Herding Cats

Plan Before Starting Anything

There's a naïve notion on the web that Plans are not needed, Plans are a waste. The classic is its by doing the work we discover the work. It's actually worse than naïve, it's an idea that is simply wrong.... Read more →

Quote of the Day

"Science runs on the premise that experiments, and all the uncertainty involved in them, should be open for scrutiny." Editorial: Politics versus reality, Nature 434, 257 (17 March 2005) † When there are claims made about anything, in any domain,... Read more →

Risk Management is Project Management for Adults

Tim Lister's quote is a universal principle for the success of any project, product, or program in the presence of uncertainty. I'm finishing up the charts for a one day workshop at the Project and Program Management Symposium as well... Read more →

The #Noestimates Argument from Ignorance †

The conjecture You can make a decision in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the outcome of that decision is an argument from ignorance, or argumentum ad ignorantiam that infers the conjecture is true from the fact that it is... Read more →

Quote of the Day

There is no beauty better than intellect - Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Read more →

Quote of the Day

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The Sign of the Four” When you hear a suggested fix for some problem, and there is no Root Cause identified... Read more →

Popper, Falsifiability and #NoEstimates

In 1949, Popper turned his attention to questions like Is there a criterion for the character or status of a conjecture? (In his case a Theory, mostly around theoretical physics and General Relativity). The problem is not when a conjecture... Read more →

Software Intensive System of Systems

My domain is categorized as Software Intensive System of Systems (SISoS). In this domain, we applied traditional program and project management methods at the top level for cost and schedule management. This means a Capabilities Based Plan for what business... Read more →

Black Swans

One of the books used by a vocal No Estimates advocate is Black Swans by Nassim Taleb. This advocate continually confuses Macroeconomics of financial markets and sovereign finance with Microeconomics of software development. They are not the same, the processes... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I know not why I am so sad - Antonio, at the beginning of The Merchant of Venice Our brains have been designed from evolution to make calculations about possible futures. This is called deciding. When this deciding takes place... Read more →

Fourth of July

Land of the Free - Because of the Brave Read more →

Quote of the Day

Some mathematicians are birds, others are frogs. Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of mathematics out to the far horizon. They delight in concepts that unify our thinking and bring together diverse problems from different parts... Read more →