Introduction:I am sure most of you might have already heard of PMP that is Project Management Professionals and CMP is the word which I coined in my earlier posting, rhyming with PMP for Child Management Professionals. Being a veteran certified PMP; I thought why I can’t make an analogy study between these two professions based on my recent experience on Child Management and my long association with IT Project Management. I hope after reading this article you may agree with me on most of the points.
Please bear with me, as in this article I have used extensively IT Project Management specific terms/process for comparison and expecting that the readers know basic project management terminology for effective understanding of this analysis.
Comparison between PMP & CMP:
Both PMP & CMP are dealing with some kind of Projects. In case of PMP it is mostly IT, construction or manufacturing industry kind projects involved, in which developing products like software, building or car etc, where as CMP is the Project of Managing/developing the Child from new born stage who just stepped in to this new world. Here the final product is fully grown up self sustainable human being.
General Project Phase wise comparison:
Discovery/Concept Phase:
Project Management stream has well defined concept/discovery phase where, generally a high-level Business Case document on the proposed project will be created and presented before senior management to get an approval for funding and ends with Project Kick-off meeting, that is formal start of the project.
Where in case of Child Management, Discovery/concept phase is nothing but Nine months long Pregnancy period, shopping for baby, setting house to receive baby and ends with formal introduction of newborn baby to this world (i.e. Delivery) which is equivalent to formal project kick-off.
Planning Phase:
Project Management stream, you do proper planning using lots of project management tools, process and most of the project's goal is to achieve the plan by 100%. Addition to the project plan, also lots of other planning artifacts are being developed during this phase like Meeting/Communication plan, Risk/Issue Management plan, team structure etc. For all such activities, Project Management stream has well defined process. Meeting/communication plan in case of project stream mainly contains weekly status meeting, project progress review by senior management, risk review meeting schedules etc. For risk management lots of techniques are being used in project stream like Risk Indexing, Prioritizing or likelihood Vs consequence charts etc.
Where as in Child Management, even though you plan everything, almost 100% sure you will never be able to achieve as most of the time the planning will go for a toss. So better be prepared to face as & when it comes any eventualities and planning too much is not the practical or feasible option as most of the time the requirements are so dynamic, unpredictable and comes spontaneously. About Project Team/resource, in general Child Management team structure involves Mother (Project Manager to Developer – all in one), father (back-up Project Manager/developer), Grand Parents (veteran Program/Account Managers), your own elder kids (helpers or Issue creators) so on. Other planning activity like meeting/communication management plan, in case of child management stream should contain regular vaccination schedule, regular pediatrician visits for check-up, family doctor’s contact details with mobile number, hospital contact information, Emergency hospital facility details, in USA when & how to make 911 call guideline, friend’s or elders contact details for in case of emergency or during need of any advice, taxi number etc. Coming to Risk management, mitigation points are keep all the sharp things like Knife, hot items, iron box, medicine, poison (insecticide/pesticide), electrical items etc away from baby’s reach. Follow doctor’s advice and before inventing any thing new, if you are not sure better consult doctor first (one of the major mitigation plans). Keep all precautionary medicines (first aid kit) like drops for fever, clod always available at home (second major mitigation plan). In case of issues like medical emergency, reach out to hospital as quick as possible through Emergency care and do not invent or waste time if you are not sure about anything (Contingency plan).
Define Phase:
In Project Management stream, generally during Define phase all the project requirements/scope will be defined and implementation approach, architecture, technology will be finalized/ documented. Any deviation to the originally defined scope/requirements during later phases will be handled through well defined Change Management Process.
But in case of Child management, you can only define very high level scope/requirement rather say it as goal and never be able to finalize/document the entire system requirement as it so dynamic. Coming to change management process, it will be very challenging /tough to come up with well defined Change Management Process in this stream as changes will be coming on the fly, very demanding (no time to think & follow the process of getting Change Control Board approval before implementation) and most of the time brand new requirements will be coming. Each Change Requests, you will be facing for the first time & difficult to define any process.
Design & Development Phase:
Project Stream has well defined process and tools to design the product and complete the development of Product. In case of Software project lots of tools like Rational Rose for class diagram/UML design process can be used. Depending on the technology many development tools can be used for product development. During this phase designer/developer will be doing the detailed product design and complete Coding, Unit Testing, commonly known as CUT phase.
Where as in Child Management, major product design completes well before baby steps in to the world (before Project Kick-off - delivery), so nothing much you can do on the Product design part. Only you can do is develop, mold, groom or shape around the built in core design. You can’t re-architect or migrate the product to new technology/platform quickly or as easy you can do it in Project stream, here you have to restrict your self on to the core design it came with. Main development tasks during this phase will be, feeding, changing diaper, cleaning baby cloth, giving bath to baby, console crying baby, putting baby in to sleep, teach to talk, walk, stand, doctor visit as needed, shopping for baby, dressing baby, teaching ABCD/1234, singing rhymes, dancing for baby when it cry, schooling, college, help on job hunt, partner hunt for marriage so on, most of the cycle repeats and list grows on & on…
Testing Phase:
As you all know in Project Stream, we test the Product to make it bug free before we release the same to production using many tools and few iterations like Unit testing, System testing & User Acceptance Testing.
Where as in Child Management interestingly reverse is happening, here product (baby) will test you or bug you, test your patience level, your back, knee, angry level, emotion, frustration, body parts, bones, joints, blood pressure, tolerance, sleeping pattern, strength/energy level, hungry level so on. There is no limited testing cycles like unit testing or system testing/UAT, testing happens mostly all the time, every now & then starting from the day one of the project (from birth) nor limited only to testing phase of the project, no definite time or hours. Most of the testing happens during off-office hour (don’t expect OT..!!), you be prepared for 24X7 production support calls/bugs which will test you…!!!
Define Phase:
In Project Management stream, generally during Define phase all the project requirements/scope will be defined and implementation approach, architecture, technology will be finalized/ documented. Any deviation to the originally defined scope/requirements during later phases will be handled through well defined Change Management Process.
But in case of Child management, you can only define very high level scope/requirement rather say it as goal and never be able to finalize/document the entire system requirement as it so dynamic. Coming to change management process, it will be very challenging /tough to come up with well defined Change Management Process in this stream as changes will be coming on the fly, very demanding (no time to think & follow the process of getting Change Control Board approval before implementation) and most of the time brand new requirements will be coming. Each Change Requests, you will be facing for the first time & difficult to define any process.
Design & Development Phase:
Project Stream has well defined process and tools to design the product and complete the development of Product. In case of Software project lots of tools like Rational Rose for class diagram/UML design process can be used. Depending on the technology many development tools can be used for product development. During this phase designer/developer will be doing the detailed product design and complete Coding, Unit Testing, commonly known as CUT phase.
Where as in Child Management, major product design completes well before baby steps in to the world (before Project Kick-off - delivery), so nothing much you can do on the Product design part. Only you can do is develop, mold, groom or shape around the built in core design. You can’t re-architect or migrate the product to new technology/platform quickly or as easy you can do it in Project stream, here you have to restrict your self on to the core design it came with. Main development tasks during this phase will be, feeding, changing diaper, cleaning baby cloth, giving bath to baby, console crying baby, putting baby in to sleep, teach to talk, walk, stand, doctor visit as needed, shopping for baby, dressing baby, teaching ABCD/1234, singing rhymes, dancing for baby when it cry, schooling, college, help on job hunt, partner hunt for marriage so on, most of the cycle repeats and list grows on & on…
Testing Phase:
As you all know in Project Stream, we test the Product to make it bug free before we release the same to production using many tools and few iterations like Unit testing, System testing & User Acceptance Testing.
Where as in Child Management interestingly reverse is happening, here product (baby) will test you or bug you, test your patience level, your back, knee, angry level, emotion, frustration, body parts, bones, joints, blood pressure, tolerance, sleeping pattern, strength/energy level, hungry level so on. There is no limited testing cycles like unit testing or system testing/UAT, testing happens mostly all the time, every now & then starting from the day one of the project (from birth) nor limited only to testing phase of the project, no definite time or hours. Most of the testing happens during off-office hour (don’t expect OT..!!), you be prepared for 24X7 production support calls/bugs which will test you…!!!
The formal testing of the Product in child management happens only during later part of product life cycle. Like High School (10th Standard) exam which is equivalent to development environment testing, Pre-University (Plus 2) exam which is pre-production testing and Bachelors degree & above exams are Production environment testing.
Deployment & Go-live Phase:
Project Stream, product will be first deployed in different environments like development, Pre-production and Production site before it goes live. All the deployments are tested and well with in your control.
Where as in Child management project, there are different environments where product will be deployed; like nursery, kinder garden, Schools, College then job & go-live with/out marriage. But there is a minimal or no control you have on the product, mostly after kinder garden/school you will start feeling of loosing control on the product and some time it will go-live with out your knowledge/permission like self executable software…!!!
Project Closure Phase:
In Project Stream, there is a formal/ well defined process to close the project and it really ends some point of time even you have effort overrun/schedule slippage. You may have to complete the project closing formalities like log the best practices, lessons learned, project postmortem etc.
Where as in Child management projects, majority of the time it is never ending project, it is life long assignment/association ( especially among Indian family) and no closure phase but you can always log or pass on the best practice/lessons learned like this article to next projects or other groups who really needs or running similar project. Now a day we are seeing some trend of few self go-lives (example: few marriages) in Indian community which ends with abrupt project closure as it was against the wish of project managers (parents)…!!!
Conclusion:
Even though I am a Program Manager in my IT Profession, at present in Child Management I am only budding Project Manager (mostly back-up). By definition, to qualify as Program Manager you need to handle at a time multiple child management projects like handling twins, triplets or more than one baby at time and to qualify Account Manager Post, you need to have multiple programs like how a baby sitter or Pediatrician manages…!!!
Disaster Recovery in Child Management is almost impossible and pray not to get in to that situation. So please be care-full, do serious and excellent job in your child management project; which is bit challenging for the first time/budding project managers but it not the rocket science, only need more patience to pass-over initial tough period & which follows lots of fun. Wish you and your project all the best & good luck...!!!
Deployment & Go-live Phase:
Project Stream, product will be first deployed in different environments like development, Pre-production and Production site before it goes live. All the deployments are tested and well with in your control.
Where as in Child management project, there are different environments where product will be deployed; like nursery, kinder garden, Schools, College then job & go-live with/out marriage. But there is a minimal or no control you have on the product, mostly after kinder garden/school you will start feeling of loosing control on the product and some time it will go-live with out your knowledge/permission like self executable software…!!!
Project Closure Phase:
In Project Stream, there is a formal/ well defined process to close the project and it really ends some point of time even you have effort overrun/schedule slippage. You may have to complete the project closing formalities like log the best practices, lessons learned, project postmortem etc.
Where as in Child management projects, majority of the time it is never ending project, it is life long assignment/association ( especially among Indian family) and no closure phase but you can always log or pass on the best practice/lessons learned like this article to next projects or other groups who really needs or running similar project. Now a day we are seeing some trend of few self go-lives (example: few marriages) in Indian community which ends with abrupt project closure as it was against the wish of project managers (parents)…!!!
Conclusion:
Even though I am a Program Manager in my IT Profession, at present in Child Management I am only budding Project Manager (mostly back-up). By definition, to qualify as Program Manager you need to handle at a time multiple child management projects like handling twins, triplets or more than one baby at time and to qualify Account Manager Post, you need to have multiple programs like how a baby sitter or Pediatrician manages…!!!
Disaster Recovery in Child Management is almost impossible and pray not to get in to that situation. So please be care-full, do serious and excellent job in your child management project; which is bit challenging for the first time/budding project managers but it not the rocket science, only need more patience to pass-over initial tough period & which follows lots of fun. Wish you and your project all the best & good luck...!!!
If I keep writing on this subject it can go miles & miles, so let me stop here with the note that, majority (99.99 %) of Mothers (or parents) comes up with the natural talent of Project Management with out any PMP certifications and I feel, Mothers (or parents) are one of the best proven Project Managers in the world…!!! I am sure you all do agree with this, if not, at least after reading this article or gauging the complexity involved in the CMP…!!! So please do respect those great natural project/program managers (parents/grand parents).…!!!
Key FAQs on CMP:
* Can I (Mother/Father) get released from the Child Management Project once it is started?
No, it will never be possible for you, especially Mother/father to get any release from this project once it is started. It is life long assignment, rather say association. But you can control to keep out of more projects (babies) & can be limited to manageable size of projects..!!!
* Can I outsource my Child Management project?
Partly Yes & No, can outsource to baby care/sitting group for part of the day and 100% outsourcing is not a good idea.
Key FAQs on CMP:
* Can I (Mother/Father) get released from the Child Management Project once it is started?
No, it will never be possible for you, especially Mother/father to get any release from this project once it is started. It is life long assignment, rather say association. But you can control to keep out of more projects (babies) & can be limited to manageable size of projects..!!!
* Can I outsource my Child Management project?
Partly Yes & No, can outsource to baby care/sitting group for part of the day and 100% outsourcing is not a good idea.
* Can I join the project as helper any phase of the Child Management project?
Most welcome…!!!
* Can I take over any Child Management Projects?
Technically feasible, but involves lots of legal/other formalities & it is called Adaptation….!!! Very difficult to get a right project to takeover.
* What is the financial benefit from this kind of child management projects?
Most welcome…!!!
* Can I take over any Child Management Projects?
Technically feasible, but involves lots of legal/other formalities & it is called Adaptation….!!! Very difficult to get a right project to takeover.
* What is the financial benefit from this kind of child management projects?
For parents, immediate financial benefit is negative where as the program managers like baby sitters, pediatricians, yes it will give very significant amount as return.
*Who will be the Delivery Manger in Child Management?
Your Gynecologist will be the delivery manager where as Mother will be the Solution Delivery Head who will end-up doing overall product delivery management to the best of customer satisfaction.
Your Gynecologist will be the delivery manager where as Mother will be the Solution Delivery Head who will end-up doing overall product delivery management to the best of customer satisfaction.
Thanks & feel free to share your feedback….See you in next posting…
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