Herding Cats

Quote of the Day

"For God's sake, Mane, do not strike at what you are looking but at what you intend to hit" - Nikola Tesla's father admonition to his cross-eyed helper while chopping wood on the farm, My Inventions, Nikola Tesla, published in... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Our first endeavors are purely instinctive, promptings of an imagination vivid and undisciplined. As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing ‒Nikola Tesla, My Inventions, 6 part series in Electrical Experimenter, Feb-Jun... Read more →

Quote of the Day

“Nothing is more difficult and, therefore, more precious than to be able to decide.” Napoleon Bonaparte French General and Emperor, 1769-1821 If you're going to decide in the presence of uncertainty, you're going to have to estimate the outcome of... 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 →

Six Steps of Risk Management

Risk Management has six steps: Planning risk management - decides how to approach and plan the risk management activities for the project. Identifying the Risks - determines with risk are likely to affect the project and documenting the characteristics of... 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 →

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 →