What happened to my Paradigms???

What is Paradigms? When I googled the word “paradigms”, I had over 1,940,000 hits in 0.16 seconds. According to Wikipedia, the word paradigm comes from the Greek word “Paradeigma” which means pattern. Dictionary.com gives a better understanding of this word. It says “Paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline”.

Everyone is stuck in their paradigms. I see paradigms as habits. Humans are behavioral animals. I guess that goes with almost all the creatures. That is why most of the people are scared of change. When a person gets used to doing something it is almost impossible to break this habit. For example when a company start to lose money or wants to change something, they hire outside help such as consultants, because these consultants will look at the problem as an outsider. Almost everyone can point out someone else’s problem except their own. I think half of the world’s problems are because of paradigms. People are used to doing certain things from generations and they don’t want to hear someone else’s view. And if someone wants to change something it becomes a problem and one thing leads to another.

That reminds me of a story that I once heard about a king and his two guards. Young Prince became a king and he noticed every time he went to take a shower there would be two guards posted outside his shower. At first he didn’t think much of it but then he thought it was a nuisance since his palace is already guarded and he doesn’t need two guards outside his washrooms. So he called one of his ministers to ask him about the guards outside his washroom. Minister had no idea why they stand there only when the King is in the shower. Minister said that this has been going on even before his father was the king. So the new king decided to find out the mystery. He looked at the old archives and some days later he read that his grandfather used to get seizures and therefore he ordered guards outside the washroom to keep an eye in case something happened. After that this became a habit and this had been going on every since.

I remember when I first got Internet in 1996 and how it became part of our daily lives. At first it used to look so hard and I used to think that I will never be able to keep up with it. If someone had told me then, that I will get a BBA in Accounting and IT, I would have laughed hard. I also used to avoid doing online banking, despite the fact that I used to work in the same bank. My job was to tell people about Internet banking and I used to answer their questions and teach them how to use it. After taking several classes and especially Internet Applications, it definitely changed my paradigm. Now that I understand what goes on behind the scenes, I definitely feel safer. Now I use it from researching little things like buying a USB drive to look for driving directions to doing on-line banking.

PM1 course has definitely changed my paradigms. For example when I first about career as a project manager, I thought how hard can it be. It is probably delegating the task and staying on top of the tasks. But now I know that I was very wrong. Project manager job is much more then simple staying on top of the things and delegating the tasks. A successful project manager requires lot of experience, education, ability to deal with different problems and of course a good team. A project manager shouldn’t be stuck in his/her paradigms. He should be open to new things and should be able to think outside the box. This is very important while managing a project. Different project require different things and project manager should able to change his thinking hat in a blink of an eye.

Although my major is Accounting, I am glad that I took IT classes too. It will definitely help me in my career. Computers are everywhere. So might as well get used to them. As the old saying goes “If you can’t beat em’, might as well join em”. And that is exactly what I did.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=paradigms&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paradigm

PM1 - Career in Project Management

Project Management – An exciting career

Project manager sounds like a really exciting career. We all have worked in some type of project management. Whether we were part of a team and were directed or were given a task to complete where we had to direct people. For example at my previous job as a Financial Advisor at a Financial Institution; I was part of a team where we were told to increase investment sale for the month of May. Now that I think back, that was a project that was being managed by the branch manager. We were given the time frame, we had one specific result in mind – to increase our sale in comparison to last year’s May, there were few people involved that specialized in different fields – Mutual funds, RRSP, GICs or other short-term products.

I think Project manager would be an exciting career. This role is constantly changing; new project starts when the first one is complete. This would be a good field for someone like me. Since I tend to get bored doing the repetitive task over and over again. Before our first class I never thought that a career / job exists that is constantly changing. Although, I am sure it is not an easy task, and that is probably one of many reasons why not everyone does it.

Upon further research in Project management careers, I found out that there is a professional certificate offered by many schools like Athabasca University, University of Lethbridge, Royal Roads University, and UBC. There is also a professional designation of Project Management Professional (PMP) offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). The process of obtaining PMP requires extensive study, examination and real life on-the-job experience. There is a rigorous 200 multiple choice examination once accepted in the program. PMI requires that its members abide by their PMI code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

There were some jobs in project management on Monster.ca that would have interested me, had I met all the qualifications. The first job titled: Project Manager in a software developing firm, required a University degree in an engineering discipline or in Project management, and should have 7 to 10 years of project management experience. Ability to manage multiple projects at the same time and strong verbal and written communication skills are required for this job. Salary was in $90,000 + range, depending on experience. For this job PMP designation would have helped along with other hands-on training. This job was for someone in IT field and it gave me an impression that this job was always on the go. There was some international travel required as well.

Project Coordinator was another job that stood out for me. This job required a degree or experience in financial services industry along with a minimum 5 years of direct experience in a project management team. This was posted by a recruitment agency and it sounded like the company was a multi-national company. This was a 6 month contract position that offered $35 per hour. Given that Project Coordinator is generally an entry level position; this position definitely needed someone who was an expert as a Project coordinator. This role was also in the IT industry.

Project Scheduler was an IT position in the construction company. Qualification included a degree in Operations management or Construction management with 5 + years experience as a Project Scheduler.

Senior Project Manager position required extensive knowledge of computing languages like C++, Java, SQL, etc along with a PMP designation. Position was posted by a recruitment agency and it did not have lot of details about the position. This position required project manager to also be an advocate of this project for the duration of the project. Other duties included meeting with the Gov’t officials, along with shareholders, and any other that was required in order to complete the project. I think this position required an expert not only the IT but also in the project management.

Program Manager position required a Diploma only along with 5 years experience in a project manager role. Job description said that they are developing a software and therefore needed someone with a knowledge of computers. It did require dealing with various levels within the organization.

After searching for Project manager jobs and skills required for this job, I realized that this job requires lot of skills and expertise in the area a person wants to specialize in. This is a broad field and not everyone can master it.

Project Manager

Project Coordinator

Project Scheduler

Senior Project Manager

Program Manager

1) http://www.royalroads.ca/programs/faculties-schools-centres/centre-applied-leadership-management/prjmgmt-cert/

2) http://www.tech.ubc.ca/project/

3) http://www.pmi.org/CareerDevelopment/Pages/Obtaining-Credential.aspx

4) http://jobsearch.monster.ca/

PM1 - Week 2 - Exntry and Exit Criteria

System Development Life Cycle

System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is number of logical steps taken to develop a software product. In early years, software was developed by programmers to automate a procedure or even solve a problem. As the time changed software became quiet large and complex to manage by a single programmers or even a team for that matter.

Today, SDLC has number of models: waterfall, fountain, spiral build and fix, rapid prototyping, incremental, and synchronize and stabilize. Waterfall, the best known, is a sequence of stages in which the output of each stage becomes the input for the next.

Rti.org breaks down SDLC in seven stages: Concept, Requirements, Design, Implementation, Release, Operation and Maintenance, and Decommission.

In concept stage is the first stage when the project begins. This phase gives the overview of the project. This helps in setting up basic structure, and evaluates risks related with the project.

Requirement stage is when objectives are set. Each objective will be developed in one or more requirements. These requirements define the necessary functions of the project. Each of these definition is known as requirement.

Design stage is where project is produced after series of interviews and workshops, etc. This stage describes the desired project in detail.

Implementation stage is where the system is built according to the specifications from the previous stages. That includes writing codes, testing, configuration and integration.

Release stage is the stage when the product is released to the customer or the user. This stage also includes installation, testing and configuring of the system.

Operation and Maintenance stage, as the name suggests operates and maintains the system while in production. This stages polishes the control procedures and improves system to operate overtime.

Decommission stage is when a particular system is put to rest. In this stage system completes its life cycle and completes its usefulness.

In my opinion, Accountants should demand the integration of the accounting and the cash cycle into the SDLC. Accounting is a crucial role in every business these days. If accounting is involved then I believe it would be much better to keep track of the cash cycle at every stage. This will not only help management keep track of the project, it will also help them to know where they stand in terms of the budget. This is extremely important because I am sure every company sets up a budget for the whole project. This is a good way to break down the cost for every stage. For example if project is over or under budget, then necessary steps can be taken right away to bring it back on track. Surprisingly, I did not see lot of articles that talked about accounting project controls. But I still believe accounting plays a vital role in SDLC.

1) http://www.elucidata.com/refs/sdlc.pdf

2) http://www.rti.org/page.cfm?nav=556

3) http://www.mks.com/sdlc

4) http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=71151

BP1 - Week 1 - Business Process Execution Language

Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)

Different services on the web can correspond to each other, and often linking these services was a difficult task, as there could be a numerous contradictory conditions to choose from. This is where BPEL comes in. It acts like a glue to bind Web services. It was not an easy task for the Programmers to write in a language that would be compatible with most of the other languages. BPEL made this easy, now programmers have a common language that is compatible with other languages, therefore saving time and money.

“BPEL is an XML-based language, written by developers from BEA systems, IBM and Microsoft and was designed to enable task-sharing for a distributed computing environment, across multiple organizations using a combination of web services” ⁽¹⁾. In simpler words BPEL is the program that helps integrate proper internet language in order for different programs to run effectively.

In my opinion, BPEL encourages perfect competition by avoiding “technology lock-in”. In my opinion, technology lock-in is predatory if not illegal and it is definitely not fair to the customer. Technology lock-in is where a company deliberately designs a product where certain features are incorporated within the design, simply to coerce the customers and force them to buy or make additional investments in the products by the same firm. BPEL was developed by different companies to be able to communicate effectively with more than one language on the Web. This way customer is not forced into buying more products from the same company. BPEL will make companies compete for the market share by brining out more innovative products.

I recently experienced, what I think was a “technology lock-in”. My brother-in-law bought a new laptop which had Windows Vista on it. Since I help him in Accounting, I had install Quickbooks 2006, which I already had. I was unable to install it because Vista was not compatible with Quickbooks. After spending 3-4 hours and downloading various patches, I still couldn’t get Quickbooks 2006 to work with Vista. Even though it was supposed to work or that’s what Quickbook’s website said. Their website obviously was trying its best to make sure customers know how to install previous version of Quickbooks on Windows Vista. Vista on the other hand was a different story. So I had no choice but to spend another $200 and buy newer edition of Quickbooks PRO 2007. The sales man at the store tried to sell different Accounting software to go with Windows Vista. This I believe was the perfect example of “technology lock-in”.

Web service according to Wikipedia is "a software system designed to support interoperable Machine to Machine interaction over a network" ⁽³⁾. In simpler words, Web service is mainly used as for businesses to communicate data without intimate knowledge of each other’s IT system even when they are behind the firewall. It incorporates Web based applications using the XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI open standards over the Internet. Each application works in a different way.

• XML is used to tag the data.
• SOAP is used to transfer the data.
• WSDL is used for describing the services available.
• UDDI is used for listing of what services are available.

Today BPEL is the most popular language simply because it is the common standard on how to publish multiple services. Efficiency and effectiveness is increased for businesses that are connected to the Web service applications via BPEL. It is an excellent way of implementing trading partner integration using the Internet. BPEL provides the ability for a company to quickly adapt or create new business processes, both internally and externally.

1) http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci845110,00.html

2) http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpelcol1/

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service

4) http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2001/04/04/webservices/index.html

BP1 - Week 2 - Why do Managers Fail at BPR?

Why do many Managers fail at BPR?

Business process reengineering (BPR) is also known as Business Process Redesign, Business Transformation or Business Process Change Management. As the name suggests, BPR look at organization’s business processes from a clean state and then tries to determine the best methods to improve ways to conduct business.

Since BPR looks at ways to improve business and reducing costs; it is commonly mistaken for major workforce reductions. It strictly focuses on efficiency and technology and completely disregards well being of the people in the organization. For most companies, payroll is the biggest expense. Therefore, if someone wants to reduce cost they think of reducing the workforce. In my opinion this happens because its human nature to not like changes. And when senior management has to make some type of change they don’t think of changing their ways of doing business; they are reluctant to do so. They think of not fixing something that is not broken because for them it’s the people that are the liability and not the current process of the organization. They are stuck in their paradigms. This leads to the failure of BPR.

One of the main reasons for BPR’s breakdown is that it fails to successfully manage the change of people. In my opinion, BPR should not be used explicitly for reducing cost, it should be used to look at current methods of an organization and how can those methods be changed so that the organizations can perform at their maximum capacity to produce maximum profits.

BPR mostly is used by companies that are desperate to cut costs to return to profitability. When companies reach this stage, it is generally already late. That is when managers push the panic button in hope that using BPR will save the company from losing any more money. Lack of management commitment is another reason why managers fail at BPR. Managers are too focused on cutting costs and they fail to see the big picture. Managers try to juggle multiple, uncoordinated tasks and use inadequate methodology tools.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_reengineering

2) http://www.kmbook.com/bpr.htm

3) http://www.netlib.com/bpr1.shtml

XBRL - In Class

My research will be based on a Public practise accounting firm. This firm is expanding its operations. They plan on opening two more branches. They will have close to 50 employees once these two additional branches are operational. Therefore, I think XBRL will be useful for my employer.

Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an XML based language developed specially for the purposes of financial reporting. In the past financial reporting was done manually. Which normally had lot of mistakes and it used to be often duplicated depending on who is going to use it. This use to be very time consuming. Goal of XBRL is to automate this process.

Since this Public practise firm provide services to mainly the large corporations. And not all corporations have the same reporting standards. The first advantage of using XBRL is that it has a great advantage of adapting easily to a variety of different accounting standards, currencies and even different languages. Second advantage would be that this firm will be able to audit their clients on a continual basis and there will be less research time required. Hence, high productivity less costs that will equal existing clients being happy and firm can concentrate on getting more clients. Firm will also be able to analyze companies faster than before and provide answers or solutions to their clients fast. Third advantage is mainly for the clients of this firm, which in turn benefits the firms in revenue. Investors of those companies can easily look at their company’s current statements from their home and don’t have to wait for the year end statements.

XBRL will be used to digitally produce financial statements of companies for external users. XBRL based financial statement will include the balance sheet, income statement, statement of equity, statement of cash flows, and the notes to the financial statements. XBRL documents can be prepared efficiently and are more reliable. These documents will also be able to be analyzed quickly by the interested parties. This saves a lot of time and in today’s world they say “time is money” which means smarter investments.

XBRL will provide a quick transfer of data from one place to another. This will also reduce data search time. Companies will be able to do faster credit check, build reports, and do a quick investment analysis. Anyone can use XBRL; there is no license fee to use it. XBRL can be customized to meet individual company standards. Accountants, Banks, Financial Analysts, Creditors, are few example of people that will be using XBRL.

Following steps are needed to start using XBRL⁽¹⁾:

1) Use a final Word or Excel version of the financial statements to tag

2) Download the most recent version of XBRL by going to “www.xbrl.org”

3) The files with the extension xsd and the other .xml files are the link base files. All are required to properly work with the zip file listed there contains all the files needed.

4) Download these files (or the zip file) to a new folder on your computer or on your server

5) Install an instance document creation tool (e.g. IBM, DELL). These are available from their websites. The URL’s for their websites can be found at http://www.xbrl.org/TechSupport/.

6) Select the financial statement item to tag and find the corresponding element.

7) An extension maybe required for the items not found.

8) Complete the tagging

9) Run a validation test to see if it is properly prepared.

10) Upload the XBRL instance document to your Web site and to Sedar

SITES VISITED:

1) www.ifac.org/MediaCenter/files/259_IBall_XBRL_Automation.doc

2) http://www.xbrl.org

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBRL

4) http://www.nysscpa.org/committees/emergingtech/xbrl_2003.htm

5) http://www.de-haas.nl/Digital%20Reporting/XBRL%20Benefits.htm