Hiring and Safety Now, I know that title, Hiring and Safety, probably sounds like this is going to be a work place safety post, but no, that is not what this is. I have been in twitter conversations with John Cutler (@johncuttlefish) about providing a psychologically safe place for employees. A place where the work […]

Having the plan is only partially helpful.  The list of test cases and the expected rate of accomplishment allows us to refine our estimates as we progress through the testing.  We will be in a position to provide the project manager and stakeholders with a better “ETA” (Estimated Time of Arrival) just like the GPS […]

By Shawn P. Quigley Maslow and Motivation In our previous discussions we have referred to Maslow’s Theory of Human Motivation (Hierarchy of Needs) and how this relates to work place motivation. To best continue our discussion we must first review some of the tenets of Maslow’s theory in more detail and dispel the misconception that […]

  There are a number of challenges when developing products or systems using multiple suppliers.  My experience mirrors that of those of the Defense & Aerospace Group on LinkedIn that many systems are developed with more than one supplier, each with a sub-assembly or sub-system constituent of the entire system assigned to a multiplicity of […]

In an earlier blog post, we compared the WBS Dictionary to the Agile Definition of Done. However, we never reviewed any connection between conventional project management Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and the decomposition of the product backlog to produce the sprint backlog.  Before we can describe what completion of the item looks like, we must first […]

I was exploring twitter as I sometimes do in the morning when I came upon this interesting post.  It is true, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, waterfall is waterfall and agile is agile, and never the twain shall meet[1].  So?   The goal of any project is to successfully deliver the objectives of that project and […]

Continuous Deliver and Embedded Automotive I have worked on projects that employed continuous delivery for embedded products. The embedded product was an automotive component.  The core of the software (the operating system) was specified using conventional approach. This operating system consisted of the maximum model requirements for this globally used component. The component looked and […]

Learning and Morbidity & Mortality I have been watching a hospital type show.  That show demonstrated something called a Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Conference and it occurred to me that some adaptation of this approach would help organizations to bring the learning from the work to the entire company. Learning and Conventional Projects We have […]