Herding Cats

How Long Are You Willing To Wait To Find Out You're Late?

There are two phrases I use at every opportunity when discussing the purpose of Earned Value. How long are you willing to wait before you find out you're late? and Earned value provides actionable information to the decision makers (in... Read more →

Tangible Evidence of Progress to Plan

In August, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston performed a now legendary barrel roll of the Model 367-80 as part of that year’s Seafair festival on Lake Washington. This photo was taken by co-pilot Jim Gannett. His now famous quote... Read more →

Project and Program Management Competencies

Essential competencies for the Federal Acquisition Certification are provided in the Essential Competencies and Proficiencies for each Certification Level. There are many competencies here that are applicable to commercial Project and Program Managers as well Read more →

Agile in the Federal Environment Webinar

Management Concepts is hosting a webinar John Driessnack and I will be speaking about Agile in the Federal environment. This is the first ini a series of discussion about integrating Scrum and Scrum-like software development processes into project and programs... Read more →

Quote of the Day

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” —RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882) Read more →

When We Say "Project" What Do We Mean?

Many in the PM community, but actually do we mean? Here's some examples along the specturm of projects. Read more →

What Does A Good WBS Look Like?

There are numerous books and guidance for building a good Work Breakdown Structure. But there is an underlying principle that guides, or should guide this effort. It is the MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive). Mutually Exclusive - no subcategory should... Read more →

What Does It Mean To Be Agile?

There are lots of descriptions of what it means to be agile. Some are good, some are better, some are lame. But what is the description of being agile in a domain where not being agile means you are dead.... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Our whole world as we knew it was shot to ratshit. I ought to write a soap opera. – Cher Maybe this is how you feel about your project or the firm where your project is being performed. When it... Read more →

Agile in the Federal Government

Introducing Agile to the Federal Government is not only difficult, it is like our friend Sisyphus here to the left. Pushing the stone up hill only to have it roll back down. It rolls down with a change in administration.... Read more →

Are We There Yet?

Are we there yet Daddy? is a common phrase we've all heard from our own children, others, and in the general public. There are two critical concepts here, that must be understood to successfully manage a project. Where is There?... Read more →

Quote of the Day

One accurate measurement is worth more than a thousand expert opinions - Admiral Grace Hopper (click on her picture for the bio). I once carried Admiral Hopper's bags, or tried to carry her bags. She came to speak at our... Read more →

The Actual Analogy of an Un-Tended Garden

The analogies of projects are like gardens has gone through a couple of iterations. The first is The Gardening Analogy. Here the conversation is straight forward, a Garden is a systems of interacting elements, from the environment, the machinery of... Read more →

Alert - EVM Site

The Earned Value Management (EVM) Division web site provides useful information for reference documents, templates, links to other Federal EVM sources. Read more →

How to have a team of individuals with a shared outcome

I heard an interview on NPR with Steve Jobs. He stated... We hired people to tell us what to do, not people who we needed to tell what to do. What a concept. Whether it was true or not, the... Read more →

Earned Value

When IT projects start to manage planning, progress measurement, and performance adjustments basedon baselined meassures of physical percent complete againts pre-defined technical performance measures at fine grained boundaries (every week), then we may read similar press releases. Agile software development... Read more →

The Paradigm of Agile Needs a Domain and Context

The application of agile software development needs a domain and a context in that domain. One size does not fit all. Paradigm of agile project management View more presentations from Glen Alleman. Read more →

Making Decisions Like Sherlock Holmes

When it comes to decision making on projects, there are many suggestions of how to go about it. Brain storming, using a "mind manager" tool, one of my favorites. Analytical Hierarchy Process, Paired Comparison Analysis (Borda Ranking), and then of... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Anbari, Frank T, Phd, Earned Value Project Management Method and Extensions, Project Management Journal Volume 34, Number 4, December 2003, Project Management Institute Read more →