Herding Cats

Compendium of Resources for Agile Project Management and Earned Value Management

The growing importance of quickly and affordably delivering software intensive systems requires programs to swiftly react to changing demands of the operational environment and has led to an increased focus on capability-based planning and iterative product development. Capability based planning... Read more →

A Compendium of Risk Management Resources

This blog page is dedicated to the resources used to manage the risk encountered in the development and deployment of Software-Intensive Systems of Systems (SISoS) using traditional and agile development methods. Let's start with a critical understanding of the purpose... Read more →

Compendium of Resources for Digital Twins, Model-Based Systems Engineering and Integrated Program Performance Management

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of... Read more →

Compendium of Resources for Integrated Master Plan / Integrated Master Schedule

The Integrated Master Plan (IMP) is a hierarchical collection of Program Events (PE), with each event supported by Significant Accomplishments (SA), and each SA is based on satisfying Accomplishment Criteria (AC). The Integrated Master Scheule (IMS) is an integrated, networked... Read more →

A Compendium of Managing Complex Systems

The picture is used by a Complexity advocate to conjecture that complex systems cannot be managed. This is not correct, as many of the claims made by self-proclaimed complexity experts. I've seen this scene of flocking birds first hand. It... Read more →

Compendium of Resources

Materials used to increase the probability of project success in the presence of uncertainty, with Capabilities needed for a defined cost on a defined date. Briefings, Papers, and Presentations are publications developed for clients, journals, books, and book chapters, and... Read more →

Compendium of Works to Increase Probability of Project Success

This collection of presentations, briefings, journal and conference papers, essays, and book content has been used to increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS) written and applied over my career in the software-intensive system of systems and other business and... Read more →

A Compendium of Blog Posts on Project Management

Project management is a collection of techniques for proposing, planning, implementing, managing, and evaluating projects, combined with the management of the people executing the project. It is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to a broad range of... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts on Agile Software Development

In software development, agile is a set of practices intended to improve the effectiveness of software development professionals, teams, and organizations. It involves discovering requirements and developing solutions through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customer/end... Read more →

A Compendium of Monte Carlo Simulation Resources

Estimation of cost, duration, and technical performance activities is one of the most difficult aspects of project management. Monte Carlo simulations are based on the manipulation of random numbers to evaluate probable outcomes, with applicability in a variety of different... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts on Agile

In the software development domain, Agile is a set of practices intended to improve the effectiveness of software development professionals, teams, and organizations. It involves discovering requirements and developing solutions through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts on Estimating

Estimating is a critical part of project planning, involving a quantitative estimate of project costs, resources, or duration. Here's a starting summary of Estimating Want To Learn How To Estimate? Part Troisième And blogs that speak to estimating projects in... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts on Capabilities Based Planning

Capabilities-Based Planning is planning, under uncertainty, to provide capabilities suitable for a wide range of business challenges and circumstances, while working within an economic framework. Capabilities-based Planning emphasizes flexibility, adaptiveness, and robust capabilities, implying a modular building-block approach to Enterprise... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts on Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis (RCA) is the process of discovering the root causes of problems in order to identify appropriate solutions. Comparison of Common Root Cause Analysis Tools and Method Increasing the Probability of Project Success Naivety of the 5 Whys's... Read more →

A Compendium of Blog Topics

Over the past 16 years of the Herding Cats blog, there have been a consistent collection of topics on topics critical the increasing the probability of project success. Here's the collection. It's incomplete but will be complete soon. Project Management... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts for Managing in the Presence of Risk

Risk Management is How Adults Manage Projects - Tim Lister What is Risk? What is Risk Management? Six Common Pitfalls of Risk Management Retrospective Coherence - What Does That Mean? Risk Management is Project Management for Adults - Tim Lister... Read more →

Resources for #PMChat Talk

I was invited to participate in the Twitter #PMCHAT session today to speak about the principles of Increasing the Probability of Project Success. The #PPChat process is based on asking questions and engaging with those providing answers. Here are the... Read more →

Compendium of Resources for Capabilities Based Planning

Over the years, the success rate of traditional project management methods applied to software development projects has been underwhelming. Capabilities–Based planning provides a defined outcome that is not a conclusion but lays the groundwork for the continued delivery of value.... Read more →

Compendium of Resources of Mathematics for Project Management

This page is dedicated to the resources of the mathematics needed to successfully manage software-intensive systems and their related hardware and work processes when applying traditional and agile product development methods. These Books, Papers, and Thesis and other resources -... Read more →

Cybersecurity in the Modern World - A Compendium of Resources

Finished writing a "cybersecurity for contract specialist" course for US Coast Guard. Like all course development work, the research is the starting point and a learning experience. While many of these documents are for federal acquisition shops, the NIST SP's... Read more →