Herding Cats

OCTOBER 11, 2016

There is a current rash of suggestions on how to improve the performance of software projects. In this domain, we are guided by credible results using principles, processes, and procedures to increase the probability of program success. Here's a typical graph showing a core problem in the software development domain. .

Performance Measurement 28

Performance Measurement Aerospace 2006 Estimate 28

Herding Cats

MARCH 17, 2019

Here are my collected works, presentations, briefings, journal papers, articles, white papers, and essays, used to increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS) I've developed and applied over my career in the software-intensive system of systems domain. Managment Processes. Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning.

2003 54

2003 2011 2008 Performance Measurement 54

Herding Cats

APRIL 29, 2017

What 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 extent of. But those estimates, nouns, and verbs themselves's have other attributes.

Estimate 46

Estimate Risk Management Risk SCRUM 46

Herding Cats

AUGUST 27, 2017

There's a recent post titled Four Fallacious Reasons to Estimate. It lists the usual suspects for why those spending the money think they don't have to estimate how much they plan to spend when they'll be done producing the value they've been assigned to produce for that expenditure. Let's look at each one in more detail.

Estimate 46

Estimate Software Review Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review 46

ProProfs Project Management

JANUARY 21, 2020

You winged the entire project execution process, and now the theory of it all is taking a toll on you. . An assumption in project management refers to assuming about possible factors or situations that may occur in the project planning process that it may actually happen. Performance Measurement Baseline. Deliverable.

Underperforming Technical Team 111

Underperforming Technical Team Estimate Risk Management Defining 111

Herding Cats

MARCH 31, 2017

Practices and Process are Fads. A Process is a series of steps and decisions involved in the way work is completed. Here's my version in the form of questions that when answered form the foundation for the Practices and Processes. What does Done look like in units of measure meaningful to the decision makers?

Process 53

Process Engineering Software Developers Software Development 53

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 12, 2018

The original agile author's quote shows that systems engineering is missing from his development of software using Agile. It is applied through the application of systems engineering processes within a managed lifecycle working with a number of other management, engineering, and specialist disciplines. Technical Performance Measures.

Engineering 32

Engineering Performance Measurement Underperforming Technical Team Risk Management 32

Herding Cats

DECEMBER 8, 2017

I work in a domain where the CoU is baked into the Integrated Program Performance Management (IPPM) processes flowed down from the buyer, in this case, the Federal Government. The CoU paradigm defines the needed reduction in uncertainty is some performance metric. This can be the confidence in the estimate for any variable.

Performance Measurement 35

Performance Measurement Technical Review 2017 2008 35

Herding Cats

JUNE 19, 2017

The Cone of Uncertainty is a framing assumption used to model the needed reduction in some parameter of interest in domains ranging from software development to hurricane forecasting. The Cone of Uncertainty as a Technical Performance Measure. The Cone of Uncertainty as a Technical Performance Measure.

Technical Review 35

Technical Review Performance Measurement Underperforming Technical Team Estimate 35

Herding Cats

APRIL 4, 2016

This is a good start, but it needs to produce actionable outcomes , not just principles, but practices and processes. Much of Ackoff's principles are the basis of practices and processes that assure this happens. . I come to this systems domain from the Software Intensive System of Systems paradigm. Estimating Guidance.

Engineering 28

Engineering Software Performance Measurement Finance 28

Workamajig

JUNE 11, 2019

A robust PM system might tell you how a project is doing at any moment, but it can’t tell you how the organization or its constituent people are performing. Measuring and monitoring project management metrics fills this gap. Helps you demonstrate performance - a particularly important benefit for project and account managers.

Estimate 93

Estimate Budget Infrastructure Performance Measurement 93

Herding Cats

DECEMBER 4, 2017

Project Controls are Management Actions, either preplanned to achieve the desired result, or taken as a corrective measure prompted by the monitoring process. Project controls are concerned with the metrics of the project – quantities, time, cost, and other resources and their measurable beneficial outcomes for the project.

2005 37

2005 Performance Measurement Closing Controlling 37

Herding Cats

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

I've seen estimates abused by bad managers, so let's NOT estimate and that will fix the behavior of Bad Managers." The "bad management" is itself a symptom of untrained, inexperienced, unskilled decision making processes in the presence of uncertainty. . Let's look at what an estimate is.

Underperforming Technical Team 44

Underperforming Technical Team Estimate 2003 Software Review 44

Herding Cats

MARCH 5, 2017

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.) Do they characterize the major drivers of performance? Related articles.

Software Review 28

Software Review Technical Review Performance Measurement Estimate 28

Herding Cats

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

For software projects, Scrum can be used. The only answer to that is a measure of Physical Percent Complete (P%C). P%C starts with defining the Measures of Performance and Technical Performance Measures for each deliverable as a function of time. What is your actual condition? . Resources .

2010 39

2010 Governance Government Performance Measurement 39

Herding Cats

JANUARY 22, 2017

Barry Boehm's work in “Software Engineering Economics”. The Cone is a project management framework describing the uncertainty aspects of estimates (cost and schedule) and other project attributes (cost, schedule, and technical performance parameters). Prentice-Hall, 1981. This is due to many reasons.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review 2005 Estimate Software Review 28

Herding Cats

FEBRUARY 4, 2017

Barry Boehm's work in “Software Engineering Economics”. The Cone is a project management framework describing the uncertainty aspects of estimates (cost and schedule) and other project attributes (cost, schedule, and technical performance parameters). Estimates are needed but are subject to large level of uncertainty.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Estimate 2005 Software Review 28

Herding Cats

JULY 24, 2017

The paper on the Cone of Uncertainty is used by many in the No Estimates community as an example of why estimates are of little use. In this paper, there is data that does not follow the Cone of Uncertainty, in that the uncertainty of the estimates does not reduce as the project proceeds. Then there is some analysis.

2007 42

2007 2012 2006 2008 42

Wrike

JULY 1, 2020

In fact, HR professionals are increasingly adopting project management tools to improve their processes and workflows. . Using formal project management processes, procedures, and tools can help lower risk and increase success on all of these long-term HR activities. Some of the outcomes of this process include: .

Underperforming Technical Team 36

Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Performance Measurement Executing 36

Herding Cats

JANUARY 19, 2018

Have sufficient Technical Performance Measures margin to cover the required performance measure of the Capabilities. You can't make decision in the presence of uncertainty without making estimates about those decisions. Manage risk, estimate, manage other people's money like an adult. Related articles.

Performance Measurement 31

Performance Measurement Estimate Finance Manufacturing 31

Herding Cats

MARCH 4, 2017

The uncertainty is always there, it doesn't go away with specific actions in specific domains, or with the use of any tools, processes, or practices. This includes the Measures of Effectiveness (MoE), Measures of Performance (MoP), Key Performance Parameters (KPP), and Technical Performance Measures (TPM) of the deliverables.

2010 28

2010 2007 Estimate Aerospace 28

Herding Cats

AUGUST 14, 2016

Many blogs, tweets, books are spent of speaking about Value as the priority in agile software development. Without units of measure of Value beyond time and money, there can be not basis of comparison between one value based choice and another. MOP's are attributes that assure the systems to capability to perform.

Performance Measurement 49

Performance Measurement Engineering Lean Software Developers 49

Herding Cats

JANUARY 17, 2017

Barry Boehm's work in “Software Engineering Economics”. The Cone is a project management framework describing the uncertainty aspects of estimates (cost and schedule) and other project attributes (cost, schedule, and technical performance parameters). Prentice-Hall, 1981. This is due to many reasons.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review 2005 Estimate Software Review 28

Herding Cats

AUGUST 19, 2016

2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system always increases over time, or remains constant in ideal cases where the system is in a steady state or undergoing a reversible process. The increase in entropy accounts for the irreversibility of natural processes, and the asymmetry between future and past.

Performance Measurement 28

Performance Measurement Estimate Software Developers Software Development 28

Herding Cats

JANUARY 14, 2017

Barry Boehm's work in “Software Engineering Economics”. The Cone is a project management framework describing the uncertainty aspects of estimates or any other project attribute (in this post, cost, schedule, and technical performance parameters). There can be cost and schedule performance measures as well.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Software Review Underperforming Technical Team Risk Management 28

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 27, 2016

There are two kinds of uncertainty on all projects, no matter the domain, including software development projects. Decision-making is the process of choosing among alternatives. The process of making a decision involves three elements: values, alternatives, and facts (Buede, 2009). [1].

2009 28

2009 2015 Influencer Performance Measurement 28

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 28, 2016

In a recent Blog post titled Precision it is suggested Precision (or the implication thereof) is perhaps the root problem of most, if not all dysfunction related to estimation. . Estimates have precision and accuracy, but the reason for these unfavorable outcomes is not stated in the post. Yes, projects have uncertainty.

Estimate 28

Estimate Performance Measurement Information Technology Risk Management 28

Herding Cats

JUNE 4, 2017

No matter the engineering processes used to produce the outcomes from the project. The test of the hypothesis for projects are the Measures of Effectiveness, Measures of Performance, Key Performance Parameters, and techTechnicalformance Measures used to assess progress to plan for the project. No Estimating?

Estimate 39

Estimate Risk Management Risk Engineering 39

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 16, 2018

PP&C lives in the domain of Project Management and Controls, which is a Technical Management Processes of ISO 15288. In ISO 15288 this is the role of the Risk Management Processes. For approaches that have been implemented on existing systems, obtaining such understanding may require measurement and analysis.

Aerospace 41

Aerospace Engineering 2012 2014 41

Herding Cats

AUGUST 1, 2018

Specific actions to reduce the Episuncertaintiesnaties and Margin to handle the Aleatory uncertainies are part of any good project management process. . The Cone of Uncertainty,” Stephen Gryphon, Phillippe Kruchten, and Steve McConnell, Letters, IEEE Software , 23 (5) 2006, pp 8?10. 37–48, 2007.

2012 29

2012 2007 2010 2006 29

Herding Cats

JUNE 9, 2018

There is always lots of complaining about the biases introduced into managing projects and making the estimates needed to make project decisions. Because of that, we don't separate the thinking processes into a dual-system. This means putting a formal process in place for making that decision. System One - automatic.

Transportation 39

Transportation Software Engineering Finance 2011 39

Herding Cats

JUNE 4, 2016

It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth. This is used in support of the fallacy that estimates aren't needed to make decisions in the presence of uncertanty. Technical Performance Measures. Why Guessing is not Estimating and Estimating is not Guessing.

Software Engineering 28

Software Engineering Performance Measurement Finance Manufacturing 28

Herding Cats

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

When we hear of the difficulties of making decisions in the presence of uncertainty, especially about software features and capabilities, there are straightforward ways to solve this problem. This method is the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In our agile software development world, AHP is rarely found. The Wrap Up .

Technical Review 47

Technical Review 2010 2014 Software Developers 47

Herding Cats

JUNE 9, 2018

There is always lots of complaining about the biases introduced into managing projects and making the estimates needed to make project decisions. Because of that, we don't separate the thinking processes into a dual-system. This means putting a formal process in place for making that decision. System One - automatic.

Transportation 28

Transportation Software Engineering Finance 2011 28

ProjectManager.com

DECEMBER 24, 2019

Related: Project Scheduling Software. You can even interview other team members and stakeholders by using these questions as a basis for your interview process. Keeping an open line of communication on many ends will not only lessen risk but will ensure a seamless project process. How to Make a Good Project Schedule.

Software Review 283

Software Review Risk Management Risk Performance Measurement 283

Herding Cats

APRIL 16, 2019

Here's a collection of presentations, briefings, papers, essays, book content used to increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS) I've written and applied over my career in the software-intensive system of systems and other domains. Management Processes (#MP). Project Performance Management (#PPM). Management Processes.

Technical Review 42

Technical Review Performance Measurement Underperforming Technical Team Governance 42

Herding Cats

JULY 17, 2017

I work in a domain where estimates are made every single week. Estimate to Complete (ETC), Estimate at Completion (EAC), Estimated Completion Date (ECD) are the life blood of our software intensive system of systems programs. People, Processes, and Tools all interacting in complex and complicated ways. .

Estimate 34

Estimate Logistics Performance Measurement Governance 34