Herding Cats

What's Missing from the Agile Software Development Paradigm

Agile software development is framed by a manifesto, a set of 12 principles, several methods. These are all focused on developing software, delivering that software to those paying the developers. There is a fundamental critical success factor missing from this... Read more →

Agile for Project Managers

I rarely republish other blogs or presentations. But this one is timeless and needs to be restated at every opportunity. I've corresponded with John over the years. Here's the presentation. As well but John's books. Here's the one we use... Read more →

The Integrated Master Plan Defines what Done Looks Like

My colleague, Pat Barker, is an instructor at the Defense Acquisition University. Pat has produced Practical Advice for Integrated Master Plans. Click on the image below to get started. The resources there will guide you through the development and use... Read more →

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 →

3 Questions That Must Be Asked at Every Project Management Meeting

I came across a post on Twitter that led me to the blog post 3 Questions You Need to Ask at Your Next Meeting. Please subscribe to their newsletter The three questions are the foundation for any meeting, but they're... Read more →

Managing in the Presence of Risk

Information technology project risk often comes from non-technical aspects of the initiative. Assessing the impact of technology on people, management systems and other initiatives is essential to assure project success. "We automate problems" This department slogan was posted on an... Read more →

People Versus Process

At the program level and above, the choice of a people focus or a process focus is not between two competing paradigms. They are two sides of the same coin. People are the raw material for teams, for not only... Read more →

The CIO's Contribution to Project Failure

IT project failure starts with demanding the project maintain its budget and delivery times in the absence of a Plan to go along with the Schedule of the work. Failure starts with the lack of an adequate description of what... Read more →

Connecting "What" with "How" - and the Failure to Understand the Principles of Systems Engineering and Systems Management

It's been said by an agile voice that ... Progress and value delivery are not the same thing. In the end, of course, value (to someone) is important. And in the standard-for-today structure of programming for money, we divide what... Read more →

Reading List for the Cone of Uncertainty

The Cone of Uncertainty is a useful approach to defining the expected range of uncertainty at specific stages in a project. The primary purpose of software estimation is not to predict a project’s outcome; it is to determine whether a... Read more →

Quote of the Day

No sensible decision can be made without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it might be — Isaac Asimov To make sensible decisions, in the presence of uncertainty - reducible and irreducible... Read more →

Beyond Budgeting

It's popular in the agile community and especialy the #NoEstimates community to consider Beyond Budgeting to mean No Budgeting. Here are the actual principles of Beyond Budgeting Governance and Transparency Values - Bind people to a common cause; not a... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Mystery and Ignorance are always coexistent. Learn the truth and mystery will disappear. There are mysteries to managing in the presence of uncertainty for those who understand the principles of Risk Management of cost, schedule, and technical performance and know... Read more →

Software Intensive System of Systems

My domain is categorized as Software Intensive System of Systems (SISoS). In this domain, we applied traditional program and project management methods at the top level for cost and schedule management. This means a Capabilities Based Plan for what business... Read more →

Black Swans

One of the books used by a vocal No Estimates advocate is Black Swans by Nassim Taleb. This advocate continually confuses Macroeconomics of financial markets and sovereign finance with Microeconomics of software development. They are not the same, the processes... 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 →

INVEST, Scrum and Enterprise IT

The term INVEST is an acronym for good User Stories Independent (of all others) Negotiable (not a specific contract for features) Valuable (to the business or the project) Estimable (to a good approximation) Small (so as to fit within an... 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 →

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 →