Herding Cats

Quote of the Day

“Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown—the first instinct is to eliminate those distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The first idea which explains that the unknown is in fact the known does so... Read more →

Lessons Learned from the Columbia Disaster

This week I taught a 4-day course on Progressive Concepts in Program Management at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. One of the workshops used the NASA Columbia accident as an example (NASA report calls these things mishaps). This... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Practices don't follow rules Rules follow emerging practices Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster 10 Years Later, Wayne Hale, Former NASA Space Shuttle Flight Director. Read more →

Quote of the Day

If we understand what Capabilities are needed to produce business value or fulfill a mission, we can then identify what technical or operational requirements are needed to deliver those capabilities — Glen B. Alleman This is a closing quote from... Read more →

Quote(s) of the Day

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” — Charlie Munger “We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your... Read more →

Quote of the Day

This is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo mission. Here's a special quote about the management of that mission, that is applicable today In my career, I've worked for a lot of really good managers, and of course, Gene Kranz... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I want to know God's thoughts. The rest is mere details - Albert Einstein Read more →

Quote of the Day

Eyes on the Prize Our mind works by error-correction, but we don't want to know about our errors, we only have eyes for the goal. As Chairman Iacocca has said: we like to read about success but what we have... Read more →

You Can Not "Control" Projects

The #NoEstimates are right you can not Control projects. All projects, no matter the domain, processes, or technology, operate in the presence of uncertainty - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory). The only thing that can take place is to Manage... Read more →

A Compendium of Root Cause Analysis Resources

When mistakes occur, blame the process, not people. Root Cause Analysis is the means to fix the cause, rather than treat the symptom. • What allowed the mistake to happen? • What will prevent mistakes from occurring in the future?... Read more →

Quote of the Day

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. - Alan Turing Read more →

Quote of the Day

The last 10 percent of the technical performance development generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the of problems - Norm Augistines 15th Law Using the NASA definition, Margin is the difference between the maximum possible value and the... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history — George Orwell Read more →

Quote of the Day

Some people make careers out of being self-proclaimed experts (or even being over-enthusiastic amateurs); some of us have careers clearing up after them. - John Sprigs, Product and Service Assurance Professional Read more →

Quote of the Day

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion - Robert Heinlein Any conjecture, that any fix, for some claimed problem or dysfunction, without numbers to support the claim a fix for the dysfunction will... Read more →

Value Theory for Projects and Estimating

No Value can be determined without knowing something about the cost to produce that Value and the Time that Value will be arriving. † In the presence of uncertainty, this knowing must be estimated to some acceptable level of confidence.... Read more →

Quote of the Day

No systems can survive that doesn't serve a useful purpose - Harry Hillaker, Chief architect, General Dynamics, F-16, in Systems Architecting lecture, USC, November 1989 The classic architecting paradigm in technology projects is not the only way to create and... Read more →

Quote of the Day

If speculative ideas cannot be tested against established principles to assess their validity, they are not credible. They don't even rise to the level of being wrong - Wolfgang Pauli Read more →

Quote of the Day

“Anyone who expects a quick and easy solution to the multifaceted problem of resource estimation is going to be disappointed.” 1968, Alfred M. Pietrasanta at IBM System Research Institute Read more →

Quote of the Day

Just exactly what is it we manage on projects if not risks? Project management IS risk management. The risk-aware manager can show you a substantial list of causal risks. He/she can tell you the likely cost in time or money... Read more →