Herding Cats

Quote of the Day

"The first objective of every captain in His Majesty's navy on his appointment to a ship must be to have those officers with him whose disposition he is acquainted with, and upon whose abilities and attention to to his character,... Read more →

Quote of the Day

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act. —Lido... Read more →

NASA Blogs

NASA now has a collection of its Blogs Read more →

What is Project Management?

I'm preparing for my annual seminar at Carnegie Mellon University. This year my topic is "The 5 Immutable Principles of Project Management." I'll post the briefing once it's approved. But here's a sample to set the tone. We get confused... Read more →

Deconstructing the PM 2.0 Description

In an interview on PM411, there is a description of the attributes of PM 2.0. Setting aside the product promotion, I feel compelled to review the notions on which PM 2.0 paradigm is built. As a practicing program manager in... Read more →

Quote of the Day

No form of transportation ever really dies out. Every new form is an addition to, and not a substitution for, an old form of transportation. —Air Marshal Viscount Hugh M. Trenchard, RAF Read more →

Technical and Scientific Resources

There are many resources on the web for technical and scientific papers. Some are good some are politically motivated, some are just lame. Here's my trusted list: Scirus - is a source of scientific information. But it also has many... Read more →

The Toyota Way on PM Technology

It's a cold but sunny day here in northern Colorado. I've been giving some thought to the issues of PM 2.0 and the method of "push" of technology onto projects. Not as a replacement for PM 1.0 as I'm now... Read more →

The Ideal PM Tool Set

Over on PMHut, there is a semi-commercial post by Andrew Filev titled What Would an Ideal Project Management Tool Look Like? What's interesting at first is Andrew doesn't mention anything about "managing projects." Here's what I want a tool set... Read more →

A Sweet Spot for PM 2.0?

In some organizations project management is seen as an unnecessary overhead or a burden on the business. Looking at the best practices of organizations where project management is the raison d’être can guide our search for best practices in your... Read more →

Why I'm a Cynic About PM Products

Being cynical is part of being a Program Manager and even more so for a good Program Planning and Controls manager.It simply comes with the territory. When someone tells you something about the program, like "oh yea I've got all... Read more →

Project Management Processes

The discussion of PM 2.0 on Andrew Filev's site has started to turn toward reality and away from the hype of the "next big thing." Tiberiu Ghioca, a software engineering manager, commented that PM 1.0 and PM 2.0 - and... Read more →

Not Your Fathers Iron Triangle

The concept of an Iron Triangle has been around awhile. Cost, Schedule, Quality - in the iron triangle are related. This of course has been the brunt of the anti-PMBOK movement for awhile. In the current defense and space domain... Read more →

How Did We Miss the Idea of Project Collaboration in PM 1.0?

A comment made on a PM 2.0 Blog states: "suddenly people realized that the Old PM (PM 1.0) was missing this collaboration part" The missing part was to add collaboration to the PM method. I stumped. Project Management without collaboration.... Read more →

Beyond the Hype

My friend Jack is sometimes a bit forward, but he has a point when he posts a comment on Andrew Filev's PM 2.0 blog. Notional charts are just that notional. Not the basis of decision making. Jack is a very... Read more →

Power Laws and Project Management

Steve posted a comment on a previous post that spurred me to put on my physics and systems engineer hat for a moment. The power law notion presented in the previous post by Andrew Filev is useful in many domains.... Read more →

DoD EVM Implementation

Paul Solomon has posted a link to the DoD Earned Value Management: Performance, Oversight, and Management Report to Congress. Anyone interested in the least just "favorite" Paul's site and subscribe to his posts. Paul's book Performance Based Earned Value, is... Read more →

Agile Notions Already Are At Work

The Projects@Work site has an editorial titled "Agile, by any other name." (Registration required). There is of course the original Agile Manifesto. Then 7 additions clarification points: Develop in short cycle times Plan short term (the next cycle) Develop only... Read more →

The Basis of Project Success

The last several posts have been around PM 2.0 and what that means, if anything to the project management space. It's time to remind all those claiming to have the next big thing in project management of the core elements... Read more →

Project Distribution

Andrew Filev provided an interesting notion about the distribution of projects. This diagram was an anchor of the conversation. Notionally is says the are more small projects than large projects. I use the term "notionally" for a reason. Here in... Read more →