Is PayPerPost for me?

I have written my blogs long ago. I started my blog to share my knowledge to the community... hoping that I can review them in future time. One day, one of my friends told me about payperpost.

Well, at the beginning I was reluctant to sign up because my friend has high PR blog, and for him, it is easy to get high offer and earn more than $1000 per month. It even encouraged him to quit him daily job so that he can spend more time with his family.

But after I took a look again on payperpost, I realize that even with a low PR, I can still earn. I finally said to myself ... why I did not take this opportunity? I am writing blog regularly anyway.... why don't I get some extra income? I can also donate this money to some needy near my house. I do not target myself like my friend where he can already resign from his job and do some online business. I just continue writing what I like and look some for offers that is related to my topics.

Here I am.. joining the community and share some of my opinions. Try to look on and see if this suits you. There is nothing to loose in trying. What an opportunity in today's technology. Good Luck!

Hotel Management for Project Managers

One thing that the project managers often do is to travel. Either to attend the business meeting or visit the sites. If you are in a big multinational companies, most likely you do not need to do the hassle to book and look for a place to stay because all have been arranged by your administration personnel.

However, some of project managers do not have this luxury. I, for example, am often asked where I want to stay when I am traveling. To some extend, this is good because I can choose the hotel and location to stay. The company gives me an idea of the budget and I am free to book my hotel.

There are many services in the internet that can help you research, but I like to use Hotel Reservations

I just need to spend 5 minutes to ask myself the following questions before booking:

1. Do I travel to a place that I never visited? If Yes, I try to look a strategic place of the hotel that let me wander around easily after business meeting. If Not, I try to look for farther place quite but good facilities. Usually, farther place offer you a cheaper price with better facilities.

2. Do I have hectic schedule for a meeting in the place I visited? The same strategy I will decide like number 1.

3. Am I going to treat some business partners? If Yes, I try to look for a prestige hotel so that I can treat them with hotel facilities like bars and restaurant. If Not, it is better to look for hotel with more personal facilities like swimming pool, good bathtub inside, etc.

You can add some more criteria if you like, but in general I used those criteria above. Once I have an idea in mind, I search what I want in Hotel Reservations. Most of the time it offers me a good price compared if I need to contact directly the hotel. The available searching criteria gives me better options to choose. The description of hotels is accurate for me to select the one I wanted. Try to not look back to your decision once you book the hotel otherwise you will spend hours and hours wasting your time thinking if you have made the right decision.

This kind of technique only takes me 15 minutes and I can have a business travel at the same time enjoying my stay.

Well, personally I also used Hotel Reservations to book my holidays because it offers a good price and promo and discounted resorts around the world.

Validation during Data Gathering: Meter Duplicate

Before implementing Customer Management System, Data gathering is often used to improve the quality of data that will be used by new billing system.

One of the entity to be improved is Meter information. During data gathering, the meter number should be checked if there are duplicate meters. Ideally, a manufacturer or a utility company will NOT allow meter number duplicate among same brand and type. Thus, the meter duplicate should be checked by using Meter Brand + Meter Type or Model + Meter Number.

Any duplicate meters should be rechecked because most of the time, it is a mistake of surveyors. A list containing two or more meters that are duplicated should be given to a surveyor or supervisors to be checked in the field. This task is recommended to be be done daily by supervisors while he/she is doing the audit to surveyors.

Ensuring no duplicate meters will improve the performance of Customer Management System since it will enable the billing system to search customer by using meter number. Other benefit is that it will enable the company to do good inventory of the meters.

The Important of Meter Digit

In Customer Management System for Electric company, it is important that the system records meter digit.

Business process personnel from the company should decide whether they are going to tell the readers to read only the real number or until the decimal point. Example in the picture has meter digit 5.1 (5 digit real numbers and 1 decimal digit). This decision will impact on how the meter digit is stored in the system. If reader is going to read only the real number, then in example picture, reader will record only "00001" (without "4"). Also, the customer management system or billing system will only record 5 as meter digit.

Meter digit or sometimes called meter dials could be used by the system to detect meter turn over. Ok... what is meter turn over you may ask. Meter turn over is when the meter reaches its maximum number when registering kWh consumption. Let us say that you have a meter with 5 meter digit, when the previous reading is 99998 and the current reading is 00001, the system should detect that there is meter turnover and the consumption will be calculated as 3 kWh (99998 going to 99999, 99999 going to 00000, 00000 going to 00001) because the system knows that that meter can only reach up to 99999 and will be return back to 00000.

This can be also a good indicator for a company to trigger a service order to calibrate a meter.

Agile Project Management for Utility System

There are quite number of articles or argument on Agile Project Management. One thing that interest me is the discussion whether this Agile Project Management is only applicable on software development project or any other projects?

This summary from ccpace.com could answer our mind bugling:

The best project managers aren’t just organizers – they combine business vision, communication skills, soft management skills and technical savvy with the ability to plan, coordinate, and execute. In essence, they are not just managers – they are leaders. While this has always been the case, agile project management
places a higher premium on the leadership skills than ever before.

For example, XP teams create and monitor their own iteration plans in collaboration with the customers. The customer creates stories (features) and prioritizes them based on business value. The developers divide up the tasks themselves as they work and measures progress for each iteration (time-boxed development cycle), adjusting plans with the customer as necessary. So, if the project no longer needs a detailed master project plan, why does it need a project manager?

Because every project needs a leader. Agile methodologies free the project manager from the drudgery of being a taskmaster thereby enabling the project manager to focus on being a leader – someone who keeps the spotlight on the vision, who inspires the team, who promotes teamwork and collaboration, who champions the project and removes obstacles to progress. Rather than being an operational controller, the project
manager can become an adaptive leader – if she can relinquish her reliance on old style management.

The basic phases of an agile development project are really no different from those of any other project. You still must define and initiate the project, plan for the project, execute the plan, and monitor and control the results. But, the manner in which these steps are accomplished are different and require the project manager to retrofit what they know about traditional management to a new way of thinking – the thinking of complex adaptive systems.

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Failing Rate of Project Implementation

Implementing Electric Utility System is quite similar like implementing IT Projects. The rate of failure projects is quite high.

Based on the study done on IT Projects quoted from CIO.com

n 1994, the researchers found that 31 percent of the IT projects were flat failures. That is, they were abandoned before completion and produced nothing useful. Only about 16 percent of all projects were completely successful: delivering applications on time, within budget and with all the originally specified features.

"As of 2006, the absolute failure rate is down to 19 percent," Johnson says. "The success rate is up to 35 percent." The remaining 46 percent are what the Standish Group calls "challenged": projects that didn't meet the criteria for total success but delivered a useful product.

This rate should aware us everytime we are going to start the project. Typical reasons in implementing the Electric Utility System is lack of knowledge of project scope. Or maybe... misunderstanding of project scope from both parties.

Marketing people at the starts tries to sell the project with no clear definitions of the project. Or the client as well sometimes did not see on the details. Thus, when the project starts it is difficult to implement strict milestones to close some stages. Protocol of acceptance becomes difficult to sign and vendors becomes more lenient to give some modifications. When modifications are given, the client does not stop asking for more modifications.

Thus, before starting the project both parties should know in details and agree upon the scope. When the project starts, many project management tools or methodologies can be use to monitor critical path and problems arises that can hinder the objective of the project.