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Johanna’s Books
Category Archives: measurement
Compensation Ideas
Both David Maister, in Compensation Systems, and George Dinwiddie, in Agile Compensation, have useful comments about compensation systems. There’s something implicit in both pieces, that the criteria to move from position to position (as well as from one salary to … Continue reading
When Is Defect Data Not About Defects?
I taught my Pragmatic Project Management workshop in Israel last week. I was talking about defect charts and what they mean and how I use them. (No, I don’t include priority or severity data on defect charts; just # … Continue reading
There is No Such Thing as Percent Complete
Jason Yip’s Hail Mary software development talks about what happens when you defer all the finishing to the end of the project. In the dashboard chapter of the book, I have a sidebar called “How Can We Have No … Continue reading
Measuring Project Completion Progress
I taught my project dashboard workshop today. One of the things most people want to measure is progress towards project completion. But you can’t measure project completion progress unless you have completed features: developed, integrated, and tested features. A … Continue reading
Posted in dashboard, implement by feature, measurement
Tagged project management, project success
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PMs Need Trend Data to Guide the Project
I’ve encountered a number of projects where people didn’t know the context of their work. As developers, they were working on the thing they had to develop or fix today. They might remember what they had done yesterday, but … Continue reading
Probabilistic Scheduling
I’m writing my project management book. I have no idea how far along I am. (Wait, I promise to explain.) When I write, I have several phases: the exploratory phase, where I write articles, the write-it-down phase, where I … Continue reading
Tracking Licenses as a Way of Tracking Work
I met a manager recently who relayed his technique for making sure his testers stayed focused on their jobs. “Our defect-tracking system logs people off after 30 minutes of idle time. If they’re logged off, I know they’re not … Continue reading
How Much Planning is Enough?
I gave a talk entitled “Predicting Project Completion” at the Central Mass chapter of the PMI last night. I had some suggestions about techniques to generate and discuss schedule estimates. Then, to practice a little, I asked the audience … Continue reading
Avoid Student Syndrome
Student Syndrome occurs when the person with the task waits until the last possible moment to start. Some people spend their entire academic career waiting until the night before a project is due and then starting it, pulling an … Continue reading
Are You Measuring What’s Done or What’s Left?
I’m at PNSQC this week. I gave my metrics talk yesterday, and something occurred to me: in traditional projects, we’re used to measuring what’s been done. In agile projects, we measure what’s left to do. I just realized yesterday … Continue reading
