Herding Cats

Better Estimating is the Solution to Poor Estimating

Johanna Rothman has got me thinking about why management and project managers want serial development and have such difficulty with estimating. It starts with the missing understanding that all point estimates are in fact Wrong. This starts with the misunderstanding... Read more →

Project Performance Measurment

In Johanna Rothman's post it was suggested that predictions about cost and schedule are almost guaranteed to be wrong. Here's some guidance on why you should ignore that advice if there is not a statement about "doing the wrong thing... Read more →

Serial Lifecycles, The Business Motivation

Johanna Rothman makes comment on PMHut as to why managers like serial life cycles. But she misses a critical aspect of all business processes at the macro economic level. In the business world macro economics deals with the performance, structure,... Read more →

Program Management Guidance

While walking the shelves of my home library I came across a paper from Dr. Michael Griffin, (former NASA Director) in the AAS Science and Technology Series, Vol 86, 1996, "Managing the Exploration of the Moon and Mars." Here's some... Read more →

Quote of the Day

We trained hard, but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful... Read more →

Books, Books, and More Books

Josh has a guest blogger describing what project management books he has in his library. It;s an interesting list in several ways. Most of the books Travis listed didn't have "project" in the title. It dawned on me that there... Read more →

Stop Tweeting and Start Managing

Projects are not managed through email, twitter, or IM. Project Management is about people talking face to face. Can't do face-to-face. I understand. We work programs that have dispersed teams. It's part of the modern world. The teams are dispersed... Read more →

Quote of the Day

In a complex system, malfunction and even total nonfunction may not be detected for long periods, if ever. — John Gall Read more →

Technology is not the Solution - Again

Tom Barnett of Gantt Head has a nice article about the silliness of managing projects with tweets and IMs. I've been sitting in the conference room since the holiday break with my fellow PP&C colleagues, trying to get a large... Read more →

Sticky Notes and Other Ways To Capture The Project's Baseline

Pat Weaver suggested that 3M Sticky Notes are a good way to capture information about projects - and they are. Pat also suggests this is a social process, which it is sorta. Let's start with a picture of the sticky... Read more →

The Search For Simplicity Is Many Times Misguided

The quest for simplicity is many times misguided. My personal favorite of course is the email, twitter, IM based project management processes of PM 2.0. But there are others. Processes where the requirements for the system "emerge" as you go... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Chuck at U Make It Happen reminded me of the George Patten Quote A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. There are two critical understandings around this quote. A quote like this, and Eisenhower's, is often... Read more →

Attributes of Successful Projects

The NAVAIR Earned Value Management Tool Kit - available at the Defense Acquisition University web site. (When you reach this site, answer yes to the missing certificate)This site by the way has a wealth of resources for everything related to... Read more →

risk management and RISK MANAGEMENT

Josh Nankivel has a nice thread going on his PMStudent blog about risk management. There's the usual number of responses from a variety of points of view. I'd like to make an important point from my personal experience in the... Read more →

The Seven Principles Of Project Performance Management

The are many principles of project performance management. From the Earned Value Management domain, here are the 7 core principles. Plan the Work Break Down the project work scope into finite pieces that can be assigned to a responsible person... Read more →

Does Methodology Matter?

Jesse Fewell posts a repeat piece about "Methodology Doesn't Matter." I've participated in the "method wars" in the past, with no progress. What I've come to understand through the school of hard knocks is that it's the outcomes we're interested... Read more →