Herding Cats

Business Value and Earned Value are NOT the same

No matter how often it is said, Business Value and Earned Value are not the same value. Earned Value's value is the Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (BCWP). The value is earned by completing the measured percentage - preferrably 100%... Read more →

Black Swans and Intentional Ignorance

The notion of a Black Swan as a low probability event with high unfavorable impact is a common example of the "long tailed" probability distribution found in many domains from finance to manned space flight. The Black Swan as a... Read more →

Memorial Day

Least We Forget C/159 ASHB, Phu Bai, I-Corp, Republic of Vietnam, 1970 - 1971 Read more →

Agile and Earned Value Slide Share

I really don't like self promotion for the simple reason that it diminishes the credibility of the promoter. But our inside sales suggested I do this. The presentation Successfully Integrating Agile and Earned Value got recognized this week as being... Read more →

It Takes All The Challange Out When You Read The Directions

I had a conversation of sorts with a blogger that stated essentially "EV is bunk," (this is false) "Value and Cost are not the same thing," (this is true). I had another conversation where the statement "the WBS is not... Read more →

Project Success

Attending the EFCOG (Energy Facilities Contractors Group) Project Management Working Group. One discussion was around the success factors for projects. There were two obvious assessments: 1. Accountability and rigor in the management of the baseline and the process for executing... Read more →

Managing Projects with Earned Value

There are two books that describe how to manage projects with Earned Value. You can read about EV in a variety of places, but the principles are many time missing from these sources. Here are three books that not only... Read more →

Be Careful to Check Your Sources

Jurgen has an interesting post about the Illusion of Control, where he bases the principles of his thesis on what appears to be his favorite "journal," (non-peer reviewed) The New Scientist. Jurgen nicely references a previous post of mine about... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Numerous studies, cited in this book, demonstrate that application of most enlightened environmental management increases profits (since pollution is equivalent to wasted resources) and thus fiscal conservatism and emphasis on private property rights also mean increased environmental protection. Only in... Read more →

More Confusion About Earned Value Management

There is another post about the confusion between the term "value" in Earned Value and "value" in Business Value. The latest is on Vin D'Amico's BrainsLink site, where he states Earned Value is a Fallacy. Let's start with some history.... Read more →

Degrees of Control

In Jurgen Appelo's Management 3.0 there is a conjecture about complex systems, chaos, and managing or not managing this chaos. This weeks edition of Nature, (12 May 2011) has two articles that are important to the discussion: In the News... Read more →

Making Progess to Plan

How can we tell we are making progress to plan? By measuring the tangible evidence that we said was going to be produced from our work efforts. But the tangible evidence must be produced on the day (or statistically close... Read more →

Agile and EVM?

There is an initiative to connect Agile Software Development with Earned Value Management. I've talked a couple of times on this topic. While here at the PMI College of Performance Management - the Earned Value Community of Practice - conference... Read more →

Deterministic Versus Probabilistic

The world is probabilistic. The world is driven by statistical - stochastic - processes. That does not mean the world is chaotic, uncontrolled, or even uncontrollable. I drive my car on I-25 to Denver office when I'm in town. Out... Read more →

Quote of the Day

[W]hen you write a program, think of it primarily as a work of literature. You're trying to write something that human beings are going to read. Don't think of it primarily as something a computer is going to follow. The... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Guessing

Thanks to Bill Nichols for this. Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try simple physical argument, (symmetry!, invariance!, conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every puzzle. Courage: no one... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Self Organization

When I mentioned there is discussion on "self organization" in software teams and that some authors use biological processes as example, our biology child sent me this. Care is needed when making connections between one domain and the other, for... Read more →

Complexity versus Simplicity

John Goodpastuer speaks about the difference between Simplicity versus Complexity. "Making things easier requires complexity." While the terms "Easy," "Simple,", and "Complex" all have dictionary definitions, none really have much use in the discussion of "systems." For example Simple (\ˈsim-pəl\)... Read more →

Earned Value and Sofwtare Develop? "Yes We Can"

Can we integrate Earned Value Management with Software? Yes We Can. It's always been possible. It's been done. It's being done. Better yet, we can integrate Earned Value Management with Agile Software Development, like Scrum. Earned Value + Agile =... Read more →

Clarity of Purpose

When the word Earned Value is used in the same sentence as Software Development, it appears to trigger a visceral response in some. There many definition of Earned Value on the web. Most a flawed in some way. Some are... Read more →