Mystery and Ignorance are always coexistent. Learn the truth and mystery will disappear. There are mysteries to managing in the presence of uncertainty for those who understand the principles of Risk Management of cost, schedule, and technical performance and know how to apply them using Managerial Finance, Microeconomics of Software Development, and Probabilities Decision making.
— abstarcted from The A-B-C of Cost Engineering, Robert Scudder Denham, 1919
Cost (as well as Schedule and Technical) overruns have been with us for centuries [1] So no reason to point out project performance failures as something new.
Denham's book describes the fundamentals of Cost and Profit calculations, a manual for cost engineering and estimating, based on the science of Cost Modeling. In 1919 Denham wrote It is the objective to make it possible for the busy executives of America to grasp, at least in outline, the principles, and advantage of the newest and practical methods of determining cost (and schedule) of producing and selling products.
To start to address the failures in our project world, we need to recover the wisdom lost a century ago. This lost wisdom comes either through a lack of understanding of the principles stated above.
Or worse willful ignorance of these same principles.
[1] Jones, T, “Engineers and Their Estimates”, Journal of the Franklin Institute, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia PA, Vol XXV, 1840
