Customer Management System
There are tons of systems out there trying to improve business processes of utility companies in general or electric companies in specific.
The key is still doing the re-engineering process well and the application system will just a tool to follow the processes. I put some of my thoughts about Electric Management System in this blog. Feel free to read and comment.
Many electric companies install meter inside customer's property for the following reasons:
1. To avoid that the meter is being stolen.
2. To avoid weather conditions like rain, hot temperature, etc.
3. To avoid people vandalism.
These type of strategy does not seem to be very strategic in today life. Especially in the big cities where are most couples are working and do not have somebody in the house during working hours. Even if the owner of the house has maid, they usually instruct the maid to not open the door if visitors are not recognized. This behavior will surely becoming obstacle for meter readers to do their job. In the end, the electric consumption need to be estimated. Or in some electric company, the bill is not going to be generated and waiting for next real reading.
Energy or commercial losses are increasing if the electric companies are not going to do something about it. With the advancing technologies, meter are becoming cheaper and cheaper every year. Not to mention that the meter is mostly weather proof. This is a great news for electric companies as they could launch a campaign to move the meter outside the property. Moving the meter outside the property will surely:
1. Speed up the reading process.
2. Easily identify fraud done by customers.
3. In the end, it reduces commercial losses and bring more revenues to companies.
As project manager, you tend to be invited to some informal meetings. These informal meetings could take place in restaurants, golf courts, or even casinos. That it why as a project manager, one should as well enhance his or her social knowledges for other sports and/or activities during leisure time. A common interest could make an informal meeting more relax. Imagine a situation where you are invited to casino by your partner to have informal meeting and you just stand there having conversation without playing. Simply because you do not know how to play the game.
Well, it is never too late to learn something new. With advanced technologies nowadays, you can easily try to play online casinos. However, be very careful with some online casinos because they are fraud. Big Fraud! You should keep your credit card from such website. Try to look the reviews of online casino in Online Casino Topic. That website is giving a review of outstanding online casinos available. Try to look on the detailed review and you can find some of the sites are giving bonuses for you to play with. Aside from the review, the site offers you some tips and strategy. If you are really beginner, there is an information page that describe how the game is being played with the rules.
Some of you might thing that this is not a good idea to learn how to play. Well my friend, my opinion is that something is bad if it is excessively and without control Even working could be bad if you do it over and loss control of your rest time. Online casino is a good place to learn as you can control yourself without the pressure of other people watching you or waiting for your move. You can start with penny deals as well.
In the end, it is good to learn new things!
"Analysis and Design" Phase is a phase in Project Management for Application or Software. During this process, a consultant or analyst will do depth analysis on the current situation and relate them with the application, software, or system that are going to be implemented or enhanced.
Though it is one of very important phase in the project management, there seem to be ignored or not paid attention to. Below are the common reasons:
1. The Analysis and Design considered as a "boring" phase in the project. The analyst need to document all activities and gaps that we identified. The design created is sometime too general. Client or parties being interviewed are sometime just tell the problems in general without going into details. They get bored telling the problems and assuming that the consultant or analyst should pick up their own from any documentation available.
2. Lack of of time dedicated. With limited time, analyst often relies on client's documents or interview. The important part is too see or experience him/herself the current system and understand the behavior and problems of the current systems.
3. Related to point 1 and 2, the design is not detailed or not yet verified by the technical people that are going to do the enhancement. The design is supposed to be detailed with proposed print screens of the enhancement or functionalities. Clients or users does not tend to understand the detail design during approval. In their mind, they will wait until the development is finished and will do the review afterwards. But this is not how it suppose to work. Both parties should understand in details what the design is and how the end product will be to avoid arguments during product testing.
In order to avoid problem and make a good analyst and design, project manager or team leader should allocate enough time and good analyst on this phase. Analyst should understand fully about the system and create as detailed design documentation as possible. All proposed windows, functions, and button should be presented if applicable. Analysis on cases, what if, should be documented as well.
On the other hand, client or user should put more effort collaborating with analyst to inform him/her all concerns. When the design documentation if finished, client should understand completely what are in the document.
In the end, it is better to re-work on design documentations until both parties are satisfied with the design. It is more cost and time savings to re-do the design documentations instead of to re-do the development in future.
Working in the project requires me to travel into some countries. Calling to my family or offices abroad becoming my daily routines. To reduce the cost of calling abroad, I make use of Internet Phone Service. There are many providers out there that can give you good rate for Long Distance Phone Rates. However, make sure that you have good internet connection. Otherwise, your calls will be delayed. It is very disturbing especially when you make a business call.
One thing that put in my mind when choosing a provider for internet phone is the capability to store my phone book online. This way, I can make a phone call from any computers by just signing in into the software and all my phone book are displayed. It is a good back up for my contact numbers online as well. Another aspect for consideration is if the provider has Unlimited Long Distance Calling Plan. I used to call my families often. I might say daily. Thus, an unlimited calling plan helps me a lot in saving my calling costs.
Try to search around regarding providers that suit your needs. If you are using internet phone in the office, try to check out if the software is allowed by your admin. Some softwares will not pass the proxy server set by your admin.
Christmas is coming next month we need to buy some gifts for our loved ones. It is becoming a tradition in my family to exchange gifts in during Christmas eve. We need to email our wish list to family to make sure that the gifts are usable. I like to do shopping a month before Christmas to avoid hassle and crowd places in shopping centers. Anyway, most stores already started their SALE signs even a month ago.
During my leisure time, I like as well to browse for coupons to save more money for money Christmas shopping budget. For my colleagues, I could find Hallmark coupons and get a 20% off for my orders during checkout.
Aside buying gifts for my families, I would like to reward myself during this Christmas. I started to do this kind of reward 2 years ago when I read a book regarding motivate myself by rewarding my hard work for the year. For me, I am thinking a brand new laptops. I am still comparing the prices and specs of different manufactures. Ofcouse I also browse some coupons to save my laptop spending. I saw some coupons on Dell deals.
Project Implementation, especially in Utility System Project Implementations, requires specialist consultants to do the tasks. Each consultant has his/her role and responsibility to carry out the project implementation. Mostly, there is no overlap knowledge to minimize the cost of consultants in the project.
The situation like above creates a fragile project environment if a one consultant is absent due to any reasons. The project could be affected or worst it could be stopped temporarily if the consultant who are absent has the knowledge that could create a bottle neck in the project implementation.
This is where knowledge management should be considered in project implementation. There should be another person or consultant that could handle the task if a certain consultant is absent. Of course the result could not be maximum as the replacement consultant is a current consultant working on the project implementation handling other area. Knowledge management could be implemented by assigning a buddy consultant (from different area) to each consultant (say consultant A). The buddy consultant should attend all meetings attended by the consultant A to make sure he/she knows the progress and some tasks done by consultant A. This ways, a buddy consultant could handle temporary some tasks if consultant A is absent temporarily?
Another question is that... how if consultant A is absent permanently because of resigning? Well, a good human resource department in a company should require 1 month advance notice for a consultant to resign. This time could be enough for a company to hire another consultant with the same or similar profile.
As a project member, you need to work smart to keep everything under control. Working hard alone is, nowadays, not enough.
More positions and tasks in the project are minimal supervised by our boss. In the end, our boss just needs the end result. He/she does not care how we manage your time to do the task. If you work with each day has been defined what you should do, then, Congratulation! you are a winner.
Planning the things to do is no secret anymore for any time management. One thing that I recommend you to do is to review your things to do 5 minutes before you are heading off from your work. You will not image how this can help you a lot in monitoring your task for the next day.
Ok. To be more specific, just say that it is 5 minutes before going home. Get your things to do list and review one by one which one:
- pending
- finished
- finished but create another item.
For item 1 and 2, there are self explanatory. For point 3, this is the task that you have finished but in the end, it creates another task that you need to do. For example in the list of things to do is: Obtain finance data from John. Once you get the data, the format is not as you expected. Thus, the next day you can not create a report in the time that you have allocated. You need to reformat the data and it will surely take 1/2 day of your time (for example). It means that "Obtain finance data from John" is finished, but "Reformat data from John" is created and will be included in your things to do for tomorrow.
Using this simple review, you will benefit much. You will know where you are now as compared with your goal or achievement for the week. You will also be up to date with all the progress that you have. Imagine if all the sudden your boss call you and asking when you can finish the finance report. You will be able to answer with confidence and explain a delay in reasonable answers.
Once you finish reviewing your shot list, you can include the pending and new items for your things to do for the next day. Giving priority will enhance your time management so that you know what to put down first thing in the morning for the next day. No equal priority should be given. Next day when you come to the office, you just need to tackle down all the things in your list one by one. You will fell well when you see how many tasks you are able to cross out in your list.
I hope that this 5 minute review before signing off from work can be beneficial for you as it is helping me a lot. The key is persistent on doing this. Make it as a habit for you.
