Herding Cats

What's Missing from the Agile Software Development Paradigm

Agile software development is framed by a manifesto, a set of 12 principles, several methods. These are all focused on developing software, delivering that software to those paying the developers. There is a fundamental critical success factor missing from this... Read more →

Quote of the Day

It all comes down to the ability to go up and down the ladder of abstraction, and being able to see both the big picture and the operational implications - Loizos Heracleous in "Strategic Thinking or Strategic Planning," in Long... Read more →

People Versus Process

At the program level and above, the choice of a people focus or a process focus is not between two competing paradigms. They are two sides of the same coin. People are the raw material for teams, for not only... Read more →

INVEST, Scrum and Enterprise IT

The term INVEST is an acronym for good User Stories Independent (of all others) Negotiable (not a specific contract for features) Valuable (to the business or the project) Estimable (to a good approximation) Small (so as to fit within an... Read more →

What is Strategy?

Strategy is a much overused, misused, and abused word. It's tossed around by those who are unfamiliar with Strategy Making roles in businesses. Strategy is creating fit among a company's activities. The success of a strategy depends on doing many... Read more →

Fallacy of the Week

Five Different Decision-Making Strategies That Don't Need Estimates This is a quote from a #Noestimates presentation. Remember, all projects operate in the presence of Uncertainty. If not, it's either a de minimus project, buying things from a catelog, and assemblying... Read more →

Fallacy of the Day

Requirements, as traditionally used, are a separation tool. To separate the "thinkers" from the "doers". In software this is a HUGE mistake! This conjecture is a fallacy. The purpose of requirements elicitation, use, and implementation of the requirement that result... Read more →

How to Talk About Estimates

https://www.slideshare.net/galleman/paradigm-of-agile-project-managementWhat is an estimate? An estimate as a noun is an approximate calculation or judgment of the value, number, quantity, or extent of something. An estimate as a verb is to roughly calculate or judge the value, number, quantity, or... Read more →

Where is the Adult Supervision on this Program?

Most programs I work are in trouble in some form - other wise they would not have hired us to help. One quote we use to describe these situations is What's the difference between this program and the Boy Scouts?... Read more →

Definition of Done

The common definition of the Definition of Done in agile software development is (mostly from the Scrum Alliance and other official Scrum sites): A simple list of activities (coding, comments, unit testing, integration, release notes, design documents, etc.) that add... Read more →

Business Dysfunction, Malfunction and Strategy

Mike Cottmeyer posted This is an interesting article that misses the point of what's going on. Companies have too much management because they are poorly architected and not organized around value producing assets. When you don't have sufficient encapsulation, you... Read more →

Connecting Project Benefits to Business Strategy for Success

The current PMI Pulse titled Delivering Value: Focus on Benefits during Project Execution provides some guidance on how to manage the benefits side of an IT project. But the article misses the mark on an important concept. This is a... Read more →

Why Do Projects Fail?

We all wish that there was a simple answers to this question, but there are not. Anyone suggesting there is, doesn't understand the complexities of non-trivial projects in any domain. There are enough opinions to paper the side of a... Read more →

Idiot Wind

On the way home last week from a program managers conference, was listening to Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind Everything's a little upside down, matter of fact the wheels have stopped. What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good. Idiot Wind,... Read more →

Strategy is Not the Same as Operational Effectiveness

It is common to confuse strategy with operational effectiveness. The strategy for Information Technology (IT) projects contains three major themes. These form the foundation of the IT Strategy as well as the tactical processes that will be deployed in support... Read more →

Capabilities Based Planning

Over the years the success rate of traditional project management methods applied to software development projects has been underwhelming. Traditional project management methods are based on a retrospective approach, which measures variance against plan rather than providing a performance–forecast that... Read more →

The Fallacy of the Planning Fallacy

The Planning Fallacy is well documented in many domains. Bent Flyvbjerg has documented this issue in one of his books, Mega Projects and Risk. But the Planning Fallacy is more complex than just the optimism bias. Many of the root... Read more →

Measures of Program Performance

In a sufficiently complex project we need measures of progress to plan beyond burning down our list of same sized stories, which by the way require non-trivial work to make same sized and keep same sized. And of course if... Read more →

Staying on Plan Means Closed Loop Control

For most projects showing up on or near the planned need date, at or near the planned cost, and more or less with the planned capabilities is a good measure of success. Delivering capabilities late and over budget is usually... Read more →

Everything's a Remix

In the estimating discussion there is a popular notion that we can't possibly estimate something we haven't done before. So we have to explore - using the customers money by the way - to discover what we don't know. The... Read more →