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 →

Quote of the Day

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality. —Ayn Rand Causal relationships are defined by a cause-and-effect principle. Understanding these principles creates the structure of reality where we can be responsible for our success. To... Read more →

What Does Done Look Like?

I started using the phrase "do we know what DONE looks like?" at Rocky Flats. It was first coined by a project manager in our PMO (I was VP PMO). He started reminding me "No Glen it's not Done, it's... Read more →

Quote of the Day

He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet - Joseph Jourbet a French moralist and essayist, remembered for his Pensées, published posthumously. A corollary in our software development domain might be he who has practices without principles... 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 →

Book of the Month

In our current political turmoil, as well as project management and software development turmoil, claims are made - sometimes wild unsubstantiated claims - of how to NOT do something, how some process can fix your problems, without ever stating what... Read more →

How Do Projects Fail? Let Us Count the Ways

Poor initial requirements definition ― failure to start with Capabilities and only then deriving the requirements. These Capabilities are assessed in Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance Poor performance and cost trade-offs during development ― with the Measures of... Read more →

Four Root Causes of Project Failure

In a previous blog, Root Causes of Project Failure, there were four root causes from research at the Institute for Defense Analyses. In that Blog there were measures missing. Here's the details of those measures, defined in the Technical Measurement... Read more →

How Projects Go Bad - No Matter the Domain, Method, or Tool

Project failure is not only common, it's predictable. The root causes of Project Failure are well documented and corrective and preventive actions are also well known. Let's start with the four primary root causes of project failure. ‡ Unrealistic Performance... 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 →

A CIO Contribution to Project Failure

The failure starts with demanding the project to 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 →