Herding Cats

Is Agile's Velocity Like Earned Value?

The use of Earned Value (as defined in ANSI/EAI-748B) is a mature process for assessing the performance of projects in many industries - government, aerospace, defense, construction, large IT (SOX and CobiT compliance). Velocity is a metric used in agile... Read more →

Risk Management Resources

The topic of Risk Management has come up again at a number of clients. As well I'm presenting at the Denver PMI Symposium with a topic titled "Risk Management in Five Easy Pieces," with full With apologies to Carole Eastman... Read more →

BDUF, Agile and Some Confusion

In Dave Howell's comment to a previous post several ideas were presented that need some clarification on my part - I probably confused Dave and owe a better response. Big Design Up Front (BDUF) is a popular term used by... Read more →

Incremental Development DoD Style

The notion that Government contracts are somehow "Big Design Up Front," "Waterfall" behemoths is not only misinformed, it misses an important concept the "increasing maturity" as a critical success factor for any large program - including, and especially including Enterprise... Read more →

The Difference Between Defense and Other Domains

I was chastised tonight by the Zen Master (again) for "beating a dead horse," on a forum. What dawned on me - once again - is the difference between working in the defense business and working in other domains where... Read more →

Watch Maker versus Gardener

A briefing at Mitre Corporation about linearity, complexity and Systems Engineering had an interesting paradigm. Watch Makers versus Gardeners Watch Markers produce a product where all the parts have to be working in order for the product to work. Gardeners... Read more →