Herding Cats

Cost and Value Management for Software Development

There's a popular notion going around the agile community that says ... we focus on Value and don't need to worry about Cost. This, of course, is a violation of the principles of Managerial Finance and Microeconomics of software development... Read more →

Why Johnny Can't Do The Math

A previous post, Why Johnny Can't Estimate, mentioned some resources for estimating, the principles of business and technical management that demand estimates be made to make decisions, and background on the sources of uncertainty, that create risk, that require estimating... Read more →

Monte Carlo Simulation

Estimation is part of project management. The most important estimates for the project manager are related to time and cost. And remember you're High School Economics class - The Value of something cannot be determined alone, you need to know... Read more →

Biases in Project Management and How to Remove Them

There is always lots of complaining about the biases introduced into managing projects and making the estimates needed to make project decisions. In Kahnemann's Thinking Fast and Slow there are three biases. † Cognitive bias - a mistake in reasoning,... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I do not define Time, Space, Place and Motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation, they bear to sensible objects. And... Read more →

Fallacy of the Week

Five Different Decision-Making Strategies That Don't Need Estimates This is a quote from a #Noestimates presentation. Remember, all projects operate in the presence of Uncertainty. If not, it's either a de minimus project, buying things from a catelog, and assemblying... Read more →

Quote of the Day

In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what... Read more →

Cone of Uncertainty and Estimate to Complete and Estimate at Completion

In a recent twitter exchange, a formula was presented that goes like this, from the Original Post Rewriting this into algebra in LaTeX gives us Let's see if we can unpack the equation: The total uncertainty is the ratio of... Read more →

Fallacy of the Day

"On spec" is open loop control on value. Project Controls are Management Actions, either preplanned to achieve the desired result, or taken as a corrective measure prompted by the monitoring process. Project controls are concerned with the metrics of the... Read more →

Integrated Master Plan - Revisited

Designing, building, testing, and deploying complex systems is fraught with risk. And as always risk comes from uncertainty. And uncertainty comes in two forms - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory). Much has been written about the sources of risk and... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. - Bruce Lee But do this within establish governance frameworks, principles of microeconomics of decision making and managerial finance. It's probably not your money and... Read more →

All Ideas Must Be Critically Examined

The creation of solutions that solve actual problems depends on a critical assessment of those solutions in the context of Principles, Processes, and Practices.When critics do their job properly, the exchange of ideas can take place in a meaningful manner.... Read more →

Behavioural Economics, Estimating, and Decision Making in Presence of Uncertainty

Behavioral Economics studies the effects of psychological, social, cognitive, and emotional factors on the economic decisions of individuals and organization and the consequences of prices, returns, and resource allocation, of the impact of different kinds of behavior, in different environments... Read more →

4 Fallacious Reasons Why We Estimate and Why Those Are Fallacious

There's a recent post titled Four Fallacious Reasons Why We Estimate. It lists the usual suspects for why those spending the money think they don't have to estimate how much they plan to spend when they'll be done producing the... Read more →

Capabilities Release or Cadence Release

Business runs on deadlines and milestones for a simple reason - Time is Money Those paying for the development of a product or service have an expectation that they will get the value from their investment on some date in... Read more →

Decisions Without Estimates?

There is a posted question at an agile conference. Can you make a decision without an estimate? Like many discussions in the domain of agile, the statement is made without any evidence that it is true, nor can even be... Read more →

Performance-Based Project Management®

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 →

The Five Laws of Software Estimating are Wrong

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 →

Agile Project Management Methods

There is a lot of unsubstantiated claims going around about how agile should or should not be applied. How estimates are or are not needed. How the team should or should not be managed. From the point of view of... Read more →

#Noestimates Has Come to This

This is a chart from an agile conference where #Noestimates was a topic. For the most part, the briefing follows Tony Magennis' approach from his book. So the first part is following standard estimating principles. What's fascinating is the evolution... Read more →