Job IT PM profile: oral interview for an European Executive Agency (London)

Prepare for an assalt, they are ruthless, don't smile, put a great pressure on you while continuously reminding you the time:

1. mention the most relevant work experience in 5 min.
2. mention 1 project that is more important for you and mention why.
3. talk about a failed project.
4. how often and when you involve the users during the project lifecycle; communication plan.
5. a question for sure on monitoring & controlling, how?
6. do you have ownership of your projects? (especially if you were an external consultant or CA).
7. how you get the stakeholders' buy-in?
8. how would you explain in simple words the status of your project to hi-level stakeholders?
9. most important things you do when starting a project?
10. quickly, split 5 developers/specialist into different roles.
11. rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10.
12. detail the type of projects you have in your current portfolio.
13. how to deal with user complains?
14. what important lessons have you learned?
15. what was the biggest project (budget, team composition)?
16. when would I escalate to my manager? what would I do? 
17. the smallest work unit planned in my project plan - how small will be and why?
18. techniques to manage the scope and requirements: how would you know that were delivered (completed)?
19. what would I take into consideration when planning the user acceptance?
20. to whom does an internal consultant/specialist (should) report to?
21. multi-cultural environment: goods & bads.
22. when would you do if your manager's decisions have a negative impact on you or your work/project?
23. what would I do if your manager will distribute the projects in an unequal (incorrect) manner to the team?
24. PM square? corporate methodologies?
25. talk about your motivation?
26. why should we stop recruiting and take you?

Don`t forget to make a cool presentation about yourself as THE BEST PM that exists!!!

Sell yourself without SHAME !!!

more questions here ;)

Job: IT PM profile - eliminatory test for an European Executive Agency (London)

Case Study: a business case is given, 6 deliverables are requested:

1. a Governance model
2. a Risk Log
3. an Issue log
4. a Communication plan
5. Project plan (use of Microsoft Project)
6. A ppt presentation for all the deliverables + a dependency scheme between the deliverables

IT PM general questions:

• describe a SD methodology (what does it contain, give examples).
• What are the 3 biggest mistakes for an IT PM?
• The most important discipline (for you) from the SD methodology chosen: argument.
• Monitor & Control techniques.
• What are the 3 biggest qualities of an IT PM?

Cloud Computing - web resources (draft)

• ENISA Security Risk Assessment
• 
  

Hidden incompetence...

When I will be a CIO I will ask for an anonymous poll to evaluate internal services because laziness and stupidity is hidden by colleagues that refrein themselves in showing the problems or the issues that exist with the processes or with certain colleagues. 

Everyone should report problems with no fear...

Provide a way to report inefficiency with anonymous privilege!

IT investment - basic principles

Some guidelines from the DBIS final seminar:

• each IT project should be analysed as an investment (in the Business Case);
• make a projection on at least 3 years; each new investment during these years is managed in the same way;
• Revenues - are the earnings generated by the project results; HARD to estimate in an IT project that aims to support a business process;
• Costs - are the one time costs (depreciated usually linear over the years + the occurring costs for corrective maintenance and support each year);
• Brut Profit (sometimes called Brut Income) - the earnings minus the costs; also used EBITDA (earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization) or the EBIT (earnings before interests and taxes);
• Net Profit (Net Income) - brut profit minus the taxes; if the Net Profit is negative then the taxes are considered as positive returns;
• The Net Present Value of the future Net Profits is calculated; the Cost of Capital is used - Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) - that is the cost of the debt (interests) plus the cost of the equity (dividends);

Kick-Off Meeting 1

Kick-Off Meeting (KOM) - G Project:

• Why both IT & Business believe that the other side wants to build a complex and extravagant system? Because in true, both sides are sufocated with work, they already have a lot of presure and the last thing they need is another pain...however this FEAR is always on the table...so just use words like: simple, core, main, nothing fancy!
• During the KOM the business will push strong and put a lot of presure on IT. "The more quiet is before the KOM the more kicks during the meeting"! Be prepared with QUICK WINS !!!
• Stand your ground: explain clearly your constraints and always ask a lot of things back from the business!!! Give them work!!! Also, use the expression: "It's your responsibility!"
• In most of the cases there is a mess in the business side: don't let them put the presure on you to fix their mess!!! A new system will not fix the current issues...
• Always for the KOM propose a very REDUCED scope and budget. The first iteration must be fast!!! Clients are very AFRAID!!!
• make a joke ;)

Business Meeting - Lesson Learned 1

 Meeting F consulting company:

• RISK: if the project it's BIG then they will try to sell BIG -> don't play this card right away;
• use this: "We want to walk before we can run!"
• they say that their product allows you to develop agile: Bull**** -> not the technology allows you to be agile but the software development methodology that you use;
• When it's about a Document Management System always use the DM lifecycle: Capture - Process - Store - Deliver - Preserve;
• They mention "OUT - of - BOX" features are enough. Always ask 2 questions: How big is the box? and Can we live in the box?

IT Top Predictions for 2011 - Gartner

Trends that will shape the IT ecosystem in the near future..