No posts until I fix my hard drive
I’ve been trying to boot my computer for the last 3 hours. It’s not clear when I’ll fix the hard drive. No posts and no emails until I do…
blog, MPD
MPD
MPD, portfolio management
Is this Project Worthwhile?
Not all projects should be done. Some projects don’t even rate discussion. But sometimes it’s a lot harder to tell when a project is worthy and should be considered. Here are some questions I ask when trying to evaluate when a project is worthwhile: What business need does this project fill? (Does the organization
MPD, thinking
I love the Tweets
If you haven’t read the comments starting from here from the previous posts, please do. Effern blew the whistle — so very nicely — when he perceived I hadn’t considered enough options. It’s possible I didn’t consider enough options:-) (Maybe I didn’t develop three or more worthy alternatives.) What Effern did, oh so graciously,
MPD, portfolio management
Respect Your Project — or Leave It
I’m in conversation with a client about a possible project. The Big Guy wanted to meet with me immediately, but had constrained time, so I shifted my schedule and met with him. It was clear from our conversation that he didn’t quite know what he wanted, but he did want a proposal from me.
MPD, requirements
Rank Requirements
One of the questions I ask project teams is how they know what to do when. Most of the time, the developers look at me as if I’ve grown two heads and say, “Well, we look at the requirements. We do the high ones first, the medium ones next, and the low ones if we
MPD
People Need Immediate Feedback
We’re getting ready for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and my sister decided a scrapbook of family pictures would be a great present. She’s right, it will be wonderful. Mark and I were looking for pictures of us and our children, so we pulled out all of the pictures from the last 20 years. We
Books, MPD
Convincing Managers to Buy Books
Some of my suggestions for people in my classes are simply to buy some good books for some specific information. When I suggest this, I sometimes hear “my manager won’t let me buy books.” As a bibliophile, I can’t understand that :-). Even though I do accept that not everyone is like me, you
defect, MPD
How Much Rework Does Your Project Perform?
In the last few weeks, several people have asked me how much rework is normal. Well, if you’re working in a test-driven development environment, you probably have very little rework. My estimates for the few real test-driven projects I’ve seen is that they spend about 10-15% of their time on rework (finding problems and
MPD, project management
Rolling Wave Planning
Sometimes I discover that one of my great ideas has already been discovered by other people 🙂 I first wrote about rolling wave planning in 1997. For those of you who can’t stomach the paper (it was one of my earliest pieces of writing), here’s an updated description of rolling wave planning: Loop: Plan what
conference, MPD
Conferences are Cheap Training
I’ve just returned from the last of my spring conferences. And, I’m struck again by how much training is available to people at conferences and how cheap it is. You may be shaking your head, saying, NO JR, Conferences are expensive, about $5000 per person for the week, once you factor in travel along