project management

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.

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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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Talking (Project Systems) Blues: A Foundation for a General Theory

As with those of you who observe the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I find myself suddenly in a state of stasis and, as a result, with feet firmly on the ground, able to write a post.  This is preface to pointing out that the last couple of weeks have been both busy and productive in a positive way.

Among the events of the last two weeks was the meeting of project management professionals focused on the discipline of aerospace and defense at the Integrated Program Management Workshop.  This vertical, unlike other areas of project management, is characterized by applying a highly structured approach that involves a great deal of standardization.  Most often, people involved in this area tend to engage in an area where the public sector plays a strong role in defining the environment in which the market operates.  Furthermore, the major suppliers tend to be limited, and so both oligopolistic and monopolistic market competition defines the market space.

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Walk This Way — DoD IG Reviews DCMA Contracting Officer Business Systems Deficiencies

The sufficiency and effectiveness of business systems is an essential element in the project management ecosystem.  Far beyond performance measurement of the actual effort, the sufficiency of the business systems to support the effort are essential in its success.  If the systems in place do not properly track and record the transactions behind the work being performed, the credibility of the data is called into question.  Furthermore, support and logistical systems, such as procurement, supply, and material management, contribute in a very real way, to work accomplishment.  If that spare part isn’t in-house on time, the work stops.

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Do You Believe in Magic? — Big Data, Buzz Phrases, and Keeping Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground

My alternative title for this post was “Money for Nothing,” which is along the same lines.  I have been engaged in discussions regarding Big Data, which has become a bit of a buzz phrase of late in both business and government.  Under the current drive to maximize the value of existing data, every data source, stream, lake, and repository (and the list goes on) has been subsumed by this concept.  So, at the risk of being a killjoy, let me point out that not all large collections of data is “Big Data.”  Furthermore, once a category of data gets tagged as Big Data, the further one seems to depart from the world of reality in determining how to approach and use the data.  So for of you who find yourself in this situation, let’s take a collective deep breath and engage our critical thinking skills.

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Rise of the Machines — Drivers of Change in Business and Project Management

Last week I found myself in business development mode, as I often am, in explaining to a prospective client our future plans in terms of software development.  The point that I was making was that it was not our goal to simply reproduce the functionality that every other software solution provider offered, but to improve how the industry does business by making the drive for change through the application of appropriate technology so compelling through efficiencies, elimination of redundancy, and improved productivity, that not making the change would be deemed foolish.  In sum, we are out to take a process and improve on it through the application of disruptive technology.  I highlighted my point by stating:  “It is not our goal to simply reproduce functionality so we can party like it’s 1998, it’s been eight software generations since that time and technology has provided us smarter and better ways of doing things.”

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The Water is Wide — Data Streams and Data Reservoirs

I’ve had a lot of opportunities lately, in a practical way, to focus on data quality and approaches to data.  There is some criticism in our industry about using metaphors to describe concepts in computing.

Like any form of literature, however, there are good and bad metaphors.  Opposing them in general, I think, is contrarian posing.  Metaphors, after all, often allow us to discover insights into an otherwise opaque process, clarifying in our mind’s eye what is being observed through the process of deriving similarities to something more familiar.  Strong metaphors allow us to identify analogues among the phenomena being observed, providing a ready path to establishing a hypothesis.  Having served this purpose, we can test that hypothesis to see if the metaphor serves our purposes in contributing to understanding.

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The Song Remains the Same (But the Paradigm Is Shifting) — Data Driven Assessment and Better Software in Project Management

Probably the biggest DoD-centric project management news this past week was the unofficial announcement by Frank Kendall, who is the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics USD(AT&L), that thresholds would be raised for mandatory detailed surveillance of programs to $100M from the present requirement of $20M.  While earned value management implementation and reporting will still be required on programs based on dollar value, risk, and other key factors, especially the $20M threshold for R&D-type projects, the raising of the threshold for mandatory surveillance reviews was seen as good news all around for reducing some regulatory burden.  The big proviso in this announcement, however, was that it is to go into effect later this summer and that, if the data in reporting submissions show inconsistencies and other anomalies that call into question the validity of performance management data, then all bets are off and the surveillance regime is once again imposed, though by exception.

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Forget Domani — The Inevitability of Software Transitioning and How to Facilitate the Transition

The old Perry Como* chestnut refers to the Italian word “tomorrow” and is the Italian way of repeating–in a more romantic manner–Keyne’s dictum that in the “long run we’ll all be dead.”  Whenever I hear polemicists talk about the long run or invoke the interests of their grandchildren trumping immediate concerns and decisions I always brace myself for the Paleolithic nonsense that is to follow.  While giving such opinions a gloss of plausibility, at worst, they are simply fabrications to hide self-interest, a form of tribalism, or ideology, at best, they are based on fallacious reasoning, fear, or the effects of cognitive dissonance.

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Brother Can You (Para)digm? — Four of the Latest Trends in Project Management

At the beginning of the year we are greeted with the annual list of hottest “project management trends” prognostications.  We are now three months into the year and I think it worthwhile to note the latest developments that have come up in project management meetings, conferences, and in the field.  Some of these are in alignment with what you may have seen in some earlier articles, but these are four that I find to be most significant thus far, and there may be a couple of surprises for you here.

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