I suspect that many of you are familiar with the term "hard coding a value" whereby the age of an individual or their location is written into the condition (or action) of a business rule (in this case) as shown below:

if customer.age > 21 and customer.city == 'denver'

then ...

Such coding practices are perfectly expectable provided that the conditional values, age and city, never change. They become entirely unacceptable if a need for different values could be anticipated. A classic example of where this practice occurred that caused considerable heartache in the IT industry was the Y2K issue where dates were updated using only the last 2 digits of a four digit number because the first 2 digits were hard-coded to 19 i.e. 1998, 1999. All was well provided that the date did not advance to a time beyond the 1900’s since no one could be certain of what would happen when the millennia arrived (2000). A considerably amount of work (albeit boring) and money, approximately $200 billion, went into revising systems by way of software rewrites and computer chip replacements in order to thwart any detrimental outcomes. It is obvious how a simple change or an assumption can have sweeping consequences.

You may wonder what Y2K has to do with Business Rule Management Systems (BRMS). Well, what if we considered rules themselves to be hard-coded. If we were to write 100s of rules in Java, .NET or whatever language that only worked for a given scenario or assumption, would that not constitute hard-coded logic? By hard-coded, we obviously mean compiled. For example, if a credit card company has a variety of bonus campaigns, each with their own unique list of rules that may change within a week’s time, what would be the most effective way of writing software to deal with these responsibilities?

Let’s face it, fad or not, companies are starting to ask themselves how they could possibly use machine learning and AI technologies in their organization. Many are being lured by the promise of profits by discovering winning patterns with algorithms that will enable solid predictions… The reality is that most technology and business professionals do not have sufficient understanding of how machine learning works and where it can be applied.  For a lot of firms, the focus still tends to be on small-scale changes instead of focusing on what really matters…tackling their approach to machine learning.

In the recent Wall Street Journal article, Machine Learning at Scale Remains Elusive for Many Firms, Steven Norton captures interesting comments from the industry’s data science experts. In the article, he quotes panelists from the MIT Digital Economy Conference in NYC, on businesses current practices with AI and machine learning. All agree on the fact that, for all the talk of Machine Learning and AI’s potential in the enterprise, many firms aren’t yet equipped to take advantage of it fully.

Panelist,  Michael Chui, partner at McKinsey Global Institute states that “If a company just mechanically says OK, I’ll automate this little activity here and this little activity there, rather than re-thinking the entire process and how it can be enabled by technology, they usually get very little value out of it. “Few companies have deployed these technologies in a core business process or at scale.”

Panelist, Hilary Mason, general manager at Cloudera Inc., had this to say, “With very few exceptions, every company we work with wants to start with a cost-savings application of automation.” “Most organizations are not set up to do this well.”

With the skyrocketing popularity of Android and iOS operating systems, software developers got a whole new arena opened up. Many of the programmers have progressed to concentrate solely onto Mobile Technology Development. This is mainly due to the high demand as well as numerous lucrative ideas left to explore in the Mobile App world.

Exponential growth of smartphone users

As per the survey by eMarketer, the number of smartphone users across the globe crossed 1 billion almost two years ago. The expected number of smartphone users by 2014 end is 1.75 billion.

With smartphones, iPads and Tablets getting more accessible and less expensive day by day, the development potential for mobile apps is truly vast. The under-penetration in emerging markets like India and China in Asia shows that there seems to still a lot of steam left in the mobile app development industry.

A project manager acts as the primary link between business and technical teams. A project manager is responsible for maintaining the project schedule, developing project estimates, working with external teams and tracking project issues. The project manager belongs to either the technical team or the project management office (PMO). The project manager works with business teams, technical teams, business counterparts, testing resources, vendors and infrastructure teams.

A project manager is often challenged with diagonally opposite views from the business side and technical side. A project manager’s success depends on balancing the needs and emotions of both sides.

Understanding the Requirements
A project manager must familiarize with the project’s requirements as defined by the business or product managers. This will help you understand the business vision behind the project. You will need this knowledge while negotiating with the technical teams.

Understanding the Technical Landscape
A project manager must also understand the technical systems, resource skills and infrastructure capabilities available for the project. Business teams come up with expectations that are sometimes beyond the capabilities of the technology team. It is the responsibility of the project manager to understand the technical capabilities available to the project.

Walkthrough of Business Requirements
This is a critical step in the project delivery process. The project manager must invite members from the business team, technical team, testing team, infrastructure team and vendors. The project manager must encourage the various stakeholders to ask questions about the requirements. Any prototypes available must be demonstrated in this meeting. The project manager must find answers to all questions resulting from the requirements walkthrough. The project manager must get the final version of the requirements approved by all stakeholders.

Managing Conflicts in Timelines and Budgets
All project managers will face the conflicts arising from shortened timelines and limited budgets. Business teams typically demand many features that are nearly impossible to deliver within short timeframes. The project manager must work with business and technical teams to prioritize the requirements. If the project is executed in a product development organization, then the project manager could utilize agile methodologies to deliver projects incrementally. In this case, the project manager may be required to act as a scrum master to facilitate scrum meetings between various stakeholders.

The Art of Saying “No”
As a project manager, you may be forced to say “no” to demands from both business and technology teams. However, it is important to create a win-win situation for all parties when you are faced with conflicting demands. You can work with the stakeholders individually before bringing all parties together. Most stakeholders prefer to work together. The success of a project manager depends on how effectively he or she can bring out the best in everyone, driving everyone towards a common goal.

Finally, the job of a project manager is not to satisfy the demands from all corners. The project manager must identify the essential deliverables that will meet the business needs, with a solid understanding of what is possible within the limits of technology.

Related:

Smart Project Management: Best Practices of Good Managers

Is Agism an Issue in IT?