Personal Time Management

What do you think this workshop is all about?

Personal Time Management

Why? - Project Management is vital for Delivery
of a Project. - One of the requirements in ensuring timely delivery is proper use of Time by the Software Team - This helps indirectly by reducing the load on Project Management

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Objective of the Workshop
To make a beginning towards gaining a good grasp of the fundamentals of productive working, without subjecting the body and mind to stress tests before every release.

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About the Workshop
We will cover: 1) Definitions of some terms 2) Basic Objectives 3) Methodology 4) Time Management Essentials 5) Specifics (Tool Usage & Demonstration) 6) Exercises 7) Advanced Concepts

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Basic Objectives
- Plan your work and then do according to that plan - Why is a Plan Needed - Estimates needed for Plans - How do Time Sheets help the individual?

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Methodology - Quality methods take time to learn and
practice, but they help in ones engineering career Watts Humphrey - Invest in the time - Steps to be followed (Over to next sheet)

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Methodology - Plan what you have to do the next day
- Sort out the routine activities - Measure this time over a period to arrive at a steady-state value - Analyze the data - Iron out the inefficiencies - Continuously Improve

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Definition 1 (What is the Personal Software Process?)
- Watts Humphrey in the book Introduction to the Personal Software Process says that the PSP helps software engineers in doing good work. It helps the software engineer to apply advanced engineering methods in the daily tasks

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Time Management Essentials
- You will likely spend your time this week much the same way you spent time last week - To make realistic plans you have to track the way you spend time - To check the accuracy of your time estimates and plans document them and later compare them with what you actually do

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Time Management Essentials
- To make more accurate plans, determine where your previous plans were in error and what you could have done better - To manage your time, plan your time and then follow the plan - To better manage your time: analyze your historical data, establish a budget for spending time, and track your time wrt it.

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Time Management Essentials
- To make a Time budget: Decide on how you want to spend time and make a schedule that reflects your choices and shows daily times - Establish Priorities next - Determine fixed and variable times - Track performance against time budget

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Specifics (Outlook/Calendar - usage)
- Open Outlook every morning by clicking on the Icon next to the Start button - Next Open another Outlook window from Start -> Programs, and position this in calendar - Make your incoming mails appear in the form of a pop-up every 10 minutes - Now you are set for the day

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Specifics (Outlook/Calendar - usage)
- Plan all the activities that you remember into that days calendar. Between any two activities that you remember keep a 30 minute gap. Do not bother if you end up with only two-three activities in the calendar

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Specifics (More usage guidelines)
- Plan any activity that comes to you with a specific future deadline into the calendar under the future date - Plan priorities under tasks to remind you at a future date (by turning red) - Plan any follow up activities in your diary

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Specifics (Outlook/Calendar - usage)
- Plan all the tasks sent by e-mail by your superior by clicking in the task on the right side of your calendar screen and drag and drop this into a vacant calendar slot - Enter the time taken to do each planned activity in minutes - Do an Accounting at the end of the day - Enter activities & time into the Timesheet everyday in the evening

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Specifics (Demo Planning tasks)
- Enter activities in calendar

- Enter task as activity in calendar

- Record Times - Transfer recorded times on to Time sheet

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Exercise (Usage of Calendar)
- Plan 5 appointments with yourself for today in your calendar - Enter them taking care to space it in the calendar for today - Record a task in the task section - Plan this task as an appointment with yourself a week from today

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Specifics (Tips on Planning tasks)
- Fill your timesheet and arrive at a steady state in 3-4 weeks time - Analyze Time sheets to identify redundancies - Take suggestions from peers - Ask your superiors

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Specifics (Demo MSProject)
- Enter Working Time - Enter Resources - Enter Tasks - Enter sequence between tasks - Allocate resources - Track

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Exercise (Making plans with MSProject)
- Plan 2 summary tasks - The first task must have 4 sub-tasks (The last should be a milestone, to signal end of first phase) - The next task will have two sub-tasks (The first sub-task will have 3 further tasks within it) - Assume availability of 3 resources. Also assume that each task will take 2 days

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Definition 2 (What is a Project Phase?)
- A phase is a grouping of related tasks in which each task has a discrete start and finish time that adds up to the complete project duration

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Definition 3 (What is a Milestone?)
- A milestone is a task that you dont actually perform and thus it has no start finish times. The milestones can be thought of as intermediary goals, or big steps, which provide checkpoints along the path of the overall progress of the project.

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Specifics (SDLC/Project Meetings)
- The various phases of the SDLC are nothing but milestones - First Project Meeting is the Kick-Off meeting (held before SRS) - Next Project Meeting is the Brainstorming meeting (held before SRS) - Next Meeting is the Work Breakdown Structure meeting (during SRS preparation)

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Specifics (Tips to Organize your day)
- Mastering the art of being busy in a calm and organized manner - Divide your day into slots: 9.30 11. 30 AM Creative Time 11.30 AM 2.30 PM Productive Work 2.30 4.00 PM Reviews, etc. 4.00 6.00 PM Paper Work

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Specifics (Tips to Organize yourself)
- How increases in work load are handled by you is an effective test of Time Mgmt. - Maintain a Personal File - Clean your Desk once in a way

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Specifics (Interruptions)
- Unplanned meetings

- Calls received - Calls to be made - Mails to be sent

- Interruptions by boss/colleagues

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Specifics (Interruption Management)
- Understand the pattern of your interruptions - Bunch up the calls/mails to be made/sent for a time during the later part of the day - Defer some of the calls received for later in the day (not those of a client)

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Specifics (Interruption Management)
- Think ahead to others demands. Get a feel ahead to your clients or bosss needs and be prepared so that a regular need does not become a last minute demand - Without being rude tell your colleague that you have some work planned for that time

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Definition 4 (What is Earned Value Analysis?)
- Earned Value Analysis is a method of measuring project performance. It indicates how much of the budget should have been spent, in view of the amount of work done so far, and the baseline cost for the task, assignment or resource.

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Advanced Concepts (Earned Value)
- Apply this on your work once you are comfortable with the concepts covered earlier: Basis is in Cost Accounting Cost Accounting has to do with costs Lot of effort in Software Development Effort translates as Time There is cost associated with time

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Advanced Concepts (Earned Value)
- Time sheet hours eqvt. Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (in hours) a.k.a BCWP - Scheduled Hours for the week (45 hours over a 5-day week) eqvt. Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled a.k.a BCWS - Actual Hours put in eqvt. Actual Cost of Work Performed a.k.a (ACWP) - Schedule Variance BCWP BCWS - Cost Variance BCWP ACWP

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Advanced Concepts (Earned Value)
- Rate Variance = Cost Variance Schedule Variance (Will interest Finance) - Interpretation +ve variance means you are ahead of schedule or under budget -ve variance means you are behind schedule or over budget

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Larger Picture
- Data you collect and put in the weekly time sheet can be analyzed - This data makes a big contribution towards making a detailed estimate without too much loss of time - With Personal Software Process Training (subject of this workshop) you will know how to Plan, Schedule and Track your work

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How does PSP help?
- Achievement of more accurate estimates of development costs - Effective Tracking of schedules using earned value - Achieving increased quality by using Personal Defect Management - Achieving improvement in the development process using analytical evaluation

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References
- Introduction to the Personal Process (Watts S. Humphrey) - Time Management for Executives (Lauren Januz and Susan K. Jones) - PSP for Executives (Training Material of QAI) - Software Project Management Kit for Dummies (Greg Mandanis with Allen Wyatt)