I was been part of project activities were (or can be classified as) part of Project Management CoE, which covered some or all activities of Quality/Process/CMMi/Lean Six Sigma. If seen closely at detailed activities, all of these four seems ambiguous. I mean some part of process consulting will be covered in Lean Sigma and CMMi is obviously part of Project Quality Management. Now understanding the existing improvement areas and targeting some goals which are in line with the organization/business strategy and vision, one higher management would be able to conclude to decide to establish CoE. Again before establishing we need to be clear about the expected benefits and roadmap and structure about the CoE and CoE Manager responsibilities.

Leaving the type of CoEs which can exists let’s see what is the difference between General Project/Product/Delivery Manager and CoE related roles.

When I try to differentiate between Project and Product Manager, I understand that It’s pretty clear that both manage Projects and Products. Apart from the standard definitions found in book what I have seen is that Project Management work is often outsourced and Product management is mostly kept closely coupled with client business. Product Managers are mostly away from offshore; someone close to client business reporting to client business director. Now again, in product management product iteration and related scope of say 3-6 month can be considered as project and management could be outsourced. But again onsite Product Managers are far more influential and dominant than onsite project managers. SCRUM has redefined the entire perspective. What I understand from scum is that it is traditional iterative development with small iterations (generally 2 weeks called as sprints) and again team size up to max of 6-8 (as there does not exist any lead – may be due to cost cutting or to have entire control with Product Owner). The last and most powerful differentiator is self organizing team, which lacked in integrative development. In scrum, its just that team estimates and picks the work/assignment. I have seen it as an improvement proposed in one of the Lean Six Sigma initiative, its called as pull system where team picks up work from centralized tool rather than waiting for Lead to assign it. In lean six sigma; it is done to reduce on waste called as waiting time.

I understand that in standard terms, the difference between Project Manager and Delivery Manager is that DMs are supposed to report to PMs. In large projects DM handle on Service of entire project and are a little powerful than Leads to have responsibilities to handle (Manage) the team from end to end service management. Services can be related to technology or project type like Dot Net, Java, Middleware, Database or Enhancement, maintenance etc.

In case if End-To-End project management is with client then (Service/Application/Technology) Delivery Managers are the most influential and dominating roles at offshore.

Now when I see what the Management is all divided into, I can proceed to understand the difference between these General Management roles and CoE Manager. And I can still dare to leave the question saying that it depends on the Vision and Strategy of the organization or client.

If client business vision is not met with the General Management Roles they are doing (or the outsourced organization is doing) then they can build the gap by establishing and empowering CoE.

There are only two reasons anything happens in any function in IT industry. One is to improve something and other is to reduce something. Improve Quality, Revenue and Profit or reduce poor quality, losses. Some IT Directors, VP see in their vision of the company to have control over present activities from an End-to-End perspective. But in general it results into some improvement or reduction expectation.

CoE is such an effort these days organizations are focusing on.

Management and CoE are two distinct terms. Manager is natural to any project. SDLC has Project/Program/Account/Delivery Managers. Iterative and SCRUM Projects do have Product Manager. When any organization intends to setup any kinda CoE, let it be Developemnt or Testing or Database or Maintenance-Support CoE, there need to have existence of some business drivers. Although it depends on Engagement Model, more on engagement models later. But in-general there exists Customer/Client who has need and is willing to pay, Supplier is someone who has capability and provides/supplies as per the need. Again more on this later!

When I learn about existence of CoE, interestingly the question that attracts me is WHY! Why anything exists. To have anything Improved or Reduced or to gain Control over present activities? Now there is third angle – to Control. Improve and Reduce is understandable and has definite goals. Improve Customer satisfaction by 1 point or improve review effectiveness by 20% or reduce defects by 10%, things like these. Pure Control is difficult to exercise but its an management requirement to have as maximum control as possible, if not 100%.

Have you ever wondered why CoE exists in your organization?

There a quote which says that all of us have something in common which drives, I am not sure, either ‘all of us’ or ‘entire human race’. I almost forgot, that think is that we are better than average!!! Practically, all of the team members strongly believe that they are performing better than the average team performance, in some way or the other!

Coming back to the point, you see people talking. You believe that they don’t know certain thing and they express their knowledge and best practices. Since these are best practices (and you have not been doing atlas single of these) there is a great chance that you believe these don’t exist. Here you are missing good proven practices. This is one extreme positive possibility and while I go to consider negative possibility I understand that people may intentionally or unintentionally open their mouth and prove that they are idiot. To be precise there are more incidents of the latter.

Going by the probability, there is a good chance that you see people talking garbage about something that you know (theoretically or practically – by experience). There you go. There are two choices you think at first place; one is to correct him/her and other is to do something else to distract yourself. The second option you could choose to stop yourself (or your unconscious mind) to grab any nonsense from the discussion. You might be in place where you believe that your unconscious mind process anything grabbed-but-unprocessed by your conscious.

There is third option and you might have already faced if you are in some party/meeting/event where you cannot avoid but to just let your ears be at receiving ends.

I believe this is an opportunity. There’s something called as ‘thinking out of the box’. At first like everyone else I thought that it’s just something which is practically impossible. Long back when I was in such situation I was part of the live experience. There was someone who was talking about something, which I believe I know at least basics, and I understood that it is something wrong been told at the very beginning of the second statement! Fortunately or unfortunately I had to listen without distracting self.

I realized that the neither person, though neither experienced nor expert, was checking limits of the his information and knowledge processing system. That person was trying to mention several things which were neither true as per his/her experience not he/she believed. It was just spontaneous exploration of the topic. You should appreciate such the discussions, you learn from others boxes and thinking out of it. At least, you learn from what and how you should not talk.

You understand what the limits (box) are and the ways to cross them!!!

‎”In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do you ever find them” – Dr. Joyce Brothers

But if the discussion is not professional, others are trying to tell you their personal stuff, you just listen and forget and don’t try to process the information to generate your set of knowledge. Now your intention is not to respond to others and you always thought that if not responded with any opinion, people will think that you are not listening and they will stop it. I think it doesn’t work that obvious way as human nature is involved here. If you are listening and just listening and not giving your opinions (by processing what others are saying using your beliefs and experience or knowledge).

Sometimes people don’t need you to tell them what is right. Sometimes people don’t need you to point out their mistakes, facts they missed, their shortcomings. Sometimes people don’t need you to remind them their failures, lost beliefs, forgotten experience. Doesn’t matter how strongly you think it is important to them, they don’t need it. Probably they are not ready to know it yet or they they know and just don’t want to face it. People are not ready to face the truth; here the truth is something you yourself believe is true (as per your belief system).

When I avoid to listen or to judge and pass on unexpected help/suggestions (just because I am not interested or I know I shouldn’t), I strongly believe that is when people take me granted to be best listener they ever had!!!

from movie ‘Splendor in the Grass’

If u r happy for someone then u will feel to make him or her happy, but if u r sad or hurt by someone then you would wish to make him sad too. Compare on some scale, I think the amount of happiness u would like to give will be far less than that of the amount of sadness u will wish. Also on similar scale sadness would lead u to take more effort as compared to efforts you would take due to any kind of happiness.

I guess what happens is that we actually transfer the sadness or joy from ourselves to others. It’s basically paid forward then.

It’s a jungle out there
Disorder and confusion everywhere
No one seems to care
Well I do
Hey, who’s in charge here?
It’s a jungle out there
Poison in the very air we breathe
Do you know what’s in the water that you drink?
Well I do, and it’s amazing
People think I’m crazy, ’cause I worry all the time
If you paid attention, you’d be worried too
You better pay attention
Or this world we love so much might just kill you
I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so!
‘Cause there’s a jungle out there.
It’s a jungle out there.

Randy Newman