Herding Cats

Danger Will Robinson

There are several fundamental principles of writing software for money. Let's start with the prime directive. It's not you money, behave appropriately. When asked to develop software in exchange for money - this is legally called work for hire -... Read more →

Answers to Shim's Questions

Shim Marom provides thought provoking posts. The one on Estimates and Not Estimates was a perfect straight line requesting a response. Are cost estimates required in order to manage software projects? - without some estimate of how much the project... Read more →

Book Blog Post

The AMACOM Book Performance-Based Project Management has a blog post from the publisher. The book can be purchased from the link under the cover to the left. Read more →

Systems Thinking - How To Stop Thinking Small

Much of the discussion on building products and services is focused on eliciting requirements, developing solutions around these requirements. Ignoring for a moment the silliness of not knowing the cost or duration of this work effort, we still need to... Read more →

What is Earned Value

Earned Value measures the production of tangible outcomes from work efforts on a project using Physical Percent Complete. This P%C is calculated used Quantifiable Backup Data shows what technical or operation goals must be met on a planned date in... Read more →

Quote of the Day

This branch of mathematics [probability] is the only one, I believe, in which good writers get results entirely erroneous - Charles Sanders Pierce When it is said - you can't estimate the future - or we don't know total cost,... Read more →

Performance-Based Project Management(sm) Released

Performance-Based Project Management(sm) on Amazon Here's the Table of Contents and Chapter 2. This chapter is the anchor for the Principles, Practices, and Processes of increasing the probability of project success. Performance-Based Project Management(sm) from Glen Alleman Here's a quick... Read more →

Flaws and Fallacies in Statistical Thinking

The processes by which we have discussions about project processes must be based on probability and statisics. Every project is subject to aleatory (irreducible) and epistemic (reducible) uncertainties. When we talk about cost, schedule, and technical performance are all statistical... Read more →