Scrum is a simple Agile method for software development. Scrum is one model of the Agile movement and represents a typical shift from “waterfall,” a traditional project management approach that, until recently, has dominated software development. Scrum assumes that the software development process is complicated and unpredictable and treats it as a controlled black box instead of a theoretical, fully-defined process.

Characteristics of a good Scrum tool are:

1) It must not have a fixed process flow. The team must be able to tweak the process to fit their culture and organization.

2) It must be simple enough to enable not get in the way. The team must drive the project rather than the tool.

3) It must produce status and progress reports that are customizable and accessible to the business. Feedback is the process that keeps Scrum / Agile on track in a world of changing priorities.

4) The process must have a business value driven approach. In other words the project management tool must drive business value and make business value delivery clear to the team and stakeholders.

Another characteristic of Scrum is that the software development process isn’t treated as a linear process. Scrum, however, doesn’t prescribe a sequence in which the activities must be implemented. A project can start with any activity, and can change between activities at any time. This increases the project’s flexibility and productivity.

To manage these processes with flexibility, Scrum supplies techniques and controls to manage this unpredictable process. The Scrum method is deliberately designed as a framework that can be applied to existing processes. A key principle of Scrum is its recognition that during a project the customers can change their minds about what they want and that unpredicted challenges cannot be easily addressed in a traditional predictive or planned manner. As such, Scrum adopts an empirical approach—accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined, focusing instead on maximizing the team’s ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements.

Project Management is the correct utilization of time involving the resources, people, money and the related sub-resources.  Factors like how efficiently the time, resources, quality and ultimately money is managed directly influence a company’s growth. Project Management is the blend of components like control, leadership and teamwork. Today, Project Management is a professional discipline with a body of knowledge and a specific set of skills.

A Project is successfully managed when the goals are achieved by the intelligent application of principles. Project Management opportunities not only exist for project managers but also for those who are part of a support team in a project or for team leaders with part of a project. Project Management is the model by which organization seeks to minimize the risks and costs of change, and maximize the benefits. Project Management takes strategic planning and proper implementation, which is possible only with proper training and knowledge.

The four basic elements of a project are as under

• Resources: It includes people, tools, and material
• Time: It includes job durations, and delays
• Money: It includes costs, losses, and profit
• Scope: It includes project size, goals, and necessities

Project management ensures that responsibilities are clearly defined and that resources are focusing on specified objectives. The project management process also provides a structure for communication within and across organizational boundaries. All the projects follow similar processes. This has led to the development of project management tools and techniques that can be applied to all projects.

Good planning is an essential criterion for a successful project management. A detailed and precise plan is the essential factor for successfully managing a project. Planning should also accommodate changes in environment. A person in charge of the project should continuously update their plan in line with recent changes. The process of project management includes defining the goals of the project, setting project objectives, specifying tasks based on the goals to be achieved, need of resources and budget, timelines and completion dates. Furthermore, proper project management includes implementing the project plan to make sure that each step is being properly followed. Highly organized would properly define a well-considered project management plan following carefully differentiated steps to complete the project. Feasibility studies would be the first step, followed by project planning then implementation, evaluation, and finally maintenance or support.

What’s the Password?

Today our entire online presence demands passwords prior to doing a given task from banking to paying bills to entering social networks and media. No logon or password, and you are stuck in no man’s land!

However, not any password will do. Today we need strong passwords that are not easy to decrypt and frankly often not easy to remember. We all don’t know how many passwords and logons we use at any given time, but it’s a lot.

However, there are some tricks of the trade which we will explore below. Do not use the same password on multiple accounts. Obviously, if one of your accounts gets cracked, the hacker will have easy access to the others. A good password is an investment in protection your computer and vital information! So do not skimp on your investment.

Why Strong Passwords Are Needed?

The answer is really a no brainer. The bad guys are extremely sophisticated at what they do. A strong password should appear to be a random string of characters to an attacker. It should be 14 characters or longer, (eight characters or longer at a minimum). It should include a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers,and symbols.

Hackers have many approaches to steal your passwords and thus your data. They use the so-called “dictionary” attack trying one word after another with the expectation that users at many sites will pick a word in the dictionary for their password. Obviously for good reason this is not a good idea.

Hackers also use “brute force” attack by automatically trying every combination of letters, numbers, and symbols that can be used as a password. The shorter your password, the fewer the combinations they need to check.

What Makes a Good Password?

Bottom-line, passwords should be at least 8 characters in length keeping in mind that the shorter your password,the easier it is to crack. Passwords should contain a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters
(:~!@#$%^&*()_+{}[]|<>). Do not use a word that can be found in a dictionary whether foreign or specialty terms. Very importantly, the password should be different from your logon or any permutation of it. Also, don’t pick names or nicknames of people, pets, places, or personal information that can be easily found out, such as your address, birthday, or hobbies. And stay away from common keyboard sequences, such as gwerty1 or abc123. If you are thinking about making a password by just adding a digit to your favorite word, don’t do it, and Do Not Give Your Password to Anyone!

Why You Need to Change Your Password periodically?

It is a good idea to change your passwords on a regular basis. This way if hackers have been trying to crack your code they will be stymied as you have broken their pattern. It is just good common sense to protect your assets
to the best of your ability and not get lazy about it. The strength of your password will help keep it good for a longer time. A password that is shorter than 8 characters should be considered only good for a week or so, while
a password that is 14 characters or longer (and follows the other rules outlined above) can be good for several years.

Password Checker

Your online accounts, computer files, and personal information are more secure when you use strong passwords to help protect them.

A quarterly global survey of hiring and firing trends covering more than 7000 organizations in 34 countries has found job prospects for professionals and managers improving for the first time since the autumn of 2008.

The Global Snapshot from an international recruitment firm asked 7397 companies in major markets such as western and eastern Europe, Africa, India, China and the USA whether they were currently hiring at professional and managerial level. It then asked whether they planned to do so in the coming quarter and whether they were currently letting staff go or were planning to do so in the next three months. Current hiring across the globe was up from 46% of respondents in the spring to 50% now. And the percentage of organizations intending to hire in the coming quarter was up from 44% to 48%. At the same time the percentage of organizations intending to shed staff had fallen from 35% in the spring to 25% now.

You have been worrying about handling a possible layoff and might be keeping an eye on the happenings in the job market. Not only you, is the market itself vigilant on the issue. Many surveys have been conducted in the past few months to gauge the impact of the recession on the Indian job market. It’s amazing to know how fast the scenario of job opportunities is changing!

In February 2009 India, the safest employment destination a survey by an HR consultancy firm, predicted in February that salaries would continue to rise at an average of 8.2% in 2009. It further said that India was one of the safest options for employments because only 16% of the Indian companies were considering layoffs as an option whereas 55% of the US companies and 30.6% of the Chinese companies were considering layoffs as the most viable option. The survey also projected that about 60% companies were still thinking of hiring new employees. 9 out of 10 companies were also giving promotions to the right candidates. In April 2009- Recruiters say no layoffs but freeze fresh hiring. Then came the survey report which said that most Indian companies were against layoffs but they had also stopped fresh hiring and staff incentives with a curb on outstation travel for executives. The information technology and outsourcing, which were the booming sectors of the past, had become more conservative with 84% recruiters stating that there will be no more hiring.

And now comes the latest report of the survey conducted by Naukri.com which has brought some relief by stating that 44% of recruiters predict addition of new jobs. The hiring scenario of industries such as pharmacy & medical, construction & engineering and telecom is positive where over 50% of the recruiters are planning to create new jobs during 2009. About 15% recruiters from IT industry indicated that there is no possibility of recruitment during the year, while 4% went off to say that there would be layoffs.

Current India hiring levels are up to 51% from 29%. The hiring and firing of staff is one of the most effective measures of business confidence and there is no denying that, with a few exceptions, the jobs market for professionals and managers is improving all around the world.