific gadgets to stay in the role and cope up to the fast changing environment. With this, in a year or later, technology will have a big boom and in each development it will undergo, people will be served with several services.

There are several technology in this country that are extremely fascinating and amazing, all of those technology is being studied to prosper it and make changes on it basing on the services that it could / would give. But despite of this, several wrongs are noticeable and should be treated properly, to make use of it and to make changes on it.
As the class has ended, we were tasked to share different ideas that we had generated out of those studies or discussion and that certain video clip. We had shared all that we had understood including the importance of giving a meaning to a business (not just in businesses but also to make meaning in all that we do, to be meaningful for short). Giving a meaning to the business is like giving a quality on the services and products that they will offer, contributing in the fast changing environment of the technology.

(To summarize it)… The main idea of this article is about making meaning on your businesses, it is like an art for a good start. Making meaning will eventually show developments and gradually make money. Making money is not the main course a business should have, for it will not generate anything besides of money. Mr. Guy Kawasaki had been stressing out that we should aim for the development of the technology, as future technopreneurs (maybe) if given a chance to be engaged in such business, we should choose the development over the fame. We should give people the chance to make themselves feeling comfortable by enhancing the trends of technology.