Herding Cats

Clever versus Wise

While reading Bill Miller's Blog, which is one of favorite sources of great ideas, wonderful pictures that go with the story, and most of all truly honest approaches to managing software projects, I went do a site that had a... Read more →

Progress Means Measuring Physical Percent Complete

The measure of progress in a project must be done through some form of Physical Percent Complete. If not, then all you're measuring is effort and the consumption of time and money. The use of Earned Value is one way... Read more →

A Simple Way to Put PMBOK to Work

While some in the alternative project management community have found credible issues with PMBOK (risk management for one. The explicit lack of agile in another), there is a simple approach to get value from this 387 page document. Starting with... Read more →

The Mis-Misinterpretations of PMBOK

Most of the ragging about PMBOK starts with the misinterpretation of the purpose and content of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. First it is not "The" Body of Knowledge, but "A" Body of Knowledge. Second it... Read more →

Milestones Don't Mean Progress to Plan

Milestones are considered a useful means of measuring progress to plan. This is a common myth in the project management business. Johanna Rothman mentions milestones and completion criteria in a recent post. There are several issues with milestones to start... Read more →

Customer Service

I rarely write about personal experiences, but this morning is an exception. We're getting a laptop for our daughter's graduation gift. No Apple because they're too expensive, sorry. I misplaced the order confirmation and couldn't track down the purchase through... Read more →

The Next MUST Read Book

After Reinventing Project Management, the next book that is a "Must Read" is IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results, Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross, Harvard Business School. Much of the confusion around project... Read more →

Galileo Galilei was probably not a good project manager

When it is mentioned that the Newtonian aspects of our world, or how Galileo established the basis of our modern thinking about how the worlds works, there are several missing pieces. The notion that determinism is the basis of project... Read more →