Herding Cats

Late Start = Late Finish

In a CrossTalk article Risk Management for Dummies, Tom DeMarco speaks about late software projects and the approaches for the solution. The notion of early start as the solution for late finish needs to address the core question, but fails... Read more →

We Suck At Estimating

When I hear "we suck at estimating," or "we can't make good estimates, because people take them as commitments," I wonder what would be the answer if those statements were restated as... "We suck at designing good database schemas." "I... Read more →

Estimating is Risk Management

Risk Management is about many things - but it is first and foremost about estimating future outcomes. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he... Read more →

Building the Perfect Schedule

Plans are critical, a schedule to implement that plan comes next. With the Plan, the sequence of the work is needed to assure the value to the customer is delivered in the proper order. That order is an order because... Read more →

Turning Editorials into Root Cause Analysis (Update)

When we read about a big IT problem, like... The first impulse is to use this information to support some or other position, like here's an example of estimate driven bad management. Without the logical conclusion of finding the actual... Read more →

Building a Credible Performance Measurement Baseline

Many times I hear about Cost of Delay, Deliver Value, Measure story points, or Measure Stories. And a myriad of other assessments of project performance, all of which - OK, most of which are examples of Open Loop Control. Back... Read more →

Planning And Estimating Is Required for Project Success

In project work we're looking to create or change something, in some defined period of time, for a defined cost. This means we're going to spend money now for some future outcome. The elements that go into this effort to... Read more →

Don't Manage By Quoting Dilbert

When we hear descriptons of Dilbert style management, with posting and reposting Dilbert cartons showing pointy haired bosses Doing Stupid Things on Purpose and no actionable advice on how to take corrective actions - then you know for sure the... Read more →

Bayesian Statistics and Project Work

The use of Bayesian Statistics in project work is well developed. Here's an example of the approach. The drivers for each uncertainty can be modeled to produce on estimate of the risk of the project not producing the desired outcomes.... Read more →

Probability and Statistics of Project Work

When I hear what are the odds of success for a project, it tells me there is an undertstanding gap in how statistical processes are used in projects to produce probabilistic estimates of three things: The probability of completing on... Read more →

Qualitative Risk Management and Quantitative Risk Management

Qualitative risk analysis includes methods for prioritizing the identified risks for further action, such as risk response. The project members must revisit qualitative risk analysis during the project’s lifecycle. When the team repeats qualitative analysis for individual risks, trends may... Read more →

All The World's A Random Process

When we hear about making decisions in the absence of estimates of the impact from that decision, the cost of making that decision - the opportunity cost, which is the basis of Microeconomics, or best of all the possible alternatives... Read more →

The Actual Science in Management Science

Planning for an uncertain future calls for a shift in information management — from single numbers to probability distributions — in order to correct the "flaw of averages." This, in turn, gives rise to the prospect of a Chief Probability... Read more →

Plan Management

When we hear ... "Don't fall in love with your plan, it is almost certainly wrong " let's reflect on advice from IEEE Std 730-2014 Plan Management: It is obvious that the project must be managed during its execution, but... Read more →

The Notion of Enterprise Software Development

When we hear about some new fangled way of writing software for money, first ask in what domain has this new idea been applied, and what were the measures of effectiveness and measures of performance for that approach? Then ask... Read more →

Planning is the Basis of Decision Making in the Presence of Uncertainty

Another twitter conversation - of sorts - prompted a thought about the purpose of planning, from the Quote of the Day post. In the enterprise IT world, planning and plans provide the road map for development and deployment of systems... Read more →

Quote of the Day

It was overheard on Twitter "Don't fall in love with your plan, it is almost certainly wrong " A plan is a strategy for success. Strategies are hypothesise . Hypothesise need tests to verify - just like you learned in... Read more →

Decision Making in the Presence of Uncertainty

Decision theory is concerned with the problem of making decisions. Statistical decision theory is decision making in the presence of statistical knowledge, by understanding some of the uncertainties involved in the problem. Decision theory deals with the situations where decisions... Read more →

Capabilities Based Planning

It has been conjectured that ... What in the begining you thought you needed is never what you actually need Fails to realize several critical success factors for project success... Without stating what capabilities we need from the project, we... Read more →

Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies

When we hear something like estimates are the smell of dysfunction. That's a logical fallacy. Estimating is a business and engineering activities that produces numbers, confidence intervals on those numbers, and confidence interval on the confidence intervals. We have an... Read more →