Herding Cats

Ignorance Versus "Willful Ignorance"

In a recent exchange on Twitter, I was called Ignorant for failing to understand a concept held by a self-proclaimed thought leader on the topic. Here in the US When you call someone ignorant, it's usually during, as some have... Read more →

Thought of the Day

Science is in the process and tools Art is in the people and their relationships Management Systems without tools provide partial solutions. Success means delivering what those paying for the project set out to accomplish. In the presence of uncertainty,... Read more →

Without a Road Map, We're Driving in the Dark With The Lights Off

For project success we need to know if we're on the right path to Done and we need meaningful measures of progress to the plan. We must measure the increasing maturity of the Deliverables and their Value to the customers... 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 →

Applying Project Control Processes to Agile Development Projects

Known Success Factors From Government Research For Aerospace And Defense Programs Are Augmented With Agile Development Good Practices And The Enablers Of These Good Practices. Good Practices and Enablers of Good Practices, based on a report from Comptroller and Auditor... Read more →

The Practitioner's Handbook of Project Performance

Our two chapters in The Practioner's Handbook of Project Performance: Agile, Waterfall and Beyond, edited by Mark Phillip's Routledge, 2019 is now out. Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 are principles and practices of risk management contributed by me, Tom Coonce,... Read more →

Capabilities Based Planning

Over the years, the success rate of traditional project management methods applied to software development projects has been underwhelming. These traditional methods are based on a retrospective approach that measures variance against plan rather than providing a performance–forecast that can... Read more →

What Do We Mean by Risk and Uncertainty?

Risk and Uncertainty are an integral part of all decision-making processes for non-trivial work. The decision-making process involves a set of actions and outcomes, each of which associated with them a probability or a statistical process. All risk comes from... Read more →

Quote of the Day

“The winning general is the one who can best act on imperfect information and half-formed theories.” – Napoleon Bonaparte All decisions in the presence of uncertainty require making estimates of the reducible and irreducible uncertainties that create risk. Knowing the... Read more →

Software Estimating Processes and the Fallacy of the Week

I'm continually building the bibliography for our Software Intensive Systems of Systems work activities and found in "A review of Agile Software Effort Estimation Methods" It lists Traditional Methods Expert Judgement Analogy Price-to-Win, Bottom-Up, and Top-Up Wideband Delphi Algorithmic methods... Read more →

Presentations from PGCS 2019

This was my second year at the Project and Program Symposium in Canberra Australia. This year's conference focused on the integration of Systems Engineering and Project and Program Performance Management. Here are my talks and a workshop and other papers... Read more →

Quote of the Day

If we start with what we think is a valid number, we will tend to continue with that number. When in fact, we should speak only in terms of confidence intervals and probabilities of success - Sir Francis Bacon In... Read more →

Function Points and Software Development Estimating

The ISO/IEC 141143-6:2012 Standard for functional size measurement Productivity Measurement of software projects. There are five functional size measurement methods in compliance with ISO/IEC standards. NESMA function points (ISO/IEC 24570) IFPUG function points (ISO/IEC 20926); COSMIC function points (ISO/IEC 19761)... Read more →

Why Would You NEVER Apply Agile Software Development Processes?

In 2018, the notion of Agile Software Development has become the norm where we work. Here's a small sample of the guidance Update 2016: Considerations for Using Agile in DOD Acquisition Handbook for Implementing Agile in Department of Defense Information... Read more →

DDSTOP The Saga Continues

There's been a rash of conjectures about all kinds of bad business, project, and software development (agile and traditional) management ideas of late. Time to update the Don't Do Stupid Things on Purpose (DDSTOP) post. “There’s nothing more dangerous than... Read more →

Non-Ergodic Behaviour of Projects

In a previous post Why Johnny Can't Do The Math, the suggestion that estimates are non-ergodic is a Category error. It's the underlying processes that are ergodic or non-ergodic, not the estimates of that process. In this case, the project... Read more →

How To Produce and Covey Credible Software Development Estimates

Let's start with some classes of projects. Here's a chart like to use because it covers most of the classes of project's I've worked over my career from simple family gardening to the International Space Station. Each of these projects... Read more →

Start with the End in Mind

The notion - a fallacious notion - that done will emerge, is common in some circles of Agile and especially those agile advocates proferring No Estimates. The Greeks and Romans had a good understanding of most things we take for... Read more →

You Can Not "Control" Projects

The #NoEstimates are right you can not Control projects. All projects, no matter the domain, processes, or technology, operate in the presence of uncertainty - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory). The only thing that can take place is to Manage... Read more →

Value Theory for Projects and Estimating

No Value can be determined without knowing something about the cost to produce that Value and the Time that Value will be arriving. † In the presence of uncertainty, this knowing must be estimated to some acceptable level of confidence.... Read more →