Should You Equip the PMO with Netbooks?

Let me answer that right now…NO. However, are they bad? Again, NO. Now that I’ve gotten my feelings off my chest on this, let’s dive in a little further.

Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly approve of netbooks. I’ve purchased two of them in the past four months. They’re great in the right situations and some of those can be PM-related.

First, I feel that there are some misperceptions with netbooks that most people have and need to overcome – I was included in this group at one time:

• The screen is too small. It’s not. It’s small, but unless you’re working heavily on graphics, the size is a plus rather than a minus. I’ve grown tired of the large, widescreen laptops. I’m much happier on my 13” Macbook than I ever was on my cumbersome 15.4” Gateway and I’ve used one of our home netbooks to surf, write a document, etc. and had no problems at all with it’s screen size. Granted, it’s of the 10” variety, not one of the 8” netbooks.
• The CD/DVD drive is critical. I can’t tell you when I last used a CD/DVD drive unless it was to load a CD into iTunes (which I almost never use anyway). I purchase software online and download so I know it’s possible to live without those drives. But, if you must have one, you can purchase an external one and some of the models at Costco actually come with the external drive included. The CD/DVD drive is no longer a necessity…it’s a ‘nice-to-have’ and an ‘almost-never-used’ extra.
• The processing power won’t be there. I don’t see it. I bought two of the the Asus Eee PC netbook. It has the Intel Atom processor which operates at 1.60 GHz and the netbook comes with 1 Gb of DDR2 RAM. Now, they aren’t being used on Photoshop, but for high school and college work and for low-end photo editing, writing, some video editing, etc. the netbooks have done everything we’ve asked of them.
• They are more fragile than a regular notebook. Again, not true or at least I don’t see it. In fact, because they are smaller and easier to carry around, dropping them or hitting on something as you walk by is far less likely. My 15 yr old daughter has gone through two phones in that time period by her netbook doesn’t have a scratch on it and she takes it everywhere.

So at this point, I seem to be a netbook proponent. And I guess I am. However, is it a good idea to equip your entire PMO workforce with netbooks and send them out into the world? I’m not likely to agree with that.

I think it may be a decent concept to have some around for checking out by PMs for travel or if your company has that much money to spend, give each PM one to make traveling easier. But I do not think the netbook is ready to be someone’s only work machine. It’s a good add-on if you have the money to spend, but it’s not ready to be a primary machine. I wouldn’t equip my whole family with netbooks as a replacement for all laptops (and I’d NEVER give up my Macbook), so I know I would not condone making this standard fare for all of your PMO’s workforce.

The Most Serious Data Threat May be Sitting Next to You

An article that appeared recently in InformationWeek magazine examines what is sometimes the most serious threat an organization faces in terms of their own data security – the internal authorized user base. The following article from Ericka Chickowski explains that hackers may covet your data, but insiders are the most common source of database leaks.

How IT pros who manage database security rank database threats:

• An insider attach by someone with root access to the database or database server
• A logical attack on a Web-facing app connected to a database
• Database containing confidential data that IT is unaware of
• A misconfigured database
• A vulnerable database that hasn’t been patched

(Data: Enterprise Strategy Group survey of 179 IT pros)

In their quest to protect sensitive information from outside attackers, many organizations overlook the most imminent threat to their databases: authorized users.

“It sometimes amazes me how little concern companies have for their production data,” says James Koopmann, owner of database consulting firm Pine Horse. “They allow nearly anyone to plug in shareware, freeware, and demo tools to access sensitive production data without any concern for how it might be retrieving, caching, or altering data.”

As discussed in the latest Dark Reading Database Security Tech Center Report, five common factors are most likely to lead to the compromise of databases: ignorance, poor password management, rampant account sharing, unfettered access to data, and excessive portability of data.

Take the lack of security education. In our InformationWeek Analytics 2009 Strategic Security Survey, we asked respondents to rate the time spent on various security efforts. User training came in ninth out of 10 choices, a few points behind log file analysis. Yet in another study, CompTIA’s seventh annual Trends in Information Security report, published earlier this year, 85% of those organizations surveyed that do offer security training to non-IT staff saw a reduction in major breaches.

The goal of training must be to ensure that users who work with databases understand the sensitivity and/or financial value of the data they work with, and therefore are less apt to become casual in their security practices.

Poor password management is another common problem. Either IT departments allow database users to set easy-to-guess passwords, or they make passwords so complicated that workers end up writing them down and sticking them to the computer screen.

“We have to strike a balance between ease of remembering for database users versus how complicated we make the passwords to protect against outsiders,” says George Jucan, CEO of Open Data Systems, a database consulting firm.

Account sharing also creates security issues. While some users take advantage of their co-workers’ credentials, others gain access to data via highly privileged application server credentials. In either case, data compromises can occur without leaving a clear trail to the perpetrator. All that log file analysis won’t help you now.

Unfettered access to data is another common problem. In many cases, employees are given access to more information than they need to do their jobs.

“Most of the databases today provide role-based access control to databases, and few companies actually take advantage,” Jucan says. “If somebody doesn’t even see that certain data exists in the database, they will not be tempted to print it and leave it on the printer.”

Enterprises should also look into data-masking technology to limit the user’s exposure to highly sensitive and highly regulated data sets, such as Social Security numbers, without limiting the user’s ability to do his work.

Finally, take a closer look at technologies and practices for protecting data as it becomes increasingly portable. One of the biggest dangers companies face today is the ability of authorized users to simply download large chunks of information from the database onto spreadsheets, laptops, or portable storage devices. Experts say that tools such as database activity monitoring, data loss prevention, and encryption all can help protect portable data.

Project Management from a Distance – Intro

In this upcoming six-part series we’re going to look at and discuss everything about being a remote project manager. For the most part, it will likely apply to other members of the project team. I’ve made little secret of the fact that I believe remote project management is good, is practical for many situations, is green, and can be very rewarding. However, it must be done by the right individual with the right intentions, under the right conditions and for the right reasons.

The Six-Part Series Overview

Over the course of six articles, I intend to cover the following topics (however, I make no guarantees that I won’t shift course, remove parts or add parts depending on how the discussion is progressing):

Part 1 – Why remote?

Part 2 – Will it work for you?

Part 3 – What type of job enables remote PM?

Part 4 – What setup do you need?

Part 5 – Negotiating when it’s not an obvious move

Part 6 – Staying the course

Recognizing that remote work is not in everyone’s interest level and it’s not for everyone, I’d like to cover these topics in order and get feedback from readers on their own thoughts and experiences. It’s not a secret that this economy lends well to creativity in the workplace – it’s often necessary to stay employed and for companies to keep as many employees as possible.

In the coming articles, we’ll examine why you should work remotely (both from the employee viewpoint and from the employer), what type of individual and mindset it takes to successfully work remotely, what type of projects work well in a remote management situation, what do you need to setup shop to work remotely, how to go about negotiating a remote situation when it’s not an obvious option, and staying on course and remaining both happy in this type environment as well as relevant in the workplace and to your employer or clients.

Some Interesting Data

Before move any further in the discussion of remote project management – here are some interesting numbers on remote IT workers (source in parentheses):

• 70% said they would rather get their work done on a secure connection even if it meant their work would be late (CIO.com)
• 78% say their IT dept. has provided them with the technology to work remotely on their own PC rather than needing to rely on a company-issued laptop (I personally don’t see this as a good thing) (CIO.com)
• 43% of downloaded personal pictures, videos, or software for their own use on company-issued laptops (CIO.com)
• 25% admitted they’ve visited blacklisted of inappropriate websites on their company-issued laptops (CIO.com)
• 74% said they can’t get their work down without the internet (CIO.com)
• 65% said it would be easier to live without their car for a week than live without the internet for a week (CIO.com)
• 12% admit hacking a neighbor’s wireless connection when necessary (Cisco study)
• 21% allow friends and family to access the internet on their work-supplied computer (unknown source)

These figures weren’t meant to scare anyone away from remote work but rather to inform you of what’s going on in and out of the workplace. Whether you use your own equipment or company-supplied equipment, be aware that you’re responsible for critical data and for the timelines of the projects you manage – be prudent in the way you handle yourself and the resources you utilize.

The 60 Minute Project Manager

What can you do in 60 minutes? Watch a program on TV. Drive your kids to an event and back…depending on traffic and where you live, of course. Go out for lunch. Read a magazine article. Write an online post. Manage a project. Wait a minute….manage a project? In one hour…can that be possible? Yes, and we’re probably already doing it without thinking.

For the purposes of this article – and probably most of my articles – I’m going to stick with the assumption that project managers are often overseeing 5 or 6 active projects at any given time. Looking at the normal 8-10 hour day and considering email, phone calls, a little down time, and that some unexpected work will find a way to fit itself into slots of time, you’re left with only about one hour per project per day. Of course, that depends on the project – hot projects may get more time and some projects can go dormant for a week or two and not require any time. But on an average day, you’re left with about 60 minutes to spend on each project every day.

What Can You do in 60 Minutes?

So, as the project manager, what can we do to ensure our project’s success in 60 minutes a day? You’re probably already doing it, unless you’re in the position of managing only one project at a time – in which case you’re either lucky, bored, or managing an incredibly large project.

Actually, it doesn’t seem like much, but 60 minutes a day is likely the normal amount of time we’d spend adjusting project schedules, making project-specific phone calls, reading and writing project-specific emails, and preparing project status reports. The exception is always going to be the days we have official project status calls – which for me are nearly always an hour long if not more – but then again how often do we only put in 8 hours in a given day anyway?

Time Management is Key

To actually “effectively” manage a project in the 60 minute pockets of time we likely have available on a per project basis, we need to be:

• Organized
• Stubborn (I think I’ve mentioned this once or twice before)
• Focused (stay free of distractions)
• Maintain a steady weekly ritual (our tasks involved with the management of each project changes little from week to week – we perform the same main critical functions…performing them routinely each week at the same time helps us to balance each of our projects so we maintain our productivity as we control 5-6 projects at a time)
• A good and effective communicator (if we have to re-iterate things over and over to our team members, we’re wasting too much of our time and their time)

I’ve never met a project manager with extra time on his or her hands. It just doesn’t happen. If you have extra time then there’s probably something you’ve overlooked, a large issue headed your way, or you simply probably should be spending more time on one of your projects. It seems as a PM our responsibilities, our project resources’ needs, and our customers’ needs always swell to fill up whatever available time we have.

Summary

There’s nothing earth-shattering here. I’m merely stating that most of us have been 60 minute project managers throughout our careers. You do what you can for your projects in the time you have slotted for them, then you move on to the next project. At the end of the day, you’re a success if you made the rounds on all of your projects and you feel comfortable enough about what you did for each of your projects and customers that you can sleep well that night. After, of course, opening up your laptop one more time around 1:00am to tweak tomorrow’s status report. That always seems to be a given for me.

Equipping Your Mobile Project Staff – Part 2

This two part series on ways to equip your mobile project staff (PMs, BAs, developers, etc.) concludes with this article. In Part 1, we covered IP Telephony and Disk/Data Encryption.

In this Part 2, we’ll discuss Virtual Desktops, Remote Office in a Box, and Printing and Power. Again, this information is based on an InformationWeek article from late 2008 and re-worked here to apply more to the project workforce assuming a remote and geographically dispersed team that must travel to customer sites as needed to perform tasks related to design, development, testing, deployment, etc. of planned solutions.

The idea is to ensure maximum productivity to the workforce that is likely largely responsible for most of the organizations project revenue so while budgets must be watched and maintained, there are certain prices that just must be paid.

Virtual Desktops

Full disk data encryption will help IT breathe easier in the event of hacking and theft, but it offers little help to the traveling project manager who just lost his laptop in transit and has a project kickoff meeting tomorrow at the customer site. The wonders of desktop virtualization and advancements in flash memory are bringing new options to on-the-go employees who’ve experienced digital disasters.

When corporate applications are difficult to deploy via Terminal Services or application virtualization, complete virtual desktops environments can be the answer for off-site project workers who need quick access to custom computing environments from a public PC. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) platforms are bleeding-edge technology in the eyes of many, but they’re evolving quickly and are based on proven server virtualization technology.

Remote Office in a Box

Vendors have finally heard the cries of many over the countless hours full of lost productivity and connectivity on the road. The remote office access systems available today are incredible compared to what was available just a few years ago.

Aruba Networks and Cisco are among the players in the remote access market that are making life on the road more bearable. With Aruba’s line of Mobility Controllers and Remote Access Points, the days of troubleshooting VPN client problems are gone. Simply supply your mobile workforce with small access points that plug into any wired Ethernet connection. The AP finds the mobility controller located at corporate headquarters and builds an IPsec tunnel that’s actually an extension of your enterprise wireless network. The Aruba AP is VoIP-friendly and quality-of-service-aware, so users can put down the expensive hotel phone and simply utilize a wireless IP phone.

Printing and Power

A good printing option for the mobile project workforce is the 5-pound HP OfficeJet H470wbt Mobile Printer. With its built-in Bluetooth and WLAN capability, coupled with its ability to print directly from a memory card, PDA, or digital camera, and powered by an optional cigarette-lighter AC adapter, you can now print 18 pages per minute in color, or 22 ppm in black and white, while stopped at a traffic light. Of course, if you try that too much you may be printing while stopped waiting for the officer to finish writing your ticket.

The HP printer lists for $350 – a small price to pay if you’re trying to rely on finding a nearby copy center that is still open late at night when trying to print on the road.

Don’t forget it also takes power to maintain productivity. Macs are offering up to 7 hours of battery life on new Macbook models. And HP appears to be leading the way overall with its EliteBook 6930p laptop, which has an optional expansion battery that can provide up to 24 hours of uninterrupted usage.