Herding Cats

Increasing the Probability of Program Succes

Cost and schedule growth for any project or program is created when there are: Unrealistic technical performance expectations, Unrealistic cost and schedule estimates, Inadequate risk assessments, and Unanticipated technical issues, all based on poorly performed and ineffective risk management. Each... Read more →

Strategies to Detect, Prevent, and Correct Causes of Project Stress and Failure

From yesterday's How to Think Like A Scientist, which spoke to encountering and countering, claims with no evidence, here's what was going to be a Master Class at PGCS 2020, but was canceled because of Covid. Hoping we'll be in... Read more →

How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist

A book in my library The Seven Secrets of How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist rings true in our time of SAR-COV-2 pandemic when I encounter not only blatant science deniers, along with the climate deniers but just the... Read more →

Some Thoughts on Project Management Process Models

There are voices on LinkedIn and other outlets selling agile development, project management, and even complex adaptive systems solutions - Disciplined Agile, Scrum, which along with others are essentially a solution looking for a problem to solve. In 2005 I... Read more →

Modeling Fault-Tolerant Computing

While working from home, I decided to clean up my document server. One of the documents laying around for years was my Master's Thesis This thesis was written in support of a Master's Degree in Systems Management. Which at the... Read more →

Book of the Month

From the dust jacket. Uncertainty is a given in project management - and it can make the project manager's job pretty complicated. Anything can change at any time - even the ultimate objective. That's why master project managers are turning... Read more →

Thought of the Day

The notion that Agile Development can be successful without Project Planning and Controls is only true when the project is de minimis. A de minimis project, means any variance in the cost, schedule, and technical performance of the deliverables has... 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 →

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 →

Darwinian Truth and Reality in Software Development Management

Jordan Peterson put forth the idea that “empirical” truth (e.g. the Earth is a sphere) is all well and good, but if that truth runs contrary to information that will allow you to spread your genes then it stops being... Read more →

Project Management + Systems Engineering = Increased Probability of Project Success

My workshop for the Project and Program Management Symposium in Canberra this August on the topic of integrating Systems Engineering and Project Management is now complete. The charts are available to the attendees and available here Projects delivered in complex... 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 →

Lessons Learned from the Columbia Disaster (Update)

This week I taught a 4-day course on Progressive Concepts in Program Management at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. One of the workshops used the NASA Columbia accident as an example (NASA report calls these things mishaps). This... Read more →

Quote of the Day

If we understand what Capabilities are needed to produce business value or fulfill a mission, we can then identify what technical or operational requirements are needed to deliver those capabilities — Glen B. Alleman This is a closing quote from... Read more →

Phrases Used for Technical Performance Measures

All project progress is measured independent of resources expended - Mr. Gary Bliss, Director Performance Assessment and Root Cause Analysis (PARCA), US Department of Defense The phrases used here are the results of research conducted on behalf of PARCA. No... Read more →

Any Effective Process Must ...

Any effective process must provide the following when searching for the Root Cause of the problem the process is trying to fix OR the Beneficial Outcomes the process is trying to maintain. The process must ... Clearly define the problem... Read more →

Podcast Interview

On a recent flight, I met Rory Rowland. Rory is in the Missouri House of Representative, a former CEO of a Credit Union, and a consultant and author. We started talking as well traveled travelers do, sharing backgrounds and current... Read more →

Deconstructing the Hertz and Accenture Debacle

A recent lawsuit by Hertz Rental Car against Accenture has turned into a rallying cry by Agilest and No Estimates advocates. Of course, No Root Cause analysis has been performed by these advocates, but it makes good click bait for... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Understanding First Principles is the basis of all understanding - Dr. Kaye Remington, PGCS, Canberra Australia, 14 August 2018 Without first principles, immutable first principles actually, any suggested improvement of anything is just wishful thinking uninformed by any governance, boundary... Read more →