Week of the Elephant

I'm not sure of the origin, but as I was watching an adventure race years ago, I heard an awesome quote.  One of the contestants was asked how he was able to trek a 300 mile course, navigating so many obstacles through so much adversity.  His reply was "even an elephant can be eaten, if you do it a bite at a time".   Though I try not to whip that quote out every time one of my colleagues appears stuck on a project, I do like to bring it out for special occasions.  I think this may be one of them. 3 things happened this week, that rate the reference:  Work during the day, school, and work during the night.

By day, I'm an adviser to a Federal Project Management Office.  I'm not in a position to tell government employees what they should or should not do.  It's my job to advise and support them in any way I can.  This week, they asked me to attend an invoice meeting.  This wasn't a surprise.  Upon reviewing the vendor's invoice from last month, I wasn't satisfied the Billing of Materials (BOM).  There was a lot of stuff ordered and I am very particular about asset management.  I recommended a 7 figure short pay.  I don't think it's important to be specific about the amount.  My client decided to do a 6 figure short pay.  At the 2 hour meeting, we went line by line and the vendor offered corrective actions for items I recommended not be paid.  I accepted some of their proposed corrective actions but they still need to deliver on some promised if they want all of the invoice paid.  One month down, another to go.

Our son started Kindergarten this week. We weren't sure how he was going to take to it.  Until Monday of this week, we were convinced he was going to be crying at the bus stop, wanting to say home with Mommy.  We figured he'd come around in time.  Monday arrive and so did the bus.  He ran aboard almost before we could give a hug and a kiss goodbye.  He returned some 8 hours later and ran off the bus with a big smile on his face.  The adventures that boy had!  Here it is Friday night and he's fast asleep.  One week down, 16 years to go.

At night, I find myself reading the PMBOK® or project management blogs and writing PHP, CSS, and JavaScript. Back in March of 2009, I realized I wanted to create something to help project managers on a grand scale.  That's when I started doing mockups and wireframes for what was to become the HueCubed engine and PMPrep Flashcards.  One year later we launched version 1.0.  This week I worked on 2 new jQuery elements and tonight deployed v1.2.12.  The web application has been progressing nicely and both customers and affiliates are signing up.  Though I never thought we'd get to v1.0, I now do an iterative build and deployment at least once a week.

For those interested, I still have plans for a PMPrep Exam Simulator web app and Prince2 Flashcard web app.  And yes, we're going to be doing an iPhone application.

Graphic: South African Tours and Travel

Looking for Partnerships in Project Management

We are happy to announce, upon partnering with a London-based project management firm, that we launched the future site for Prince2 Flashcards.  Currently, there is just a sign up form, for those who wish to be informed when our product is about to launch.  Additionally, we launched the future site for our PMP Exam Simulator. Again, sign up if you want to be informed when our product is about to launch.  Both the Prince2 and the PMP Exam Simulator sites are project management exam preparation websites that should help us expand our reach in the market. So, what makes this blog post different from others?  Back in March, we launched our PMP Flashcards site.  This was the first site to use our HueCubed flashcard engine.  We've gone through several iterations of the engine and it just gets better and better.

What we're looking for now are some affiliate partners for the PMP Flashcard website.  Do you like what we have created? Want to make some extra money, along with us?

Sign up as a HueCubed affiliate!  As we launch each of the sites, we'll make affiliate links and buttons available.  All affiliate accounts will paid by HueCubed.

Disclaimer:  The Critical Path, HueCubed, and all of the mentioned product sites were designed and developed by me and my development team.

Thank you to everyone for your support,

Derek

Graphic from Flickr: Spring Stone

Giving Back to the Project Management Community

To give a little back on Friday, June 24, we're giving away ten (30-day) promotional PMP flashcard memberships. These will be fully functional memberships. You'll have access to all 2,000 PMP exam flashcards. You'll have access to real-time progress. The only drawback is it will only be a (30-day) promotional membership. But, if you're preparing for the ®PMP, this is your chance to save 10 bucks! (the cost of unlimited access at PMPrepFlashcards) We all know, with the cost of a PMI membership, the PMP exam, and other preparation materials, you're going to need it. Since Twitter has been so instrumental in our success thus far, we're limiting this promotion to Twitter account holders only.

3 Simple steps Get 1 of the 10 promotional memberships

1. Have a Twitter Account
2. Log into PMPrepFlashcards with your Twitter Account
3. Send us an email identifying your Twitter Account Name and we'll flip the switch

Let us know if you want us to tell others that you got a FREE 30-day membership.

3 Simple steps Get a free unlimited account or money

1. Create a PMPrepFlashcards account (Does not require Twitter login but it's easier)
2. Get someone else to sign up for a Premium account ($10)
3. Have them send us an email with your account name.

Think of it as a referral fee. If you get others to sign up, and you have a PayPal account, we'll start sending you $5 for each. Don't forget, they have to send us an email with your account name.

Graphic source: Politiken.dk

Doing AB Testing

So, as you can see, we're getting a little better at graphic development.  I guess you get what you pay for.  So, if given the choice, which would you click?  We're finally at a point where the PMPrepFlashcards product is stable at version 1.1.1 and we're very happy to introduce it to new customers.  But, how do you do that?  How do you get people to a new website?  One way is to get potential customers to have ads.

Here are 2 ads that have appeared here on The Critical Path.  Through recommendation, I added my name to the ads.  Nobody knows who HueCubed or PMPrepFlashcards are.  I'm doing some A/B testing to see which is more clickable.  Is it the flashy ad or the plain ad?

Do me a favor, choose one!  By selecting number 1 or number 2, Google Analytics should tell me which is the most popular.  Who needs a poll when I can just review the Analytics?

If you want to let you feeling known publicly, I welcome comments below.

Know who you are and what you represent

The other day I met Scott Simko, who I "knew" through This Week In Startups and Thomas Kiblin, CEO and Founder of Virtacore.  I met them as the founder of HueCubed, a web startup company offering a flashcard engine that we plan to scale like Weblogs, Inc. or Stackoverflow. (Create a niche product and then scale it in other vertical markets)  Our flagship product, PMPrep Flashcards, was released in March and I wanted to meet the people who are hosting our product(s). Up to this point, I have introduced myself as Derek Huether, Project Management Professional® and adviser.  But these people don't know me as that.  They were meeting me as Derek Huether, entrepreneur and founder of a web startup.  As a result, I stumbled when it was time to introduce myself.  Don't make this mistake!

If you wear multiple hats in your organization, you may need to know who you are to different stakeholders.  Is your specialty in Waterfall, Agile, or Kanban?  Take a moment and imagine you are being introduced to someone.  What are you going to say?  This is part personal branding and part stakeholder management.  What I needed was a solid 30 second elevator pitch.  What's the takeaway from this post? Know who you are and what you represent.  It may be different, based on the company you keep.

What happens when you walk your own critical path

Last night we deployed HueCubed v1.0 to Production.  A year ago, I had an idea for a product that would inexpensively help people study for the PMP® Exam and other certifications or tests.  The result?  HueCubed. HueCubed is a web application which will display randomized flash cards.  Upon reviewing the question, you simply click on the Flip button.  The card flips and displays the answer.  You then have several buttons you can click.  If you click on skip, incorrect, or correct, the system will log your selection.  You can then, at any time, click on Check Progress.  If you click on Flip, the card flips to the other side.  If you click Back, you will navigate to the previous card.

So let's say you want to see your progress and click Check Progress.  Your choices will be broken down by categories of study.  Think of them as mini decks of cards.  There is one big deck (All) and then you have it broken down into 23 categories.  At any time, you can click one of the squares and it will return you to that card for review.  e.g. if there were 28 cards in a deck and you click on 14, you can go directly to card 14 of 28. (see image)

Anyway, I can go on an on about this product.  The idea came to me after I was asked over and over again to recommend products to help people study for the PMP® Exam.  Sure, the products are out there.  But, each one had something I didn't like or thought could be improved upon.  I wanted something Simple, Powerful, and Cost-Effective.  So, I created HueCubed.

The last year has been hard.  I went through 3 development teams before I got a winner.  I'm not demanding or anything.  It's just hard to find the right team sometimes.  I spent countless hours eating my own dogfood.  I created UI wireframes, I created fnctional designs.  I created a WBS.  I used a Kanban to manage my work.  We iterated and iterated.

HueCubed v1.0 was my critical path.  All of the required deliverables are there.  It will be a solid platform to build upon.  I hope I didn't drive me wife too crazy with the idea of this first product.  I still have a group of offerings I want to provide.

In closing, I want to quote 2 great people who inspired me to do what I did.

Jason Calacanis said “Starting is easy; Finishing is hard.”

Seth Godin wrote "Pick a budget. Pick a ship date. Honor both. Don't ignore either. No slippage, no overruns."

I had an idea on March 22, 2009, that seemed simple enough to finish.  How hard could it be?  The answer was "very".

I had a budget and stuck with it.  I gave myself 1 year to get it done or move on with my life.

I bootstrapped the effort and got it delivered.

HueCubed v1.0 went live at 11:28PM last night. Yep, March 22, 2010.

Creeping Ever So Closer To Closure

As my startup project is creeping ever so closer to its closure and the actual launch of the product happens, I'm feverishly completing activities late into the night.  It's not easy working crazy hours to get this done.  My family goes to bed, I drink a pot of coffee, and get to work.  An entrepreneur (Jason Calacanis) once said starting is easy; finishing is hard.

He wasn't kidding!  As a project manager, managing my own project for a product related to project management, you can see there is a little irony.  But, I really think this is going to help a lot of people and it will be worth all of the sleepless nights.

Today's activities included

1. Initial rebrand of the HueCubed twitter page
2. Initial load of the new HueCubed logo to the website
3. Set up the blog component
4. Post 1 free question and answer (with the plan to do it daily)
5. Load 10 questions and answers into the database

Mission accomplished.  I completed the 5 activities and am ready to call it a day (night).  Though we're not quite ready to launch, please feel free to follow me or subscribe via the RSS feed.

Thank you all; and to all a good night.

Getting Exactly What You Want

I just wrapped up a week long logo design project at 99Designs, with an intellectual property transfer agreement.  Flash back to August 2009, when I was watching Episode 13 of This Week in Startups. In it, there was an interview with the founder of a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.  The company is called 99Designs.  With less than 30 days from our startup launch, it was time to complete a scheduled task titled Get logo for HueCubed. Because this is a bootstrapped effort, my budget was very low.  With a mere $150 to award to a designer, I was told it could go a long way on 99Designs.  As the contest sponsor, I answered a few questions about what the logo was for and any preferences that could help designers create original artwork to meet my needs.  The website was very straightforward. What was very helpful was it allowed both a public comment board and private comment board for your contest.  With 106 logo submissions, we narrowed it down to 3 designers.  Mictoon, Richard Scott Design, and mèrshî

With permission from two of the designers, I wanted to post submissions that made it to the finals.

Mictoon was the first to submit to the contest and continued to provide revised logos up until the end.  This designer was impressive in responding to every request we had.  I would post a comment about what I liked and what I did not like and we would get new submissions within a few hours.  I greatly appreciated the efforts made.  But with all contests, there can be only one winner.  Still, if you're ever on 99Designs, I would recommend you send a direct message and invite a submission.

Another very impressive designer was Richard Scott Design.  Within just a few iterations, this logo was as professional as it could be.  Again, the designer was very responsive to our requests.  That's the one thing I think made this effort such a success.  There was a huge volume of communications from both the designers and us.  I've never seen a successful project, when people operated in a void.  The more communications, the greater probability for success.

And this brings us to the winning submission.  mèrshî made the submission below and we were kind of taken back.  It had balance, clean lines, and nice colors.  The graphic could stand alone or could be paired with the font.  We made sure the font was under GPU/GPL so we wouldn't have to pay anything extra or hit a legal snag.  Within a few hours of winning the contest, multiple high res versions of the logo were provided to us, and we signed the intellectual property transfer agreement.  Again, 99Designs made it very easy to take ownership.  We really want to thank mèrshî for being so very accommodating, ensuring we had everything we needed.

I would greatly recommend 99Designs to anyone who needs a graphic.  As a disclaimer, I am not being compensated by 99Designs in any way for the review I am writing.  To the contrary, I paid them!

When you’re bootstrapping a startup, you do what you can with the resources you have.  Thank you to Jason Calacanis for creating and hosting This Week in Startups.  Without the show, I might not have heard of 99Designs.