Herding Cats

Quote of the Day

Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it - George Costanza Read more →

Quote of the Day

The measure of who we are is how we react to something that doesn't go our way - Gregg Popovich, Head coach of the San Antonio Spurs Read more →

Quote of the Day

Never let the tool control the hand that uses it - Lt Gen Hans H. Driessnack (ret), in Advanced Project Management, Best Practices on Implementation, page 40, Harold Kerzner, 2004 Read more →

Quote of the Day

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance... Read more →

Quote of the Day

On a long enough timeline the survival rate of everyone drops to zero Read more →

Quote of the Day

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority ― Benjamin Franklin Think of this when you hear someone say protesting is a waste of time, and tell you to just be quiet and accept the situation you... Read more →

Quote of the Day

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools Read more →

Quote of the Day

Overheard on Twitter The Start of a Project Is the Worst Time to Estimate Its Duration or Cost This is only the case if those you've hired know nothing about what capabilities are needed to produce value the project, what... Read more →

Estimating the Risk

Risk is everywhere on projects. This risk comes from two types of uncertainty. Aleatory uncertainty, which is the naturally occurring yields variances in the underlying processes. This uncertainty is handled with cost, schedule, and technical performance margins. Epistemic uncertainty comes... Read more →

Quote of the Day

It is very tempting to rely on what you are experiencing - Marlene Cimons Read more →

Risk Management

Risk Management is How Adults Manage Projects - Tim Lister Risk Management requires making estimates of many things. The uncertainties that create the risk - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory), the impacts from the risks, the efficacy of the corrective... Read more →

Economics of Software Development

Making decisions in the presence of uncertainty with limited resources is the domain of Macro and Micro Economics Making decisions in resource-limited situations at the national or global scale is macroeconomics. Macroeconomics is the study of how people make decisions... Read more →

Increasing the Probability of Project Success

Increasing the Probability of Project Success Simple in Theory, Complex in Practice When we hear any suggestion about improving the probability of success of a project, there are some simple tests to confirm there actually is such a thing. This... Read more →

Managing Uncertainty, Risk, Threat, and Opportunity

I received a book over the Holidays - Managing Project Risk and Uncertainty: A Constructively Simple Approach to Decision Making, Chris Chapman and Stephen Ward. This is a seminal work on risk management in the presence of uncertainty. The introduction... Read more →

Accountability on a Agile Software Development in the Presence of Governance

One of the principles of agile development is self-organizing teams. Self-Organizing is a powerful process. But Self-Directed is not the same as Self-Organizing. On all but de-minimis projects, there is some external organization that is defining what Done looks like... Read more →

Pictures About Managing in the Presence of Uncertainty

For projects at scale, meaning the success or failure of the outcome impacts the firm in ways that cannot be corrected if it fails - loss of business, non-recoverable sunk cost, or other unfavorable impacts, there is usually a formal... Read more →