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Category: Learn

 

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) is PMI's flagship publication and is a fundamental resource for effective project management in any industry. It has been updated to reflect the latest good practices in project management.

Over the past few years, more and more stakeholders have asked us for content on agile — and more are using agile practices, which is confirmed by our Pulse of the Profession® research. That's why we included information on agile practices will be included alongside traditional approaches in the Sixth edition and partnered with Agile Alliance® to create the new Agile Practice Guide*.

The PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition and Agile Practice Guide were created to complement each other. Together these two publications are a powerful tool that enable the right approach for the right project.

When you order the PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition (in English) you will receive a complimentary copy of the Agile Practice Guide.

This dynamic duo presents solutions for project delivery professionals working in the entire spectrum of approaches — from predictive (or waterfall) to cutting edge agile methodologies.

Translations

The PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition is available for download in English and 11 additional languages (Arabic, Chinese [simplified], French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese Brazilian, Russian and Spanish). Print versions will be available in October.

The translated PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition/Agile Practice Guide will be available at a later date (TBD).

By Project Managers, For Project Managers

The PMBOK® Guide is developed by active practitioners and subject matter experts, then reviewed by the project management community before it is released, to assure it always reflects the current state of the profession.

Why is the PMBOK® Guide changing?

  • Project Management has evolved significantly since we published the PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition in 2013.
  • Part 2 of the PMBOK® Guide is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and must be updated every four to five years.
  • PMI continually learns more about what drives successful project outcomes through our research… and we want to share those drivers with the project management community.

What’s New in the PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition?

The PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition includes information on how to implement its approaches in agile environments — a first for PMI.

Other additions include:

  • Trends and emerging practices
  • Tailoring considerations
  • A greater emphasis on Strategic and Business Knowledge
  • A new section on the role of the project manager

 

 

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Category: Learn

PMP is one of those credentials whose reputation precedes them. Nevertheless, here’s a few reasons you should consider getting a PMP Certification.

Reason #1: PMP is a globally acknowledged certification

A PMP Credential is recognized and sought-after the world over (there are more than 450k PMP certified professionals worldwide – Source) Clearing a PMP exam and achieving a PMI PMP Credential would thus help a professional showcase their skills and expertise to potential global employers.

Reason #2: A PMP credential leads to a steep hike in salary

A PMP Credential holder witnesses a dramatic and steep hike in salary, with the certification. On average, PMPs earn 17% more than their non-certified counterparts, according to the Project Management Salary Survey, Eighth Edition.

Further, new research from the Project Management Institute, suggests that 71% of project managers saw an increase in compensation over the last 12 months.

PMPs earn a median salary of $110,000 a year.

Reason #3: A PMP Credential Greatly Expands Your Market Reach and Scope

Holders of the Project Management Professional certification form a global close knit community, with a plethora of Project Management fora, discussion boards, and online communities attracting PMPs from across the world, willing to share tips, insights and pool their experience, thus staying abreast of latest developments and trends in the industry.

Reason #4: PMPs Have Better Job Opportunities

According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, 80% of high-performing projects use PMP credentialed project managers, and, according to the PMI Pulse of the Profession study, organizations with more than 35% PMP certified project managers demonstrated much better project performance.

Thus, a PMP Certification opens up better career avenues and provides professionals with greater job opportunities in the project management world.

Reason #5: PMPs Get The Most Challenging Projects

A PMP Certification earns a professional challenging and important industry, since it demonstrates one’s dedication towards project management and showcases required knowledge and experience to handle challenging projects.

Besides, as the PMP Exam eligibility criteria include both education and experience for project managers, a PMP Certification validates one’s skills and experience leading and directing projects.

Reason #6: PMPs Have Enhanced Project Management Skills And Demonstrate Better Project Performance

Not all Project Managers are PMP certified and, consequently, project managers who lack the credential perform less efficiently than their certified peers. The standards for the rigorous PMP exam are higher than other PM certifications, and it tests professionals on all five project management processes – initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling and closing, providing the Project manager with a detailed, standardized, actionable set of project management best practices drawing from all five processes.

Further, a professional needs to be aware of all nine knowledge areas of project management, including project scope management, integration management, human resource management, time management, cost management, quality management and procurement management, with in-depth knowledge in order to qualify for the PMP Exam.

This enhances their project management skills immensely, and allows the project manager to tackle all manner of projects with consummate ease.

Reason #7: Greater Visibility To Recruiters

Research across industries suggests that organizations prefer hiring PMP certified project managers to their non-credentialed peers. The PMP certification is a standard that demonstrates a professional’s expertise in project management and it immediately catches a recruiter’s eye, during profile evaluation.

Reason #8: Utility Across Industry

A PMP Credential is an ideal bet for all project managers in various professional fields, including IT, telecom, business processing, commerce, finance, research, and more.

Reason #9: Planning Ahead

The test falls into about the middle range in terms of cost. While not as expensive as many of the high tech, very specific exams, it isn’t something you are likely to take lightly. At $555 a test (unless you are a PMI member, in which case it is $405), it doesn’t seem too expensive.

Once you consider the failure rate, you may decide that you need to take courses, which run between $1,500 and $2,000, and that does not include the cost of the exam.

Reason #10: PMPs Are Secure Even During Economic Downturns

With the economy yet to get back to where it was 15 years ago, there is still plenty of uncertainty. While no one is immune to layoffs and downsizing, 80% of executives around the world believe that having a PMP Certification demonstrated core competencies that made the certification holders valuable even during a recession.
 
Agree with our list? What were YOUR reasons for getting a PMP certification? Let us know in the comments section.

In between that, here is a sample video that takes you through introduction of PMP certification. Hope you find it beneficial.

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Category: Blockchain

 

While Bitcoin and cryptocurrency may have been the first widely known uses of blockchain technology, today, it’s far from the only one. In fact, blockchain is revolutionizing most every industry. Here are just a few of the practical examples of blockchain technology.

 

Entertainment

‌KickCity—Platform for event organizers that enables them to pay only for what they get, and rewards community members by sharing those events. Their products generate around $50k monthly with more than 70k users and 300 event hosts.

B2Expand—Based on the Ethereum blockchain they create cross-gaming video games. Their first video game “Beyond the Void” got into Ubisoft's startup program and they're the first gaming company on Steam with a crypto economy.

 

Spotify—When Spotify acquired blockchain startup Mediachain Labs it was to help develop solutions via a decentralized database to better connect artists and licensing agreements with the tracks on Spotify’s service.

Guts—A transparent ticketing ecosystem that uses blockchain technology to eliminate ticket fraud and the secondary ticket market.

Social Engagement

Matchpool—“Matchmakers” are rewarded for making successful matches whether it’s dating to freelancing to Uber and Airbnb.

Retail

Warranteer—A blockchain application that allows consumers to easily access info regarding the products they purchased and get service in the case of product malfunction.

Blockpoint—Simplifies the creation of payment systems and allows mobile wallet, loyalty program, gift cards and other point-of-sale functionality.

Loyyal—Powered by blockchain and smart contract technology, this loyalty and rewards platform creates more customized programs that even allow for multi-branded rewards.

Exotic Cars

Bitcar—Fractionalized ownership of collector cars made possible by a BitCar token.

Supply chains and logistics

IBM Blockchain—Knowing the status and condition of every product on your supply chain from raw materials to distribution is critical. Blockchain for supply chains allows transparency with a shared record of ownership and location of parts and products in real time.

Food industry—The food industry’s complex network from farmers to grocers makes tracking down food-borne illnesses challenging. Blockchain can improve the transparency and efficiency of finding out what food might be contaminated and where throughout the supply chain.

 

Provenance—Consumers are increasingly demanding transparency regarding the products they purchase and consume to ensure the sourcing of materials and production of products adheres to their individual values. Provenance uses blockchain to provide chain-of-custody and certification of supply chains.

Blockverify—With a claim to “introduce transparency to supply chains,” Blockverify focuses on anti-counterfeit solutions using blockchain to verify counterfeit products, diverted goods, stolen merchandise and fraudulent transactions.

OriginTrail—Already in use in the food industry, more applications are planned for OriginTrail, a platform that lets consumers know where their purchases came from and how they were produced.

De Beers—De Beers mines, trades and markets more than 30% of the world’s supply of diamonds. The company plans to use a blockchain ledger for tracing diamonds from the mine to the customer purchase. This transparency will help the industry and anybody who wishes to verify, confirm diamonds are free from conflict. Fura Gems also plans to use blockchain in its supply process of emeralds, rubies and other precious stones.

Insurance

Accenture—With goals to boost efficiency and productivity within the insurance industry, Accenture builds blockchain solutions for its insurance clients. They translate key insurance industry processes into blockchain-ready procedures that embed trust into the system.

Proof of insurance—Nationwide insurance company is currently testing a blockchain solution to provide proof-of-insurance information called RiskBlock. Ultimately, when this tool is fully deployed it will help law enforcement, insured and insurers verify insurance coverage in real time and accelerate claims processing.

Healthcare

MedicalChain—The first healthcare company using blockchain technology to facilitate the storage and utilization of electronic health records in order to deliver a complete telemedicine experience. They are real practicing doctors in the UK healthcare structure and want to change the system from within.

MedRec—In order to give any medical provider secure access to patients’ records, MedRec uses blockchain to save time, money and duplication in procedures between a variety of facilities and providers. Patients could also grand access to their anonymous medical records to be used for research.

Nano Vision—Looking to catapult medical innovation away from traditional data silos and incompatible records systems, Nano Vision combines the power of blockchain with artificial intelligence (AI) to gather molecular-level data on Nano Tokens. AI then sifts through the data to find trends and analyze connections that will lead to medical breakthroughs.

 

Gem—With a goal to give patients control over their medical records and genomic data by using a blockchain solution, Gem has also partnered with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to experiment with using blockchain to monitor infectious diseases.

SimplyVital Health—This platform sits on blockchain technology that empowers providers and patients to access, share and even move their healthcare data.

Real Estate

BitProperty—Using blockchain and smart contracts, BitProperty wants to democratize opportunity and create a decentralized society by allowing anyone anywhere in the world (except the U.S. and Japan due to regulatory concerns) to invest in real estate.

Deedcoin—Rather than a typical 6% real estate commission, Deedcoin runs on 1% and hopes to be the new way for home buyers and sellers to connect with real estate agents who accept a lower commission.

Ubiquity—This Software-as-a-Service (Saas) blockchain platform offers a simpler user experience to securely record property information to ensure a clean record of ownership.

Charity

BitGive —This gloabal donation platform leverages Bitcoin and blockchain technology to provide greater transparency to donors by sharing real-time financial and project information. Save the Children, The Water Project and Medic Mobile are a few of the charities working with BitGive.

AidCoin—Since research shows 43% of people don’t trust charities, AidCoin hopes to improve that trust with distributed ledgers, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies and make the nonprofit sector more transparent.

Utopi—A lack of transparency has plagued charitable giving, but Utopi hopes to improve transparency in nonprofits. When donors give using the Utopi platform they can see exactly how every penny is spent.

Financial Services

Bitcoin Atom —A new fork of Bitcoin that allows everyone to easily exchange cryptocurrencies without any trading fees and no exchange hacks, making Bitcoin truly decentralized again. The technology is based on atomic swaps—an invaluable tool for exchanging one cryptocurrency with another (e.g. 1000 BTC with 56500 LTC) and no need for a trusted third party. But currently, widespread adoption of atomic swaps has been prevented because they require highly technical skills; something Bitcoin Atom will solve.

Securrency—This is a trading platform for cryptocurrencies and any kind of asset including traditionally illiquid assets to be exchanged through Securrency tokens. This allows cryptos to be traded outside of their dedicated exchanges.

Ripple—Ripple aims to be a global payment solution provider by connecting banks, payment providers, corporations and digital asset exchanges to allow instant, on-demand settlement globally.

 

ABRA—A global app and cryptocurrency wallet that allows you to buy, invest and store 20 crytopcurriences including Bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and more.

Aeternity—This highly scalable blockchain platform can be used for any application that requires high transactional speed including smart contracts that are created off chain and nano and micro payments.

Smart Valor—With a mission to make global investments simple, fair and accessible to everyone, Smart Valor democratizes access to global wealth and investment opportunities.

Circle—Send money via text without any fees thanks to this UK-based company.

There are so many blockchain innovations out there that it was a challenge to find what to highlight (check out a previous post of mine for more blockchain examples). Many of these are potentially disruptive and it will be interesting to watch how many of these will survive this initial hype phase. If the initial dot com boom is anything to go by, then there will be many casualties in the short term but serious disruptions in the medium and longer term. An amazing space to watch.

Bernard Marr is a best-selling author & keynote speaker on business, technology and big data. His new book is Data Strategy.

Source  : 30+ Real Examples Of Blockchain Technology In Practice

 

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Category: E-Commerce

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

E-commerce is a transaction of buying or selling online.

Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail.

Typical e-commerce transactions include the purchase of online books (such as Amazon) and music purchases (music download in the form of digital distribution such as iTunes Store), and to a less extent, customized/personalized online liquor store inventory services.[1] E-commerce businesses may employ some or all of the followings: Online shopping web sites for retail sales direct to consumers Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process third-party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales Business-to-business buying and selling; Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and social media Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax (for example, with newsletters) Engaging in pretail for launching new products and services Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading purposes.

E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet. These business transactions occur either as business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used in reference to transactional processes for online shopping. History of e-commerce The beginnings of e-commerce can be traced to the 1960s, when businesses started using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to share business documents with other companies. In 1979, the American National Standards Institute developed ASC X12 as a universal standard for businesses to share documents through electronic networks. After the number of individual users sharing electronic documents with each other grew in the 1980s, in the 1990s the rise of eBay and Amazon revolutionized the e-commerce industry. Consumers can now purchase endless amounts of items online, both from typical brick and mortar stores with e-commerce capabilities and one another.

E-commerce applications E-commerce is conducted using a variety of applications, such as email, online catalogs and shopping carts, EDI, File Transfer Protocol, and web services. This includes business-to-business activities and outreach such as using email for unsolicited ads (usually viewed as spam) to consumers and other business prospects, as well as to send out e-newsletters to subscribers. More companies now try to entice consumers directly online, using tools such as digital coupons, social media marketing and targeted advertisements. The benefits of e-commerce include its around-the-clock availability, the speed of access, the wide availability of goods and services for the consumer, easy accessibility, and international reach. Its perceived downsides include sometimes-limited customer service, consumers not being able to see or touch a product prior to purchase, and the necessitated wait time for product shipping. The e-commerce market continues to grow: Online sales accounted for more than a third of total U.S. retail sales growth in 2015, according to data from the U.S. Commerce Department. Web sales totaled $341.7 billion in 2015, a 14.6% increase over 2014. E-commerce conducted using mobile devices and social media is on the rise as well: Internet Retailer reported that mobile accounted for 30% of all U.S. e-commerce activities in 2015. And according to Invesp, 5% of all online spending was via social commerce in 2015, with Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter providing the most referrals. The rise of e-commerce forces IT personnel to move beyond infrastructure design and maintenance and consider numerous customer-facing aspects such as consumer data privacy and security. When developing IT systems and applications to accommodate e-commerce activities, data governance related regulatory compliance mandates, personally identifiable information privacy rules and information protection protocols must be considered. Government regulations for e-commerce In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council are among the primary agencies that regulate e-commerce activities.

The FTC monitors activities such as online advertising, content marketing and customer privacy, while the PCI Council develops standards and rules including PCI-DSS compliance that outlines procedures for proper handling and storage of consumers' financial data.

To ensure the security, privacy and effectiveness of e-commerce, businesses should authenticate business transactions, control access to resources such as webpages for registered or selected users, encrypt communications and implement security technologies such as the Secure Sockets Layer and two factor authentication.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/e-commerce

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce

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Category: Blockchain

Blockchain 

What is Blockchain Technology?

 

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. Constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in chronological order, it allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central recordkeeping. Each node (a computer connected to the network) gets a copy of the blockchain, which is downloaded automatically.

Originally developed as the accounting method for the virtual currency Bitcoin, blockchains – which use what's known as distributed ledger technology (DLT) – are appearing in a variety of commercial applications today. Currently, the technology is primarily used to verify transactions, within digital currencies though it is possible to digitize, code and insert practically any document into the blockchain. Doing so creates an indelible record that cannot be changed; furthermore, the record’s authenticity can be verified by the entire community using the blockchain instead of a single centralized authority.

 A block is the ‘current’ part of a blockchain, which records some or all of the recent transactions. Once completed, a block goes into the blockchain as a permanent database. Each time a block gets completed, a new one is generated. There is a countless number of such blocks in the blockchain, connected to each other (like links in a chain) in proper linear, chronological order. Every block contains a hash of the previous block. The blockchain has complete information about different user addresses and their balances right from the genesis block to the most recently completed block.

The blockchain was designed so these transactions are immutable, meaning they cannot be deleted. The blocks are added through cryptography, ensuring that they remain meddle-proof: The data can be distributed, but not copied. However, the ever-growing size of the blockchain is considered by some to be a problem, creating issues of storage and synchronization.

Blockchains and Bitcoin

The blockchain is perhaps the main technological innovation of Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn’t regulated by a central authority. Instead, its users dictate and validate transactions when one person pays another for goods or services, eliminating the need for a third party to process or store payments. The completed transaction is publicly recorded into blocks and eventually into the blockchain, where it’s verified and relayed by other Bitcoin users. On average, a new block is appended to the blockchain every 10 minutes, through mining.

Based on the Bitcoin protocol, the blockchain database is shared by all nodes participating in a system. Upon joining the network, each connected computer receives a copy of the blockchain, which has records, and stands as proof of, every transaction ever executed. It can thus provide insight about facts like how much value belonged a particular address at any point in the past. Blockchain.info provides access to the entire Bitcoin blockchain.

Advantages of Blockchains

 

Efficiencies resulting from DLT can add up to some serious cost savings.  DLT systems make it possible for businesses and banks to streamline internal operations, dramatically reducing the expense, mistakes, and delays caused by traditional methods for reconciliation of records.

The widespread adoption of DLT will bring enormous cost savings in three areas, advocates say:

  1. Electronic ledgers are much cheaper to maintain than traditional accounting systems; the employee headcount in back offices can be greatly reduced.

  2. Nearly fully automated DLT systems result in far fewer errors and the elimination of repetitive confirmation steps.

  3. Minimizing the processing delay also means less capital being held against the risks of pending transactions.

In addition, some smaller number of millions will be saved by shrinking the amount of capital thatbroker/dealers are required to put up to back unsettled, outstanding trades. Greater transparencyand ease of auditing should lead to savings in anti-money laundering regulatory compliance costs, too.

Blockchain's removal of almost all human involvement in processing is particularly beneficial in cross-border trades, which usually take much longer because of time-zone issues and the fact that all parties must confirm payment processing. Blockchain systems can set up smart contracts or payments triggered when certain conditions are met. The blockchain cotton transaction mentioned above, for example, used a smart contract that automatically made partial payments when the cotton shipment reached specific geographic milestones.

 

  1. What Is Blockchain?
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