Fear & greed complicate and truth makes things simple. If you realize that your delivery environment has reached enough complication and everyday life is struggling, this presentation is for you. It captures my experiences of 'walking the talk of SIMPLIFICATION' - in the form of timeless rules - so that investments and the interests could be protected from further damage.

1. SIMPLIFICATION
Business Wisdom from the ‘Power of 1 In 23 Out’
If the delivery environment has enough been COMPLICATED?
Let’s Walk the Talk of

2. Fear & greed complicate, and truth simplifies.
If enough complication has been reached,
SIMPLIFICATION to be followed - to save, to
protect.

3. Introduction
Timeless Rules (1, 2, 3 …8)
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
1
2
Further Reading3
Power of 1 In 23 Out4

4. Despite -
• Tons of technology, tools & processes and
• Heavy monitoring of resources
If you are still struggling, this is because your project schedules/sprint plans are
compromised - they are not realistic.
You have failed to manage expectations of the people whom you thought would
help you get –
• Salary hike
• Promotion
• Or simply save your position.
Timeless rules in this presentation would help you put right things at the right
place and create realistic and truthful project schedules/sprint plans.
Ajai Kumar,
Project Manager and a Meditation Enthusiast
Introduction

5. Creating ‘Realistic’ Schedule

6. 03Your schedule must be built upon the available effort adjusted with the skill level of every
individual in the team.
Because 20 heads on the floor are at times effectively 12 heads only.
It’s good to start project with partially skilled team but being realistic is the key to organic
progress.
Reality can never be replaced by hope and we don’t need heroes and messiahs to make the
project a success, everyone has to carry his/her own load – and be responsible.
1
Timeless Rule

7. 03Ensure a proper and undisturbed planning window for your team.
If team would work on the slip-over and ad-hoc activities during the planning window,
you will always have a poor-quality plan at hand.
And everyone would be running pillar to post when it’s time to execute the plan.
2
Timeless Rule

8. 03
Signed contracts must be renegotiated to reflect the on-ground reality.*
If the estimates given by team ‘now’ are more than the estimates in the contract, negotiate these gaps with
the customer and/or with your company’s senior management.
Contracts are estimated based on the industry baselines – the averages. Since now you have real people to
work with you – estimates coming from the real people are real and must be respected.
Sprint plans must remain realistic. And product release plan to be updated to reflect realistic sprint plans.
That’s indeed required as contracts are conceived when clarity is the least and assumptions – the most.
3
Timeless Rule
* For more, refer (2) on “Further Reading” slide

9. 03
Safeguard the project schedule against the emotional decisions to launch a product before a
special occasion with a set of features.
If it’s not possible to release the product, for example, by Christmas or by Diwali with said
features, say it clearly.
Embrace yourself to face the moment of truth, as people may say that, “If you won’t do, it
would be done by someone else.”
Truth must be maintained irrespective of the market situation and available bench duration
in the company.
4
Timeless Rule

10. Test of Your Realistic Schedule

11. 03
Is your team with you to work on the project schedule without you inducing them with any kind
of fear or enticing them with additional benefits to accept your plan?
When you are realistic and truthful, you and people working with you, automatically become free
from both – fear and greed.
Realistic plans are bought by people without you talking any nonsense with them.
5
Timeless Rule

12. Safeguard Your Schedule from
Internal Damages

13. 03
Check team’s effort leakage towards work requests coming from inside your organization or the
delivery unit – which are essentially not part of the schedule or which you don’t disclose to
your customer.
Say NO to the unaccounted requests from the DU Office. E.g. -
• Unaccounted resource bandwidth towards writing proposals
• Unaccounted resource bandwidth towards demos to other customers
You are paid to show the results. And everyone in the organization is paid to play their
designated roles. Nobody is doing a favor to anyone else.
6
Timeless Rule

14. The Time Test

15. 03
Have you started thinking that project is run by only 20% of the people?*
If you push people left and right with the mandates coming from the customer and the senior
management, you will be left with only 20% of the people by your side and that too till the
time you are nourishing their greed. After some time they would also leave.
This situation comes when your schedule is no more realistic. You need to invest proper time
to understand people and onboard them on your plans without putting any pressure.
People are first - tools, technology and processes are second.
7
Timeless Rule
* For more, refer (3) on “Further Reading” slide

16. 03
Do you feel few processes are unnecessarily eating up team’s bandwidth?
Once project schedules are realistic and truthful, environment becomes simple and targets
and desired results fall in place ‘automatically’.
Many processes, audits and standards are no more required.
You earlier had to monitor the resources as you did not allow them to have their own
estimates. When people are not put under pressure, they commit only what they can do. They
would then learn, grow in their own shoes and commit for more next time.
8
Timeless Rule

17. Further Reading
Read the detailed articles and white-papers on LinkedIn
1. Ten Point Strategy to Bring the Delivery Floor Back to Life.
URL – https://tinyurl.com/yxosawof
2. Dealing with Fix Price, Contractual Obligations and the
Penalty Clauses.
URL - https://tinyurl.com/ua8n9wu
3. Do you think that projects are run by only 20% of the people?
URL - https://tinyurl.com/rm9au84

18. Power of 1 In 23 Out
Give 1 hour to yourself and 23 hours to the rest of the world – to family, to office, to the society.
Be alone, put any music and dance for half an hour the way you want – there is nobody watching
you, there is no format, there are no expectations. Then take rest for another half an hour, be still
and simply be a watcher – of your thoughts, of your breath, of the sensations, of the sounds – just
be a watcher of everything.
If you can practice it regularly, soon you will be able to remain a watcher of your thoughts when
there is fear around. Just by waiting for some time, clouds of fear inducing thoughts subside and
soon your vision becomes clear and ready to decide, to act – the way you want and not the way of
the fear.
Congratulations! You enjoyed an opportunity to be yourself. Now you are a person truly alive.
People who succumb to fears, become greedy. Because they think that by achieving things early
would help them getting rid of fears – but that’s not true.
For further reading, refer LinkedIn article –
“The Opportunity Space of Non-doing.”
URL - https://tinyurl.com/sqashkt

19. Recommendation and training of ‘1 In 23 Out’ by –
Osho
The Man Behind the Show.

20. For further questions-
ajaikvarshney@gmail.com
THANKS!

21. CREDITS
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