Hey, Ashwin here! Welcome to edition #13 of the Tech Lead Compass newsletter!
The following quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the context of World War II is referred to a lot in project management circles.
Plans are useless, but planning is important.
What it essentially means is the agility and adaptability that are required when faced with changing circumstances.
When working with stakeholders, a good plan is essential – to provide transparency and instill confidence.
But what makes a good plan?
Attributes of a Good Plan
In my opinion, these are 5 attributes of a plan that works.
Detailed in the short term, Flexible in the long term
Milestones highlighted
Dependencies called out
Progress made visible
Top risks & mitigations called out
Detailed in the short term, Flexible in the long term
It is impossible to predict the future and the degree of impossibility increases with time. Farther a moment from the present, lower is its predictability.
A good plan must be able to discuss in detail the near-term plan – probably a sprint or two – but never for future releases. The future must be restricted to targets or goals, further broken down as the project progresses.
Milestones highlighted
Calling out milestones and when stakeholders can expect features to come out, goes a long way.
These milestones must be specific and measurable.
For example, instead of “UAT release” as a milestone – “Email newsletter feature release” is more intuitive to stakeholders.
Dependencies called out
A good plan must show the dependencies that exist within and outside.
This helps to bring out all causal relationships and track for potential impacts.
Progress made visible
A plan is not a static artifact.
Progress must be made visible including any deviations or major changes, so that stakeholders can always get up-to-date information.
Top risks & mitigations called out
It is a good practice to use the plan to highlight risks and mitigations that can impact the project outcome.
But a good balance is needed, as it makes the plan appear very busy.
Restrict it to high-impact risks/issues that stakeholders must be aware of and can take action.
Here is the summary of 4 topics we discussed in the stakeholder management series:
Status reports are an essential tool to keep stakeholders engaged and informed. Use a mix of on-demand and concise reports, with the possibility of getting details when needed
Create a stakeholder map to understand their interest and influence in the project
A well-thought-out communication plan is essential to keep the stakeholders involved
It is essential to have a good plan that offers transparency and instills confidence in stakeholders
Now on to the must-read news from the past week…
5 “Must-Read” Tech News for the Week
Google recently rolled out the AI-powered Search feature where the results are generated by their Gen AI engine. But there are several reports of bizarre results suggesting users put glue on their pizza, eat rocks, and so on. It is not the first time and Google is again scrambling to take some action!
Microsoft introduced a new Windows PC line called “Copilot+PC” powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips, which are referred to as NPUs (Neural Processing Units). These computers claim to have the necessary muscle power to run generative AI apps on devices.
Its strong results suggest that demand for the AI chips Nvidia makes remains robust. CEO Jensen Huang said the company would begin to see revenue from its next-generation AI chip, called Blackwell, later this year.
Windows 11’s Recall feature is scary and borderline crazy (BleepingComputer)
Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Recall feature has raised significant privacy concerns. Recall is designed to take screenshots of your active windows every few seconds and record everything you do on your PC for up to three months by default.
While Microsoft claims the data is stored locally in an encrypted format, providing user control over the feature, many experts believe it creates massive privacy risks and a new attack vector for threat actors to exploit and steal sensitive data.
Yahoo Messenger, AOL, and ICQ were the pioneers in instant messaging. The last one to bite the dust is ICQ. It is personally nostalgic for me, as I was an active user of all 3 tools! Am I considered a boomer now? 🙂
That’s it for now and I will be back next week. Goodbye, until then!
In case you missed the past articles, feel free to read them from here:
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