Herding Cats

A Compendium of Managing Complex Systems

The picture is used by a Complexity advocate to conjecture that complex systems cannot be managed. This is not correct, as many of the claims made by self-proclaimed complexity experts. I've seen this scene of flocking birds first hand. It... Read more →

Quote(s) of the Day

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness - George Washington, address to Congress, January 8, 1790. It is not the... Read more →

Quote of the Day

When the sewage system is not cleaned up, it becomes a breeding ground for disease. It is the same for society: when the political and economic systems are not cleaned up, it becomes an environment for mental pathology to thrive.... Read more →

A Compendium of Risk Management Resources

This blog page is dedicated to the resources used to manage the risk encountered on a software-intensive system of systems (SISoS) using traditional and agile development methods. Let's start with a critical understanding of the purpose of managing risk on... Read more →

Compendium of Resources

Materials used to increase the probability of project success in the presence of uncertainty, with Capabilities needed for a defined cost on a defined date. Briefings, Papers, and Presentations are publications developed for clients, journals, books, and book chapters, and... Read more →

Compendium of Works to Increase Probability of Project Success

This collection of presentations, briefings, journal and conference papers, essays, and book content has been used to increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS) written and applied over my career in the software-intensive system of systems and other business and... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The more progress physical sciences make, the more they tend to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a kind of centre to which they all converge. We may even judge of the degree of perfection to which a science... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Repeated luck is never luck - Salvor’s Father, in Foundation Read more →

Quote of the Day

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. – Soren Kierkegaard Read more →

Quote of the Day

At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men hurled themselves against the East; the word of an hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; and obscure monk like Luther... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Clay is molded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing... Thus taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not ― Tao Te Ching, Chapter... Read more →

Quote of the Day

There are as many nights as there are days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happy" would lose... Read more →

Quote of the Day

It is counterproductive to have an agile development process if you don’t have an agile product architecture - Rick Dove, Parshift.com Read more →

Quote of the Day

Do not like some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and rocky way to heaven, While, like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And heeds not his own counsel. ― Hamlet Read more →

Quote of the Day

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use - Soren Kierkegaard Read more →

Book of the Month

Darwin's dangerous idea is the belief that evolution, a mindless, mechanistic, purposeless process, gave rise to the single, branching tree of life and, further, that this process eliminates the need for invoking an intelligent God as the source of the... Read more →

Quote of the Day

"You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialog – one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor, and informality. Intense debate brings up all sides of an issue, even if it makes people uncomfortable." ... from ―... Read more →

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Here, Cleanthes, I find myself at ease in my argument. Here I triumph. Formerly, when we argued concerning the natural attributes of intelligence and design, I needed all my skeptical and metaphysical subtlety to elude your grasp. In many views... Read more →

A Compendium of Blog Posts on Earned Value Management

Earned Value Management is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress in an objective manner. This objective manner starts with defining the planned Physical Percent Complete for a product or service, at a planned time, with the... Read more →