Tagged: planning

Smarter Management Decisions with Velocity

In this blog post, Steve Andrews discusses the usage of team velocity to plan the next Scrum sprints and how can we use it to make more informed management decisions. Using a quantitative management approach and Agile methods allows us to actually measure the impact of management decisions on the...

Why Agile Estimates Are Better

Is there a relationship between the dependency of project tasks and the achievement of work close to the estimated date? This is the discussion that Assaf Stone carries in his blog post “Do Agile Estimation Techniques Really Account for Scrum Projects’ Successes?“. His conclusion is that a project with multi-dependent...

Late Projects Are All the Same

The famous Tom de Marco shares in the article “All Late Projects Are the Same” some experience of his 50th year working in information technology. He thought initially all late projects were the same in that they were really estimation failures, not performance failures. Now he thinks that all projects...

Lean Principles and IT Demand Management

This article explains how, given the current global economic climate, many IT organizations’ frozen budgets and cost-cutting drive down value-adding and innovative IT initiatives. It describes how Lean principles can help to institutionalize IT Demand Management processes in the correct manner so that it reduces investment risk, optimizes resource utilization...

Agile Planning Benefits

One of the most common myths is to believe that being “Agile” means avoiding planning. This myth couldn’t be further from the truth and people use it as a way to avoid agile practices. Agile planning does not mean “no planning” but rather a flexible plan that changes with the...

Uncertainty in Project Management

Uncertainty in project management cannot be eliminated by any estimation methods. It arises partly because of imperfect knowledge of what to do and how long it should take, and partly because of unpredictable events. This article discusses uncertainty in project management: why it exists, how it behaves, how it accumulates,...

Evidence-Based Scheduling

This article presents three ways to predict schedules based on historical data with some amount of rigor. Evidence-based project management is a technique that allows you to generate predictions for a release based on historical data—not estimates, but predictions.

Power and Influence Charting: The Google Way

The most successful projects are those that have a solid foundation and actively supportive sponsors. One key issue that must be addressed during project initiation is the identification of the “right” project sponsor; one who has enough political clout and backing to overcome the obstacles that arise in the lifecycle...