Herding Cats

Oh Canada!

I'm married to a French Canadian. The Olympic win of Canadian is a mixed emotion of our house. The country that invented hockey, put in the "best team won," performance O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole - and yet - and yet - it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! - Alice Read more →

Standish Report

I've written several times about my personal dislike of the Standish Reports. Standish Report and Naive Statistics Finally, A Challenge to the Standish Report Project Failure Rate The current assessment of the Standish Report is: "The Rise and Fall of... Read more →

The Real Web 2.0

While the notion of PM 2.0 is still bouncing around, Web 2.0 impacts on procurement in the Pentagon is the title of an article in the current edition of Defense AT&L. "Defense Acquisition Enterprise 2.0," speaks to the use of... Read more →

What is a 1 Inverse FemtoBarn Anyway?

An Inverse Femtobarn is a measure of the number of particle collision events per femtobarn. A barn is defined as 10-28 m2. A 100 square femtobarns is approximately the cross section of a Uranium atom. If units of measure are... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Any New Version of Any Thing

Politeness is the poison of collaboration Science is a method to keep yourself from kidding yourself Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible - Edwin Land Read more →

Project Management Blogs

The are many lists of project management Blogs. Some actually contain Blogs that talk about project management. The Construction Management Degree blog has a list of blogs that speak to the management of projects. I'm happy to say I was... Read more →

Software Engineering Method and Theory (SEMT)

Software Engineering has taken a turn for the worse since I left that field back in the mid 1980's. My last software job was on the team that developed a fault tolerant programmable controller for the emergency shut down, gas... Read more →

Estimating

The estimating process for project cost and schedule is usually one of the poorest skills for the project. Not because it is difficult or even because it is not well understood. But because there is a myth that estimating is... Read more →

Project Management Principles Need To Have Units of Measure

PM Hut has a list of Project Management Principles. Good stuff, but no units of measure. How would we know we're being successful with these principles? No units of measure means the principles are hollow. OK, maybe number 2 has... Read more →

Is This Really How PM 1.0 Works?

Once again Andrew Filev - through Elizabeth Harrin - has a description of PM 1.0 straight out of the 1980's. This little story of how projects are chartered and then managed is reminisent of how projects were chartered and managed... Read more →

Couples Story

A needed diversion for a cute story †... When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first,... Read more →

Who's doing what on this project?

On an agile forum there is a discussion about roles, Business Analyst, and other type roles and what these people do on software development projects. This of course is backwards, like many discussions that fail to return to "first principles."... Read more →

The F.I.S.T. Principles

Dan Ward is one of my new favorite Blogs. Dan is a frequent author in the Defense Journal AT&L. His F.I.S.T. is Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, and Tiny. I've restated them here for effect: A project leader’s influence is inversely proportional... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades. For ever and for ever when I move... - Tennyson - Ulysses Read more →

What is a Project Plan?

I'm working two programs in parallel - a really bad idea by the way. One is a DOE R&D project. The other is a DoD integrated battle management system. Working in these domains produces a bias towards what is means... Read more →

Quote of the Day

One experiment trumps A 1,000 analytical assessments - Lead Investigator, Department of Energy, Algae Bio Fuels, program The notion that "books" can tell us what to do, also needs to evidentury materials that the ideas in the books actually result... Read more →

PM 2.0 Communications Channel Bandwidth Requirements

What happened to the agile manifesto's first statement? We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: 1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.... Read more →

The WBS and Estimating

Craig Brown and Mike Clayton have a related posts on the Work Breakdown Structure and estimating. Building a credible cost or schedule estimate is a "process" focused effort. Let's start with the guidance documents we use: The GAO Cost Estimating... Read more →

Credible Estimates

John Goodpasture has a post on estimates from Fred Brooks. Fred's quote, which I'll repeat for effect, from John's site is It is very difficult to make a vigorous, plausible, and job-risking defense of an estimate that is derived by... Read more →