There’s an car dealership advertising a multiple-point certification for pre-owned vehicles. To me that translates into “checklist for used cars.” That’s what a certification for people based on book knowledge is also–a checklist that a person knew the right answer. Nothing about the experience or if the experience that led to that knowledge was successful. […]
I’ve also used Agile life cycles (Scrum with different size timeboxes) in combination on a project. Here, the developers in the corporate location had a series of features that were big. I did suggest they break the features apart into smaller chunks for ease of estimation and implementation, but they didn’t want to 🙂 The
I’ve used another variation on multiple life cycles, especially for larger projects where the project staff or project management didn’t want to or know how to use an agile life cycle. This combination life cycle has two incremental pieces. The developers (at the top of the picture) use Staged Delivery. Since this is not an
I’m not a purist. I use whatever tools make sense for the context I’m in, and when it comes to organizing projects, I use whatever life cycles–in whatever combination–make sense to me. In response to a mailing list query, here are ways I’ve used life cycles for a few projects. Let’s assume you’re collaborating with
If you haven’t yet read Esther’s Promises Involve Self, Other, and Context, do so. Here’s a single quote I like: There’s another part of integrity that involves cleaning up your own messes. Cleaning up the messes you create is difficult and necessary.
I’ve been teaching a project management workshop, and one of the participants said something brilliant: “If you estimate in days, you’ll be off by days. If you estimate in weeks, you’ll be off by weeks.” If you estimate in months, you will be off by months. Here’s why. The more you can break a big
Brad Appleton posted his review of Manage It!. I’m psyched that Brad liked it. Here’s a quote: The chapter devoted to Recognizing and Avoiding Schedule Games is possibly worth the price of the book alone. Thanks, Brad.
I’ve written before about getting organized, especially when it comes to cleaning up my office. My breakthrough came the last time, when I realized I’m the kind of person who needs to see everything out that I’m working on. Same with my to-do list. (See Cleaning Up the Office, Round 3.) I use paper for
I’ve been thinking about how to manage the project portfolio, and I just realized why so many project portfolio efforts fail. There are three kinds of cycles the project portfolio managers need to manage: Project cycles: when the project could release something Planning cycles: how often the management team assesses the project portfolio Business cycles:
Anton has published a lovely set of comments about Manage It!. I especially liked this quote: i just feel so comfortable with her take on project management – there is no agilist zealotry or flashy theatrics. Also see the review from the Java User Group. The summary there was: In conclusion I suggest this book