There was a twitter thread today where I suggested for any project in any domain, using any product development method is subject to the Five Immutable Principles of Project Success. When the dust settled, I had posted links to all the past blogs for the Five Principles. Here they are all in one place.
But first some background.
The Five Principles emerged while I was a PMO VP at Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats was a Department of Energy nuclear weapons plant that was being decommissioned. Our PMO was accountable the ICT (InforCommunicationsunnications Technology) portion of the work effort, which included all the normal business systems (PeopleSoft ERP), all the communication (data and voice), all the data capture for the environmental remediation processes and recording keeping and the Cold and Dark projects for the non-nuclear building. Which was the removal of the HVAC, electrical systems making them cold and dark before they were knocked down and taken away.
The Five Principles are stated in the form of questions, that need answers. If the answers aren't forthcoming, the project has a lower probability of success. One of the respondents suggested that none of the questions have answers. This means that project, with no answers to the questions, is likely a Death March project, from Ed Yourdon's Death March book.
So here's the past post from oldest to newest
- 2010 - Five Immutable Principles of Project Success I used at a Carnegie Mellon course
- 2011 - 5 Immutable Project Success Processes (Again)
- 2011 - Five Immutable Principles
- 2012 - Evidence of Five Immutable Principles of Project Sucess
- 2014 - Project Success: The Basis of the Five Immutable Principles
- 2016 - Five Immutable Principles of Project Success and Project Failure
