Herding Cats

Presentations, White Papers, and Journal Articles

Even experienced project managers are not immune to common reasons for project failure. Poor time and budget performance, failure to deal with complexity, and uncontrolled changes in scope can catch any project manager off guard. This collection of materials can... Read more →

Compendium of Works to Increase Probability of Project Success

This collection of presentations, briefings, journal and conference papers, essays, and book content has been used to increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS) written and applied over my career in the software-intensive system of systems and other business and... Read more →

Compendium of Blog Posts for Managing in the Presence of Risk

Risk Management is How Adults Manage Projects - Tim Lister What is Risk? What is Risk Management? Six Common Pitfalls of Risk Management Retrospective Coherence - What Does That Mean? Risk Management is Project Management for Adults - Tim Lister... Read more →

Quote of the Day

We pretend that technology, our technology, is something of a life force, a will, and a thrust of its own, on which we can blame all, with which we can explain all, and is the end by means of which... Read more →

Six Common Pitfalls of Risk Management

The concept of risk allows decisions to be made in the presence of uncertainty. This uncertainty is of two kinds: Aleatory – the inherent randomness of the underlying processes found in the project. Epistemic – the inherent state of knowledge... Read more →

Resources for #PMChat Talk

I was invited to participate in the Twitter #PMCHAT session today to speak about the principles of Increasing the Probability of Project Success. The #PPChat process is based on asking questions and engaging with those providing answers. Here are the... Read more →

Capabilities Based Planning (Wright Brothers)

Capabilities Based Planning provides a description of what Done looks like in units of measure meaningful to the decision-makers. These measures include Measures of Effectiveness (MOE) - Operational measures of success that are closely related to the achievements of the... Read more →

Epistemic and Aleatory Uncertainty Creates Risk to Project Success

There are two types of uncertainty on projects: Aleatory known as objective, stochastic, or irreducible. Epistemic known as subjective, state-of-knowledge, or reducible. Aleatory uncertainty is related to random variables. The intrinsic random nature of the phenomena occurring during the development... 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 →

Quote of the Day

... the defining of risk is essentially a political act. - Roger E. Kasperson Read more →

Quote of the Day

An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once. By all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a 27-mile wind . . . I look with amazement upon our audacity in attempting flights with a new and untried machine under such circumstances.... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Worked a $20B Manned Space Flight program a few years ago, when called in to help with getting back on schedule. The Finance Manager (CFO of the Program) opened the kickoff meeting with ... What's the difference between our program... Read more →

Quote of the Day

All projects are affected by cost, schedule, and technical risks, created by reducible and irreducible uncertainty - Virien and Trumper 2013. Cost and schedule growth for complex projects are created with unrealistic technical performance expectations, unrealistic cost and schedule estimates,... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Evoking a Root Cause as the reason for failure is a failure of leadership Leadership means seeing what is coming, taking preventive and/or corrective actions through the application of Risk Management, which includes pre-mortems for what could possibly go wrong.... Read more →

Aleatory Uncertainty Versus Epistemic Uncertainty, Risk, and Decision Making - The Fallacy of #NoEstimates

It is a common mistake, performed by many in the No Estimates community, to fail to understand that all risk comes from uncertainty. Uncertainty comes in only two forms: Epistemic uncertainty - is the lack of knowledge or information in... Read more →

Retrospective Coherence - What Does That Mean?

Why is the past easier to predict than the future? Retrospective Coherence is looking back in time and creating a coherent narrative around what happened. The accuracy of this narrative is suspect because the narrative can only be based on... Read more →

Thought of the Day

Science is in the process and tools Art is in the people and their relationships Management Systems without tools provide partial solutions. Success means delivering what those paying for the project set out to accomplish. In the presence of uncertainty,... Read more →

Quote of the Day - Managing Projects Like a Sailor

We Can Control the Ship and Sails, But Not The Wind and Waves All project work operates in the presence of uncertainty. Uncertainty creates risk to the success of the project. Uncertainty comes in only two forms: Epistemic uncertainty, which... Read more →

Risk Management is Project Management for Adults - Tim Lister

Risk management deals with issues of uncertainty. Risk Management aims to reduce uncertainty by envisioning possible scenarios and making forecasts (estimates of future outcomes based on data or past performance) on the basis of what it is considered probable within... Read more →