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In the beginning, there was pre-history Agile, almost prehistoric era: Before 2000 and the meeting in Utah that birthed modern Agile Rogue developers trying various "light weight" and "rapid" prototyping and coding practises. MORE
"It is not given to human beings -- happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable -- to foresee or predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events" Winston Churchill Of course, project management can modify such a bit to tolerate some of the intolerable: Simulations can add to the extent of foresight of unfolding events Systems tests can reveal unforeseen hazards in. Risk Management MORE
Autocrates and autocratic leadership -- on the one hand -- and the classic risk management on the other hand. is the latter pointless in the context of the former? And we ask this because: From essayist Eric Grill writing in the leadership blog of St Thomas University we learn that: Autocratic leaders typically make all major decisions on their own, with little or no input from others. leadership Risk Management MORE
Can there be scope creep in Agile? Doesn't agile define creep away in a stroke: "Scope is whatever is prioritized in the backlog that fits within the budget (OPM, other people's money) and the time. The backlog changes all the time, but that's not creep, it's just backlog management." MORE
Stage gates and Agile? To some, that might sound horrifying! Not exactly! One of my Agile Project Management students asked me about stage gates and agile. My first response was this: Agile is not a gated methodology, primarily because scope is viewed as emergent, and thus the idea of pre-determined gate criteria is inconsistent with progressive elaboration and emergence. Agile does. agile MORE
Agile Principle 5: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. Trust them to get the job done. What job? Is it the job described in the business plan and in subsequent project plans, albeit lean plans consistent with the Agile Manifesto? Is it the job that has been estimated and scheduled? Is it the job. agile MORE
A narrative* Imagine two doors to the same room: One labeled risk manager; the other labeled decision maker. Though the risk manager's door, entry is for the inductive thinker: facts, experience, history looking for a generality or integrating narrative Through the decision maker's door, entry is for the deductive thinker: visionary with a need to articulate specifics for the vision Risk Management MORE
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt Actually, that's Teddy's version of cousin FDR's famous "Try something!" But what if it's all about a threat -- something external -- for which you have no experience? Call in your PMO team and brainstorm? Perhaps game theory Risk Management MORE
If you only know one thing about Risk Management, know this: Schedule slack is your most powerful tool Poorly developed instincts and skills in the use of this most powerful tool are leading causes of poor risk management If you are a Systems person a strategic thinker; an integrator; a "it all has to work" person -- you'll translate schedule slack into to "loose coupling" Loose. Risk Management system engineering MORE
I was looking back at some prior essays on Agile and came across the April 2012 PMNetwork magazine. Specifically I was attracted (again) to page 58 for an interview with some agilists on the state of the practice. Here are a couple of quotes from Jim Highsmith worth tucking away: Agile project management embraces both “doing” agile and “being” agile—and the latter is the hardest. agile MORE
Did you see this witicism at herdingcats? A skeptic will question claims, then embrace the evidence. A denier will question claims, then reject the evidence. Neil deGrase Tyson. Think of this whenever there is a conjecture that has no testable evidence of the claim. And think ever more when those making the conjectured claim refuse to provide evidence. When that is the case, it is. estimate Project Management Quotations MORE
There's a new tension in town. Remote v Local 30M+ Americans have jobs and are working from home (the Remotes) 60M+ Americans can't work from home (the Locals), and 50% of them may not have jobs. If that's not enough to amp the tension between the haves and have-nots, then consider the risk management regime of each: The Remotes have a much lower risk environment from Covid-19, but also. human factors Project Management MORE
Well, here in the Spring of 2020, leaders are stressed; and circumstances are somewhat chaotic (meaning not only disorganized and counterproductive, but small effects are highly leveraged by exponential responses) And so one wonders: are our best leaders in crises and chaos likely to have been trained in the military where the 'fog of war' is all too real? Yes, but no. Our military schools. leadership MORE
Almost anyone who's been around projects for a few years has experienced hierarchy: it's like a pyramid, with one person at the apex and a number of layers spreading out below, interconnected, for the most part, top-down. On the other hand, another structure is like a mesh, wired for the most part peer-to-peer, and mostly flat -- few hierarchical titles and few top-down controls, and lots of. Risk Management MORE
The oldest technique in the book, indeed before there were even books, is "acceptance" To drive a car is to accept the risk that the other driver isn't too drunk, too sleepy, too unskilled, too distracted, too whatever To take on debt is to accept the risk that you'll have the means to repay without bankrupting yourself To take on unsecured credit is to accept the risk (trust, really) that. Risk Management MORE
Dilbert: We need 3 more programmers. Boss: Use agile programming methods. Dilbert: Agile programming does not mean doing more work with less people. Boss: Find me some words that do mean that and ask again Dilbert is a creation of Scott Adams And so, you might ask: what does agile mean? MORE
I've heard it many times that this little ditty is the essence of why Agile is problematic with its dearth of plans, estimates, etc: "Would you tell me, please which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I I don't much care,' said Alice. Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. 'So So long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice. agile MORE
A narrative* Imagine two doors to the same room: One labeled risk manager; the other labeled decision maker. Though the risk manager's door, entry is for the inductive thinker: facts looking for a generality or integrating narrative Through the decision maker's door, entry is for the deductive thinker: visionary with a need to connect specifics to the vision And, consider this: Pessimists. Risk Management MORE
Consider, if you will, this value system arranged as a Belief and an Operating Principle, adapted from "Maximizing Project Value" Chapter 1 (one of my books): Quality is free: We value doing the right job (value adding) in the right way (training and skill development) the first time (correct systemic errors). There is no substitute for ethical, honest, and transparent transactions: As. Project Value MORE
163 There have been a lot of very high profile examples that demonstrate what seems like the evitable progression of the collision of risk and politics. The narrative seems to always fit this frame: Conventional risk management processes identify a risky situation and assess the unfavorable outcomes Mitigations are designed and briefed up the chain Such mitigations are immediately clamped from. Risk Management MORE
You've got a big (big!) project with a lot of moving parts (different contractors doing different stuff). You've been told: Get yourself an SI! The questions at hand: what is a System Integrator (aka SI), and what do they do? MORE
"We study natural stupidity rather than artificial intelligence" Amos Tversky Tversky--now deceased--was a partner with Daniel Kahneman, who together wrote some of the most influential papers about biases in our observations and the biases that affect decision making under uncertainty. If you're a project manager or business manager, then you encounter these influences routinely. human factors Risk Management MORE
Ideas about extreme risk management have been around a long time. No news there, so let's press on. Here's a working definition: Extreme risks are those for which the consequences are nearly irreversible, and the impact is near-catastrophic. MORE
8 Administrative Professional Conferences You Can’t Miss in 2018. Have you ever noticed the amazing ideas and inspiration that come from connecting with other like-minded people who have the same profession as you? We want administrative professionals to feel that invigorating spark again and again! MORE
Yikes: the products and services for virtual conferencing and teamwork are jumping out of the woodwork: Here's a nice comparison of Zoom and Blue Jeans Microsoft TEAMS which is integrated with Office 365 now has a home version as well And, of course, there are the established WebEX, Skype, etc Google is not to be left out, nor is Slack Here's a collection of 10 articles on collaboration tools Project Management MORE
163 
The Siberian dilemma has been around a long time. The narrative goes like this: It's a seriously sub-zero day on a frozen lake You're walking across the lake and fall through a weak spot in the ice If you stay in the water, you'll die in 5 minutes; If you get out the water, you'll die in 2 minutes. The dilemma: stay in the water and live longer, or get out and die sooner? Damned if you do; Risk Management MORE
I've written before that the PMO is the world of 1-sigma; 6-sigma need not apply. Why so? One-time projects don't generate enough data for real statistical process controls to be valid. To wit: projects are the domain of small data. Usually) And so, small data drives most projects; after all, we're not in a production environment. Small data is why we approximate, but approximation is not. Bayes estimate Statistics MORE
Under stress, the biases come out Not only do the risks change, but risk attitudes change as well The stakes may be higher; the consequences greater. Now is the time to revisit the best book ever written on risk management -- in my opinion "Against the Gods, The remarkable story of Risk" by Peter L. MORE
Risk un-management? Perhaps the largest task within risk management, and requiring the greatest judgment, is "risk un-management" On any project there are going to be dozens, perhaps hundreds, of unmanaged risks. These comprise the population to be un-managed. I doubt this is news to anyone, but these are, as a group, more numerous than those selected for the usual risk management paradigm. Risk Management MORE
Can anyone image doing serious risk management without a checklist? The answer, of course, is No. or, it should be!) Actually, any procedural management can benefit from a checklist. There's been whole books written about checklists. In fact, one of the more prominent books -- "The Checklist Manefesto" by Dr. A. Gawande -- entitles Chapter 1: "The Problem of Extreme Complexity", Project Management MORE
There comes a point where more planning can not remove the remaining uncertainty, instead execution must be used to provide data and remove uncertainty. This quote comes from a nicely argued case -- from the agile blog 'leading answers' -- for mixing agile methods in rather traditional businesses, like the oil and gas exploration/production business If ever there was a business that. agile MORE
Somebody asked: can a virtual team do Agile? 20 years ago, at the dawn of Agile, the answer might have been no. 15 years ago, more less at the peak of the AOL texting app Instant Messenger and the dawn of the smart phone and smart-phone personal networking and conferencing, the answer might have been yes, but with reservations. Now, the answer is "Of course", with some adjustments. agile Virtual teams MORE
If you've ever managed a project with a really large data set, say the payroll for a bunch of 1099 developers, or the sales records that you're trying to translate and import to a spreadsheet, you may need to watch a couple of important cells to let you know what's really going on: Summary totals; error codes; record totals, etc. MORE
What's the hybrid thing? It's agile coexisting in the same project with a traditional methodology, presumably for the swim lanes that are not software. Some call hybrid agile as: agile in the waterfall Are hybrids practical? After all, the traditional is top down planned, most requirements up front, much system testing at the end, etc. Agile is the not-traditional. Can you fashion a hybrid. agile MORE
Musings on Project Management
FEBRUARY 10, 2020
Ideas about extreme risk management have been around a long time. No news there, so let's press on. Here's a working definition: Extreme risks are those for which the consequences are nearly irreversible, and the impact is near-catastrophic.
Musings on Project Management
MAY 30, 2020
Almost anyone who's been around projects for a few years has experienced hierarchy: it's like a pyramid, with one person at the apex and a number of layers spreading out below, interconnected, for the most part, top-down. On the other hand, another structure is like a mesh, wired for the most part peer-to-peer, and mostly flat -- few hierarchical titles and few top-down controls, and lots of. Risk Management
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Musings on Project Management
APRIL 3, 2020
If you only know one thing about Risk Management, know this: Schedule slack is your most powerful tool Poorly developed instincts and skills in the use of this most powerful tool are leading causes of poor risk management If you are a Systems person a strategic thinker; an integrator; a "it all has to work" person -- you'll translate schedule slack into to "loose coupling" Loose. Risk Management system engineering
Musings on Project Management
MAY 15, 2020
Under stress, the biases come out Not only do the risks change, but risk attitudes change as well The stakes may be higher; the consequences greater. Now is the time to revisit the best book ever written on risk management -- in my opinion "Against the Gods, The remarkable story of Risk" by Peter L.
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How can project planning that stretches over months or years remain relevant and account for new ad-hoc activities that arrive every day?
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 24, 2020
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt Actually, that's Teddy's version of cousin FDR's famous "Try something!" But what if it's all about a threat -- something external -- for which you have no experience? Call in your PMO team and brainstorm? Perhaps game theory Risk Management
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Musings on Project Management
MAY 24, 2020
The oldest technique in the book, indeed before there were even books, is "acceptance" To drive a car is to accept the risk that the other driver isn't too drunk, too sleepy, too unskilled, too distracted, too whatever To take on debt is to accept the risk that you'll have the means to repay without bankrupting yourself To take on unsecured credit is to accept the risk (trust, really) that. Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 18, 2020
Somebody asked: can a virtual team do Agile? 20 years ago, at the dawn of Agile, the answer might have been no. 15 years ago, more less at the peak of the AOL texting app Instant Messenger and the dawn of the smart phone and smart-phone personal networking and conferencing, the answer might have been yes, but with reservations. Now, the answer is "Of course", with some adjustments. agile Virtual teams
Musings on Project Management
MAY 27, 2020
There's a new tension in town. Remote v Local 30M+ Americans have jobs and are working from home (the Remotes) 60M+ Americans can't work from home (the Locals), and 50% of them may not have jobs. If that's not enough to amp the tension between the haves and have-nots, then consider the risk management regime of each: The Remotes have a much lower risk environment from Covid-19, but also. human factors Project Management
Musings on Project Management
JUNE 5, 2020
"We study natural stupidity rather than artificial intelligence" Amos Tversky Tversky--now deceased--was a partner with Daniel Kahneman, who together wrote some of the most influential papers about biases in our observations and the biases that affect decision making under uncertainty. If you're a project manager or business manager, then you encounter these influences routinely. human factors Risk Management
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This eBook describes the process of managing the project budget and its associated costs.
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Musings on Project Management
APRIL 14, 2019
Stage gates and Agile? To some, that might sound horrifying! Not exactly! One of my Agile Project Management students asked me about stage gates and agile. My first response was this: Agile is not a gated methodology, primarily because scope is viewed as emergent, and thus the idea of pre-determined gate criteria is inconsistent with progressive elaboration and emergence. Agile does. agile
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 12, 2020
I was looking back at some prior essays on Agile and came across the April 2012 PMNetwork magazine. Specifically I was attracted (again) to page 58 for an interview with some agilists on the state of the practice. Here are a couple of quotes from Jim Highsmith worth tucking away: Agile project management embraces both “doing” agile and “being” agile—and the latter is the hardest. agile
Musings on Project Management
JUNE 30, 2019
Dilbert: We need 3 more programmers. Boss: Use agile programming methods. Dilbert: Agile programming does not mean doing more work with less people. Boss: Find me some words that do mean that and ask again Dilbert is a creation of Scott Adams And so, you might ask: what does agile mean?
Musings on Project Management
MARCH 7, 2020
There have been a lot of very high profile examples that demonstrate what seems like the evitable progression of the collision of risk and politics. The narrative seems to always fit this frame: Conventional risk management processes identify a risky situation and assess the unfavorable outcomes Mitigations are designed and briefed up the chain Such mitigations are immediately clamped from. Risk Management
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Musings on Project Management
OCTOBER 23, 2019
In the beginning, there was pre-history Agile, almost prehistoric era: Before 2000 and the meeting in Utah that birthed modern Agile Rogue developers trying various "light weight" and "rapid" prototyping and coding practises.
Musings on Project Management
AUGUST 4, 2019
What's the hybrid thing? It's agile coexisting in the same project with a traditional methodology, presumably for the swim lanes that are not software. Some call hybrid agile as: agile in the waterfall Are hybrids practical? After all, the traditional is top down planned, most requirements up front, much system testing at the end, etc. Agile is the not-traditional. Can you fashion a hybrid. agile
Musings on Project Management
MAY 9, 2020
Yikes: the products and services for virtual conferencing and teamwork are jumping out of the woodwork: Here's a nice comparison of Zoom and Blue Jeans Microsoft TEAMS which is integrated with Office 365 now has a home version as well And, of course, there are the established WebEX, Skype, etc Google is not to be left out, nor is Slack Here's a collection of 10 articles on collaboration tools Project Management
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 30, 2020
Well, here in the Spring of 2020, leaders are stressed; and circumstances are somewhat chaotic (meaning not only disorganized and counterproductive, but small effects are highly leveraged by exponential responses) And so one wonders: are our best leaders in crises and chaos likely to have been trained in the military where the 'fog of war' is all too real? Yes, but no. Our military schools. leadership
Speaker: Peter Taylor, Speaker/Author, The Lazy Project Manager
Businesses everywhere are trying to “get business agile”—but it’s not easy to adapt to becoming this adaptive. How can conventional organizations succeed in this transformation? In this webinar, Peter Taylor will walk through the change process step by step, and look at a tried and tested transformation roadmap: benefits are outlined, solutions to common challenges offered, and tried and tested methods and tools provided. It will be a guide towards a decentralized and management style that offers more successful decision making through collaboration.
Musings on Project Management
NOVEMBER 27, 2019
Agile Principle 5: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. Trust them to get the job done. What job? Is it the job described in the business plan and in subsequent project plans, albeit lean plans consistent with the Agile Manifesto? Is it the job that has been estimated and scheduled? Is it the job. agile
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 15, 2020
Autocrates and autocratic leadership -- on the one hand -- and the classic risk management on the other hand. is the latter pointless in the context of the former? And we ask this because: From essayist Eric Grill writing in the leadership blog of St Thomas University we learn that: Autocratic leaders typically make all major decisions on their own, with little or no input from others. leadership Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 9, 2020
I've written before that the PMO is the world of 1-sigma; 6-sigma need not apply. Why so? One-time projects don't generate enough data for real statistical process controls to be valid. To wit: projects are the domain of small data. Usually) And so, small data drives most projects; after all, we're not in a production environment. Small data is why we approximate, but approximation is not. Bayes estimate Statistics
Musings on Project Management
JANUARY 9, 2020
You've got a big (big!) project with a lot of moving parts (different contractors doing different stuff). You've been told: Get yourself an SI! The questions at hand: what is a System Integrator (aka SI), and what do they do?
Speaker: Piyanka Jain, President and CEO, Aryng
When you launch new feature (or an entirely new product), there are many questions that you'll need to answer. Is the feature being adopted? Do your customers like it, or does it need to be improved? Was the launch successful? Well, that all depends on how you define success. Join Piyanka Jain, President and CEO of Aryng, as she explains why - and how - you should use data and analytics to define and track a successful launch.
Musings on Project Management
OCTOBER 2, 2019
If you've ever managed a project with a really large data set, say the payroll for a bunch of 1099 developers, or the sales records that you're trying to translate and import to a spreadsheet, you may need to watch a couple of important cells to let you know what's really going on: Summary totals; error codes; record totals, etc.
Musings on Project Management
MARCH 27, 2019
Can anyone image doing serious risk management without a checklist? The answer, of course, is No. or, it should be!) Actually, any procedural management can benefit from a checklist. There's been whole books written about checklists. In fact, one of the more prominent books -- "The Checklist Manefesto" by Dr. A. Gawande -- entitles Chapter 1: "The Problem of Extreme Complexity", Project Management
Musings on Project Management
DECEMBER 28, 2017
8 Administrative Professional Conferences You Can’t Miss in 2018. Have you ever noticed the amazing ideas and inspiration that come from connecting with other like-minded people who have the same profession as you? We want administrative professionals to feel that invigorating spark again and again!
Musings on Project Management
MARCH 25, 2020
Did you see this witicism at herdingcats? A skeptic will question claims, then embrace the evidence. A denier will question claims, then reject the evidence. Neil deGrase Tyson. Think of this whenever there is a conjecture that has no testable evidence of the claim. And think ever more when those making the conjectured claim refuse to provide evidence. When that is the case, it is. estimate Project Management Quotations
Speaker: Teresa Torres, Product Discovery Coach, Product Talk, David Bland, Founder and CEO, Precoil, and Hope Gurion, Product Coach and Advisor, Fearless Product LLC
If you want to build what matters, you can't move forward blindly. But to make progress, you can't let things slow to a crawl while you focus resources on gathering data. This is where continuous discovery and experimentation come in. Join Teresa Torres (Product Discovery Coach, Product Talk), David Bland (Founder, Precoil), and Hope Gurion (Product Coach and Advisor, Fearless Product) in a panel discussion as they cover how - and why - to build a culture of discovery and experimentation in your organization.
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 8, 2019
Risk un-management? Perhaps the largest task within risk management, and requiring the greatest judgment, is "risk un-management" On any project there are going to be dozens, perhaps hundreds, of unmanaged risks. These comprise the population to be un-managed. I doubt this is news to anyone, but these are, as a group, more numerous than those selected for the usual risk management paradigm. Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
FEBRUARY 9, 2019
A narrative* Imagine two doors to the same room: One labeled risk manager; the other labeled decision maker. Though the risk manager's door, entry is for the inductive thinker: facts, experience, history looking for a generality or integrating narrative Through the decision maker's door, entry is for the deductive thinker: visionary with a need to articulate specifics for the vision Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
NOVEMBER 10, 2018
I've heard it many times that this little ditty is the essence of why Agile is problematic with its dearth of plans, estimates, etc: "Would you tell me, please which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I I don't much care,' said Alice. Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. 'So So long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice. agile
Musings on Project Management
SEPTEMBER 10, 2019
Can there be scope creep in Agile? Doesn't agile define creep away in a stroke: "Scope is whatever is prioritized in the backlog that fits within the budget (OPM, other people's money) and the time. The backlog changes all the time, but that's not creep, it's just backlog management."
Speaker: Richard Cardran, Chief Creative Officer and VP Strategy, HIA Technologies
Innovation is both a process and an outcome. The best way to begin innovating your products is by innovating your internal process. We'll explore the challenges, solutions, and hands-on techniques for becoming a successful "agent of change" within a well-established product culture. We'll examine the importance of UX and user-centric feature analysis, the adaptation of Agile Methodologies to the creative process, as well as a way to drive successful culture change for setting expectations and winning approvals with cross-functional stakeholders. Innovation and Leadership go hand in hand. Join Richard Cardran, Chief Creative Officer and VP Strategy, HIA Technologies, as we assess some case studies to see how to lead with a clear strategy well-defined tactics, and an unbiased understanding of the fundamental question: "why are you innovating?"
Musings on Project Management
MARCH 16, 2020
"It is not given to human beings -- happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable -- to foresee or predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events" Winston Churchill Of course, project management can modify such a bit to tolerate some of the intolerable: Simulations can add to the extent of foresight of unfolding events Systems tests can reveal unforeseen hazards in. Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
DECEMBER 30, 2019
A narrative* Imagine two doors to the same room: One labeled risk manager; the other labeled decision maker. Though the risk manager's door, entry is for the inductive thinker: facts looking for a generality or integrating narrative Through the decision maker's door, entry is for the deductive thinker: visionary with a need to connect specifics to the vision And, consider this: Pessimists. Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
MARCH 4, 2020
The Siberian dilemma has been around a long time. The narrative goes like this: It's a seriously sub-zero day on a frozen lake You're walking across the lake and fall through a weak spot in the ice If you stay in the water, you'll die in 5 minutes; If you get out the water, you'll die in 2 minutes. The dilemma: stay in the water and live longer, or get out and die sooner? Damned if you do; Risk Management
Musings on Project Management
APRIL 30, 2019
There comes a point where more planning can not remove the remaining uncertainty, instead execution must be used to provide data and remove uncertainty. This quote comes from a nicely argued case -- from the agile blog 'leading answers' -- for mixing agile methods in rather traditional businesses, like the oil and gas exploration/production business If ever there was a business that. agile
Speaker: Dean Yao, Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Logi Analytics
Businesses are run with analytics - but companies continue to struggle with interpreting, analyzing, and distributing data. Operational reports help get information to the people who need it most, in formats they understand, and in a timeframe that matters. Join the webinar to learn how embedding operational reports can give your users a precisely formatted, ready-to-analyze view of their operational activities. World-class software teams are embedding operational reports to empower end users with interactive data visualizations, detailed information, and highly precise formats that can be shared via email, PDF, print, or online.
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