Herding Cats

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 →

Integrated Master Plan - Revisited

Designing, building, testing, and deploying complex systems is fraught with risk. And as always risk comes from uncertainty. And uncertainty comes in two forms - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory). Much has been written about the sources of risk and... Read more →

Managing In The Presence Uncertainty

All projects operate in the presence of uncertainty, that's the reality of project work. There is no way around it. Either we deal with it - manage in the presence of uncertainty - or ignore it - and get managed... Read more →

Earning Value from Earned Value

There's a post on a Deltek implementation partner site about applying Earned Value. It has some good advice, but the premise of the starting point needs to be addressed. Before going on to suggest things to do on a project... Read more →

What Does "Done" Look Like?

There is a conversation on LinkedIn around the structure of the WBS. Neil Albert, of MIL-STD-881-C, provided ini nice answer to the question about the product or functional structure of the WBS. In the business of building things that swim,... Read more →

Rings of Success

Olympic Rings featured in nearing everywhere these days. Those rings represent the 5 parts of the world which now are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition. While there is much talk about the projects of the... Read more →

What Does A Good WBS Look Like?

There are numerous books and guidance for building a good Work Breakdown Structure. But there is an underlying principle that guides, or should guide this effort. It is the MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive). Mutually Exclusive - no subcategory should... Read more →

The Performance Measurement Baseline

Brad Egland has a nice post about the Work Breakdown Structure. The guidance for the WBS is being updated. MIL-STD-881C is coming this summer. 881C like 881B describes the WBS as: A product-oriented family tree composed of hardware, software, services,... Read more →

Alert - MIL-STD-881C

The next version of the Work Breakdown Structure guidance is out for review. MIL-STD-881C is now a Military Standard rather than a Military Handbook. Why do we care? Let me count the ways: Without a properly formed WBS, it is... Read more →

Connecting Risk and the WBS

When risk management is mentioned as an activity in project management, it is not always placed in a proper context, or any context for that matter. Here's a suggested way to "connect the dots" between risk and core element of... Read more →

The WBS is Our Friend

Managing successful projects and programs depends on knowing what DONE looks like. One of the views of DONE is the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The WBS describes the products or services delivered by the project and the processes that produce... Read more →

The Work Breakdown Structure

While doing some research for a new engagement on a DoD program, I came across a paper on the Work Breakdown Structure from a PMI Global conference. Applying the Work Breakdown Structure to the Project Lifecycle. The paper provides a... Read more →

MIL-HDBK-881A Moving to MIL-STD-881A

Building a credible Work Breakdown Structure is a critical success factor for many projects. The WBS describes what "done" looks like in terms of products and the services needed to produce those products. The US Department of Defense has embarked... Read more →

Mind Mapping and the Work Breakdown Structure

Gantt Head has an article about the use of Mind Mapping (free login required) in project management. Mind Mapping is a powerful paradigm for capturing and organizing information that is hierarchical in nature. Projects are primarily hierarchical, starting with the... Read more →

Confusing Effort with Results - The Curse of Poor Project Management

A Maintenance Officer in 1970, just north of Da-nang was asked me "when is this aircraft going to fly?" Some weak answer came back about who hard everyone was working to get the aircraft fixed and back on flight status.... Read more →