Herding Cats

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 →

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 →

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

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 →

Modeling the Future is the Basis of Project Success

There's a notion going around that ... “I don’t believe you can make a model of a possible future.” This ignores the principles of predictive analytics, and the direct management actions taken to produce outcomes from those analytical models found... 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 →

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 →

Quote of the Day

And I think that still is true of this business - which is basically research and development - that you probably spend more time planning and training and designing for things to go wrong, and how you cope wth them,... Read more →

Is There an Underlying Theory of Software Project Management?

Here's a paper that has been under constant development for several years now and is headed to a Journal and part of an upcoming book chapter. The motivation for the paper started when there were claims made the somehow agile... 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 →

Quote of the Day

Chance, too, which seems to rush along with slack reins, is bridled and governed by Law - Boethius (480-524) All project work and product development operates in the presence of uncertainty. To manage in the presence of these uncertainties, which... Read more →

Quote of the Day

“Risk Management is Project Management for Adults” - Tim Lister The only way there is no Risk is when there are No Uncertainties, either reducible (Epistemic) or irreducible (Aleatory). All software development projects have uncertainties in one of these two... Read more →

Plan Before Starting Anything

There's a naïve notion on the web that Plans are not needed, Plans are a waste. The classic is its by doing the work we discover the work. It's actually worse than naïve, it's an idea that is simply wrong.... Read more →

Risk Management is Project Management for Adults

Tim Lister's quote is a universal principle for the success of any project, product, or program in the presence of uncertainty. I'm finishing up the charts for a one day workshop at the Project and Program Management Symposium as well... Read more →

Risk, Their Sources, and Handling Strategies

Risk identification during early design phases of complex systems is commonly implemented but often fails to identify events and circumstances that challenge program performance. Inefficiencies in cost and schedule estimates are usually held accountable for cost and schedule overruns, but... Read more →

Fixed Price Removes Risk — Fallacy of the Week

Some acquisition policies express a strong preference for fixed-price contracts in contracting. Firm-fixed-price contracts are depicted as existing on the extreme left of the continuum of risk. As we progress through the various fixed-price flavors and into cost-type contracts, the... Read more →

Small Batch Sizes are NOT Risk Management

There is a popular fallacy in the Agile community that small batch sizes are Risk Management. What small batches do is provide information that informs risk management at a fast rate. Small batch sizes answer the question... How long are... Read more →