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If you realize that your project is going to be late, do not despair. Try to keep calm, after all you are not the first nor will you be the last project manager to miss a deadline. Anxiety will only make things worse.

Now that you have calmed down, the first thing to do is to analyze the situation. Do not do anything before this analysis; as the project progresses, things could get worse.

Ask for help. As a project manager, you can (and should!) ask for all the help you need. A good alternative is to ask for help from someone outside of the project, preferably someone higher in the hierarchy, such as a department manager or director who can help you assess the situation more clearly. Often times, an outsider tends to perceive minute details and might be able to detect some weak point that passed unnoticed by you or the project team.

Once the situation has been evaluated and all problems have been detected, you should create a new timeline and communicate it to the stakeholders. According to the PMBOK, project managers should spend 90% of their time communicating. Besides, negotiation is one of the main skills a project manager should have.

So this is the right time to start using that skill. This is the time to negotiate a new deadline with the client, but make sure the result of the negotiation is good for all parties. Remember that you will not have much chances to start a new negotiation, therefore, all aspects of the project that need to be renegotiated should enter the discussion right now.

Have a nice work day!

In a selection process run by Volkswagen Brasil, the candidates were asked to respond to the following question: “Do you have experience?”

One of the candidates gave the answer below. He was approved and his response was a huge success. He will certainly always be remembered for his courage, creativity, poetry and above all, his free spirit. Read the passage below and reflect:

I have tickled my sister to make her stop crying.
I have burnt myself playing with candles.
I have blown a bubble with chewing gum and made a mess on my face.
I have talked to a mirror, and pretended to be a warlock.
I have dreamed of being an astronaut, guitar player, magician, hunter and acrobat.
I have hid behind a curtain but forgot my feet sticking out at the bottom.
I have made prank phone calls.
I have taken a shower in the rain and became addicted to it.
I have stolen kisses.
I have mixed up my feelings.
I have taken wrong shortcuts yet continue to walk into the unknown.
I have scraped the bottom of the rice pan.
I have cut myself shaving in a hurry.
I have cried listening to music in the bus.
I have tried to forget some people, but then I found out they were the most difficult to forget.
I have secretly climbed on the roof to catch stars.
I have climbed a tree to steal fruit.
I have fallen off a ladder onto my butt.
I have made eternal promises.
I have written on the school wall.
I have cried sitting on the bathroom floor.
I have run away from home forever, only to return afterwards.
I have run to avoid seeing someone crying.
I have been alone in the middle of a million people, missing just one.
I have seen an orangish-pink sunset.
I have thrown myself in the pool without wanting ever to get out.
I have drunk whiskey until my lips were numb.
I have seen the city from above and still could not find my place.
I have been afraid of the dark, I have trembled from nerves.
I have almost died from love, but rose again to see the smile of someone special.
I have woken in the middle of the night but was too afraid to get out of bed.
I have dared to run barefoot in the street.
I have screamed of happiness.
I have stolen roses from an enormous garden.
I have fallen in love for what I thought was forever, but “forever” was only half of it.
I have lay on the grass late at night and saw the moon turn to sun.
I have cried to see friends depart, but soon discovered new friends and realized that life is made of arrivals and departures.

I have done so many things… So many moments captured by the lenses of emotion and kept in a trunk called heart.

And now this questionnaire asks me, pushes me against the wall, and shouts, “What is your experience?” This question echoes in my brain: experience… experience… Could “smile sower” serve as good experience? Dreams!!! Maybe they still do not know how to harvest dreams!

Now I would like to ask something to whoever formulated this question:
Experience? Whoever has it if at any moment everything is renewed?

(This piece was published in the internal HR newsletter of Volkswagen Brasil. The name of the candidate was not revealed.)

Since today is your day, I would like to seize this opportunity and ask you a few questions:

1. Why don’t you spell check all your files before delivering?
2. Why don’t you read and follow the instructions included in the handoff email?
3. Why don’t you let me know in advance that there will be delays in your delivery for at least a few days in advance and not on the day of the actual delivery?
4. Why don’t you deliver the files in the same folder structure you received?
5. Why don’t you always ask the same questions about the same tool?

I am joking!!! =)

Because despite of all the above, as a Localization Project Coordinator can say without a shadow of a doubt that cannot live without you.

What would be of us project managers, coordinators and especially those people who cannot speak a foreign language, without you, MY DEAREST TRANSLATOR?

After more than 10 years working in this localization industry, I can say I have made a lot of friends. And for sure, most of them were translators.

Happy Translator’s Day!

In this second post about software quality, I am going to talk about the comments sent by Jefferson Costa, from QAI Brasil. After reading my first post, The Quest for Quality Software, he sent the following questions:

What is “Quality Software”?
What are the factors involved in this measurement?

In regards to the measurement factors that determine if a software program is of high quality, ISO created a standard the clearly defines how to measure the quality of software. The so-called ISO/IEC 9126 standard goes far beyond stating that quality software is software without bugs. It is divided into six categories, each of them with a corresponding, fundamental question. They are as follows:

Functionality: Does it meet the requirements?
Reliability: Is it fail proof?
Usability: Is it user friendly?
Efficiency: Is it fast and lean?
Maintainability: Is it easy to modify?
Portability: Is it easy to deploy in different environments?

Therefore, we can say that these are the factors that enable quality measurement.

While reading about this standard, we can have an idea of what is quality software: it is software that combines each and all categories mentioned above. But the quality of software is also directly linked to the quality of processes used during development. But that’s another conversation, as we would have to talk about the project life cycle, CMM, etc.

Who knows, maybe in the next post? =)

Hello People! I am going to start a series of posts talking about Software Quality.

Quality, today, is not just about a company having a market differential to sell more and increase profits, but a pre-requisite that must be conquered in order to get their product into the global market. Quality is a subject that is frequently discussed but rarely practiced. Missed deadlines, low productivity, inefficient quality control and high costs seem to be some of barriers that new technologies cannot overcome.

But in the end, what is software quality? In order to address the issue, it is necessary that we understand what “Quality Software” means exactly. There are several definitions. Some people tried to explain quality in a simple way and came up with definitions such as:

“Quality is to comply with customer requirements.”
“Quality is to anticipate and meet the customer’s wishes.”

We can also say that all the problems related to software quality fall in one of these two categories: lack of Quality of Compliance and lack of Quality of Performance.

Quality of Compliance refers to the adherence of the product to the purpose for which it was built. On the other hand, Quality of Performance refers to the capacity of the product to perform its desired function. In terms of software, this means lack of bugs, infrastructure (hardware) fault tolerance, user error tolerance, etc.

But why one should worry about software quality? There are some obvious reasons, as nobody likes to use a software program with bugs. These technical problems can cause enormous losses, such as the malfunctioning of a million dollar satellite. They can also cause multiple digit losses to a banking institution, prevent telephone carriers to provide long distance calls (and this has already happened with AT&T) or even cause a blackout in various cities. Ask people in India how inconvenient blackouts can be…

This is not all. Quality, today, is crucial for the survival of a company that wants to be successful in the global software market. An organization cannot succeed in this market if they do not produce quality software and if the clients do not have access to high quality products and services.

Contrary to what many think, the return on investment in quality is short. When quality improves, so does productivity, and the costs decrease due to lower rework rates and minimum waste. Not to mention the improvement in customer satisfaction, which often results in increased market share.

In the next post, I will talk about the costs of investing in quality. Stay tuned!