Herding Cats

Another Bad Analogy

The use of analogies is so common that we pay no attention most time if they are correct, useful, or even appropriate. Remember the cockamamie garden analogy, where gardens are best left to emerge by themselves. Don't know about your... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Round numbers are always false - Dr. Johnson Without knowing the variance, the underlying probability distribution function that generates that variance, all numbers used for decision making are suspect. Read more →

We Have Found The Enemy and He is Us

In working a project to produce a Balanced Scorecard for a public agency built around ITIL V3 I've come to an understanding I did not possess before. In executing this project, we apply our Deliverables Based Planning® project management method.... Read more →

Four Answers To Any Management Question

I was on the phone this morning with a colleage from a Canadian Bio-Tech firm. His firm was recently bought. The consolidating owner has an intensive business management process that flows down to managing projects. This firm has a simple... Read more →

How to Manage in the Presence of Uncertainty

In the act of creating, people argue. They have heated dialogue. They get upset! Without real exchange, you can’t create knowledge. Knowledge creation is a human activity. - Ikujiro Nonaka You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue –... Read more →

Quote of the Day

To speculate without facts is to attempt to enter a house of which one has not the key, by wandering aimlessly round and round, searching the walls and now and then peeping through the windows. Facts are the key. -... Read more →

Finding the Reasons for a Project

When I hear discussion around the management of projects and the management of a portfolio of projects I come back to a foundational question - Why Is This Project Being Done? This question usually has some simple answer, because someone... Read more →

The Cult of DONE Manifesto

What does DONE look like? is the starting point for the 5 Immutable Principles of Successful Project Management. I came across a wonderful post with a notion that is usually lost in many projects that are struggling. The Cult of... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Connectivity Complexity in Large Scale Systems

The mystery of their intentions lies only in their terms - Thomas Vaughan The terms "complexity" and "chaos" are often times used to describe something that is not understand. But that has nothing to do with the "understandability" of the... Read more →

Quote of the Day

This is indeed a mystery, [remarked Watson]. What do you imagine that it means? I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suite theories, instead... Read more →

5 Immutable Principles

I've spoken about this before. There are 5 Immutable Principles of successful project management. No matter what method used to manage the project, develop the product, or what ever technique you want to use for getting to the end, these... Read more →

Plans Are Meant To Be Changed

Plans are meant to be changed. Otherwise it wouldn't be a Plan. Plans are Strategies for the successful completion of the Project. A Strategy is a hypothesis that needs to be tested. This test is the feedback received from the... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The test of a good procedure is how well it works, not how well it is understood. - John Wilder Tukey The notion that processes must first be understood before being useful is just that notional. This approach seeks the... Read more →

Another Bad Agile Analogy

When we use analogies to convey a concept, care is needed on several fronts to confirm: The analogy is actually correct. The analogy is connected to the problem or issue we're trying to convey. This is called The Misuse of... Read more →

New Android App for Cycling - Sportstracklive

New Droid App that tracks our cycling route, elevation gain and loss, and when I hook up the heart monitor, the stats on "zone training." This was a training ride yesterday. Leaving from the meighborhood (bottom middle), up 75th the... Read more →

Capabilties Based Planning, Use Cases, and Agile

The discussion of how do you know what done looks like? in the agile software development world has many answers. Ranging from we'll let the customer tell us, to we have this collection of User Stories and Use Cases that... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules, - Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools Alexander Pope (English Poet, 1688-1744) Read more →