The IIL Blog

OCTOBER 17, 2023

So, picture this: you are transitioning from your current position into a project management career. The industry didn’t matter; it was about translating my work experience into specific project management industry-recognized terms and managing projects. What are the Essential Project Management Buzzwords?

Development Team Review 148

Development Team Review Project Life Cycle Underperforming Technical Team Estimate 148

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 11, 2016

There is a current rash of suggestions on how to improve the performance of software projects. One case of 12 projects from a large contractor of Software Intensive System (SIS) shows similar variances . I'd suggest the Principles for project success on non-trivial software efforts are universal. Department of Energy.

Performance Measurement 28

Performance Measurement Aerospace 2006 Estimate 28

Leading Agile

APRIL 29, 2021

In that discussion, I covered a range of topics – Building a Business Case and the Key Financial Metrics that should be provided in your Business Case, Understanding your Company’s Software Development Costs, the Importance of Benchmarking, Importance of keeping your Asset Management current, and Capitalizing and Amortizing Software Costs.

Finance 84

Finance Agile Performance Measurement Estimate 84

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 12, 2018

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles. The original agile author's quote shows that systems engineering is missing from his development of software using Agile.

Engineering 32

Engineering Performance Measurement Underperforming Technical Team Risk Management 32

Wrike

JUNE 11, 2023

For instance, a software development company that aims to be effective would focus on delivering bug-free software that provides a seamless user experience. Using the previous example, efficiency would require finding ways to speed up the software development process without compromising quality.

Software Review 36

Software Review Technical Review Innovation Performance Measurement 36

ProProfs Project Management

JANUARY 21, 2020

Project managers , who have just begun working on a project, may find it really stressful and time-consuming to manage multiple tasks, especially if they don’t know the basics. . Imagine you get a promotion as a project manager and are now solely responsible for various management tasks. Common Project Management Terms.

Underperforming Technical Team 111

Underperforming Technical Team Estimate Risk Management Defining 111

Herding Cats

APRIL 4, 2016

How do you define, design, represent, assess, analyze, and manage these interactions. I come to this systems domain from the Software Intensive System of Systems paradigm. Here's a start in learning how to manage in the presence of these systems. Technical Performance Measures. Finance, social, political.

Engineering 28

Engineering Software Performance Measurement Finance 28

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. Uncertainty creates Risk. Measure of Effectiveness.

Technical Review 35

Technical Review Performance Measurement Underperforming Technical Team Estimate 35

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. In our agile software development world, AHP is rarely found. AHP is based on the principle that all measurements are relative.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review 2010 2014 Software Developers 47

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.) Risk Management is How Adults Manage Projects.

Software Review 28

Software Review Technical Review Performance Measurement Estimate 28

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). The notion of the Cone of Uncertainty has been around for awhile.

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). This is done by active risk management, through probabalistic decision-making.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Estimate 2005 Software Review 28

Herding Cats

AUGUST 14, 2016

Many blogs, tweets, books are spent of speaking about Value as the priority in agile software development. We produce Value at the end of every Sprint Value is the most important aspect of Scrum based development. They define compliance to performance requirements. They identify technical risk. Related articles.

Performance Measurement 49

Performance Measurement Engineering Lean Software Developers 49

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). A critical success factor for all project work is Risk Management.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review Software Review Underperforming Technical Team Risk Management 28

Herding Cats

JANUARY 19, 2018

Have sufficient Contingent Budget and Management Reserve to cover the cost variances from the naturally occurring cost behaviors, event-based impacts on cost, or cover things that go wrong with the Risk Cost coverage. Have sufficient Technical Performance Measures margin to cover the required performance measure of the Capabilities.

Performance Measurement 31

Performance Measurement Estimate Finance Manufacturing 31

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. Optimism bias - a cognitive bias that causes a person to believe that they are at a lesser risk of experiencing a negative event compared to others. These principles originate in: .

Transportation 39

Transportation Software Engineering Finance 2011 39

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). The notion of the Cone of Uncertainty has been around for awhile.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review 2005 Estimate Software Review 28

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 27, 2016

Risk Management is how Adults Manage Projects - Tim Lister. There are two kinds of uncertainty on all projects, no matter the domain, including software development projects. Both these drivers of risk will impact the probability of success of projects. Risk Management is Project Management for Adults.

2009 28

2009 2015 Influencer Performance Measurement 28

Herding Cats

MARCH 11, 2018

Microeconomics is applicable to the development is software systems. If we look at the discipline of software engineering, we see that the microeconomics branch of economics deals more with the types of decisions we need to make as software engineers or managers. Software engineering economics."

Software Developers 34

Software Developers Software Development Risk Management Risk 34

Herding Cats

JULY 24, 2017

Traditional project management approaches, several of which are based on a strong belief in the cone of uncertainty, advocate stronger project control and greater planning. Shipping on time, to specifications, and within budget might be meaningless if a competitor is shipping software that has a greater value to the market.

2007 42

2007 2012 2006 2008 42

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 1, 2016

For any closed loop control system ‒ let’s assume we want to manage our project with such a system ‒ has a signal representing the current state of the system. For a software project, let’s start by answering a critical question – how long are you willing to wait before you find out you’re late ? https://goo.gl/DP6Jw

Closing 28

Closing Estimate Controlling Process 28

Herding Cats

AUGUST 19, 2016

Rarely the case in software development, where Little's Law is misused often. The OP claimed Goodhart's Law was the source of most of the problems with software development. Is this macroeconomic model a correct operational model for software development processes - measuring changes the target ?

Performance Measurement 28

Performance Measurement Estimate Software Developers Software Development 28

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. Optimism bias - a cognitive bias that causes a person to believe that they are at a lesser risk of experiencing a negative event compared to others. These principles originate in: .

Transportation 28

Transportation Software Engineering Finance 2011 28

Herding Cats

AUGUST 27, 2017

Although I understand measuring productivity could work well for repeatable activities, it's hard to believe it works well for abstract and, ultimately, non-repeatable tasks like software development. Thus, the common approach to "measure productivity" is to compare the estimates against what, in fact, happened.

Estimate 46

Estimate Software Review Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review 46

Herding Cats

AUGUST 1, 2018

We're writing two chapters in an upcoming Project Management Book, with a working title, The Gower Handbook of Project Performance for Agile, Waterfall and Everything in Between , edited by Mark Phillips. One chapter on the Principles of Risk Management and the second chapter on the Practices of Risk Management.

2012 29

2012 2007 2010 2006 29

Herding Cats

OCTOBER 16, 2018

This ignores the principles of predictive analytics, and the direct management actions taken to produce outcomes from those analytical models found everywhere from project management to grocery store management and the model-based systems engineering. In ISO 15288 this is the role of the Risk Management Processes.

Aerospace 41

Aerospace Engineering 2012 2014 41

Herding Cats

MARCH 31, 2017

For project management domain, what are some Principles? With execution underway, managing the risks of the project becomes our focus beyond the engineering work. Two Books in the Spectrum of Software Development. Managing in Presence of Uncertainty. Related articles. We've Been Doing This for 20 Years.

Process 53

Process Engineering Software Developers Software Development 53

Herding Cats

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

Here's an extract from "Chapter 8: Human Behavior and Complexity," Terry Cooke-Davies, in Aspects of Complexity: Managing Projects in a Complex World. This is a cautionary tale for those listening to the #NoEstimates advocates, where anecdotes of bad management are used in an attempt to replace established principles of business management.

Underperforming Technical Team 44

Underperforming Technical Team Estimate 2003 Software Review 44

Herding Cats

MARCH 4, 2017

Let's say you're the project or program manager of a large complex system. We cannot escape these two uncertainties - reducible and irreducible - and must learn how to manage in the presence of these uncertainties. Is each of these measures being met for the planned cost at the planned time? . Abstracted from [3].

2010 28

2010 2007 Estimate Aerospace 28

Herding Cats

MARCH 30, 2019

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. Systems Management is the Science of Systems Engineering. Systems Engineering.

Software Developers 39

Software Developers Software Development Agile Software 39

Rebel’s Guide to PM

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

The project and portfolio management (PPM) software market is changing. In this article we look at emerging software in the PPM space and discuss how its selection and implementation needs to be done in line with an overarching digital strategy. Digitalization and Collaboration. Researching What PPM Tools Can Do.

Software Review 150

Software Review Software Technical Review PMI 150

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. Business, Technical, Systems, Risk, and Project Management Briefings and Presentations.

Technical Review 42

Technical Review Performance Measurement Underperforming Technical Team Governance 42

Herding Cats

APRIL 4, 2019

In a recent exchange in social media, it was clear the notion of risk and the sources of risk, the consequences or risks and managing in the presence of risk was in very unclear, when it was conjectured , we can simply slice the work into small bits and REDUCE risk. . Software Risk Management , Barry W.

Risk Management 43

Risk Management Risk 2003 2011 43

Herding Cats

APRIL 5, 2016

There a popular notions in the agile development world that authors like Hayek and Taleb speak to how software development works. Let's look at the thesis of Hayek in light of software development and the decisions that must be made when spending other people's money in the presence of uncertainty. probably not.

Software Developers 28

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Software 28

Workamajig

JANUARY 11, 2021

Project management terminology can be complicated. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working towards your PMP certification or simply managing projects casually in your organization, knowing core project management terms always helps. All Project Management Terms. All work is divided into short bursts called "sprints".

Underperforming Technical Team 78

Underperforming Technical Team Project Life Cycle Estimate Risk Management 78

Herding Cats

NOVEMBER 5, 2018

In 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 to increase the probability of project success.

Software Review 34

Software Review Technical Review Estimate Software Developers 34

Wrike

NOVEMBER 7, 2018

Need up-to-date facts and figures for a project management report, article, or infographic? Browse this collection of project management statistics collected from studies and reports from the past five years. Benefits of Project Management. —1A. Project Management Methodologies. —1B. Project Management Best Practices. —1C.

2015 60

2015 Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Software Review 60