Herding Cats

Decision Analysis - Ordinal and Cardinal Measures

When we hear of the difficulties of making decisions in the presence of uncertainty, especially about software features and capabilities, there are straightforward ways to solve this problem. Decision Analysis is a principle, technique, and application to address complex decisions... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Plucked by Puffery

To the layperson, puffery seems like a license to lie, which, frankly, isn’t totally wrong. A well-known book on torts by William Prosser and W. Page Keeton stated it this way: “The puffing rule amounts to a seller’s privilege to... Read more →

Quote of the Day

"Uncertainty management is not just about managing perceived threats, opportunities, and their implications; it is about identifying and managing all the many sources of uncertainty that give rise to and shape our perceptions of threats and opportunities. It implies exploring... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I am used to thinking three or four months in advance, about what I must do, and I calculate on the worst. If I take so many precautions, it is because it is my custom to leave nothing to chance.... Read more →

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

"Would you tell me, please which way I ought to go from here? 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much care,' said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter which way... Read more →

Without a Root Cause Analysis, No Corrective or Preventive Action is Credible - Part 1

When you hear project failure statistics, and no Root Cause for those numbers, there is no hope that any suggested corrections can be credible. As well when you hear those statistics, many times those numbers have no credibility themselves to... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Motivation

When I was reading The Manhattan Project and came across a statement that resonated with me. Dr. Vannevar Bush (George Bush senior’s father and George W. Bush’s grandfather) was assigned the role to lead the development of the atomic bomb... Read more →

Quote of the Day

“The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.” — Henry Havelock Ellis, British psychologist Read more →

#NoEstimates in Six Boxes

Here's a picture from a Tweeter post (without attribution) that is suggested to represent what it means to apply #NoEstimates Let's look at the detail of each of the boxes in the context of the uncertainties encountered on all projects... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world. — Arthur Schopenhauer What does that mean? Each of us has our limits. For some, the limit is in the seeing, for others,... 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 →

The Ontological Fallacy of No Estimates

The introduction to the #NoEstimates paradigm started with This statement is an ontological fallacy. An Ontological Fallacy is a statement of being or existing with an a priori theory about the organization of some paradigm. There is no principle on... 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 →

Why Johnny Can't Estimate? (Update)

I work in a domain where engineered systems are developed for complex software-intensive system of systems. These systems are engineered with a variety of development methods. Ranging from traditional to agile and combinations in between. These systems are developed for... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I am not much given to regret, so I puzzled over this one a while. Should have taken much more statistics in college, I think - Max Levchin, Paypal Co-Founder Probability and statistics is the basis of all decision making... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Never bring the problem-solving stage into the decision-making stage. Otherwise, you surrender yourself to the problem rather than the solution. — Robert Schuller No problem can be solved until we know the root cause of the problem. If you start... Read more →

The Myth of #Noestimates is in the Same Family as the Myth of Unicorns

The unicorn is a magical creature with a fantastically perverted history. The myth of the Unicorn started with the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder. Pliny wasn’t the most credible of writers (this was long before the Columbia School of Journalism).... 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 →

Don't Be Fooled

This is a new Category on Herding Cats that comes from my finishing of the book Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics, Gary Smith. Of late I've encountered many people on the web... Read more →