Herding Cats

Compendium of Works to Increase Probability of Project Success

Here's a collection of presentations, briefings, journal and conference papers, essays, book content used to increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS) I've written and applied over my career in the software-intensive system of systems and other domains. These materials... 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 →

Deploying ERP with Agile

Here's a paper from a prior agile conference that is still applicable today Read more →

Build a Risk Adjusted Project Plan in 6 Steps

When we hear about project planning and scheduling, we think about tasks being planned, organized in the proper order, durations assigned to the work, resources committed to perform the work. This is all well and good, but without a risk... Read more →

Planning And Estimating Is Required for Project Success

In project work we're looking to create or change something, in some defined period of time, for a defined cost. This means we're going to spend money now for some future outcome. The elements that go into this effort to... Read more →

The Notion of Enterprise Software Development

When we hear about some new fangled way of writing software for money, first ask in what domain has this new idea been applied, and what were the measures of effectiveness and measures of performance for that approach? Then ask... Read more →

Capabilities Based Planning and Development

The Death March project starts when we don't know what DONE looks like. Many of the agile approaches attempt to avoid this by exchanged not knowing for budget and time bounds. In the enterprise IT domain, those providing the money,... Read more →

What Does It Mean To Be DONE?

There is a continuing discussion in the agile community about delivering value in the order set by the customer. Along with this discussion is the use of the word DONE. A popular phrase is no requirement or piece of software... Read more →

Capabilities Based Planning in an Agile Development Paradigm

Many approaches to ERP focus on "requirements" which are not connected to the business strategy. If you're familiar with balanced scorecard, the connection of project indicators of success with business indicators of success starts here. This business centric approach assures... Read more →