Successfully managing projects, no matter the domain, the size, the development or engineering method starts with a set of Principles, Practices, and Processes. Here are those Principles and Practices. The Principles are Immutable. The Practices are universal. The Processes need... Read more →
There's a blog post from a few years back that has resurfaced The 5 Laws of Software Estimates. It's one of those posts that's heavy on opinion and light on principles. Time to revisit this ill-informed idea on why, what,... Read more →
It seems of late there is a campaign in the software development community, especially in the agile community where ignorance is a virtue. Ignorance of the microeconomics of decision making. The ignorance that all project work contains uncertainty, that uncertainty... Read more →
Organizational Effectiveness is a basis of rational management. The organization is one of mankind's all-time greatest inventions. An organization is intended to operate as one unit, with all its parts in efficient coordination. But all too often it does not.... Read more →
I belong to an invitation blog for military people. In a recent post, they shared a post from the York Region District School Board, D'Youville College, Aleksandr Noudelman about leadership. This post resonanted with me when I hear about simple... Read more →
It's common to hear, projects are overhead, we just need to get the value to the customer as fast as possible. This seems to be a lament from agile developers. Anything getting in the way of the coding is seen... Read more →
The common definition of the Definition of Done in agile software development is (mostly from the Scrum Alliance and other official Scrum sites): A simple list of activities (coding, comments, unit testing, integration, release notes, design documents, etc.) that add... Read more →
The Standish Report is raising its head again in the Agile presentations I've seen recently at conferences. Forgetting for the moment all the past "criticisms" of Standish... Standish Report Standish Report and Naive Statistics Finally a Challenge to the Standish... Read more →
Thanks to Sean Craig's Live Sketch Note for capturing concepts directly from Woody Zuill's talk. This is a good starting point for answering the mail on the notion that decisions can be made in the presence of uncertainty without estimating... Read more →
Is never permanent. Makes you like yourself. Is fun. Is sometimes tedious, painful, frustrating, monotonous, and at the same time gives a sense of accomplishment. Bases compensation on productivity. Is complete: One thinks, plans, manages and is the final judge... Read more →
For some reason the notion if value is a big mystery in the agile community. Many blogs, tweets, books are spent of speaking about Value as the priority in agile software development We focus on Value over cost. We produce... Read more →
When we hear about all the suggested ways to improve the effectiveness of our development effort, if we're to going work on improvements, let's go where the REAL money is. Here's the IT budget for the Federal Government. This is... Read more →
Perhaps Mr. Elliott could provide answers to these questions to our clients, when he suggests that estimates are worthless. When are those working demos being sent to production so the business can start earning back their investment? How many more... Read more →
There are misinformed notions floating around the agile community that products and better than projects. That somehow - unspecified and unsubstantiated as usual - that projects are undesirable and focusing on products and their value - again unspecified how to... Read more →
#NoEstimates advocates are on a Snipe hunt that will allow them to spend their customers money without having to tell that customer - with some level of confidence - how much money will be needed and how much will likely... Read more →
A 2013 webinar at Cyber Security & Information Systems Information Analysis Center, presented some Immutable Laws of Software Development. These are worth repeating every time there is a suggestion hat some method or another, or some new and untested idea... Read more →
When we hear about focusing on value first, delivery early and often, there is rarely any mention of the cost of that delivery. Or anything about the customers ability to accept those early and often deliveries and actually put them... Read more →
There's a common notion in some agile circles the projects aren't the right vehicle for developing products. This is usually expressed by Agile Coaches. As a business manager, applying Agile to develop products as well as delivering Operational Services based... Read more →
We all wish that there was a simple answers to this question, but there are not. Anyone suggesting there is, doesn't understand the complexities of non-trivial projects in any domain. There are enough opinions to paper the side of a... Read more →
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