A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. - Everett Dirksen
When we speak about "program controls," there are lots of domains and context where this is a mandatory role. Some are larger than others. Some are more formal than others. Some have special needs and others are just straight forward Program Planning and Controls using Earned Value straight out of ANSI-748B.
Here's a program we're working on getting on. Look carefully at the total award value for the engineering, technical, and programmatic support services. Programmatic Support means "program controls." That means "project" management, and the process around "managing" projects.
Yep, that number on the right is $19 Billion, as in a $Billion with a $B. In this domain there are all kinds of development and engineering services. Including IT development, including Agile development in IT. So when it is suggested by some thought leaders that EV is "hog wash," ini the IT world, ask yourself the question - who's looking after the $B's? A self organizing team of very qualified software developers?
Uh, probably not.
Part of that number on the right goes to
Yep, good old software development processes. This is where agile is most needed. When we get into serious money as Senator Dirkson mentions above, we need to best of both worlds. Rapid development to verify the requirements are right, put the software to work to verify it can earn it's keep. And control mechanisms that can forecast future performance in units meaningful to the decision makers. Those units are of course Dollars.
