Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Dec 1, 2009, 6:22 am
As a project manager you have different stakeholders and orientations you need to focus on.  It's tough to cover all directions at once and you probably have a preferred approach. Gill Corki...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 29, 2009, 3:00 pm
Brittle code The idea of brittle code is that as compromises are made due to competence or deadlines shortcuts and workarounds gradually build up. This leaves you with code debt, which is a sort of m...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 26, 2009, 9:00 am
Always have. I learned to hate it when I use to see people report their work was 90% done for weeks (even months) in a row, but I knew they were really wasting time on unimportant or at leaast less i...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 25, 2009, 1:09 pm
"Surfing the net at work for pleasure actually increases our concentration levels and helps make a more productive workforce, according to a new University of Melbourne study." See the original artic...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 25, 2009, 2:33 am
Here's an idea that was suggested to me today; People who resist change will still change.  They just change slower than others. Why? The idea is that resistors are really trying to hold th...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 22, 2009, 5:06 am
See here for Martin Fowler's original post. Mr Fowler refelcts on tch debt and comes up with a four quadrant moel to eaborate his thinking. The two dimensions are prudence and intent. Which means...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 22, 2009, 4:11 am
Here is a thought; Suppose the more experience you have with a particular knowledge domain, the less you need to plan the work? I picked this planning versus experience concept up from a Jim Coplien ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 18, 2009, 2:00 pm
As you know, in the scrum world there are only three roles; Product Owner, Scrum Master and Team. From observing the conversation on the internet, discussions with colleagues and observation, many te...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 17, 2009, 3:00 pm
At "AskAboutProjects" a user asked whether it's still Project Management when you aren't managing the budget. Mainly he answers floated around the point taht yes, it is. A few examples were ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 17, 2009, 12:40 am
"No matter how it might look, people are trying to be helpful to the best of their ability." Brett Schubert writes a great post based on his experience as a customer of an agile team.  It's ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 16, 2009, 12:09 am
Quote: "The grim frivolity of unnecessary precision" What a great phrase! Find out what it means here.
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 11, 2009, 2:00 pm
Dan Ward wrote a thesis on values and how they contribute to project success.  His thesis is that success is correlated with a set of values he tags with the acronym F.I.S.T: Fast, Inexpensive, S...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 11, 2009, 7:19 am
"What if 'near enough is good enough' really is true! What if it's not an attitude of laziness, but a discerning and intelligent response to a world of spin and over-production." (podcast...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 9, 2009, 4:00 pm
This topic is perennial... Here are some opinions.  Mr Google has 50 million others. Meetings fulfil two purposes; solving problems and gaining consensus. When you hold a meeting pick and focus...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 9, 2009, 4:54 am
Okay The Hitler Windows 7 Launch IS funny. But not as funny as this! Seriously!?
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 9, 2009, 4:37 am
Like, whatever dudes.  But if your OS really matters to you, try this for size: "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it....
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 5, 2009, 6:47 am
This Friday is a busy day for me. In the meantime, take a look at this. The Future Of WorkView more documents from Jeff Brenman.
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 3, 2009, 4:00 pm
Alister Scott provides a simple little calcultion showing comparable full time and contract rates.  He compares an $80kpa full timer to a $60ph contractor and finds they earn about the same. If ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 3, 2009, 7:06 am
Matt Hodgson worries about about the BA community repeating the mistakes of the project management community by taking a narrow definition of the role and formalising it.  Embedding itself in a p...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Nov 2, 2009, 4:00 pm
There’s a lot of talk about outside in thinking and design , and about transformation driven by customer problems. And this talk tends to disparage the approach of “look[ing] around at their capa...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 31, 2009, 5:00 pm
You may have heard of a Harvard University initiative to get MBAs to sign up to an oath on responsible value creation.  I found it via Mike Clayton's blog. Here it is; THE MBA OATHAs a manag...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 29, 2009, 5:00 pm
This will probably spread like wildfire in the pm/agile blogging community. May as well get on the bandwagon!
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 28, 2009, 5:00 pm
This prezi is by Matt Hodgson who i have been showcasing here a bit recently.  I like his presentatoions.  What can I say? This one does a good job of showing a path to agile practices...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 28, 2009, 1:16 am
Do projects need leaders more than managers? Here is a definition of management Management is the process of achieving organizational goals through engaging in the four major functions of planning, ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 21, 2009, 5:47 am
1.  Here is a question at BATimes (login required) about what you would do if you felt a project was urposely delivering a product that would; Be functionally worse that the legacy system it rep...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 19, 2009, 5:00 pm
Tim van Gelder writes a post on how boards use information and make decisions. Two key pieces of information that I took away from the post are that Boards will share better if they think they are s...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 18, 2009, 1:47 am
iTWire reports a dozen common or critical failure modes for an agile implementation, lifted from Agile Australia 2009.  It's interesting to see the angle mainstream IT press in Australia has ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 16, 2009, 5:01 pm
"Never give a fool sterile information, because he cannot ignore it." So says Nasim Taleb when discussing risk management in the financial industry.  The same can be said about our indust...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 14, 2009, 9:00 pm
Adrian at the Scrum Development message group handed out a list of resources for justifying co-location of teams.  It covers international and intra-building co-location. Your instincts tell you...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 12, 2009, 4:45 pm
Planning is one way to anticipate the work you'll need to do.  Patterns are another. Plan for when the work is new, unknown and unique.  Patterns are for common problems. Some patterns...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Oct 12, 2009, 6:45 am
Hi people,  If you've clicked through to the site from your RSS or emails, you might have seen me tinkering with the site design.  Feel very free to tell me what works and what doesn'...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 10, 2009, 6:00 pm
Up until about a year ago I had never heard of Design Patterns.  I learned about it shortly after I joined a team and the techies were in the process of  'interviewing' me. In the t...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 9, 2009, 6:00 pm
I was talking to my sister in law on the weekend about the software/corporate project problem (you know, high failure rates, etc) and she confirmed that much of these issues also face her colleagiues ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 8, 2009, 6:00 pm
There is a lot in this for BAs and other requirements professionals.  (Thanks Matt.)
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 7, 2009, 6:00 pm
Dimitrios Litsikakis has posted a knol on project success criteria.  You can go there and read it.  You can also edit it of you wish. The essay is broem into two parts.  the first secti...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 5, 2009, 6:00 pm
The Zen of Scrum 1.1View more presentations from Jurgen Appelo.
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 4, 2009, 6:00 am
Roger Cauvin publishes a blog focused on product management, a topic very close to enterprise business analysis. Last week he published a diagram from Pragmattic Marketing showing a framework for ...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 2, 2009, 6:00 pm
There is a lively debate going on right now in the requirements engineering yahoo group on what THE requirements taxonomy should be. What is the difference between functional and business requirements...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Sep 1, 2009, 6:00 pm
Vikas, a reader mailed me and told me about a blog post he has written.  It's uses principles of road design to explore some ideas of good and bad system design in project management. It'...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Aug 30, 2009, 6:00 pm
...and has been for 14 or 15 years. W Edwards Deming offers some advice via 1984. This clip nominates 5 management diseases. How have things changed in the last 25 years? Thanks to John at Curious...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Aug 27, 2009, 6:00 pm
The DoD handbook points us to defining three levels of a WBS when managing a project, and the same is probably a requirement for a supplier in that environments; show me the top three levels of your w...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Aug 25, 2009, 6:00 pm
Organisational capability affects how you resource a team. 1. In a low capability org you need more people. 2. In a low capability org you will face more resitance to the true cost 3. In a low maturi...
Comment - Like

Craig B. posted an article on Better Projects - Aug 24, 2009, 6:00 pm
A question was asked onthe Requirements Engineering discussion group about the difference between business requirements versus stakeholder requirements. Can you answer that without looking the answer...
Comment - Like