This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Shooting Yourself in the Foot -- From Esther Derby, a good piece on the risks of depending on "actuals" to give meaningful information by which to plan and manage projects. A few quotes come to mind.
"Tell me how you'll measure me, and I'll tell you how I behave" - Eliyahu Goldratt
"Tell me how you'll measure me, and I'll tell what damn fool things I'll do to make the measurement look good." - Tony Rizzo
"No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future." - Ian E. Wilson
Actuals are water under the bridge. What matters is what remains, and whether the time and money that remain are sufficient for the work that remains and its uncertainty. And when talking about internally resourced projects like most IT shops, funny money costs associated with "actual" resource or PM hours are the last thing I'd worry about in trying to manage a project. Focus on the dependencies, the time, and the behaviors, and the money will be what it needs to be.
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