Computerworld, September 12, page 10.

MicroburstIT Disasters According to a study of 1,471 big IT projects, 15% turn out to be money pits, with cost overruns averaging 200%.

How is this a politically-charged statement? We hear this kind of thing all the time.

As developers (or project leaders …

In reflecting on Architecture, I realized that there are some profound differences between "real" architecture and software architecture.

One of the biggest differences is design.

In the earliest days, software was built by very small groups of very bright people. Alan Turing, Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, Steve Bourne, Ken Thompson …

Common Complaint: "This was the nth time that someone was up in arms that [X] was broken ... PL/SQL that ... has one function that is over 1,500 lines of [code]."

Not a good solution: "Find someway to measure "yucky code"."

Continuing down a path of relatively low value, the …

It can be a fatal mistake to impose a story arc on a project.

Aristotle's Poetics is a commentary on drama, in which he identified two story arcs that are sure-fire hits: Big Man Brought Down, and Small Man Lifted Up. These are the standard "Change in Fortune" story lines …

See this story of King Cnut ruling the waves.

The King Cnut School of Management is management by fiat. Declaring it so.

PM: "When will this transition to production?"

Me: "After the firewall and VM configuration."

PM: "So, can we say Thursday?"

Me: "You can say that, if you want …

Got this question recently.

"Any suggestions on PM tools that meet the following considerations

1. Planning
2. Estimating
3. Tracking (allowing both PM input and developer input)
4. Reporting
5. Support both Agile and Waterfall projects
6. Releases
7. Bug fixes (probably just another type of backlog)"

Agile PM requires far less planning than you're used to …

First, a standard software development life cycle . Simply multiply by your team's billable rate.

Here's another version .

Also, see Software Development illustration.

This lead me to Project Management . Also pretty-well universally true. Except -- of course -- the page has a bunch of odd bugs like a repeated joke and damaged HTML …

Back in the olden days (ca. 1981) Barry Boehm's Software Engineering Economics provided a detailed and definitive guide to estimating. It did one really important thing: it provided a conceptual model of software development that had a (relatively) focused set of degrees of freedom, an input driver and a couple …

The following weirdness often happens when we encounter complex business problems.

1. The users hate something and want new software. They justify a project to spend $100K replacing something that appears broken.
2. The Business Analyst notes a control issue that is really a conflict between software functionality and business rewards.
3. The …