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Finding out who owns the information |
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By Timothy Porter on
5/13/2010
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In China, you’ll sometimes hear people refer with a special reverence to a person using the title “Shifu”. This Chinese word means “master” and can be used to refer to special “gurus” in any profession. But as in most things Chinese you need to dig deeper for true meanings. “Guru” is not quite the right word. Shifu is usually translated to “master” and even this misses the connotation embedded with the Chinese word. The word shifu is made up of two characters. “Shi” which means teacher. Teachers are generally held in somewhat higher regard in China as a matter of respect than they are in the West. “Fu” has the connotation of father. So for example you’ll hear this term applied to a kungfu master or to a master craftsman. But again in traditional Chinese culture the shifu is not just a master. There is an expression in China that you are a teacher for a day and a father for life. So the “shifu” is also master for life. The Shifu holds a position higher than both the teacher and the father, and is tr ...
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Chinese Culture Traits and Knowledge Transfer |
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By Timothy Porter on
4/30/2010
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[Excerpt from an article written by Tim Porter and Liu Shufeng]. Knowledge management practices are in general fairly mature in the developed, western world. A great acceleration in knowledge management practices occurred in parallel with the evolution of the internet in the 80’s, 90’s, and into the 21st century. The internet has been a great engine for change. We recall our experience in working for a Fortune 500 company and the “intranet” that evolved during that period. The company’s intranet had a name and developed a personality of its own has it grew to full maturity during this period. It became an essential and highly effective resource for storing and accessing the knowledge base that was at the core of the company’s business. At a basic level virtually everything administrative would over time find its way to the company’s intranet. Access was strictly limited to employees and access to sensitive information was limited to those with a need to know. At a more advanced level, marketing and ...
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Project Manager and Business Analyst |
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By Timothy Porter on
11/20/2009
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I just finished listening to the recent webinar from the PMI ISSIG by Richard Fox. I found it very interesting and relevant to recent trends. In my own experience I certainly see many more BAs as members of the project team than I used to and see them making critical contributions. The increased focus on "requirements" is essential especially in light of the widespread adoption of Agile methods. In the Agile world, when thinking about productivity and meeting project goals, requirements volatility is a much larger factor than team capabilities, tools and development environment. While finding myself in general agreement with Richard I had a couple of points of disagreement. First, it was said that the BA should report to the PM. I don't find this to be the practice nor is it desirable. The BA is very much like a user surrogate and should not be within the span of control of the PM. I believe that separate individuals, separate job descriptions and separate reporting chain is highly desirable ...
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New Year Resolutions |
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By Timothy Porter on
1/4/2009
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We are completing a project to re-assess our strategy for 2009 in light of the worldwide economic slowdown and its impact on IT outsourcing. Since a major focus for us is the USA it also includes an awareness of the incoming administration’s attitude towards outsourcing. Our primary focus is the financial services industry and we anticipate a much more difficult environment in 2009, especially with respect to starting new relationships. So we will focus on our current relationships and ensuring that they remain healthy. In general we are taking a cautious view to the ...
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What's wrong with green hats? |
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By Timothy Porter on
10/7/2008
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Recently a potential partner arrived in China for detailed discussion and negotiation about a long term partnership. The Chinese are great hosts with extravagant welcoming banquets and small (or not) gifts like Hangzhou's famous Longjin green tea or locally produced silk items. Understanding this tradition our guests came prepared with several mementos. One of these was a green (their company color) hat complete with logos and special messages. Well, there was great reluctance to accept such gifts but our guests persisted in forcing acceptance. Of course they did not realize that in China "green hats" or Lu Maozi have a special significance. One is said to have a green hat when your wife has been cheating on you. And in fact foreigners wearing green hats in public will receive more than their fair share of strange looks and stares.
It ...
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PMs and Communication |
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By Timothy Porter on
9/25/2008
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Looking for good PMs. I was reviewing various lists of reasons why information technology projects fail and found it interesting how seldom communication problems are mentioned. In our off ...
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Tools for facilitating project communication in an onshore-offshore engagement model |
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By Timothy Porter on
6/30/2008
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I work for Hundsun Technologies which is a Chinese domestic software company that has in the past few years been building a global services business. With customers in the USA and Europe we have focused a lot of effort in continuously improving our communications processes. We currently have a project underway to integrate a set of tools to support effective communications. On our projects project management, architecture and design is typically performed by onshore Hundsun staff and detailed design, development and testing is typically performed at our offshore development center in Hangzhou, China.
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Putting yourself in the other guys shoes |
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By Timothy Porter on
5/22/2008
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The past two weeks have been enlightening for me. Two rather obvious events reinforced my own thoughts on a couple of topics. I was in my office on the 12th floor of an office building in Hangzhou when the earthquake in Sichuan happened. Sitting at my desk I began to feel queasy and considered that I was having a medical problem before I realized that the building was noticeably swaying. Having lived in Southern California for 10 years I wasn’t particularly distressed and quickly concluded what was going on. ...
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Org Charts |
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By Timothy Porter on
3/31/2008
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March 31, 2008
I’ve been out of commission for awhile but happy to be back. I feel like writing about getting medical treatment in China but that’s a different story. Well, we are now pretty much past the annual planning season for Chinese companies which revolves around the Chinese New Year. I’ve been on a two year quest (since I joined the Chinese company that I work for) to transform our organization into a more customer focused, project and program oriented organization. Seems easy enough.
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