Herding Cats

Quote of the Day

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the mid-1920s, Churchill asked his chief economist what would be required to produce a good estimate of the total cost of World War I to Britain. The economist replied that it would take ten... Read more →

Quote of the Day

To flourish and grow in a many-sided, uncertain and ever-changing world that surrounds is, suggests that we have to make intuitive within ourselves those many practices we need to meet the exigencies of that world - from The Discourse of... Read more →

Enterprise Scrum Development Process Flow

Here's how we write software for money, on a deadline, with a mandatory set of Capabilities and Features that implement those Capabilities. This process flow has been applied in a wide range of technical and business domains. From enterprise IT... Read more →

Quote of the Day

On long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero - narrator in Flight Club Read more →

I Never Thought of It That Way

This is a new Tag for the Herding Cats blog. I've had a conversation on Twitter that started with Management installs programs to solve problems on an ad hoc basis or to move the company along instead of adjusting the... Read more →

Book of the Month

While speaking at the PGCS in Canberra Austrailia, I met Robert Bolton. His book The Executive Guide to Breakthrough Project Management is a fascinating read about managing Capital projects using Critical Chain. CCPM is mentioned many times in our agile... Read more →

Quote of the Day

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken Read more →

Project Management of Product Development

There's a popular fallacy in the agile community of products over projects. This, of course, is based on the lack of knowledge of Managerial Finance, Systems Engineering and Product Development principles and processes. Here's a chart from an upcoming meeting... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The pale Usher - threadbare in cost, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations... Read more →

Quote of the Day

5 Minutes Early Is On Time; On Time Is Late; Late Is Unacceptable - Maj Peter Colquhoun, Australian Army And of course if you're going to show up 5 minutes early to be on time, and there are uncertainties (reducible... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best. - St. Jerome Read more →

Quote of the Day

Chance, too, which seems to rush along with slack reins, is bridled and governed by Law - Boethius (480-524) All project work and product development operates in the presence of uncertainty. To manage in the presence of these uncertainties, which... Read more →

Quote of the Day

“Risk Management is Project Management for Adults” - Tim Lister The only way there is no Risk is when there are No Uncertainties, either reducible (Epistemic) or irreducible (Aleatory). All software development projects have uncertainties in one of these two... Read more →

Cone of Uncertainty - Revisited

We're writing two chapters in an upcoming Project Management Book, with a working title, The Gower Handbook of Project Performance for Agile, Waterfall and Everything in Between, edited by Mark Phillips. One chapter on the Principles of Risk Management and... Read more →