Herding Cats

Myth of the Undesirability of Hierarchy

You hear all the time how the hierarchy in our organizations is undesirable. If you read Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life you will learn in Chapter 1 that hierarchy is an innate behavior we have inherited from Lobsters who... Read more →

The Saga Continues

In a recent post, the saga of No Estimates as a basis of spending other people's money continues. Let's start with the definition of No Estimates. Quit estimates cold turkey. Get some kind of first-stab working software into the customer's... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The Mastery of Risk distinguishes modern times from the past: By understanding and measuring risks and their consequences, modern humans no longer perceive the further as a whim of the Gods and thereby have been empowered to transform their world... Read more →

Function Points and Software Development Estimating

The ISO/IEC 141143-6:2012 Standard for functional size measurement Productivity Measurement of software projects. There are five functional size measurement methods in compliance with ISO/IEC standard. NESMA function points (ISO/IEC 24570) IFPUG function points (ISO/IEC 20926); COSMIC function points (ISO/IEC 19761)... Read more →

Darwinian Truth and Reality in Software Development Management

Jordan Peterson put forth the idea that “empirical” truth (e.g. the Earth is a sphere) is all well and good, but if that truth runs contrary to information that will allow you to spread your genes then it stops being... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Our conventional modernization programs seek a 99% solution in years. Stability and counterinsurgency missions - the wars we are in - requires 75% solutions in months. The challenge is whether in our bureaucracy and in our minds these two different... Read more →

Return of the Swamp Monster (Standish Report)

Some #Noestimates advocates are heard quoting the Standish Report, reporting the non-data date that 60% of IT projects fail and of course that NOT ESTIMATING would have someone, by some means, through some magical force has saved these projects. And... Read more →

Project and Program Management Symposium

I've spoken twice at the PGCS, in Canberra Australia. And I'm returning in 2020. There is now a web site with all the presentations and Master Classes for this conference. Here's the link to the Library of these materials. The... Read more →

Project Management + Systems Engineering = Increased Probability of Project Success

My workshop for the Project and Program Management Symposium in Canberra this August on the topic of integrating Systems Engineering and Project Management is now complete. The charts are available to the attendees and available here Projects delivered in complex... Read more →

Why Would You NEVER Apply Agile Software Development Processes?

In 2018, the notion of Agile Software Development has become the norm where we work. Here's a small sample of the guidance Update 2016: Considerations for Using Agile in DOD Acquisition Handbook for Implementing Agile in Department of Defense Information... Read more →

DDSTOP The Saga Continues

There's been a rash of conjectures about all kinds of bad business, project, and software development (agile and traditional) management ideas of late. Time to update the Don't Do Stupid Things on Purpose (DDSTOP) post. “There’s nothing more dangerous than... Read more →

Research Sites

When you encounter any suggestion, any conjecture, any claim that goes beyond yea that makes sense, check out the statement with some searching. Especially when you come across the unsubstantiated claims of #NoEstimates advocates. You can use Google of course.... Read more →

Non-Ergodic Behaviour of Projects

In a previous post Why Johnny Can't Do The Math, the suggestion that estimates are non-ergodic is a Category error. It's the underlying processes that are ergodic or non-ergodic. In this case, the project is the underlying process. When I... Read more →

How To Produce and Covey Credible Software Development Estimates

Let's start with some classes of projects. Here's a chart like to use because it covers most of the classes of project's I've worked over my career from simple family gardening to the International Space Station. Each of these projects... Read more →

Quote of the Day

If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the questions, and only five minutes finding the answers - attributed to Albert Einstein. When we hear a proposed solution to an observed problem... Read more →

Thought for the Day

I've come across several ideas recently that need addressing. One is from Ron Jeffries blog If you are not producing working, running, tested usable software in every single Sprint or iteration, you are not [yet] “doing” Agile, you are not... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Forgetfulness in the learner's souls, because they will not use their memories ... they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome... Read more →

A Guide to Stopping #Noestimates Fallacies

Evaluating the evidence of good project management processes is critically important to both the developers, management and those paying for the software. These 12 points help separate the principles, practices, and processes from the pseudoscience, bad mathematics, willful ignorance of... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. – Winston Churchill The management of software development is fraught with risk: technical risk, market risk, requirements risk, and... Read more →

Increasing the Probability of Project Success (PoPS)

All project work, agile or traditional, operates in the presence of uncertainty. There are four fundamental root causes of Project or Program Failure, and their drivers that are addressed by Risk Management and the Estimating processes that go with them.... Read more →