Herding Cats

Capabilities Explained

Brad Egeland has a nice post on Project Definition. Brad speaks about project objectives, assumptions, and associated attributes. While these approaches serve the project well, an "offical" approach used in our defense domain is a Capabilities Statement. Here's our overview... Read more →

Managing Projects in the Presence of Unknown Unknowns

The term Unknown Unknowns (UnkUnks) is used in risk management and politics to define an event that no one anticipated. A "low probability event" or a "Long Tail" in probability distribution terms is refered to as a "Black Swan."These are... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Every systematic development of any subject ought to begin with a definition, so that everyone may understand what the discussion is about. Marcus Tullius Cicero (196BC - 16BC), De Officiis, Book 1, Moral Goodness Read more →

What is a Plan?

Brad Egeland has a nice post about planning. He mentions three benefits of Planning: Reduces uncertainty Increases understanding Improves efficiency This is a good starting point, Planning is Good. But why is Planning good? First what is a Plan? A... Read more →

Risk Management Guidance

Risk Management on projects is well understood in some domains and poorly understood in other. It is remarkable that a science which began with the consideration of games of chance should become the most important object of human knowledge -... Read more →

Thanksgiving 2010

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers. For thereby some have entertained angels. Hebrews 3:12 Read more →

Quote of the Day - Risk

One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected. - Augustine Law XLV, Norm Augustine The notion of Unknown Unknowns is simply an excuse for not looking further into the pool of risk... Read more →

Techncial Performance Measures - Update

The use of Earned Value to measure program performance is well established. The "earning" of value for the work takes place when physical progress to plan is done. The simple formula for Earned Value (Budgeted Cost for Work Performed) is... Read more →

Connecting Projects With Strategy

Ron Rosenhead posted a comment titled "Prove the Benefits of Your Project - Or Lose The Money." This is a constant discussion in the IT world, where the mission and vision of the project has not been established. Balanced Scorecard... Read more →

Competency Based Management

There are suggestions that competency based project management. Boston University has a model. Ruth Murray-Webster and David Hilson's paper, "Scaling the PEAKS of Project Management Competency." Here's a quick summary of what it means to be competent for our Control... Read more →

Project Management as College Football

There are many analogies for project and program management. Orchestras, jazz groups. My favorite is college football, for many reasons. We live in a college town, with a Big 12 going to Pac 10 football team One of our children... Read more →

More Agile Claims

Dennis Stevens provides a presentation on Agile Foundation, Promises, and Myths. Dennis almost always has good things to say about agile and its application to business environments. But this time his post misses the mark and starts down the slippery... Read more →

When Agile Says "Value" What Do They Mean?

A paper in the current edition of Systems Engineering, Vol 13, No, 4, 2010, has a paper titled "Value Creation in Program and System Engineering Processes." The abstract reads. Almost every large system is initiated with an intention of building... Read more →

The Poverty of Project Management Role Definition

Recently the bulk voices in the project management literature are talking about conversations, people skills, tools (PM2.0 tools), and a variety of other 2nd and 3rd order things. While these may be necessary for success, they are far from sufficient.... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, "What's in it for me? ~ Brian Tracy, American business author Read more →

Domain Dependent Concepts

I'm surprised some times by the differences in domains and contexts in domains and some general notions of project management.My suprise is how simple concepts in one domain fail to make into other domains. One is Mosaic Project's White on... Read more →

More Long Tails

Our book club is reading Colossus, Michael Hiltzil. There is great quote early in the book, when the Imperial Valley in California was being developed by private interests. There's a great quote from an effort in 1922 to dam and... Read more →

CMMI-DEV 1.3 Released

CMMI-DEV 1.3 is released. While those in the agile commmunity may not see this as important, for those of us managing or participating in the development of enterprise and government software intensive programs looked forward to the upgrading of several... Read more →

Managing in the Presence of Uncertainty

Pat Weaver and Lynda Bourne of Mosaicprojects have both made thoughtful arguments about dealing with the unexpected and how some may operate under the illusion that controlling the future is possible. In this discussion there seems to be a mixture... Read more →

Theory X, Y, Z and W

Craig Brown has a post about Theory X or Theory Y and why Project Managers should be Theory Y. In fact we as Project Managers, members of projects should be Theory W. The orgial paper, Theory-W Software Project Management: Principles... Read more →