Engineering, Management, Technology Consulting

  • Clean inbox, simplified life, 10% solution, all of these are simply one-touch moves taught best is soccer, the team game.  If you are looking to make your team successful, do you need the “guru” or are you trying for a shortcut that education can provide.  Take a look as Barcelona provide a model that all clubs should strive to copy

    In the next round of the Champions League Arsenal face a side whose scintillating rhythms are hypnotising the football world

    Paul Hayward,guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 February 2011 22.04 GMT

      Lionel MessiBarcelona’s Lionel Messi celebrates scoring in the last season’s Champions League quarter-final second leg against Arsenal. Photograph: David Ramos/Associated Press

      In Spain’s 1-0 win over Colombia at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium on Wednesday an unwelcome truth engulfed the locals. To the rest of football it has long been obvious that Barcelona are taking over the world. But nobody expected them to take over Real Madrid.

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  • At Walker Engineering we are already getting ready for the 2012 National Engineers Week and Introduce a Girl to Engineering 2012.  Get going with the Discover Engineering Toolkit

    DISCOVER ENGINEERING Toolkit
    Engineers Make a World of Difference. Celebrate engineer-volunteerism and outreach.

    Collectively, America’s engineers contribute more than one million hours annually to public service. National Engineers Week  Foundation coalition members, with the support of engineering firms and agencies, represent a significant segment of this volunteer force. This year, to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of Engineers Week,  the Foundation is giving special recognition to engineer volunteers! Explore this toolkit for tips on how to recognize and energize your local volunteers; graphics to include on your websites or in print announcements, postcards, and posters; suggestions for outreach opportunities; and much more.

    Toolkit Introduction

    This toolkit includes a tip sheet of practical ideas and 3 files with graphics to use in promoting the theme Engineers Make a World of Difference, a celebration of Engineer volunteerism.

    Source files for In-Design, Illustrator, and/or Photoshop are provided in each directory for users who have access to Adobe desk top publishing software. All files are included in .jpg format for immediate viewing. Pdf files are presented in an editable form. Authorized edits are made in suggested text.

  • Chrometa, which only works in Windows, is a time tracking software intended for those of us wanting to know where every last minute goes and it can now be had for free. It’s always been worth checking out, for hourly billing, but previously it cost $99.  And these apps simply never do everything you want them to do.  Chrometa is rolling out a webapp-based platform with a monthly pricing scheme. However, Chrometa Desktop is now a free download for Windows systems. WEngineering is beginning to test it.  We will try to post back and update the information later on.

    Chrometa automatically captures and organizes the time you spend on your PC, facilitating your ability to accurately bill all your time. With Chrometa, you just work and Chrometa watches in the background. It logs all your computer activity, and also helps you capture phone and meeting time spent away from your PC. Categorize your activities to clients/projects with a simple drag and drop (just like organizing your Outlook inbox). Because Chrometa is “smart”, it will remember your categorizations for future use, making time reconciliation a snap. Step away from your PC, and Chrometa starts its away timer. When you get back to your PC, it’ll remind you to add a note about your away time. Password protect application access so only you are authorized to view your data. Pause/resume tracking anytime. Block Chrometa from tracking any application. Records and breaks down your time by application, e-mail, Web page, and document. View total times for each item by day, week, month, or a custom date range. Categorize your activities to clients/projects with a single click (just like organizing your Outlook inbox).

  • WE are reviewing new project management methods and software to continuously investigate how to improve our ability to work with projects.  Not that PMI isn’t a good thing, but certification as THE end never is a good idea, as part of the package fine, but tools and systems change, as do the times we live in.  Many plans simply age, and while useful, weaving them with new ideas can be productive as well.

    With that in mind we are reviewing Making Things Happen and specifically adopting some of the tools and approaches of the Action Method for project management.

    The Action Method organizes all of your projects into their most basic elements:

    • ACTION STEPS are tasks that need to be completed. Each Action Step should start with a verb: “Call Y,” “Follow up with X,” “Buy a gift for Z.”
    • REFERENCES are notes, links, files, sketches – any information related to a project that gives context to your Action Steps.
    • BACKBURNERS are the brilliant ideas that you want to come back to later, but are not yet actionable.
    • DISCUSSIONS enable you to manage ongoing conversations across all of your projects with anyone that works with you. All relevant communications (shared documents, solutions to problems, feedback, decisions) are in one place.
    • EVENTS are the key occasions/meetings/milestones/etc toward which you (and your team) are working. Events can be used to coordinate deadlines for Action Steps, aiding project management.

    Well, I would explain more, but I am off to install the iPhone App for further testing.  Take a look at all of this.

  • Sometimes it just pays to let yourself reflect back on songs that you heard when you are young, and this is one that qualifies.