Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts

28 October 2009

Two Guesses & A Phenomenon

I can't believe I haven't already mentioned Dr. Roger Atkinson's paper titled Cost, Time and Quality: Two Best Guesses and a Phenomenon,

It's a great read. He points out that we come up with budgets and schedules "at a time when least is known about the project," then measure success based on the degree to which we live up to those guesses. Anyone else see something funny about that plan?

I would simply add that the longer the project, the less we know about it on Day 1 (or on Day -100, which is probably when we actually put the budget & schedule together).

Just one more reason to keep our schedules short... along with a compelling argument that the way we measure progress is often misleading, even when it's "accurate."