My two month summer blogging hiatus has come to a close. Along the way I have gathered a good bit of practical knowledge related to introducing and implementing process and technological improvements into complex project management environments. More specifically, my experience is in introducing new adaptive technologies that support the integration of essential data across the project environment–integrated project management in short–and do so by focusing on knowledge discovery in databases (KDD).
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Ground Control from Major Tom — Breaking Radio Silence: New Perspectives on Project Management
Since I began this blog I have used it as a means of testing out and sharing ideas about project management, information systems, as well to cover occasional thoughts about music, the arts, and the meaning of wisdom.
(more…)Rear View Mirror — Correcting a Project Management Fallacy
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
Over the years I and others have briefed project managers on project performance using KPPs, earned value management, schedule analysis, business analytics, and what we now call predictive analytics. Oftentimes, some set of figures will be critiqued as being ineffective or unhelpful; that the analytics “only look in the rear view mirror” and that they “tell me what I already know.”
(more…)Takin’ Care of Business — Information Economics in Project Management
Neoclassical economics abhors inefficiency, and yet inefficiencies exist. Among the core issues that create inefficiencies is the asymmetrical nature of information. Asymmetry is an accepted cornerstone of economics that leads to inefficiency. We can see in our daily lives and employment the effects of one party in a transaction having more information than the other: knowing whether the used car you are buying is a lemon, measuring risk in the purchase of an investment and, apropos to this post, identifying how our information systems allow us to manage complex projects.
(more…)Technical Foul — It’s Time for TPI in EVM
For more than 40 years the discipline of earned value management (EVM) has gone through a number of changes in its descriptions, governance, and procedures. During that same time its community has been resistant to improvements in its methodology or to changes that extend its value when taking into account other methods that either augment its usefulness, or that potentially provide more utility in the area of performance management. This has been especially the case where it is suggested that EVM is just one of many methodologies that contribute to this assessment under a more holistic approach.
(more…)Technical Ecstacy — Technical Performance and Earned Value
As many of my colleagues in project management know, I wrote a series of articles on the application of technical performance risk in project management back in 1997, one of which made me an award recipient from the institution now known as Defense Acquisition University. Over the years various researchers and project organizations have asked me if I have any additional thoughts on the subject and the response up until now has been: no. From a practical standpoint, other responsibilities took me away from the domain of determining the best way of recording technical achievement in complex projects. Furthermore, I felt that the field was not ripe for further development until there were mathematics and statistical methods that could better approach the behavior of complex adaptive systems.
(more…)The Monster Mash — Zombie Ideas in Project and Information Management
Just completed a number of meetings and discussions among thought leaders in the area of complex project management this week, and I was struck by a number of zombie ideas in project management, especially related to information, that just won’t die. The use of the term zombie idea is usually attributed to the Nobel economist Paul Krugman from his excellent and highly engaging (as well as brutally honest) posts at the New York Times, but for those not familiar, a zombie idea is “a proposition that has been thoroughly refuted by analysis and evidence, and should be dead — but won’t stay dead because it serves a political purpose, appeals to prejudices, or both.”
(more…)For What It’s Worth — More on the Materiality and Prescriptiveness Debate and How it Affects Technological Solutions
The underlying basis on the materiality vs. prescriptiveness debate that I previously wrote about lies in two areas: contractual compliance, especially in the enforcement of public contracts, and the desired outcomes under the establishment of a regulatory regime within an industry. Sometimes these purposes are in agreement and sometimes they are in conflict and work at cross-purposes to one another.
(more…)I Still Can’t Find What I’m Looking For — The Materiality vs. Prescriptiveness Controversy in Project Management Oversight
I’ve had a number of conversations over the last four months on this issue, mostly from the technical solution side rather than the issue side. But intent does eventually translate into action and so it is an important issue to tackle. Usually this issue comes up within the context of the purpose of audit. But then, we have to understand the purpose of audit itself within the context of project management.
For example, it is assumed that in project management that we are dealing with an oversight and regulatory regime. There are dichotomies to this.
(more…)Second Foundation — More on a General Theory of Project Management
In ending my last post on developing a general theory of project management, I introduced the concept of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and posited that projects and their ecosystems fall into this specific category of systems theory. I also posited that it is through the tools of CAS that we will gain insight into the behavior of projects. The purpose is not only to identify commonalities in these systems across what is frequently asserted are irreconcilable across economic market verticals, but to identify regularities and the proper math in determining the behavior of these systems.
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Life, Project Management, and Everything 
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