Herding Cats

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 →

Quote of the Day

“Risk Management is Project Management for Adults” - Tim Lister The only way there is no Risk is when there are No Uncertainties, either reducible (Epistemic) or irreducible (Aleatory). All software development projects have uncertainties in one of these two... Read more →

The Fallacy of #NoEstimates

There is a Blog Video speaking the #NoEstimates that opens with the following. Let's look at the credibility of each of the statements below: Estimating can be an endemic problem in organisations these days because estimating is fundamentally guessing, yet... Read more →

Value, Cost and Business Decision Making

In Software Value of something is totally unrelated to Cost This is a popular fallacy in the #Noestimates advocates vocabulary. Let's look at the principles of cost, price, and value to the customer from the point of view of the... Read more →

Project Versus Product in Agile Development

Agree, and focus more on discovery since in *delivery* you have 4 problems: 1. Requirements will change, 2. Requirements are never complete 3. It’s impossible to gather all requirements in beginning 4. You don’t have enough time or $$$ to... Read more →

Why Estimates are Needed for Success in the Nondeterministic Universe

There's a fallacy used by some in the software development business, that estimates are not needed to make decisions in the presence of uncertainty. It turns out, of course, this can only be true if the world we live in... Read more →

Quote of the Day - The Fallacy of #NoEstimates

There is NO Principle of Managerial Finance, Probabilistic Decision Making, or Microeconomics of Software development, in the presence of uncertainties found on all projects, by which a credible decision can be made without estimating the impact of that decision on... Read more →

Fallacy of the Week

Uncertainty exists and cannot be reduced or eliminated in complex systems. Estimation only gives you a false sense of certainty that can only be validated when it is too late to react (e.g. Estimating Fallacy), i.e. After the Fact. This... Read more →

Two Parallel Processes of Project Success - Both Value and Delivery are Needed

There's a popular phrase in some parts of the agile community that goes like this... We focus on value production, not delivery This willfully ignores the principle of all business decision making in the presence of uncertainty... Software development is... Read more →

Real Options and Decision Making for ICT Projects

There was a classic #Noestimates post this week that said ... Estimation locks down choices early through upfront t decision making, #NoEstimates preserves options. And attached the hashtag #RealOption A real option is a choice made available with business investment... Read more →

Average is Just a Number - Fallacy of the Week

It's a number. Just like the average speed on your sports tracker. You don't estimate it. You know it based on real data. Not some fuzzy ritual. This is yet another uninformed notion. The average is the calculated central value... Read more →

Modeling the Future Using Empirical Data from the Past

This is a quote from Twitter today that says Various projective practices upon trending have been used to forecast progress ... These have proven useful. However, these do not replace the importance of empiricism. In complex environments, what will happen... Read more →

Fixed Price Removes Risk — Fallacy of the Week

Some acquisition policies express a strong preference for fixed-price contracts in contracting. Firm-fixed-price contracts are depicted as existing on the extreme left of the continuum of risk. As we progress through the various fixed-price flavors and into cost-type contracts, the... Read more →

The Open Mindedness and Logical Fallacy

Every once in awhile a reasonably intelligent No Estimates advocate shows up in a Twitter discussion. Although the poster is filled with logical fallacies, like cherry picking personal anecdotes, inversion of economic concept (focus on value, with no consideration for... Read more →

Uncertainty creates Risk, Decisions in Presence of Uncertainty Requires Estimating

According to ISO 31000, ISO 17666:2016 and ISO 11231:2010 a risk is the effect of uncertainty on objectives and an effect is a positive or negative deviation from what is expected. This definition recognizes that all of us operate in... Read more →

Start with Principles, Not Personal Anecdotes

Here's an extract from "Chapter 8: Human Behavior and Complexity," Terry Cooke-Davies, in Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. Drawing Unsupported Conclusions from Incomplete and Inconclusive Data, it is not only natural but also laudable, to seek... Read more →

Fallacy of the Week

When you use a technology term to describe a customer value you've lost the customer. And you've made 1000 assumptions without knowing! Without a domain and context, this statement has no meaning. Let's say we use a technical term like... 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 →

Fallacy of the Week

NoEstimates (is) An Unconventional Approach That Finally Solves The "Deliver On Time!" Problem Let's deconstruct this conjecture. All project work operates in the presence of uncertainty. Epistemic uncertainty, in which there is a probability that something will happen in the... Read more →

Fallacy of the Week

Instead of estimating User Stories, ask: how might we change this story so that we deliver working software tomorrow? While delivering working software daily is good development practice - what does it mean deliver? Can the customer accept working software... Read more →