I recently attended a NTCA conference in Chicago that provided in-depth discussions at on IP technologies important to rural telcos to prepare for next generation networks.  The discussion topics of interest to me were Social Networks, Web 2.0, mashups, data growth expectations over the internet, Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), and partnering opportunities.  After hearing the discussions around these, I still find it hard to believe that I will have a fully functional handheld device that truly supports the services defined in FMC.  FMC is supposed to be the convergence of Fixed (home/stationary) services and Mobile in one place.  FMC should go beyond just telephony and data, but include services like location based services, multi-media (e.g. video and music), and internet services.

Currently dual mode devices are great assuming you have a wifi connection.  Even the current iPhone is network blocking when I am not in a wifi mode.  I cannot talk and browse the web at the same time once I am on the AT&T network.  Having a handheld device as my demarc for services when I plugin at home (like a femtocell) is great, but as soon as I leave my front door, I leave all of those nice services behind. To truly utilize FMC and have a device that is a PC, phone, and multi-media system combined, a unified network is required to provide seamless connections as I leave or enter the different connections like, femtocells, wifi, WiMAX, 3G & 4G networks, and ATN.  Speaking of 3G (third generation like CDMA2000, UMTS, etc.), 3G and 4G are supposed to provide us with smart phones, but I still feel my phone becomes dumb once I leave my front door.  The services that I was used to at home (Fixed) seem to still be limited when mobile.  Sure we will have to give up some of the richer services enjoyed at home given bandwidth limitations when not in a hotspot, but currently the phones to not appear to provide me a seamless connection and handoff.  The devices will need to allow multiple connections and stop network blocking to only one application.  Traditional mobile networks and Rf communications are limited based on bandwidth to support these services, which will cause some additional challenges.  I cannot see a unified network with the devices to support true FMC happening in 2008.  I may be wrong given some press releases for plans in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

I had not thought much about writing a blog to talk about my personal project management, but my wife (Christina) thought it was worthy to capture here in this blog. I had not realized that my own personal life had as much project management as my current every day projects. Here is where planning is important, not only from a corporate viewpoint, but from a personal everyday life situation, too. At the beginning of every year, Christina and I sit down and go through our shared and personal goals. Worse of all, it is a five year plan! Shared goals might be like a vacation to Zihuatanejo, Mexico while personal goals might be like my ambition to get my PMP certification or pass a Professional Engineering exam. We started our five-year plan in 2006 and can confidently say that 90% of our goals where reached. Those that did not make the cut where re-prioritized the following January or simply cut from the plan. This year, our project plans include:

• House Furnishings for 2008 / 2009: Home office / grandfather clock
• Landscaping (2008): Waterfall, native VA planting, organic fertilizers, steps off back deck
• Personal (2008): 5K run, PMP exam, Pole Barn design and fabrication shop
• Home Remodeling (2008): Basement railing, kitchen design and complete remodel, gas fireplace, cement board siding.
• Home Remodeling (2009): We decided that since we would stay in Northern VA for a few more years that an addition would be considered and budgeted for in 2008.
• Financial: Christina’s car paid off (2 years prior to maturity)
• Travel: San Diego in June, Las Vegas in May (maybe based our current budget), and Zihuatanejo/Trocones Mexico vacation in November. Savanna , GA is 2009
• Travel: Based on current savings for travel, Greece or Hawaii is 2011.
• Mike’s reclaimed lumber projects: solid walnut hall tree (2008), living room fireplace mantel (2008), walnut office desk (2009), spare bedroom chest of drawers (2008), and end tables for basement entertainment area (2008 but low priority).

In the true spirit of Scrum agile development, forward planning for requirements and a typical WBS seem to break the rules.  In the real world, managers expect forward looking project plans for budgeting, resource expectations, and to make the traditional PMO feel good.  It is not realistic in most organizations to assume that a customer (or product owner) will be available 24-7 to provide just-in-time requirements.  Not only that, but some requirements are needed up front to understand architectural impacts and significance.I think it is best to create WBS entries for externally significant tasks to be planned that would also provide a template plan for all future projects under the current process framework defined (Eclipse Process Framework provides a way to export the process framework to XML that is easily imported in MS Project). Now you have a WBS entry for Build Feature (or Build Story or Build Use Case or whatever they use for their key unit of requirements).  For the traditional old school (uhmmm - pre-agile) stakeholders, explain that Scrum has a half day Sprint Planning <Scrum Planning Guidance>  session at the start of each iteration where the team takes each requirement assigned to that iteration and comes up with tasks to be done to build (and test) that chunk of functionality.  Those will be the context-specific children of that WBS entry that the team comes up with on the spot.  I’m sure most of those stakeholders don’t feel they need to see one WBS entry for design and another for coding and another for unit test and another for functional test. Keep an eye out for how much requirements work the team wants to do.  As my friend once told me. “Just as a physics textbook describes the way objects interact in a frictionless environment to focus on certain mathematical formulas, most Agile texts pretend that requirements can be gathered in real-time as the system is being built.  Methodologies such as XP stipulate “and this will work if you have a full-time customer available that has knowledge of every possible requirement decision and authority to make every possible requirement decision”. ”  If that were true, you could probably just sit down with that person while you were building the system, look over your shoulder, and say “what fields would you like to see, what are the rules here?”  But in real life when those people will not be sitting around the team 24×7, you’ll have to write down some requirements and – given that there is time and risk in gathering them – do so a little ahead of the game.