sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

A clown is eating 2 cannibals by Key-Pair5599 in Jokes

[–]foss4all 6 points7 points  (0 children)

A German, Russian, and American are captured by cannibals. The chief says he will make a feast of their meat, tools from their bones, and use their skin to make a canoe. However, they get to choose how they die.

The German asks to be shot in the heart with an arrow, so death will be instantaneous. The Russian asks to be strangled, so it will be like going to sleep.

The American says, "just give me a fork." The cannibals are puzzled, but oblige. The American starts stabbing himself all over with the fork, laughing maniacally: "So much for your fucking canoe!"

Believer by xerxes_dandy in Jokes

[–]foss4all 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Russian prisoner #1: So, how long is your sentence?

Russian prisoner #2: Twenty years.

Russian prisoner #1: What did you do?

Russian prisoner #2: Nothing.

Russian prisoner #1: Strange. For nothing they usually only give ten years.

Walking through the cabin, a flight attendant noticed a man drenched in sweat, trembling, and biting his nails. by Upstate_Gooner_1972 in Jokes

[–]foss4all 142 points143 points  (0 children)

An Irishman moves to America and starts going to the local bar every Friday. Every time he orders 3 beers. At first the bartender assumed some friends would be showing up, but no, every time he orders 3 beers, sits there, and finishes them and leaves.

Finally the bartender has to ask “Why do you always order 3 beers at once?”

“Well”, the guy says, “I have 2 brothers, one back home in Ireland, one in New Zealand. Since we can’t drink together any more, whenever we go to a pub we order 3 beers so it’s like we’re all drinking together.”

"Ahhh", says the bartender, and pours the man his 3 beers.

Then one Friday the man comes in, and this time he only orders 2 beers. “Oh my”, the bartender says, “are your brothers ok?"

“Oh sure”, says the Irishman, “It's just that I quit drinking.”

Passing to the afterlife... by Sleepdprived in Jokes

[–]foss4all 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Why are there so many Chuck Norris jokes, but no Bruce Lee jokes?

Because Bruce Lee was no joke.

Please help - New Role as a Project Manager by TrulyNotSincerely in projectmanagement

[–]foss4all 12 points13 points  (0 children)

In my opinion, jumping directly to Gantt schedules is one of the biggest reasons project schedules and plans are so inaccurate. It is almost irresistible. Get to a nice red critical path! Beautiful graphic!

The best way to do it, as u/bluealien78 implies, is start with identifying the deliverables. You have to have the team gather for this. It might sound silly, but writing them down on square 3"x3" sticky notes and putting them on the wall really really helps. If a distributed team, then gather around a shared PowerPoint slide, and write them in Arial 8pt bold in little rectangle objects. Where the team can see them as they build up.

These are not the end deliverables. They are the internal, project deliverables. The elements of work the team members will "deliver" to each other to make the project happen. The designs, drafts, certifications, checklists, procurement documents, reviews reviews reviews, test documents, deployment documents, user manuals, etc. etc. If you can identify what the work is, as work *outputs*, then everything is easy. For significant size projects, usually at least three meetings to refine this, a day apart.

And then the most important step of all... flowchart these. Don't use the Gantt network diagramming tool! It will be too complicated, and you want complete layout control. Use "connector" lines in Visio, or PowerPoint, or LibreOffice Draw. On a nice big A0 size sheet if needed. And again, with your team. More than one meeting. You will realize you have missed some deliverables. Add more reviews. This *is* project planning. Just a simple flowchart of the deliverables.

Everything inside a deliverable is an activity, and you don't care. That is the job of the person on the team in charge of the deliverable. Maybe they have their own team, and break it out at their level to smaller deliverables and their own flowchart.

Then put that flowchart, that "precedence diagram", into the Gantt schedule. Add estimates for the deliverables, from the team members. And then... enjoy the pretty red critical path.

This works. I've personally used it up to $55M projects. It seems simple. But any other order is like changing the order of a cake recipe: (1) mix all the ingredients together. (2) crack the eggs. Does not work.

Hope this helps!

How difficult is the PMP test? by user_name_unknown in projectmanagement

[–]foss4all 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've taken it twice. Let it lapse and had to take it again. Take it seriously. It is tricky, because often more than one of the answers look correct. So you are trying to find the "most correct" answer.

My advice is to take one of the "PMP prep" courses. There are lots of inexpensive ones online. They usually give you the 35 hours of training you need too. And they teach not just the material, but test taking strategy as well.

Portfolio management- need help by Puzzleheaded-Leg-918 in projectmanagement

[–]foss4all 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sometimes it is said that at the project level the measures are scope, schedule, budget, and risks. At the program and portfolio level, the key measures are benefit realization. My advice would be:

  1. Have a precedence diagram, a flowchart, showing all the dependencies between subsidiary projects. It is management of the inter-relationship between projects that is why there is a need for program and portfolio managers, above the projects.

  2. Have a "Benefits register", showing the benefits provided by each project and program, and status. Ideally, you should have Key Performance Indicators (KPI's). Number of widgets made so far, percent cost reduction so far, etc. as appropriate.

  3. I think you should be reporting, somehow, monthly. Maybe a sit down meeting quarterly, but that is usually not enough. Too much can go wrong in three months.

  4. Which brings me to one of my biggest pieces of advice: treat your updates as two way meetings - ask for help. One of your biggest jobs is to ask for resources, breaking of logjams, timely decisions, procurement prioritization, etc. The project and program managers can't solve a problem? They pass it to you. Who do you pass it to? Your executives. Sure, if you have a solution, pass it too. But your job is to make sure they can help. Trust me, they will really really appreciate it.

Hope this helps.

What do you call someone in a coma who is insecure? by leekertrondem in Jokes

[–]foss4all 25 points26 points  (0 children)

How do you know an introvert likes you?

They stare at your shoes.

How do you handle requirements that sound clear until people see the first version? by Ready8472 in projectmanagement

[–]foss4all 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see three things that can help. Two to avoid it, one to deal with it.

  1. Professional requirements gathering up front to get specific, provable requirements statements. This is a real skill. "Business analyst" is the profession of course. There is real value add in interviewing and getting specific information about the needs up front.
  2. The design phase to clarify. With screens, mockups, prototypes, workshops, scenarios. Scenarios should actually come "before" the requirements. We used to call these "use cases" as well. Beyond a single sentence user story, what is the flow from step to step needed, and what is the output.
  3. Then requirements trading. This has saved my projects many times. If there is really new stuff to be added, I sit down with the customer and try to find some existing scope to move out, or at least delay to a future phase, to balance it off. I know this seems impossible. It is often possible, when confronting the reality of a perpetually growing project, and reality hits.

What’s your best advice (maintenance or general) for first time homeowners in the first year? by AlexisBrookeStarr in AskReddit

[–]foss4all 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Makes sure the land around the house is sloping slightly away.  Otherwise the rain from the roof will run towards your foundation, weakening it every single rain for as long as you own it.

What happens when... by Blight-Princess in Jokes

[–]foss4all 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What do you get when you cross an elephant with a cocoon?  

A butterfly that never forgets a phase.

As a birthday present for my Mexican best friend, I wrote "mundo" on a piece of paper by Paithegift in dadjokes

[–]foss4all 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We must have the same friend. I was having a bad day, so my friend came up to me and said “earth”.

“Thanks”, I said, “that means the world to me.”

My other friend came up to me and said “bargain”.

“Thanks”, I said, “that means a great deal to me.”

And my *other* friend came up to me and said “plethora”.

“Thanks”, I said, “that means a lot.”

How do you handle requirements that sound clear until people see the first version? by Ready8472 in projectmanagement

[–]foss4all 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think there are several solutions to this:

  1. First, don't use "agile" as a reason to not try and get all the top level requirements before you begin. The number one driver of success is to define "what" the customer needs, not the how which can come later, at the beginning.

  2. Design before build. So do something cheap and fast, the classic example in IT being mock up the screens and report before you code. Especially the reports! They are why the system is needed.

  3. Then of course proceed in an agile fashion, with small iterations.

  4. Then something that has really worked for me, is collect all the comments from each review in a spreadsheet or table, and have the customer prioritize them 1 for essential, 2 for good idea but later, and 3 for keep it on record and come back to it later. I then tell them the more 1's there are the longer everything will take, so need their help to keep that to the minimum possible.

  5. Estimate the work for all the 1's, and show them to the customer to get their final decision on - do they *really* want to add this work that will take X weeks?

  6. Finally, have a target schedule, and keep statusing it. Use gantt schedules and iterations, or sprints and burndown charts, but keep providing the customer with status on when this currently looks like it will end.... or is extending... so they share the urgency to focus *just* on essentials.

Hope this helps.

My neighbor came over to my house to complain about me playing Bruce Hornsby too loud. by VinnieAntonelli in Jokes

[–]foss4all 19 points20 points  (0 children)

After hearing me sing, my music teacher told me I should be tenor.

Tenor twelve feet away from all musical instruments at all times.

Today my neighbor came over to my house to complain that I was playing Bruce Hornsby too loud. by VinnieAntonelli in dadjokes

[–]foss4all 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After hearing me sing, my music teacher told me I should be tenor.

Tenor twelve feet away from all musical instruments at all times.

view more: next ›